A Cloning Catastrophe

Reply to hypericin
No, and no.

Quoting hypericin

The moral of the story seems clear. From your perspective, your clone is absolutely not you. The clone is somebody else entirely, who has stolen your life and will now enjoy it free from illness. To add insult to injury, you are killed. The "treatment" is a personal catastrophe.

Seems to me that your argument is that the "you" involved here bifurcated at the moment of the intervention. So there are two legitimate points of view to consider, each having becoming its own identity or world line in the time that follows.

And from both points of view, one of the you's made the decision that life was better with the illness edited out. And that one of you had pre-consented the termination of that you's history line. You had wanted to be the other you.

So claiming that a life has been stolen is a bit strong. It was freely given at the time. And morally one could argue that the new you has the right to the pain-free life you granted it. You can't make a gift and then snatch it back in the normal moral sense of things.

Although it isn't all so black and white. The clinic could hand you the syringe and say you choose who survives. Or hand the clone the syringe and say the same thing. The interesting question is then how many out of 100 such situations would the original and the clone chose the fair thing is terminating their own world-line. That then would at least be a pragmatic rule of thumb as to how folk would ordinarily weigh the justice of such a situation. The clinic would know what it ought to do for the good of all.

Reply to apokrisis

I think what makes you you is your mental patterns and memories. The material that gives rise to this is irrelevant.

Would be interesting to find a thought experiment to make me change my mind, but they all seem to result in the second subject of experience being in a different spatial location to the original subject of experience, and hence having different experience and memories, and ipso facto not being the same person.

Quoting hypericin

Given any scenario where it is even logically possible to meet your twin, then you are not your twin, and personal continuity does not hold between you and your twin.

I don't think it makes sense to talk about personal continuity between you and your twin. I'd have thought what is pertinent is the degree (or lack) of continuity you and your twin have with the the 'you' prior to cloning. I'd have thought both have equal psychological continuity - physical continuity, in my view, is not important.

(I've been following your arguments in The imperfect transporter thread and agree with just about everything youv'e been saying - it's only your recent comments on physical continuity that have lost me)

Reply to hypericinThis topic has been the subject of numerous science fiction books and movies - most recently the book Mickey 7 - which was made into the movie Mickey 17

The scenario is very boring. I will stay with arthritis. The clone is the clone and just someone else. Cryonics is definitely more interesting.

Reply to hypericinWhy would I choose to die so that my replica can live? I don't understand that. You've not cured my illness. You've just created a new person just like me without my illness. Why can't we both live? Why do we need another of me without arthritis? Why not make a whole team of people like me, all with different qualities (like one can cook really good, one cuts the grass really well, one is a good plumber, one is airline pilot, etc.) and send them to my family and job and I can get all sorts of stuff done while old arthritic me bitches in the recliner looking for the remote?

Quoting apokrisis

And from both points of view, one of the you's made the decision that life was better with the illness edited out. And that one of you had pre-consented the termination of that you's history line. You had wanted to be the other you.

So claiming that a life has been stolen is a bit strong. It was freely given at the time.

Not quite, I don't think the intent was to give anything. It was not an altruistic gesture. The decision was made in self interest, in the mistaken belief that the original would become the clone. But the reality is, a stranger acquired the originals life.

Not that this stranger doesn't possess interests and rights. But the original is the victim of this story.

Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole

Would be interesting to find a thought experiment to make me change my mind, but they all seem to result in the second subject of experience being in a different spatial location to the original subject of experience, and hence having different experience and memories, and ipso facto not being the same person.

So you maintain that the clone is not the original, not because the original can see the clone walking about, but because of the seconds of time in which their experiences differ??


Quoting ChrisH

I don't think it makes sense to talk about personal continuity between you and your twin. I'd have thought what is pertinent is the degree (or lack) of continuity you and your twin have with the the 'you' prior to cloning. I'd have thought both have equal psychological continuity - physical continuity, in my view, is not important.

Yes that is the more accurate wording, I will edit the op.

