Does the transporter kill you?

[Captain Seafort]

If anyone had read my epistemologies when this thread was alive the first time, you could see that the question doesn't have to the continued life of the original body - it is actually whether you believe that the continuity provided by the simulacrum is enough to constitute identity. In other words, it doesn't matter that the original body is dead - because it is - but what matters is that having the duplicate mitigates the entire death of the individual in question.

And as I said at the time, having a copy walking around may matter not a bit to an outside observer, but from the point of view of the individual who steps onto the platform that's it. Their consciousness ends and doesn't come back. The copy will look, act, talk and think like them. It will think it is them. But it isn't.

[Tsukiyumi]

Spending that long in the buffer may have damaged Scotty's long-term memories (that's my explanation of how he forgot Kirk was dead).

Oh, and theoretically, couldn't the transporter be forced to create duplicates of people in the pattern buffer? An army of Datas would've probably helped somewhat during the Dominion war...

[Captain Seafort]

Spending that long in the buffer may have damaged Scotty's long-term memories (that's my explanation of how he forgot Kirk was dead).

Well, he did suffer some signal degredation in the buffer - maybe those few thousandths of a percent were the bits of his grey matter storing the memory of the E-B's maiden voyage.

Oh, and theoretically, couldn't the transporter be forced to create duplicates of people in the pattern buffer? An army of Datas would've probably helped somewhat during the Dominion war...

Theoretically, yes. Whether Starfleet would think of this, since they don't seem to recognise the "kill and clone" method the transporter uses, is another matter.

[Mikey]

And as I said at the time, having a copy walking around may matter not a bit to an outside observer, but from the point of view of the individual who steps onto the platform that's it. Their consciousness ends and doesn't come back. The copy will look, act, talk and think like them. It will think it is them. But it isn't.

Epistemology is not logic; it's a matter of degrees, not blacks and whites. OK, let's say that the duplicate isn't the person. Is it ENOUGH of the person to constitute identity? Well, the people depicted in the universe in which this was an extant technology - i.e., Star Trek TOS+ - seemed to think so, because they had no problem getting onto the transporter pad and assuming that "they" would be arrive at their destinations. If there was no identity contiguous from the person on the pad to the person at the destination, then nobody but a suicide would have ever gotten in the transporter.

[Captain Seafort]

The problem is that from the point of view of everyone except the one who steps into the transporter, including the clone, it's the same person. That's probably enough to convince those who want to be convinced that it's really them.

Plus, given the ubiquity of the transporter, and the likelyhood that people have been using it since childhood, I doubt anyone wants to think about the likleyhood that they're not who they consider themselves to be, but the umpteenth clone of that person.

[Mikey]

So are you saying that a particular point of view is invalid merely because it happens to be convenient as well?

[Captain Seafort]

So are you saying that a particular point of view is invalid merely because it happens to be convenient as well?

I'm saying that a particular point of view is invalid if there is very strong evidence that it's flawed. I'm suggesting a reason why the belief is so widespread despite the fact that it's flawed.

[Mikey]

How is it flawed? You suggested your evidence, which comproses, "I disagree," and rather than argue I mentioned how the argument you were making was actually sideways to the point. Sure, the opriginal is dead. I agreed with you. But the fact of the matter is, that there is still a continuously identical individual in existence.

If you are in fact claiming that physical identity is in fact the necessary criterion, then fine. There is no argument - I disagree with you, you disacgree with me; but we simply have differening, and both unprovable, philosophies. However, if you are claiming that the original's death precludes identity of any sort at all, then I will have to ask what your sources of epistemological thought are.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

If they disintegrated it wouldn't that mean the material in question is no longer usable? And even if you melt a car down into it's basic elements and rebuilt into a car it would still be the same car right? You just took it apart to smaller components. I figured basic auto parts would be the easiest analagy.

No, it would be a different car. Take for example the battlecruiser Gneisenau, scuttled in harbour in 1944, raised in 1951, and cut up for scrap. Is the ship (probably a merchantman) built of that metal the Gneisnenau? No.

True but if the original material was put to use in rebuilding the Gneisenau(what kind of name is that anyway?) I would consider it the same ship. Another example is the USS Constitution, which has less then 20% of it's original material, but it is considered the same ship it was 200 years ago. Your thought of the material being used to build another ship would be like an organ being donated to a living person.

And we have no evidence that one does lose consciousness in the 'beam'.

