Point conceded. I don't know how they are carried. As for twins.. the point is that duplicates are still different, even though they have the same basic genetic build and such. They are still different.

What is it that makes them different? A pair of twins that are 99.9% alike can be drastically different, or ironically similar. There is no "set" pattern for this for science to duplicate. The point behind this "twins" concept is that, although they are "the same", there is enough different to create two separate individuals.

I can say with certainty that experience alone does not create someone's personality. As I said in my other points, personality is created by the manner in which the person interprets the world around them and the way they react to situations, experiences, and memories.

As I said... two different people put into the exact same situation... even identical twins put into the exact same situation... will take that situation differently. It's like in "Pulp Fiction", when the "Fouth Man" busted through the door and shot at Vincent and Jules and missed completely, even though he had them both dead to rights. Jules chose to look at that as "divine intervention". Vince saw it as a "freak of nature". They both experienced the same thing, but they had different reactions to it.

The aspect that caused them to have different reactions, our "soul" and the way we perceive things, is something that science doesn't understand. I don't understand it. No one understands what makes us think the way we think when something happens to us. It is what comes to us naturally. It just is, and there can be no denying that mankind cannot tell someone that "they think they way they think" because such and such happened to them, because countless others could experience the exact same experiences and think completely different things about it.

There is no map to follow to chart this. Even if there was, it would be so complex and insanely intricate that we would never be able to follow it. To even try to grasp the concept would probably drive a person insane as he follows one path only to end up coming to a complete circle, and seeming to meet with success only to have one single human being break the mold and prove him wrong.

As I said, I will concede scientists the ability to teleport a human. Might take a lot of time to do that sort of thing, but eventually, they'll be able to do it. I just think that when they do, they will end up with nothing more than a "living shell", and the actual "person" that inhabited that shell would be lost. I will not concede that science understands what makes someone think the way they think, and what makes them who they are, unless you can give me solid proof that science has determined, beyond any doubt, that they can chart what it is that makes each and every human unique. That which gives us each our personal identity. If science cannot understand that, they can never hope to reliably duplicate it.

You'd be playing Russian Roulette with one empty chamber and 5 bullets. Are you willing to pull the trigger?


Gandalf

They are immensely different in this context, we are talking about moving everything, including electrons and their spin, you talk about DNA. It's like you'd say that your are surprised that your computer is not working the same as mine because it's build also by DELL, it has the same model number and the same processor and the same memory size so you'd say that's the same, but then you bring the argument that "although it's the same it doesn't work the same so it must have the soul that we can't define through scientifical means" I would say that's just a red herring, I never claimed that your computer is exactly as mine, first of all it has different software, second of all it has different "life experiences" (meaning that you gave it different commands than I did) and thirdly it is very different at atomic level. Twins are the "same" at DNA level but that's only the blueprint, however, at atomic level they are just as different as you are from me. Example, twins have the same DNA, but they don't have the same fingerprints.

Twins are also different persons that occupy different space at the same time and they have different life experiences, this discussion is about a person being moved (teleported) in space I fail to see the relevance of twins to this discussion. If we were talking about replication I would understand a little bit the parallel although I would still not sure I would understand the conclusion (as I said, DNA is only a biological blueprint, it's not at all about atomic identity).

I never said that. We can define the reason. Different software. Different programs. Different environments. Your place is sterile. Mine has dust. We can devise understanding of how and why these changes are taking place. We don't, however, understand the changes and the intricacies that make one human different from another human.

Your taking something like a "computer" and trying to bring it into a discussion about similarity involving people, when computers are built by humans and made by humans and invented by humans. Has a human ever "built" another human and known exactly what it was they were doing, what kind of personality that human was going to have before he even finished? No. So you can't raise this argument. It is not relevant to the question.

Obviously, we are talking about replication. They have to take your body and your identity, duplicate them both, and relocate them instantly. Meanwhile.. you, the person as you are right now, cease to exist. The "copy" of you, in my argument, is not going to be you, because I do not believe it is within the parameters of science to duplicate a personality.