I think both sides have valid arguments. But to me this is a pretty convincing one for the bodily continuity side. Why not you?

Quoting SolarWind

The scenario is very boring. I will stay with arthritis. The clone is the clone and just someone else. Cryonics is definitely more interesting.

Yet many don't share this intuition. And moreover most find it to be analogous to the teleporter case , meaning that that one is boring too. Maybe so, but there are a whole lot of people who insist teleportation is not murder, like this scenario is.


Quoting Hanover

?hypericinWhy would I choose to die so that my replica can live? I don't understand that. You've not cured my illness. You've just created a new person just like me without my illness. Why can't we both live? Why do we need another of me without arthritis? Why not make a whole team of people like me,

I set it up this way to match the teleporter thought experiment as closely as possible. If it seems absurd that anyone would choose it, and it does in fact map to the teleporter, then I did my job, and teleporting is equally absurd.

Quoting hypericin

I think both sides have valid arguments. But to me this is a pretty convincing one for the bodily continuity side. Why not you?

It wasn't clear to me what argument you were making. You stated the following but it appeared to me to be unargued.

Quoting hypericin

The moral of the story seems clear. From your perspective, your clone is absolutely not you. The clone is somebody else entirely, who has stolen your life and will now enjoy it free from illness.

You appear to take it as given that the clone is not endowed with "your perspective" this seems unwarranted. I agree the original and clone have different perspectives but (in my view) they both view the world from the perspective of someone who was the original prior to cloning.

Quoting ChrisH

I agree the original and clone have different perspectives but (in my view) they both view the world from the perspective of someone who was the original prior to cloning.

These are both true.

The point of the story was to give a visceral sense that the clone is certainly not you.

There are two entities, Original and Copy. Original is unproblematically the same person after the procedure. Copy is manifestly NOT Original, from Originals perspective. To Original, Copy presents as an other who happens to look like him. What benefits Copy (pain free life) manifestly does NOT benefit Original, and what harms original (illness, murder) does NOT harm Copy. Original thought the procedure would be to Originals benefit; it was to Copies benefit.

If Original (after) is the same as Original (before), and Original(after) is not Copy, Original (before) is not Copy.

Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole

second subject of experience being in a different spatial location to the original subject of experience, and hence having different experience and memories, and ipso facto not being the same person.

This is key. Even on relatively acceptable arguments about psychological continuity being what matters for continued existence, this difference will always betray the attempt to say there is no appreciable difference between the two 'people'. They are different people. The point is that it doesn't matter. Someone will continue to be 'you'.

I also suggest, it is metaphysically not possible to be two people at once. They are different people.

Quoting hypericin

The point of the story was to give a visceral sense that the clone is certainly not you.

I don't think it works. As far as I can tell, all you've done is show (not surprisingly) that the clone and original are different people. What you haven't done is show that the clone and post-cloned-original cannot both be considered equally valid descendants of the pre-cloned-original

Reply to ChrisH The post-cloned original isn't a descendant of anyone. They are the same person.

The clone isn't a descendant either. They are a copy. When you burn a CD it isn't a valid CD. It's a pirated CD. The pirated person isn't not a valid 'you' (as long as we know which is which at all times).

Quoting AmadeusD

The pirated person isn't not a valid 'you' (as long as we know which is which at all times).

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that, in your view, only the original can be deemed "valid". However you imply that If we haven't got firm evidence of which of the two people is the original then we can never really know which is the valid 'you'. Why would we want to call one "valid"?

Reply to hypericin
Thinking upon it further i came up with this possible solution, reproduced from my notes:

A Potential Solution to the Teleportation Paradox

The classic teleportation paradox asks: If a machine perfectly replicates you particle-by-particle in a new location while destroying the original, is the person who arrives really you? Or has the original been murdered, and a new, identical copy created?

The State of Entangled Consciousness

The experiment begins with a crucial assumption: that it's possible to create a second, perfectly identical body in a new location. But this isn't a normal copy. For an instant, every single quantum particle in the original body is quantumly entangled with its corresponding particle in the new target body.

