Teleportation

[jack]

Q. If you took every atom in your body, with its current position, momentum, and all relevant quantum numbers, and made an exact copy of it (in essence, made an exact physical replication of yourself, including brain synapses), would you get another you?

A. It's not possible because of quantum.

Q. Suppose it was.

A. Bang! You created you in the same position. Fundamental particles don't overlap like that.

Q. OK, suppose I made the copy in australia or something.

A. Ouch. "You're" moving sideways at 1000mph.

Q. Gah! You know what I mean.

A. Right. Well, the word "you" hasn't been designed for this circumstance, so whether it applies is a matter of personal preference. As for more specific comparisons...

Q. Would it look, act, and to all tests man can devise (except for starting from a different place) be the same as me?

A. Sure. I don't see how not. AFAIK phsiology, thoughts, memories, etc are all expressions your matter. Of course, from that point on, it would develop into a different individual with common experience. A significantly different life could make you both quite different. But only how you would be if you had his life.

Q. But what about a soul?

A. How would someone without a soul act differently? If they affect matter, how come we've never observed it? If not, how can you tell whether any or all people do have souls?

Q. What if the soul influences quantum events we see as truly random to produce macroscopic effects like causing or preventing love?

A. Hmmm, let me get back to you about that.

Q. But... God...

A. How do we have souls? I think anything that can be called a soul is just a fundamental bit of our mind, ie. how our brain is arranged. I think this is exceptionally magical: that something as simple as atoms can come together to form something as amazing as a mind. Pretending a supernatural cause seems to cheapen it to me. But then, I enjoy understanding rainbows (except I don't.) But If souls are caused by God, or by a natural consequence of the creation of a "person", I would expect the copy would also be issued one.

Anyway, questions I'm puzzled by:

1. How do so many people think it wouldn't be you, without any sense of that means? Do people think it doesn't have a soul? Can you describe what that would mean?

2. Could the soul influence quantum events we see as truly random to produce macroscopic effects like causing or preventing love? This is consistent, if silly. I loved it in miss_next's story. Does anyone propose this seriously?

3. Does anyone think if God made souls, or if they're formed by a natural but metaphysical process, a copy wouldn't get one? How about a clone? A twin?

Comments

[kungfuchaos.livejournal.com]

Q. What if the soul influences quantum events we see as truly random to produce macroscopic effects like causing or preventing love?

A. Hmmm, let me get back to you about that.

That, ironically, was the bit I was interested in getting a response to.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Well, I would say:

* I can't actually say it's impossible.
* In theory, you might be able to observe a very large number of quantum events and see that they have a disproportional effect of life, but in practice you never could.
* Anything that happens this way could happen if there weren't any souls. So we can love without a soul, but the soul *could* be "driving" that in some sense.
* The idea is cool, but doesn't seem harmonious with my beliefs, or any others I'm familiar with.

What do you think of the idea?

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

Personal premise: my soul is the sum of my effects on the universe. It follows that a duplicate of me would share my soul to some extent, but our souls would then diverge depending on how connected our two existences were. Ultimately, long after we were both dead, our effects on the universe might be so weakened that they would merge again in the face of historical confusion.

I understand quantum mechanics about as much as I believe in God.

(S)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting view of soul. Does it come from somewhere specific, or just how you think?

I wouldn't have seen it like that: I think I feel a soul should relate to who I am even if external events make me have a greater of lesser effect?

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

It's just how I think. Dealing with depression and the effect of chemicals on the brain has convinced me that there's no mind/body divide; my self-awareness is my effect on myself, an emergent property of a complex system. It's similarly clear that after I die there's something that persists: memories of me, records of me, stuff I created or changed, my gently decomposing corpse... "Soul" seemed like a good word to encapsulate this, describing both the internal and external effects of my existence on the universe, my presence in me and in the world.

Your soul does relate to who you are, but if you spend your whole life in a cupboard, you're the only one who will ever know.

(S)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Well, I can't disagree with any of that. It's certainly one good way to think of it.

[tienelle.livejournal.com]

1) I've commented on the cantabrigiensis post.

2) Why silly? It's the only place we're guaranteed by the nature of the universe not to notice its actions. I see no reason souls couldn't do this, and no way I can check, so I'm not terribly inclined to think about it too hard. Does this make me a bad person?

3) It may be that there is something in the process of gestation which forms a soul in the offspring. We know that the genetic mother is not required to bear the child. We don't know what would happen if you produced a fully-grown human from thin air (or the replicator).

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

2. Well, silly is just how I felt. I mean something analogous to your "not terribly inclined to think about it too hard", though perhaps we should, I don't know.

It is the epitome of an unfalsifiable hypothesis, in a way. That might be the problem.

3. Well, it's possible. (a) If the metaphysical soul creating process was designed by god. Does he really want soulles people running around? (b) It's natural. Well, the soul *could* be formed from a combination of the parents', or something. But if it's non-physical and non-observable, there doesn't seem any reason to suppose it works at all like physical object interactions we're used to, nor this over any other hypothesis, however weird.

[tienelle.livejournal.com]

It is the epitome of an unfalsifiable hypothesis, in a way. That might be the problem.

Yes, that would be it. They're briefly fun to argue about, but not worth serious consideration.

I'd prefer to edge the discussion on the nature of souls towards the Cantabrigiensis post, though I realize my post there might not help much.

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

I think the copy would be equivalent in any useful or meaningful way to you, at least at the instant of copying. I would regard them both as "you". I have no belief in souls or other such supernatural stuff, though; as far as I'm concerned, people just have bodies and minds.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

as far as I'm concerned, people just have bodies and minds.

Of course. (Though I admit the soul concept to refer to part of a mind, or something.) But this settles the argument, so I explored it from other people's PoV.

[mair_in_grenderich]

Q. OK, suppose I made the copy in australia or something.

A. Ouch. "You're" moving sideways at 1000mph.

I just did that. (1000kph, anyway. Well, 970 or so.)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

LOL.

Actually, I changed by[1] mind. Make that 2000mph cos latitude.

[1] My. Amusing typo.