For instance: You copy the Mona Lisa. They are identical in every way, down to the very age and paints. Is your copy the Mona Lisa? No. It's not. It's just a copy. That's all it is and that's all it ever will be. It will never be the Mona Lisa. And that's all the copied you will be. A copy. You, as you are now, will no longer be.. and you will never "be" again, because in the process, they disintegrated you and reduced you to mere atoms.

Another instance: We have made clones. "Dolly" the sheep. Perfect clones. They are made the same, have the same structure, are completely identical in every way. Do those sheep have the same identity? When they look at each other, do they see their reflection, or just another sheep? I would say "No." They are different. They have their own feelings and their own perceptions. If you hurt one, you don't "hurt" the other.

You are taking the most trivial of my arguments and countering them while ignoring the major arguments I bring to bear. Counter my reasoning that a facsimile will never be the actual real thing from which it was copied.

Can you do that? If not, then how can you ever expect a "copy" of you to actually be you?


Gandalf

I used the example with computers only to convey that seemingly "the same" is not the same, I see that you still didn't get my point, no, Dolly the sheep is not perfect copy (actually the sheep was not even perfect from the macro or DNA point of view but that's another discussion), twins are not perfect copies, even from macro point of view they are not perfect copies, they have different fingerprints.

Here we talk about atomic identity, electrons orbiting the atom in the same place (how strange that might sound to a physicist... that's only a philosophical construct because it's not possible in practice, but nevertheless that's the idea)

I would like you didn't make so many point and so wrong because I don't know where to pick from, let's stick with what's important... till now you took me for a ride to infinite numbers, cloning, God, soul, Universal Law, "identical" twins, etc. I can't address all that in a short reply, stick with what's important so you'll give me a chance to reply to it.

And you don't get mine.

Forget everything else in the entire post. Answer this question:

Will a copy of something ever truly be the original?


It doesn't matter how precise you get. Every atom of your "copy" of the Mona Lisa could be the exact same, with the exact same quantum build and the exact same atomic spin. For all rights and purposes, it is the same as the real Mona Lisa.

But it is still only a copy.

It will never be the real Mona Lisa. It can never be the real Mona Lisa. It is not possible.


If a facsimile of something will never be the real thing, then how can a facsimile of you, no matter how accurate it may be, ever be you?


Gandalf

Another red herring, we are talking about teleportation not copying, the simplified idea of it from what I understand of teleportation is like this: an atom (with all its electrons) disappears from here and it appears in the other place, the problem is if this is only seemingly different from moving it all the way from A to B or it's something else from ontological point of view -- I don't claim I know the answer but I'm open to the idea that it might be the same thing as just dragging it from A to B.

Let me address this too:

Your question contains the negation in itself, by definition a copy cannot be the original. If you have 2 identical, from any points of view, instances of a thing you can't say that one is another, at most you can say that they are identical.

But again that was not the point of discussion. The point is if you move something by making disappear from one point A and making it appear in point B and if that's the same as dragging it from A to B. Since quantum stuff is really strange and hard to understand with the mind that's used with day to day stuff, I'm open to the idea that it's possible, I never said that's for sure. However, I felt I needed to contradict some of your ideas that seem to not be related to the issue or just plain false (like the "soul" that doesn't have connection with the matter and the like).

...

You contradict yourself.


Alright. we'll look at this from yet another perspective. Let's say they make duplicates of your molecules. We'll even say they are the same down to the quantum level. Every single particle is the exact same as the real you.

They then take these molecules and "move" them someplace else, and reassemble them. Everything is in absolute precise detail, down to the minu-*test*-('") figure.

Is the person now sitting across from you "you". Can you see through their eyes, and feel their feelings and know their thoughts?

No. Because that person is not you. Even though every single detail is the same, it still isn't you.