According to this hypothesis, this perfect entanglement creates a single, unified quantum state. Instead of two separate individuals, there is a moment where a single consciousness exists as a unified quantum state, shared between the two bodies. It is not located in one body or the other, but is a single, coherent entity.

The Problem of Decoherence

This state of perfect quantum harmony is fleeting. The universe is a noisy place, filled with countless interactions, stray photons, gravitational fluctuations, and so on. This environmental interaction causes what is called decoherence. For a complex, macroscopic system like a human body, decoherence would happen almost instantly, likely in less than a femtosecond.

The critical challenge is that there are two ways this decoherence can occur. The first is an uncontrolled decoherence, which happens naturally if the process is not managed. If the quantum state is allowed to decohere on its own, the single consciousness will split. The two bodies would each become a separate, distinct individual, leading to a duplication of consciousness. This is why the decoherence must be controlled in such a way that only the target body has the chance for the next moment of experience. For this to happen, the original body must be destroyed before either body has a chance to have its next moment of independent experience.

This distinction is crucial, as the moral and legal implications of destroying the original body depend entirely on the timing.

• If the original body is destroyed before the entangled state is created, it is simply murder.
• If the original body is destroyed after uncontrolled decoherence has occurred, it is also a form of murder, as it results in the death of one of two separate individuals.
• However, if the original body is destroyed during the moment of quantum coherence, when both bodies are part of a single, unified quantum state, the act of destruction may not be considered murder. In this scenario, the destruction is not the end of a separate life, but the final step in a transfer of a single consciousness from one state to another.

The Femtosecond Solution

To prevent this catastrophic split, the solution proposes a radical act: the immediate and complete destruction of the original body. This destruction must happen with extreme precision and speed, within the fleeting window of a femtosecond, before the next moment of conscious experience can occur and cause decoherence.

The act of destroying the original body is the act of decoherence. In the framework of quantum mechanics, this action serves as a final observation or measurement. This measurement forces the unified quantum state to collapse, but since the original body is destroyed, it only has one state left to collapse to: the target body. Because the original body is destroyed, the single shared consciousness is left with only one viable option: to continue its existence in the new, intact target body. From the perspective of the quantum system, the next moment of experience is only possible in the target body, ensuring that the consciousness was transferred, and not duplicated.

By controlling the collapse of the wave function with this precise and destructive act, the personal identity is not lost but is seamlessly transferred, ensuring the continuity of the single individual without bifurcation or multiplication.

Quoting ChrisH

What you haven't done is show that the clone and post-cloned-original cannot both be considered equally valid descendants of the pre-cloned-original

They may be. But why is that the question? The patient (or teleportee), isn't asking if the clone (or teleported) will be a "valid decedent", whatever that means. They ask if they will survive the procedure. It is not in my interest to create a 'valid descendent " who lives happily. It is my interest to live happily.

Reply to hypericin

Personal identity consists in "continuity of consciousness", as Locke pointed out. As you say in the experiment, yes, there would be another person identical to you being "duplicated", but it's not you.

Your consciousness is not independent of its source in the brain. Ergo, as you seem to suggest, yes, doing the experiment would kill you.

Reply to hypericin

Quoting hypericin

So you maintain that the clone is not the original, not because the original can see the clone walking about, but because of the seconds of time in which their experiences differ??

If they shared the same spatial location it would be the same person. The question is what is it about them not sharing the same spatial location that means they are not the same person.

The "gradual neural replacement" thought experiment suggests it's not material that makes us us, but our mind. If they had the same mind (including their memories), I would say they are the same person. But as a result of not sharing the same spatial location, the clone's mind will follow a different path to the original's and would thus not be the same person.

Quoting hypericin

They ask if they will survive the procedure.

But you have set this up so that the victim acted on a misunderstanding. And that over-complicates things. It seems the victim expected to have his mind moved to a vacant body, not that another body would appear imprinted with what would be his last living state of mind.

