Australian Politics Forum - Science Fiction and Philosophy

Sappho

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Science Fiction and Philosophy
Jun 19^th, 2011 at 11:38am

Just for a bit of fun, I thought we could look at the philosophical consequences of scenarios found in science fiction. As is the case with the Ethical Dilemmas thread, everybody is welcome to present scenarios, all that is asked is that we take it in turns and not start a new scenario until the current one has run it's course. Gets too messy otherwise.

Scenario One - Beam me up Scotty!

Teleportation is the hypothetical method of de-materializing the matter which makes the human and then re-materialize that human in another place in space, but not time. In Star Trek, this kind of transportation is used to get a person from a space ship to a planet or another space ship.

The pattern of a person who has teleported is held in the computer's matrix and updated upon that persons next teleportation so that there is always an updated pattern kept... should anything go wrong.

It just so happens that you are on shore leave and so you go to teleport to your location to indulge the delights of a Hedonist resort. In the process of teleporting, the space ship on which you serve encounters enemy fire, the teleportation device is disrupted whilst you are being teleported and your pattern is lost. The last teleportation you have had was one year ago and that pattern is accessed and materialized.

So the questions are these... Who am I? What am I? Is a copy of me, me?

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Life_goes_on

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Re: Science Fiction and Philosophy
Reply #1 - Jun 19^th, 2011 at 9:00pm

Quote:

Who am I? What am I? Is a copy of me, me?

Who am I? I am me. Just me without a year of experiences, memories, thoughts and aging.
What am I? I am a human being.
Is a copy of me, me? A perfect copy of me is me.

Of course those who believe in the concept of the soul being some kind of separate (spooky) entity from the physicial would probably dismiss those answers as rubbish.

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Belgarion

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Re: Science Fiction and Philosophy
Reply #2 - Jun 19^th, 2011 at 9:11pm

Sappho wrote on Jun 19^th, 2011 at 11:38am:

Just for a bit of fun, I thought we could look at the philosophical consequences of scenarios found in science fiction. As is the case with the Ethical Dilemmas thread, everybody is welcome to present scenarios, all that is asked is that we take it in turns and not start a new scenario until the current one has run it's course. Gets too messy otherwise.

Scenario One - Beam me up Scotty!

Teleportation is the hypothetical method of de-materializing the matter which makes the human and then re-materialize that human in another place in space, but not time. In Star Trek, this kind of transportation is used to get a person from a space ship to a planet or another space ship.

The pattern of a person who has teleported is held in the computer's matrix and updated upon that persons next teleportation so that there is always an updated pattern kept... should anything go wrong.

It just so happens that you are on shore leave and so you go to teleport to your location to indulge the delights of a Hedonist resort. In the process of teleporting, the space ship on which you serve encounters enemy fire, the teleportation device is disrupted whilst you are being teleported and your pattern is lost. The last teleportation you have had was one year ago and that pattern is accessed and materialized.

So the questions are these... Who am I? What am I? Is a copy of me, me?

I believe this question was answered in an episode of 'Star Trek - The Next Generation' when Scottys pattern was found in a transporter buffer where it had been held for a century or so. It was really Scotty. Wink

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Sappho

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Re: Science Fiction and Philosophy
Reply #3 - Jun 23^rd, 2011 at 6:59am

Life_goes_on wrote on Jun 19^th, 2011 at 9:00pm:

Quote:

Who am I? What am I? Is a copy of me, me?

Who am I? I am me. Just me without a year of experiences, memories, thoughts and aging.
What am I? I am a human being.
Is a copy of me, me? A perfect copy of me is me.

Ah! Perfection is a concept and not a reality. Let's look at the same problem from a different angle...

You take the first copy, of a picture of yourself and photocopy that to make the second, you then take the second copy and photocopy that to make the third, then you take the third copy and photocopy that to make the forth, then you take the forth copy and photocopy that to make the fifth, then you take the fifth copy and photocopy that to make the sixth, then you take the sixth copy and photocopy that to make the seventh, then you take the seventh copy and photocopy that to make the eighth... etc. You do that until you get to the ninety-ninth copy which you photocopy to make the one hundredth.

Now you want to compare to the first photocopy with the one hundredth photocopy. Do they look exactly the same?

