I was thinking more around the lines of converting the brain connections to software i.e. Scanning the brain and creating a software representation of it. Then put it in a brain simulator (This is a very simplistic example, it will be far more complicated than this). If we can do this then we should be able to replicate everything else, touch, smell, taste. Essentially we would become an artificial intelligent being with the potential to live forever.
How would you propose we do this? Suppose we could scan the state of your brain exactly and transfer it to a simulation on a computer. How would we now transfer your consciousness to the simulation? It seems to me that rather than making you live forever you've made a clone of you live forever. This relates to a basic unsolved question: how does consciousness work?
I honestly have no idea. I believe we will figure it out eventually.
The clone will be you, and you will be the clone. It will be like going to sleep and waking up in the virtual reality environment. From the clones perspective it will feel like the original you since it has all the memories of the original up to the point before you went to sleep. You just have to make sure that the original you is destroyed if and only if the virtual you is created successfully and with no corruptions. Otherwise there might be problems between the real you and the clone.
Side note: I believe there was an episode in Star Trek where something like this would happen. Star Trek made a treaty with an alien race to allow them to visit their planet via teleportation over huge distances. The thing is that they would not really teleport the person but rather they would create an exact clone at the destination and destroy the original.
> It will be like going to sleep and waking up in the virtual reality environment.
The question is: who will be waking up?
Basically the same issue is with a hypothetical teleporter. To teleport you from here to somewhere else we scan all the atoms in your body and digitize that information. Now we send the data over the internet to another place on earth. We rebuild you there. At the same moment that we use a defibrillator to put life into the new you, we shoot the old you in the head with a gun.
So you'd step into such a teleporter?
I haven't seen a convincing answer to these questions of consciousness/soul/identity. Perhaps there really is no difference between going to sleep and dying, it's just that in the former instance the old body is reused for new identity. Perhaps there is no persistent identity at all; in every moment in time there is a single separate identity. Perhaps time itself is an illusion: perhaps the universe is just one single snapshot in time. There are so many possibilities and I have no idea how one would even start to formulate a testable hypothesis. Does anyone have a recommendation for reading more about this topic?
An identical copy of you. If it is not identical then it wouldn't be you.
>>So you'd step into such a teleporter?
If the new me is identical to the old me I think I would. The new me is not supposed to notice anything different other than I woke up in a different place. The old me should never wake up once the new me has woken up.
>> consciousness/soul/identity
Being able to create an identical you assumes that you are your brain and nothing else.
> If the new me is identical to the old me I think I would. The new me is not supposed to notice anything different other than I woke up in a different place. The old me should never wake up once the new me has woken up.
As far as I can see stepping in such a teleporter basically amounts to suicide. Whatever is happening in another part of the Earth doesn't change a thing from the perspective of the guy getting shot.
So suppose we change the story a bit: we don't create a new copy of you, but we still shoot the old you. For you (the old you) this isn't any different than the previous story. Would you still go for this?
>>As far as I can see stepping in such a teleporter basically amounts to suicide. Whatever is happening in another part of the Earth doesn't change a thing from the perspective of the guy getting shot.
This is true if you include your sense of self as your entire body. However, I think I will have to decide that my sense of self is my memories stored in my brain. If you look at it from that perspective than as long as my memories, and everything else at the sub-conscious level, is persisted across any medium then I'm still alive. The body then becomes a vessel. However, I think I will still like to have my body so I might as well replicate that also.
Of course, I think this is a choice people will have to make themselves since it is true that the original you dies, as you state. The original body of yourself dies, but not your memories. I guess you could think of your memories as your soul. As long as those are alive, you are alive.
>>So suppose we change the story a bit: we don't create a new copy of you, but we still shoot the old you. For you (the old you) this isn't any different than the previous story. Would you still go for this?<<
Of course not. Why would anybody do that? I'm not sure what is the point you are trying to make here. Notice that in this case not only has my body died, but also my memories. So as far as the universe is concerned I'm truly dead.
If for whatever reason a new me cannot be created than I expect the original me to be woken up. The old me must only be terminated if the new me is created successfully.
this is all fascinating, BUT this is not "teleporting" per say. I would rather think true teleporting will be backing you into some small ball and shooting you trough a pipe fast enough so you end up on the other side of Earth in 10 seconds. What you saying here is creating a digital-copy and "reprinting" in a different place after sending via internet :) Yes, the copy of you would be created but your conscious wouldnt "skip" or "travel" to the new body because... why? you still here! Killing source wouldnt make your mind switching to the new body because that body is just a DNA copy of you. What would happen is the "perfect" copy of you would be created somewhere else in space. From that nano-second on, there would be two of "you" but both would think different from a first neuron connected in your brains. I think that would be no different than having twin-brother that thinks similar to you (or in our example: exactly the same) but of course your clone within a time would be gathering different experience from environment and the more time pass the more different conclusion would be drawn between you and "him".
Its still incredibly amazing question: what IS conscious. where is it stored and how can it be transferred. what will happen if you make a copy of it? can you make a copy?
come to think: perhaps teleporting is not possible at all. otherwise, why, if you believe in such, why would there be some info popping up here and there about UFO seeing. IF they would have technology to travel in space and live in planets we dont even see here, they would have use teleportation long time ago, instead of using just a plain dumb saucer :)
>Perhaps there is no persistent identity at all; in every moment in time there is a single separate identity.
That view is known as perdurantism (opposed to endurantism).
> Perhaps time itself is an illusion: perhaps the universe is just one single snapshot in time.
Not sure what you mean here, but if you're assuming determinism then you're scientifically wrong (which is to say that there's now a scientific answer to what was historically a philosophical conundrum). The universe is indeterministic. This is more because of entropy ("determinism is fundamentally a denial of the arrow of time") than chaos theory (which is still deterministic). Ilya Prigonine is notable for emphasizing this worldview as a third departure from Newton, first two being quantum mechanics and general relativity.
> Does anyone have a recommendation for reading more about this topic?