So if the victim understood the embodied nature of mind, then they would have at least been acting under a correct view of the procedure. But if the victim had some hazy notion about a soul stuff being lifted and moved across to some new matter vessel, then they are indeed the victim of a bad metaphysics.

The issue of identity is one of continuity. And the teleporter tale plays on the belief that mind and body are separable, so a dilemma such as this could exist. The mind could be lifted as some kind of pattern of information and plonked down to run on some other bit of physical hardware. There is just the single pattern and two bits of hardware involved. So continuity tracks the porting of the pattern.

But embodiment says not so fast. The clone is already an inhabited body running the exact same pattern. And it immediately started to diverge in its thoughts and experiences as soon as it was fired up. The continuity of the pattern was broken as soon as it began to run on the other bit of physical kit.

So even if teleporting were a possibility, the embodied basis of being and identity gets broken both as a continuity of the mental patterns and the physical bodies.

Having created a pair of identities – made as identical as they could possibly be – there is no reason they can't both be allowed to live on. It is not necessary to add on the moral drama. You can tell the same tale as being Elon Musk deciding he wants to both continue on his life down here on Earth and send a branching clone of himself to every nearest star system to start up a new Musk-ruled colony of Musk clones.

If he knows that these are all copies that start with everything that is particular to him at the moment they are fired off into space – or perhaps fabricated from a downloaded pattern at the time of future arrival – them he might think this is all gravy. His identity will continue forever, but now with a multiplying army of Musk world lines.

So how you set the story up can add all sorts of dramas. But the argument against Cartesianism and for embodied cognition can be made more directly.

Organisms aren't like hardware and software – machines running programs. They are living structures of interaction with their worlds.

And if the problems that creates for teleportation scenarios and questions about the continuity of identity ain't immediately clear, then a little more time studying the biological sciences seems required.

Quoting apokrisis

But you have set this up so that the victim acted on a misunderstanding. And that over-complicates things. It seems the victim expected to have his mind moved to a vacant body, not that another body would appear imprinted with what would be his last living state of mind.

In the same way that someone entering a teleporter expects to come out the other side, the victim expected to wake up as the clone. There was no misunderstanding in the sense that the victim understood how it works. He just didn't understand what it implied.

Quoting apokrisis

But if the victim had some hazy notion about a soul stuff being lifted and moved across to some new matter vessel, then they are indeed the victim of a bad metaphysics.

He might equally have believed in psychological continuity.

Quoting apokrisis

The mind could be lifted as some kind of pattern of information and plonked down to run on some other bit of physical hardware. There is just the single pattern and two bits of hardware involved. So continuity tracks the porting of the pattern.

At times I have believed something like this. And I think a compelling case can be made. If there is no observable consequence of this "continuity", if the universe looks exactly the same whether the original "continued" on in their twin or did not, to everyone involved and to the twin themselves, and to us in our mundane acts of living, shouldn't we discard this notion of continuity altogether?

And thus, so long as the twin feels as if there is continuity, that is, so long as the information from the original was transferred intact, then there is continuity, there is no observable extra thing to it.

Except when the original remains alive. Then the lack of continuity with the .

Quoting apokrisis

Having created a pair of identities – made as identical as they could possibly be – there is no reason they can't both be allowed to live on. It is not necessary to add on the moral drama.

The inspiration of this thought experiment was to reframe the basic teleporter concept in such a way that it seems viscerally clear that the clone or teleported are not the original. That from the original's perspective, it is just suicide. Straightforward cloning wouldn't capture that.

Also, I like the drama.

Quoting hypericin

He might equally have believed in psychological continuity.

If so, how would he have come to his misunderstanding? Or does "psychological continuity" mean something other than the embodied and enactive view of cognition and sense of self?

Quoting hypericin

The inspiration of this thought experiment was to reframe the basic teleporter concept in such a way that it seems viscerally clear that the clone or teleported are not the original.