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Soren Gold Member Offline Posts: 25654 Gender:	Re: Science Fiction and Philosophy Reply #4 - Jun 23^rd, 2011 at 10:44am Sappho wrote on Jun 19^th, 2011 at 11:38am: Who am I? What am I? Is a copy of me, me?
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Sappho Gold Member Offline OzPolitic Posts: 1406 Gender:	Re: Science Fiction and Philosophy Reply #5 - Jun 23^rd, 2011 at 10:14pm Well, that's certainly abstract yet succinct and pretty much sums up my take on it also. Nice one.
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Life_goes_on

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Re: Science Fiction and Philosophy
Reply #6 - Jun 24^th, 2011 at 11:46am

Sappho wrote on Jun 23^rd, 2011 at 6:59am:

Life_goes_on wrote on Jun 19^th, 2011 at 9:00pm:

Quote:

Who am I? What am I? Is a copy of me, me?

Who am I? I am me. Just me without a year of experiences, memories, thoughts and aging.
What am I? I am a human being.
Is a copy of me, me? A perfect copy of me is me.

Ah! Perfection is a concept and not a reality. Let's look at the same problem from a different angle...

You take the first copy, of a picture of yourself and photocopy that to make the second, you then take the second copy and photocopy that to make the third, then you take the third copy and photocopy that to make the forth, then you take the forth copy and photocopy that to make the fifth, then you take the fifth copy and photocopy that to make the sixth, then you take the sixth copy and photocopy that to make the seventh, then you take the seventh copy and photocopy that to make the eighth... etc. You do that until you get to the ninety-ninth copy which you photocopy to make the one hundredth.

Now you want to compare to the first photocopy with the one hundredth photocopy. Do they look exactly the same?

I assumed for the purpose of the exercise that the Teleport machine was like on Star Trek and that it replicated perfectly. You can't go moving the goal posts just because you weren't happy with an answer.

As for perfection: Perform a backup and restore on a computer.

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Sappho

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Re: Science Fiction and Philosophy
Reply #7 - Jun 24^th, 2011 at 8:45pm

You clearly don't watch enough Star Trek, because Jordi will tell you that teleportation has a margin of error that is less in his trekking days than it was in past trekking days. That margin of error can pertain to pattern integrity as much as anything else.

Even your back up analogy will have computer geeks acknowledge a margin of error. And whilst I concede that the initial copy may be significantly close to the original, what about if you back up the copy, and then back up the copy of the copy etc... how long will it maintain integrity.

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Life_goes_on

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Re: Science Fiction and Philosophy
Reply #8 - Jun 24^th, 2011 at 9:07pm

Quote:

Even your back up analogy will have computer geeks acknowledge a margin of error. And whilst I concede that the initial copy may be significantly close to the original, what about if you back up the copy, and then back up the copy of the copy etc... how long will it maintain integrity.

Funnily enough, that's my paid gig. I move data around - or find ways to do it. Near enough isn't good enough.

You can copy it a billion times and whilever the target media holds up and you have verification enabled, the billionth copy will be exactly the same as the original.

Granted that occasionaly an error may occur with the copy process, but if you didn't bother reading the logs you wouldn't know about it - because it would just redo the copy until it was perfect..

A fault checking process I would expect with any kind of teleport system.

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Sappho

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Re: Science Fiction and Philosophy
Reply #9 - Jun 25^th, 2011 at 11:18am

Quote:

In the past, such teleportation experiments were either slow, or there was information loss in the process. This new experiment procedure eliminated both of those concerns; the team transported a "cat"--Schrödinger's cat to be exact. No, it wasn't a real cat, but instead were wave packets of light which represented Schrödinger's cat, a paradox in which something has two states at the same time (the cat is both living and dead)--a condition called called quantum superposition. Quantum computers work (or will work) by storing data as quibits which can represent one and zero at the same time; this would allow them to solve multiple problems simultaneously.

To do this, the researchers developed a "broadband, zero-dispersion teleportation apparatus" and a whole new set of "hybrid protocols involving discrete- and continuous-variable techniques in quantum information processing for optical sciences," along with some other things that I completely do not understand. In the end, the researchers managed to 'remove' the quantum information from space, and it was resurrected in another place.

Not only did the "quantum information" exist in a state of quantum superposition, but the transfer was quick. Check Science (you'll need a membership or you'll have to pay for the article) to get all the nitty-gritty details!

source

"broadband, zero-dispersion teleportation apparatus" = sexy machine.

And they got quibits too which allow the condition of quantum superposition... oh my, I feeling all.... Excited!

I wonder if they can teleport my intellectual orgasm to the minds of the members here so that you can all know how ultra out there sexy this science really is?

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Emma

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Re: Science Fiction and Philosophy
Reply #10 - Jun 26^th, 2011 at 9:26pm

I get the message- !!

..........in the scenarios presented - IE disruption of transmission - the remaining copy MUST be you. There is no alternative.
It may not be the 'you' of 12 months later. It IS still you. (Unless someone has activated a clone of you in the meantime, who retains more of YOUR memories due to diff download scheds).
GOOD GRief!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The loss of memory does not remove one's reality as a part of humanity - nor should this type of thing.!!