Yes we do. When Scotty was trapped in a transporter beam for 75 years he had no concept of the passage of time - he thought the Enterprise that had come to rescue him was Kirk's.[/quote]

A person in a coma rarely has a concept of the passage of time. So at worst it seems that the conscious mind of a person is put into a coma-like state.[/quote]

[Tsukiyumi]

The Constitution being refurbished so many times is like the proverbial axe that has had five handles replaced, and three new heads. Effectively, it would cease being the same thing after a number of such refits.

[Captain Seafort]

True but if the original material was put to use in rebuilding the Gneisenau(what kind of name is that anyway?) I would consider it the same ship. Another example is the USS Constitution, which has less then 20% of it's original material, but it is considered the same ship it was 200 years ago. Your thought of the material being used to build another ship would be like an organ being donated to a living person.

It depends on how the rebuilding is done. With the Constitution there has never been a cessation of physical integrity. With the transporter there is.

Gneisenau(what kind of name is that anyway?)

German. August von Gneisenau was Blucher's Chief of Staff during the Waterloo campaign.

A person in a coma rarely has a concept of the passage of time. So at worst it seems that the conscious mind of a person is put into a coma-like state.

So you've gone from "there's no cessation of consciousness" to "well it doesn't really matter".

To both Blackstar and Mikey - it isn't the cessation of physical integrity, nor the cessation of consciousness that's the problem. It's the cessation of both of them simultaneously that leads me to the conclusion that what steps out of a transporter is a clone, and not the original. If either physical integrity or consciousness were continuous through the process I would have no problem with the position that the individuals entering and exiting the process are one and the same

EDIT:fixed quotes

[Blackstar the Chakat]

So you've gone from "there's no cessation of consciousness" to "well it doesn't really matter".

No, I said that they are unconscious at worst. Consciousness or rather the 'soul' for a lack of a better word doesn't cease during the transporter process. It simply is unable to translate it into something that you can understand. Like, if a two-dimensional being were moved into a third dimension direction their mind wouldn't be able to comprehend what was happining.

Let's see if I can think of an example so simple you could understand it. Let's take H20 for example. Were we to convert it from it's solid form to liquid it is still H20 and would still be H20 if turned back into a solid. Or to take it even farther if you were to seperate the hydrogen atoms from the oxygen molecule and the molocules were to reunite with each other it is the same H20 molecule

[Mikey]

Well, as I said - if the argument is truly that you consider a different criterion (or set of criteria, in this case) as the basis for identity, then it is academic to argue. Thank you, though, for clarifying the disagreement.

[Captain Seafort]

No, I said that they are unconscious at worst. Consciousness or rather the 'soul' for a lack of a better word doesn't cease during the transporter process. It simply is unable to translate it into something that you can understand. Like, if a two-dimensional being were moved into a third dimension direction their mind wouldn't be able to comprehend what was happining.

So, we have evidence of a break in consciousness conforming to the time in the beam ("Relics"), and we have evidence of duplication of consciousness ("Second Chances"), but consciousness doesn't cease. How exactly does that work?

Let's see if I can think of an example so simple you could understand it. Let's take H20 for example. Were we to convert it from it's solid form to liquid it is still H20 and would still be H20 if turned back into a solid. Or to take it even farther if you were to seperate the hydrogen atoms from the oxygen molecule and the molocules were to reunite with each other it is the same H20 molecule

What on Earth has the various states of a compound got to do with a complex organism?

[Blackstar the Chakat]

So, we have evidence of a break in consciousness conforming to the time in the beam ("Relics"), and we have evidence of duplication of consciousness ("Second Chances"), but consciousness doesn't cease. How exactly does that work?

well a perfect explination would be impossible without a comprehensive knowledge of the transporter. Perhaps an acceptable analagy would be a computer program. The program can be shut down, transfered to another computer, or duplicated on another or even the same computer. In a way a conscious mind is the same way. It can be shut down for various periods of time. Although longer times can damage it so this isn't a perfect analogy. Since a mind works by electricle impulses it isn't unreasonable to assume that it could be transfered to another suitable brain or possibly duplicated.

What on Earth has the various states of a compound got to do with a complex organism?

It all comes down to basics. To quote an engineering code: "keep it simple stupid". I'm hoping a simple analogy will help in understanding what I'm saying. To make an analogy of an analogy; many modern guns are complex in design however they all operate on the same principles that ancient muskets and pistols worked on hundreds of years ago. You could go even further by saying that a bow and arrow or even a spear are simplified versions of modern guns in the sense that you are propelling a potentially lethal object. I was trying to make the analogy as simple as possible.