I believe in continuity of substance, not similarity of pattern, as the basis of identity.
So Scotty killed Kirk and then created a zombie-Kirk back on the Enterprise? It would seem that the whole Star Trek is a fantasy story about a space faring necromancer who repeatedly kills his crew then uses his evil contraption to reanimate new beings out of base matter while rampaging through space seeking new and exotic beings to join his never ending orgy of death.
Yes, yes he did, time and again (substituting “copy” for “zombie”, as MP points out below). That’s the Star Trek paradox.
Imagine that there is a glitch in the system, so that the “original” Kirk fails to dematerialise when the “new” one appears, so we find ourselves with two copies of Kirk. Now Scotty says “Sowwy Captain” and zaps the “old” Kirk into a cloud of atoms. How in the world does that not constitute murder?
That was not the paradox. The “paradox” is this: the only difference between “innocuous” teleportation, and the murder scenario described above, is a small time-shift of a few seconds. If Kirk1 disappears a few seconds before Kirk2 appears, we have no problem with that. We even show it repeatedly in programmes aimed at children. But when Kirk1 disappears a few seconds after Kirk2 appears, all of a sudden we see the act for what it is, namely murder.
How is it that a mere shift of a few seconds causes such a great difference in our perception? How is it that we can immediately see the murder in the second case, but that the first case seems so innocent to us? This stark contrast between our intuitive perceptions of the two cases, despite their apparent underlying similarity, constitutes the paradox.
And yes, it seems likely that the above also holds when a single person is made absolutely unconscious (flat EEG) and then awakened. Intuitively, we feel that the same person, the same identity, has persisted throughout this interruption; but when we think of the Star Trek paradox, and if we assume (as good materialists) that consciousness is the outcome of physical brain activity, we realise that this situation is not very different from that of Kirk1 and Kirk2. More generally, it illustrates the problems associated with assuming that you “are” the same person that you were just one minute ago (for some concepts of “are”).
I was thinking of writing a post about this, but apparently all of the above seems to be ridiculously obvious to most LWers, so I guess there’s not much of a point. I still find it pretty fascinating. What can I say, I’m easily impressed.
But when Kirk1 disappears a few seconds after Kirk2 appears, all of a sudden we see the act for what it is, namely murder.
I’m not comfortable with ‘for what it is, namely’. I would be comfortable with ‘see the act as murder’. I don’t play ‘moral reference class tennis’. Killing a foetus before it is born is killing a foetus before it is born (or abortion). Creating a copy then removing the original is creating a copy and then removing the original (or teleportation). Killing someone who wants to die is killing someone who wants to die (or euthanasia). Calling any of these things murder is not necessarily wrong but it is not a factual judgement it is a moral judgement. The speaker wants people to have the same kind of reaction that they have to other acts that are called ‘murder’.
‘Murder’ is just more complex than that. So is ‘killing’ and so is ‘identity’. You can simplify the concepts arbitrarily so that ‘identity’ is a property of a specific combination of matter if you want to but that just means you need to make up a new word to describe “that thing that looks, talks and acts like the same Kirk every episode and doesn’t care at all that he gets de-materialised all the time”. If you don’t keep a separate word to describe that concept then you will end up making some extremely silly life choices when you come to be exposed to choices outside of the cultural norm. Like Cryonics. Depending on how many exceptions you want to allow yourself you’ll also need to be careful about blood transfusions, shedding skin, neurogenesis over time, definitely organ transplants.
For my part I feel comfortable obliterating the atomic structure of my body and having it recreated perfectly on the surface of a planet. I wouldn’t be comfortable with being conscious in the ‘obliteration’ process but I don’t care at all whether the copy is created before or after the original is destroyed. No, scratch that, I do care. I want the original destroyed after the copy is created so it can double check it has it right first! I care about my ‘pattern’ rather a lot more than my ‘originality’ so if “identity” means ‘the original substance’ then I jolly well want a new word that means ‘me’!
How is it that a mere shift of a few seconds causes such a great difference in our perception? How is it that we can immediately see the murder in the second case, but that the first case seems so innocent to us?