The teleporter is sciencey bullshit. But at least dematerialising a body to atoms in one location and instantly having them reassembled as the same form elsewhere preserves the continuity of an embodied state. Or fudges the continuity issue by sending both the fundamental matter particles and the scanned information pattern through a "sub domain in the spacetime continuum" at the "same time". There is a continuity being preserved, even if all aspects of this are physical impossibilities.

The problem with cloning is that this is now a thought experiment based on actual real-world science. You have to grow your body. And for it to have a mind, it would have to grow with it in the usual fashion.

So as I said, things fall down where your victim is said to believe that there is only an empty body on the other side of the procedure. And somehow his own mind it going to hop over to inhabit it.

There is not even any bullshit reason to expect continuity at this level. Even if we grant some cloning procedure that creates fully formed bodies with identical mental experiences that can be grown in a vat in a couple of weeks, there is still no reason for your victim to make his invalid inferences.

If you said you were going to dissolve him in the vat and then regenerate him from the vat just as quickly – and somehow both the mental patterns and flesh and blood patterns would re-emerge together exactly as they were, just a bit gene edited for arthritis – then now you would be closer to the teleporter story.

Even if one believed in a Cartesian model – his soul hovers over the dissolving goo until nano-bots knit it back into renewed form – there would be sufficient continuity both of his own matter and his own form to minimise the identity crisis.

After, much of our body's molecular structure turns over in hours if not minutes and seconds. We are literally remaking ourselves every day we live. And it is our genetic information that keeps rebuilding what was there, just a little newer and fresher – a bit different, but not so that you would notice anything radical to challenge your psychic continuity over a lifetime of wear, tear and repair.

The Ship of Theseus is the better guide to the question being posed. At what point does the usual biological and psychology fact of continual remodelling of both body and mind change from being a familiar fact to being an alarming discovery? When faced with the usual technologies of identity crisis, what choices would people really make if fully informed of the reality of psychological identity?

And then the real question here. How can plainly unrealistic technologies illustrate anything other than some of the weird beliefs we have about the separability of body and mind? Organisms are cognitive structures down to the level of enzymes and their other molecular machinery. We don't come apart like hardware and software, despite what might be commonly believed.

Reply to ChrisH For the exact same reason we call a burned CD pirated. Audibly indistinguishable, but one is original and one is note. These are facts that seem to matter to people, I don;t think there's any metaphysical reason for this, particularly, other than the brute fact of one be derivative of the other. We all prefer live music to recorded, for the same reasons (though, many of us don't, and wouldn't think this was an interesting point to make). Whether or not it matters is another thing, i'd say.

To be clear, I don't think 'valid' is a moral/ethical claim here as it can be elsewhere. It's just stating that one is derivative, and people would care about that. A clone of you isn't you, basically. It just might not matter that it isn't.

It's a question of perspective. From the perspective of third persons, say your family waiting at home, you are arriving having been cured. For them it is a miracle. From the perspective of the doctor and staff, they're creating facsimiles and they're committing murder. From your own perspective, you're murdered. From the facimile's perspective, they were cured and they're you.

Quoting hypericin

What you haven't done is show that the clone and post-cloned-original cannot both be considered equally valid descendants of the pre-cloned-original
— ChrisH

They may be. But why is that the question? The patient (or teleportee), isn't asking if the clone (or teleported) will be a "valid decedent", whatever that means. They ask if they will survive the procedure. It is not in my interest to create a 'valid descendent " who lives happily. It is my interest to live happily.

My point is that, in my view, both successfully survive as continuations of the pre-cloned-original. Pointing out that from the perspective of one, the other is a different person doesn't seem to me to invalidate this.

Quoting AmadeusD

To be clear, I don't think 'valid' is a moral/ethical claim here as it can be elsewhere. It's just stating that one is derivative, and people would care about that.

But this does bring a moral dimension into the assessment.

Quoting AmadeusD

A clone of you isn't you, basically. It just might not matter that it isn't.