So, even if they take your actual molecules and move them to someplace else.. even if they are still using your molecules, what they come up with when they build the thing is only another version of you.. and not actually "you".

What I am saying is when you move something by making it disappear from one point and reappear at another point is that you end up with a copy of the original thing at "Point B", and not the actual original thing itself.

For mundane items such as tennis balls or clothing or luggage, this is all fine and dandy. You'd never know the difference from one thing to the next. But a person, on the other hand, is entirely different. A "copy" of a person will never be the actual person, ergo... science cannot duplicate a person.

You, in all practicality, cease to exist.


Gandalf

No, I don't, at least if you don't take my words out of the context. One example that I used was to point out that the process doesn't need to know the reasons of existence in order to make a instance of an object -- a copy machine doesn't need to understand the feelings of DaVinci when he painted, I used that example only to stop your tirade about "reason of existence" that I felt is useless in this discussion and wasting the time a little bit because I don't feel like debating that...

Let's say that the molecule disappears from here and appears in other place -- no "duplicates" OK?

Again, I feel like you claim you know (gut feeling?) how particles behave at quantum level, I don't, I'm just open to the idea that they can stop being in one place and appear in another. It seems that particles don't just move smoothly from one point to another, for example electrons, they jump from one quantum level to another.... for example while you talked to me some of your electrons jumped to their "death" so right now you are not the same person that you were couple of seconds ago, you just think you are. "You" of the past second is no more, you can have the final rites for "you" every second of "your" existence.

I didn't take your words out of context. You said "teleportation as you understand here works more like a copy machine". That wasn't said in the context of not needing to understand the feeling of DaVinci to make a copy of a Mona Lisa.

The difference between someone conducting an experiment on me and having me "jump" from one place to another is that I cease to exist. In that moment that my particles all disappear, I am no longer anywhere.


I could say I was open to any possiblity as a reason to justify any argument.

"Can people travel the speed of light?"

"Well, not right now, but I'm open to the possibility.."


Nevermind the theory that at the speed of light all matter becomes energy and we would be left without a physical form.

"I don't know how matter behaves at the speed of light.. I'm just open to the idea that matter might be able to travel at the speed of light without becoming energy, or that that energy, when reduced in speed, would reform itself into the matter from which it originated."


Teleportation, as it is taken here, is the concept of taking something apart, moving it, putting it back together, and having the same thing.. not about something "magically" disappearing and then reappearing somewhere else. I am saying when you take apart a block of Legos, move them, and put them back together... they are still Legos, in the base sense. But when you take apart a person, move them, and put them back together... you end up with a different person.

In one argument, science doesn't understand the "building blocks" of a person's personality. What makes them unique. You can provide me no scientific detail that we understand what makes Sally different from Susan other than the simple argument "They're just different."

On the other argument, I am saying even if you take the same molecules and move them and reassemble them, you'd still end up with a different "version" of the person insomuch as in making precise duplicates of the person, down to every single atomic and quantum detail, and reassembling them someplace else.. that that person still would not be the original, even though for all practical puposes they are identical. In the same sense, taking your actual building blocks and moving them somewhere else and rebuilding them wouldn't end up with "you", just as much as making an exact duplicate of you would never be "you".

Think of it like Legos again. Let's say I make a building out of Legos. Then, I take it apart, gather up all the individual Legos, and move them to a different place and then make the exact same building out of them. They are the same Legos. It is the same figure. But it is not the original figure I started with. It is a different version of it. A copy of it that is built in a different place.

It doesn't have to do with "gut" feelings. It's physics. Once I take something apart, that object ceases to be and can never truly "be" again, even if I rebuild it somewhere else.

The difference between my cells dying and electrons jumping off of me to their "deaths" is that, while they are so doing, I remain whole and intact. If I pick up the Lego building and move it without taking it apart and place it somewhere else, it is still the same Lego building that I started with. Once I take it apart, that building will never exist again, even though I could "rebuild" it.. it wouldn't be the "same".


