A brain storm

[oranphil]

I have question which could be difficult to answer I believe it is about consciousness

 

This is it

What if you were beamed (then two being exactly you) to two planets e.g. mars and Venus what planet would you see and why?

[iNow]

There would no longer be just one of you... there would be two. So, the you that went to Mars would see Mars, and the you that went to Venus would see Venus.

 

Look at this way. If I cut a loaf of bread in half and put one half in the kitchen and the other half in the dining room, which room is the bread in? It's in both.

[Sisyphus]

Mars.

 

No, just kidding. You would become two different people.

[oranphil]

I guess that they'll be a 50% chance of either seeing Mars or Venus, I wouldn't see two places at the same time. They would still be one "me" (from a consciousness perspective as I'd only be conscious through the eyes of either one or the other, not both), where the other can be seen in a similar way as an identical twin, but with the same memories and thought processes. They could be an argument between the two as to which one was the original person.

[GDG]

Is the original destroyed in the beaming process? If not, you continue to see Earth. Each of the people showing up on Mars and Venus will believe themselves to be you as well, but you would not have any direct access to their thoughts or perceptions.

[swansont]

This most definitely isn't relativity. Moved to speculations

[oranphil]

Is the original destroyed in the beaming process? If not, you continue to see Earth. Each of the people showing up on Mars and Venus will believe themselves to be you as well, but you would not have any direct access to their thoughts or perceptions.

 

Yes, If the original isn't destroyed, I agree that most likely, Earth would continue to be seen by the 'master' or original consciousness, from where the two copies are copied from. If the original person is deconstructed or destroyed in a process by a machine, and the information is beamed to two reconstruction machines on both Venus and Mars, there would be two people that look and probably act like the original. Both people could be seen as copies, rather than either one being an original or a copy. Would this mean that the original person is effectively dead? So in this case I could not reassure the original person that he/she would be conscious of anything after the deconstruction-beaming and double-reconstruction on the two planets. Or would the consciousness (the "me-ness" of the original) be transferred to both of the copies or just one? If just one, I guess there would be a probability of 50% of seeing Mars or Venus. So in this case I could reassure the original person on Earth that he/she will see either one of the two planets. It would be hard to see how the "me-ness" of the original could be transferred to both (as that "me-ness" would see both planets at the same time), unless both are entangled, where the "me-ness" of the original is held on a conscious level in one copy, but held in the other at an unconscious level. In this case, the one that holds the consciousness of the original in the subconscious/unconscious level, would be a different person on a conscious level, unless the subconscious of the original is brought forth at the conscious level?

[GDG]

Assuming that your transporter accurately copies everything (and setting aside the technological impossibility of this), including the state of all your neurons, then each copy that walks out of the transporter will be identical to you. You (original) step out of the machine, still on Earth, as if nothing had happened. For you (original), there is no trip at all. You (Venus) step out of the machine and immediately burst into flames (it's pretty hot there... ). You (Mars) step out of the machine into the airlock, with all your memories and thoughts intact: as far as you (Mars) can tell, you are the same person as you (original). The thoughts that you (Mars) have rapidly diverge from the thoughts that you (original) have, because you are in different environments, but for all practical purposes you would start out as being identical people.

 

The fact that you start out identical does not mean that you would share consciousness in any way: no telepathy, no feeling sensations experienced by the other you, no switching from body to body.

 

Now, what happens when you (Mars) teleports "back" to Earth?

[Mr Skeptic]

I've heard of a similar problem. In this case, there is a copying machine that will make a perfect copy of you (including thoughts and memories). Someone makes you this offer: allow a copy of yourself to be made, and the copy of yourself will be taken to be a slave on Mars while you get a pile of cash. Would you accept?