In the television series Star Trek, humans use a teletransportation device called a “transporter” to conveniently and quickly travel from a spaceship to the planet’s surface or even to travel long distances across the surface of planets. The transporter works by mapping the atomic structure of a human and sending that information to a distant location. At the distant location the transporter reads the information and reconstructs the human atom by atom. The person at the new location has all the memories and psychological traits of the original human. The original human’s body, however, has been permanently disassembled.
Is the person who enter the transporter at the first location (let’s say Cleveland) the same as the person who exits the second location (let’s say San Franciso, the location of Star Fleet Academy)?
The person who enters the transporter in Cleveland is not the same person who exits in San Francisco. What truly makes someone who they are is their soul, not just their body, brain, or memories. A transporter only scans and copies physical and psychological information. It cannot detect, capture, or move a soul. Because of this, when the original body is broken down during transport, the original person is destroyed, and their soul does not travel anywhere. Even though a new body is created that looks identical and contains the same memories, thoughts, and personality traits, this being is only a clone. The clone believes it is the original person because it remembers stepping into the transporter and expects to arrive at the destination. However, having copied memories does not make someone the same individual. It only makes them a duplicate. Teleportation is not true transportation. Nothing actually moves from Cleveland to San Francisco but instead the machine records information, destroys the original person, and then builds a new person somewhere else using that information. This process is more like copying a file and deleting the original than moving a person from one place to another. Although friends and family might treat the person in San Francisco as the same individual, that isn't the truth. The original person’s life ended the moment their body was disassembled. What exists afterward is a perfect replacement, but not the same person. Teleporting would essentially be agreeing to die so that a copy of you could continue living.
ReplyDeleteThe person who gets beamed from Cleveland is the same person who enters Star Fleet Academy given the arguments surrounding the three views of the personal identity: soul, memory and body. The first argument that must be made for my position is the dismissal of the soul view of personal identity. There is no possible way to conclude that the soul is the universal determinant of personal identity without resorting to circular logic. The reason for this argumentative error is the fact that the soul is simply impossible to quantify, identify, or interact with. The view of the soul is more akin to a religion, making a broad assertion without defensible evidence and then saying “well what else could be responsible for this beautiful thing we call consciousness.” No evidence, no dice. The second part of the argument is much simpler to prove: the memory view of personal identity would argue that they are the same person. This is because it is given in the prompt that the person who enters San Franscisco retains all of the same memories as the person who left Cleveland. However, the body view may be the most contested view in terms of whether it supports my view, but I firmly believe it does. The reason why is that even though each individual atom is being replaced, they are replaced by identical atoms which correspond to our identity of the body. If this sounds strange, indulge me an appeal to nature. The human body, absent of any teleportation technology, replaces cells all of the time through the cell cycle, replacing tens of trillions of atoms with identical matches. No proponent of the body view would realistically endorse the idea that you lose identity with the death of each cell. If a naysayer does embrace that losing a cell retains identity but rejects that the same is true for teleportation, then they create an arbitrary distinction between how many atoms must be replaced in order for identity to be lost. Thus, it seems reasonable to conclude that identity is retained even if atoms are replaced so long as those atoms are identical. Ultimately, this leads to the conclusion that the 2 most credible views of personal identity, memory and body, support that the person is the same.
ReplyDeleteThe person who was beamed from Cleveland is the same person that arrived in San Francisco. This is supported by both the body and memory view of personal identity, but would be disproved by the soul view. Although, this is not a problem because of how the soul is described by the soul. The soul view states that that a soul is an intangible and immeasurable object which is the sole factor determining one’s identity. Because of this intangibility the soul could have no effect on our tangible world thus could not possibly affect personal identity.
ReplyDeleteFrom the body view, the two people must be the same. The uniqueness of the parts could not determine identity lest every seven years, when every cell in one’s body has died and been replaced, they become a different person. It then must be that the composition of these parts must make up one’s identity. Therefore, if all atoms are constructed in the same way as they were just moments before then it must still be the same person.
The argument from the perspective of the memory view is far simpler than that of the body’s. It must be that since, still, all parts of both the body and the brain are identical to what they had been before that the memories must be the same as they had just been. One might bring up the counterargument that those “new” memories were caused in an incorrect and artificial way. However, that same person would then be unable to accurately describe how to differentiate between the supposed fake and real memories in any feasible manner.
The Star Trek teleporter raises issues with the three main views with viewing the self, destroying the self in a philosophical sense, yet the post transport individual is functionally indistinguishable, meaning that the teleporter is an examination of the destruction of the self philosophically, but not practically.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Soul view, the you that is beamed to San Francisco isn’t you. The soul view presents the soul as something that is tied to the body. The soul leaves the body when the body is destroyed, meaning that the soul is freed from the body in Cleveland. This means that you (post-teleportation) isn’t the same you. It cannot be proved that the soul remains the same when the new body is created, and the inhibition of a new body by a soul is similar to the principle of rebirth, which is the establishment of a new self over the continuity of the same self. Therefore by the soul view, you are a new person.
By the memory view, the you that is beamed to San Francisco is not verified to be you. The memory view is satisfied by the fact that the memories that you have in San Francisco are the same as before, but it is up for debate whether the memory creation process is satisfied by this manner of memory transfer. The fact that the memories you have are efficiently copied is the issue. These memories have been created through a copying process, not organically, so it cannot be proven that the memories have been created in the correct way, so by the memory view, you are a new person.
However you look at the body view, the you that is beamed to San Francisco is not you. The body view can be seen as the same body over time maintaining personal identity, so easily the teleported you isn’t the same. If you look at the body view just through atomic structure, the issue of cloning creating the same you becomes an issue. Clones have the same atomic structure as you, but are clearly not the same as you, meaning that self-identity of atomic structure cannot be true either. By the body view, you aren’t the same person.
Through each view, the you in San Francisco is not the you from Cleveland, however, using a functionalist view you are the same. Despite personal identity not being preserved in any of these views absolutely, you are going to act the exact same as you if you didn’t teleport. There is no effective difference in personal identity, which means that despite the destruction of the original you by the aforementioned views, the you from Cleveland persists. From a functionalist view, you are the same, and by extension, your destruction of you has created an effective rebirth of you as well. The outcome is the same for any way that you look at it, whether it is the death to rebirth, another view, or the persistence of personal identity, it means that you are still effectively preserved, so if you get teleported somewhere, while a fascinating thought experiment, might just be more enjoyable to savor than to think about from the lens of the preservation of personal identity.