It doesn’t and I don’t. See above. (ie. Replace ‘our’ with ‘my’?) That just isn’t how my intuition is wired. I actually feel a little nervous about there not being a copy of me outside of the Enterprise’s RAM. Although I suppose I would adjust to that once people explain “it’s safer than driving in your car, no really!”.
Any plans Kirk had prior to his “original” being dematerialized are still equally likely to be carried out by the “copy” Kirk, any preferences he had will still be defended, and so on. Nothing of consequence seems to have been lost; an observer unaware of this little drama will notice nothing different from what he would have predicted, had Kirk traveled by more conventional means.
To say that a murder has been committed seems like a strained interpretation of the facts. There’s a difference between burning of the Library of Alexandria and destroying your hard drive when you have a backup.
Currently, murder and information-theoretic murder coincide, for the same reasons that death and information-theoretic death coincide. When that is no longer the case, the distinction will become more salient.
Imagine that there is a glitch in the system, so that the “original” Kirk fails to dematerialise when the “new” one appears, so we find ourselves with two copies of Kirk. Now Scotty says “Sowwy Captain” and zaps the “old” Kirk into a cloud of atoms. How in the world does that not constitute murder?
And here is something that bugs me in Sci. Fi. shows. It’s worse than ’Sound in space? Dammit!” Take Carter from Stargate. She has Asgard beaming technology and the Asgard core (computer). She can use this to create food, a Chelo for herself and Tritonin for Teal’c. The core function of the device is to take humanoid creatures and re-materialise them somewhere else. Why oh why do they not leave the originals behind and create a 50-Carter strong research team, a million strong Teal’c army and an entire wizard’s circle of Daniel Jacksons with whatever his mind-power of the episode happens to be? There are dozens of ways to clone SG1. The robot-SGI is the mundane example. The Stargates themselves have the capability and so do Wraith darts. The same applies to Kirk and his crew. But no. let’s just ignore the most obvious use of the core technology.
If Kirk1 disappears a few seconds before Kirk2 appears, we assume that no subjective experience was lost; a branch of length 0 was terminated. If the transporter had predictive algorithms good enough to put Kirk2 into the exact same state that Kirk1 would be in a few seconds later, then painlessly dematerialized Kirk1, I would have no more problem with it than I do with the original Star Trek transporter.
It is a shame that the term was reserved for ‘philosophical zombies’. I mean, philosophical zombies haven’t even been killed. Kirk was killed then reanimated. That’s real necromancy for you.
So Scotty killed Kirk and then created a zombie-Kirk back on the Enterprise? It would seem that the whole Star Trek is a fantasy story about a space faring necromancer who repeatedly kills his crew then uses his evil contraption to reanimate new beings out of base matter while rampaging through space seeking new and exotic beings to join his never ending orgy of death.
Yes, yes he did, time and again (substituting “copy” for “zombie”, as MP points out below). That’s the Star Trek paradox.
Imagine that there is a glitch in the system, so that the “original” Kirk fails to dematerialise when the “new” one appears, so we find ourselves with two copies of Kirk. Now Scotty says “Sowwy Captain” and zaps the “old” Kirk into a cloud of atoms. How in the world does that not constitute murder?
That was not the paradox. The “paradox” is this: the only difference between “innocuous” teleportation, and the murder scenario described above, is a small time-shift of a few seconds. If Kirk1 disappears a few seconds before Kirk2 appears, we have no problem with that. We even show it repeatedly in programmes aimed at children. But when Kirk1 disappears a few seconds after Kirk2 appears, all of a sudden we see the act for what it is, namely murder.
How is it that a mere shift of a few seconds causes such a great difference in our perception? How is it that we can immediately see the murder in the second case, but that the first case seems so innocent to us? This stark contrast between our intuitive perceptions of the two cases, despite their apparent underlying similarity, constitutes the paradox.
And yes, it seems likely that the above also holds when a single person is made absolutely unconscious (flat EEG) and then awakened. Intuitively, we feel that the same person, the same identity, has persisted throughout this interruption; but when we think of the Star Trek paradox, and if we assume (as good materialists) that consciousness is the outcome of physical brain activity, we realise that this situation is not very different from that of Kirk1 and Kirk2. More generally, it illustrates the problems associated with assuming that you “are” the same person that you were just one minute ago (for some concepts of “are”).