My view is that it doesn't matter and I think there are moral reasons why it shouldn't matter.

Quoting ChrisH

My point is that, in my view, both successfully survive as continuations of the pre-cloned-original. Pointing out that from the perspective of one, the other is a different person doesn't seem to me to invalidate this.

There is still an epistemic asymmetry. You know, as the original, that you will be murdered. This is guaranteed. But you can only ever believe that you will also continue as the clone. Since there is no observable consequence of continuance or it's failure, this can never be verified. You can only try to reason it out, as we are. Are you confident enough in your reasoning to stake your life in this way?

But really, it is quite difficult to conceive of this splitting. Suppose the split happened, and the clone was a "valid descendent". To what does this benefit the original? The original, post split, is still the original, the copy is as "other" as any stranger. Somehow, the original also woke up as a clone. But as soon as the split happens, the clone has interests that are opposed to the original. Would you pay $1000 for another version of you to be a millionaire?

Is it somehow a matter of chance which path you take? Does the original wake up and think "damn I got unlucky! I wanted to wake up as a clone!"

Really this whole concept doesn't feel fully coherent.

Quoting apokrisis

Or does "psychological continuity" mean something other than the embodied and enactive view of cognition and sense of self?

By that I mean the idea that it is not the the body that counts in personal persistence, but the mind. So long as the mind is faithfully reproduced, the original persists as the clone.

Quoting apokrisis

The teleporter is sciencey bullshit. But at least dematerialising a body to atoms in one location and instantly having them reassembled as the same form elsewhere preserves the continuity of an embodied state.

I think it is all smoke and mirrors, and that my op is logically equivalent. Is, for instance, the instantaneous reassemblage metaphysically critical? Or, does it just play into our intuition that the person moved quickly, rather than was destroyed and recreated.

Quoting apokrisis

The problem with cloning is that this is now a thought experiment based on actual real-world science. You have to grow your body. And for it to have a mind, it would have to grow with it in the usual fashion.

So as I said, things fall down where your victim is said to believe that there is only an empty body on the other side of the procedure. And somehow his own mind it going to hop over to inhabit it.

No real world science here, it is just as bullshit as the teleporter. I described the machine growing of the clone as a "organic 3d printer", and I implied that it only took a few hours. And so, equivalent to versions of the teleporter where the victim is reassembled at the destination (but not versions where the original molecules are actually transported somehow).

Quoting apokrisis

There is not even any bullshit reason to expect continuity at this level. Even if we grant some cloning procedure that creates fully formed bodies with identical mental experiences that can be grown in a vat in a couple of weeks, there is still no reason for your victim to make his invalid inferences.

Yet people here (i.e. @ChrisH) believe in the continuity.

Quoting apokrisis

If you said you were going to dissolve him in the vat and then regenerate him from the vat just as quickly – and somehow both the mental patterns and flesh and blood patterns would re-emerge together exactly as they were, just a bit gene edited for arthritis – then now you would be closer to the teleporter story.

Closer in metaphysical ways that matter? Or closer merely in the way it plays on our intuitions, "transformation of the same thing" in this case.

Quoting apokrisis

And then the real question here. How can plainly unrealistic technologies illustrate anything other than some of the weird beliefs we have about the separability of body and mind? Organisms are cognitive structures down to the level of enzymes and their other molecular machinery. We don't come apart like hardware and software, despite what might be commonly believed.

To me, the real lesson is that the concepts we use only present themselves as aspects of reality. But really they are tailored to reality as it happens to be for us, and break down when we try to apply them to scenarios that are foreign to them ( In this sense the scenarios are necessarily unrealistic, if they were realistic our concepts would have already been shaped to accommodate them).

So then, what do we do? Can we salvage our concepts by fixing a few flaws so they work in every situation? Or do we concede that they are fundamentally bespoke, and do not and can not match with "reality"? So much of philosophy, I think, reduces to this kind of question, of the relationship between concepts and reality.