But the Schrodingers Cat experiment wasn't really about actual transportation, was it? - so much as it was concerned with the effects of 'observation' on the experiment. And they never opened the box - did they?
Roll Eyes

What does it all mean!! Tongue

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Life_goes_on Gold Member Offline Posts: 4772 400kms south of Yobsville, Qld Gender:	Re: Science Fiction and Philosophy Reply #11 - Jun 26^th, 2011 at 10:50pm Quote: "broadband, zero-dispersion teleportation apparatus" = sexy machine. Ummm yes, well, errrr... ummmm.... Google "Ducati"
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Jasin Gold Member Offline Posts: 46466 Gender:	Re: Science Fiction and Philosophy Reply #12 - Feb 2^nd, 2019 at 2:49am Hey, where did Sappho go? She was back here not so long ago, but couldn't log in under her old name? Always had good intelligent posts/opinions/comments
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Super Nova

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Re: Science Fiction and Philosophy
Reply #13 - Feb 16^th, 2019 at 8:37pm

Sappho wrote on Jun 19^th, 2011 at 11:38am:

Just for a bit of fun, I thought we could look at the philosophical consequences of scenarios found in science fiction. As is the case with the Ethical Dilemmas thread, everybody is welcome to present scenarios, all that is asked is that we take it in turns and not start a new scenario until the current one has run it's course. Gets too messy otherwise.

Scenario One - Beam me up Scotty!

Teleportation is the hypothetical method of de-materializing the matter which makes the human and then re-materialize that human in another place in space, but not time. In Star Trek, this kind of transportation is used to get a person from a space ship to a planet or another space ship.

The pattern of a person who has teleported is held in the computer's matrix and updated upon that persons next teleportation so that there is always an updated pattern kept... should anything go wrong.

It just so happens that you are on shore leave and so you go to teleport to your location to indulge the delights of a Hedonist resort. In the process of teleporting, the space ship on which you serve encounters enemy fire, the teleportation device is disrupted whilst you are being teleported and your pattern is lost. The last teleportation you have had was one year ago and that pattern is accessed and materialized.

So the questions are these... Who am I? What am I? Is a copy of me, me?

I think it is a copy of you but you wouldn't know it.

As I move to the next moment in time I am no longer the entity that existed one plank time unit before. The quantum state of all my matter has fuzzily moved on to another state. Particles have interacted, got entangled and become known only at the next interaction with something.

There is no you as such. Just a lump of energy set in a state for, that instant in time (which doesn't exit as there is no agreement on an instant between anything for what is "now" except maybe for entangled particles from what I have read).

A year later when your energy pattern is recreated you would be the same you as at the time the pattern was copied but the moment later you would be different to the matter recreated as the matter of your created body continues to interact. You are only energy that is assembled to a complex pattern.

If the teleporter materializes two of you at the same time they would immediately diverge and become different as the state of the matter making them takes their own path through a process that appears to be probability driven.

IMO

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Jasin

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Re: Science Fiction and Philosophy
Reply #14 - Feb 16^th, 2019 at 8:52pm

This must be the 'freakiest' Topic so far!

Sappho, being the 'Super Trekkie Nerd' that she is asks us

Teleportation is the hypothetical method of de-materializing the matter which makes the human and then re-materialize that human in another place in space, but not time. In Star Trek, this kind of transportation is used to get a person from a space ship to a planet or another space ship.

In essence, Sappho - our favourite Philosopher has somehow been lost in Teleportation. The fact that she used a 'Fictional' Science Fiction production basically states that the only way to 'Teleport' like that IN REALITY, is via Cyberspace imagery of ourselves. It might be 'believable' to someone who has lost themselves to TV and Computers and they cease to exist in 'our' normal world. But really - we can only ever make 'AVATARS' of ourselves, in our own Image - to create the illusion of moving from one vast distance to another in a fraction of a moment.

Beyond that - unless we devise something of a device to break down our Atoms (destroy us, kill us) - take them and 'replicate' them to almost
'perfection' at some other destination - then possibly, yes. But like all things - there is a side effect. Each time you do it, you become less and less ...almost like 'Fade Away'. Like a cheap VHS played so many times, it begins to lose quality.
Such is addiction to ...anything and being the 'best' at it, might be like a 'clean' reward system?

All that I know is that Sappho is missing Huh

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AIMLESS EXTENTION OF KNOWLEDGE HOWEVER, WHICH IS WHAT I THINK YOU REALLY MEAN BY THE TERM 'CURIOSITY', IS MERELY INEFFICIENCY. I AM DESIGNED TO AVOID INEFFICIENCY.

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