I was thinking of writing a post about this, but apparently all of the above seems to be ridiculously obvious to most LWers, so I guess there’s not much of a point. I still find it pretty fascinating. What can I say, I’m easily impressed.
I’m not comfortable with ‘for what it is, namely’. I would be comfortable with ‘see the act as murder’. I don’t play ‘moral reference class tennis’. Killing a foetus before it is born is killing a foetus before it is born (or abortion). Creating a copy then removing the original is creating a copy and then removing the original (or teleportation). Killing someone who wants to die is killing someone who wants to die (or euthanasia). Calling any of these things murder is not necessarily wrong but it is not a factual judgement it is a moral judgement. The speaker wants people to have the same kind of reaction that they have to other acts that are called ‘murder’.
‘Murder’ is just more complex than that. So is ‘killing’ and so is ‘identity’. You can simplify the concepts arbitrarily so that ‘identity’ is a property of a specific combination of matter if you want to but that just means you need to make up a new word to describe “that thing that looks, talks and acts like the same Kirk every episode and doesn’t care at all that he gets de-materialised all the time”. If you don’t keep a separate word to describe that concept then you will end up making some extremely silly life choices when you come to be exposed to choices outside of the cultural norm. Like Cryonics. Depending on how many exceptions you want to allow yourself you’ll also need to be careful about blood transfusions, shedding skin, neurogenesis over time, definitely organ transplants.
For my part I feel comfortable obliterating the atomic structure of my body and having it recreated perfectly on the surface of a planet. I wouldn’t be comfortable with being conscious in the ‘obliteration’ process but I don’t care at all whether the copy is created before or after the original is destroyed. No, scratch that, I do care. I want the original destroyed after the copy is created so it can double check it has it right first! I care about my ‘pattern’ rather a lot more than my ‘originality’ so if “identity” means ‘the original substance’ then I jolly well want a new word that means ‘me’!
It doesn’t and I don’t. See above. (ie. Replace ‘our’ with ‘my’?) That just isn’t how my intuition is wired. I actually feel a little nervous about there not being a copy of me outside of the Enterprise’s RAM. Although I suppose I would adjust to that once people explain “it’s safer than driving in your car, no really!”.
Any plans Kirk had prior to his “original” being dematerialized are still equally likely to be carried out by the “copy” Kirk, any preferences he had will still be defended, and so on. Nothing of consequence seems to have been lost; an observer unaware of this little drama will notice nothing different from what he would have predicted, had Kirk traveled by more conventional means.
To say that a murder has been committed seems like a strained interpretation of the facts. There’s a difference between burning of the Library of Alexandria and destroying your hard drive when you have a backup.
Currently, murder and information-theoretic murder coincide, for the same reasons that death and information-theoretic death coincide. When that is no longer the case, the distinction will become more salient.
And here is something that bugs me in Sci. Fi. shows. It’s worse than ’Sound in space? Dammit!” Take Carter from Stargate. She has Asgard beaming technology and the Asgard core (computer). She can use this to create food, a Chelo for herself and Tritonin for Teal’c. The core function of the device is to take humanoid creatures and re-materialise them somewhere else. Why oh why do they not leave the originals behind and create a 50-Carter strong research team, a million strong Teal’c army and an entire wizard’s circle of Daniel Jacksons with whatever his mind-power of the episode happens to be? There are dozens of ways to clone SG1. The robot-SGI is the mundane example. The Stargates themselves have the capability and so do Wraith darts. The same applies to Kirk and his crew. But no. let’s just ignore the most obvious use of the core technology.
If Kirk1 disappears a few seconds before Kirk2 appears, we assume that no subjective experience was lost; a branch of length 0 was terminated. If the transporter had predictive algorithms good enough to put Kirk2 into the exact same state that Kirk1 would be in a few seconds later, then painlessly dematerialized Kirk1, I would have no more problem with it than I do with the original Star Trek transporter.
A copy, not a zombie.
It is a shame that the term was reserved for ‘philosophical zombies’. I mean, philosophical zombies haven’t even been killed. Kirk was killed then reanimated. That’s real necromancy for you.