Gandalf

Let me see what I wanted to say, this is the full quote:

I think this full quote clarifies a little bit what I wanted to say. Also I said "more like a copy machine" not "like a copy machine", maybe my English doesn't convey exactly the intended meaning, but I know what I meant and if you read the first sentence that you conveniently omitted when you quoted me you'd get my gist -- you don't need to know the intricacies of the art or the feelings of the artist in order to copy it, the same thing for teleportation, (theoretically) you don't need to understand life and how and why is here. That again was written in the hope to re-divert the discussion from God and stuff like that that doesn't have end and it's plain waste of time.

I will address other things when I have time, however I felt I needed to address this issue because it looked to me like my words were presented in a deformed way.

BTW, you are master of making analogies with things that you don't understand (and are in general hard to understand), you used infinite numbers, now you introduced speed of light... oh man... let me recapitulate: infinite numbers, speed of light, soul, God, Universal Law, cloning ... you bury me under irrelevance...

OK, that's what I deserve for getting into a discussion about something that I don't understand, that is not practical or even possible Teleportation in that sense is bound to not work because you can't determine all the atomic conditions conform to Heisenberg uncertainty principle so this is not even a theoretical discussion this is philosophical (hypothetically) discussion that I usually hate exactly because of the lack of precision and the lack of clear terms.

Anyway let me address some issues that you consider troubling:
1. Reconstruction. If you get your finger cut and if you re-attached it usually it heals especially if it's done very quickly. Question: is it still "you"? Is it still "your finger"? Now, think that hypothetically this cutting and re-attaching is done very quickly so close to 0 seconds that electrons don't even move, would you feel anything, would you be the same or not?

2. Second issue is the lack of explaining quantum process using analogies from life as we perceive it, it doesn't work this way, you can't do it -- things behave in a different way at that level, photons do cease to be in one place and appear in another place, it matter if you observe the event or you don't -- its strange word and again not ruling out moving something from point A to point Z without traversing B, C, D ... point while very strange to our perception is not necessarily something strange at quantum level -- it's not inventing pink unicorns, it's just how things are... space and time have different meanings at quantum level.

I introduced speed of light as an argument against you. You are saying you are "open to the possibility" of teleportation being possible. I am saying that I could argue that I am "open to the possibility" to justify any argument.

It's not irrelevant, in that sense, in the context that I wrote it.

I get your point with the copying thing. Right... a copying machine doesn't need to know the concept behind the paper and the things written on it in order to create a copy of it. Gotcha.

And how would you like me to explain quantum process when the most advanced scientists of our time are just barely starting to understand this, through Theory and Hypothesis rather than Law and confirmed -*test*-('")s, after working with it through years of extensive research?

The argument here is not about quantum process. We're not talking about "cutting off a finger" and reattaching it. It's not that simple. You're talking about me cutting you into a billion pieces, then putting you back together, making you alive again, and then asking are you still the same person. Like Frankenstein, I suppose.

I find it ironic that you are blasting me about "not understanding quantum process", then saying you don't know how it works, all while you are telling me exactly how it does and doesn't work. You can only speculate just as much as I can only speculate.

Don't try to counter my arguments as speculation by raising speculation yourself.


The ultimate point I have been making in my last posts is this:

If I build something out of Legos, then pick it up and move it somewhere else, I would still have the same structure I started with. If, however, I tear it down and take the individual pieces to a different place and then rebuild it there, I have created a "new" structure out of the same components, and even though it may precisely imitate the original figure, it is still not the same.

If a block falls off while I am moving it, and then I replace that block, I still have the original structure because it was not actually "deconstructed". The idea of the structure remains the same, it didn't "cease to be", as it would have if I had taken it completely apart.


Forget everything that has been posted. Answer this one argument.

If I build something, then take it apart, then rebuild it... do I have the same thing I started with, or do I have a copy of the original thing?


Gandalf