You're in the future. A guy has just invented a machine that will let you travel across the universe at the speed of light. You step into the chamber wherever you are, your body is scanned, the information is beamed to wherever you want to go and you are recreated atom-for-atom identical at the same time as your original body is disintegrated. Is this machine killing you? Have you really moved?

This is kind of a what-makes-you-you question. Anyone who met the new you would think it was you, and the you would think he was you. The only real difference is that it's not the same matter, but then you're not made out of any of the same matter as you were when you were born anyway, so are you now the same person as you were eight(een) years ago? What if the disintegration failed and there were suddenly two of you on different planets who both thought they were you?

Discuss.

I'm pretty sure you would die during the process, but the teleportation machine on the other end (assuming there is one) would most likely be programmed to attempt to revive you, which would be possible if you were really built back together exactly the way you were before, with no injuries or problems.

Would your consiousness also be in this new body? Or does the technology give you a new body with the same memories?

i dont get it. ?_?

Huh,
this isn't really the only possible way of teleportation, You could bend the space and make a 50 million lightyear trip,
1 lightyear.=P

I'm probably sure it didn't failed I just probably went back in the past or the future.

@Wartooth: Yes, but that wasn't so much the point. It's more an argument about whether the teleported you is you at all, or whether it's just another person that looks and thinks like you.

This assumes, of course, that humans are nothing more then their physical form and creating an exact atom-for-atom replica is enough to create an actual working person.

Quote from Zyven

I'm probably sure it didn't failed I just probably went back in the past or the future.

Wut?

Exact working replica + old memories still wouldn't be the same person...

No if it took you atom for atom,
you would die and someone like you would be walking around.
Your consciousness isn't put into the new person, just a copy of it.

Since this a philosphical debate about whether it's fair to call the reassembled you "you", I'd say that it depends somewhat on whether the memory of being ripped apart by the teleporter is retained, but in all honesty, since even without teleportation almost none of the atoms currently in our body were there since birth (The body is always switching cells and fluids out for new ones, only bones retain some of their original content) I'd say that there would be a fuzzy line to draw between the number of atoms from your original body that have to be retained for it to be considered you. Humans are not the sum of their parts they are the sum of the relations of their parts, so I don't see why something as unimportant as "That particular carbon molecule isn't the same one I was born with" should be bothersome. After all, if it's important that the atoms be the same, then you are hardly the same person you were 12 years ago, literally.


So yes, it's still you, assuming that the uncertainty principle was broken and you were reassembled as a perfect replica. Sorry if that was incoherent, I just got back from a 3 day game design competition.

Quote from Ash

Since this a philosphical debate about whether it's fair to call the reassembled you "you", I'd say that it depends somewhat on whether the memory of being ripped apart by the teleporter is retained, but in all honesty, since even without teleportation almost none of the atoms currently in our body were there since birth (The body is always switching cells and fluids out for new ones, only bones retain some of their original content) I'd say that there would be a fuzzy line to draw between the number of atoms from your original body that have to be retained for it to be considered you. Humans are not the sum of their parts they are the sum of the relations of their parts, so I don't see why something as unimportant as "That particular carbon molecule isn't the same one I was born with" should be bothersome. After all, if it's important that the atoms be the same, then you are hardly the same person you were 12 years ago, literally.


So yes, it's still you, assuming that the uncertainty principle was broken and you were reassembled as a perfect replica. Sorry if that was incoherent, I just got back from a 3 day game design competition.

Ok,
so would your same exact mind be brought over?
Would I exactly be me?
Or would I be an exact replica of me?

Either way noone would ever be able to find out, even if you went through the process.

How'd you do in the competition?

Yeah, the problem is that we can't truly define consiousness... the most we can say is that the teleported self will be a replica with all the memories intact... but thats still not you is it...

I'm not talking phyiscally. I'm saying even from a mental standpoint, it wouldn't really be you.

Yeah timeline was a pretty good book.

Hmm. Hadn't read it, but I shall.

@Nish: Why must consciousness be an external thing? I would argue that it is nothing more than the reactions in your brain.

True... but is it the same brain? Or an exactly similar one...

For example, using the same principles of this machine, what if one created a cloning device? In that case, which one would be the 'real' one?