This discussion always gives me that sort of naseus disoriented feeling, in the good ‘makes you think scifi’ sort of way. Whenever someone brings it up I can’t help but try to figure it out and it basically goes through these thoughts each time:
Does consciousness require some kind of continuity that would be broken by disassembling our bodies (death, replacement)? Or does it emerge from the cells in a way that only requires the certain configuration of our bodies (sort of like waking up, or being unfrozen)? And will we ever know because if I teleported the way they do in Star Trek, I’d feel like the same person to me and you, so the me that left that teleporter never gets to chime in about wheter they’re still around. But then the person who went to sleep last night similarly doesn’t get to chime in either…
Also always think of that one Outer Limits episode, “Think Like a Dinosaur” with the teleporters.
This discussion always gives me that sort of naseus disoriented feeling, in the good ‘makes you think scifi’ sort of way. Whenever someone brings it up I can’t help but try to figure it out and it basically goes through these thoughts each time:
Does consciousness require some kind of continuity that would be broken by disassembling our bodies (death, replacement)? Or does it emerge from the cells in a way that only requires the certain configuration of our bodies (sort of like waking up, or being unfrozen)? And will we ever know because if I teleported the way they do in Star Trek, I’d feel like the same person to me and you, so the me that left that teleporter never gets to chime in about wheter they’re still around. But then the person who went to sleep last night similarly doesn’t get to chime in either…
Also always think of that one Outer Limits episode, “Think Like a Dinosaur” with the teleporters.