Reply to Down The Rabbit Hole
The gradual neural replacement experiment only really works because the physical change is executed in such a way that continuity of consciousness is maintained. If only the clone were produced (with no operational shenanigans or mishaps), the clone would have the exact same identity as the person who stepped into the machine. They are subjectively the same (even if the clone is produced in a spatially separate location than where the original stepped into the machine), because they have the exact same physical structure that leads to the same mental patterns, memories and personalities. But it would be hard to argue that rapid physical disassembly, however instantaneous, could preserve the stream of consciousness which defines birth, life, and death. There would be a discrete beginning and end to the experience of the original and the copy, even if the copy claims its memories as proof of past experience. After all, sameness does not imply continuity.

Obviously, if copy and original were neither separated by space nor by time, than they would be the same and the question would be meaningless. Otherwise, the copy and original of the original transporter problem are identical, but not discrete.

Quoting hypericin

Can we salvage our concepts by fixing a few flaws so they work in every situation? Or do we concede that they are fundamentally bespoke, and do not and can not match with "reality"?

This seems a different issue to the mind-body problem that the thought experiment was originally addressing.

So of course I would agree our understanding of reality is a psychological and sociological construction. But then I believe that because this is the view that makes the most pragmatic sense. It works for all situations that we might have when it comes to explaining our epistemic relation with reality.

And one of the problems this pragmatic or semiotic metaphysics fixes would be the mind-body issue. It leads to an embodied and enactive view of what it is to be alive and mindful of the world, experiencing it as a point of view.

Certainly a model. But a model of the world as a world with “us” in it. The self-centred view that can insert our organism purposes into the greater order of things.

So that would be the lens I would use to answer about organic 3D printers and teleporters. That would be why an authentic story on identity would focus on the embodied self and see the error of treating mind and body as seperable in any useful way.

I take your point about the organic 3D copier machine. But I would say the teleporter poses less of an issue because exactly reassembling your atoms - either your original ones or locally sourced one - would seem to bring the original you back to life as the original structural blueprint was being used.

There would be a transition issue. A gap to jump. But the set-up says the atoms were for a time an unorganised collection, and the organisation was also itself in a state of suspension for the same time. So it only all comes back together when the rephysicalised body plops out of the machine as a fully working system again. You have a single world-line or identity at any moment in that a single embodied state gets broken down, then rebuilt, with no leakage of selfhood, just the kind of halt and reboot of going to bed everynight.

A teleporter scenario seems benign for that reason.

But the printer instead doubles the number of bodies running around claiming the right to be “you”, live in your house, spend your cash, sleep with your wife. We can all see the problem in that.

If the transition was seamless - merely a switching off followed by a rebooting of the embodied state - then the printer would parallel the teleporter. So the copying process ought to be simultaneously a 3D shredder that avoids the glitch you present.

Even an embodied notion of conscious identity is troubled by the dilemma of two people running about claiming to be the only identity that has all the worldly rights and relationships that go with being that person so far as the world is concerned.

So I agree this is a fun thought experiment. But still unclear what it might be arguing for or against. :up:

Quoting hypericin

But really, it is quite difficult to conceive of this splitting. Suppose the split happened, and the clone was a "valid descendent". To what does this benefit the original? The original, post split, is still the original, the copy is as "other" as any stranger. Somehow, the original also woke up as a clone. But as soon as the split happens, the clone has interests that are opposed to the original. Would you pay $1000 for another version of you to be a millionaire?

This is an argument against the wisdom of undertaking human cloning. For what it's worth I think non-destructive human cloning would be both morally and practically disastrous. However this has no bearing on whether or not humans could survive cloning or not.

Quoting hypericin

Is it somehow a matter of chance which path you take? Does the original wake up and think "damn I got unlucky! I wanted to wake up as a clone!"

I can't tell if this was meant as a serious comment but I'll respond anyway. In my view, neither the original nor the clone will be aware of which they are. The only way they can deduce who they may be is from external information which may or may not be trustworthy.

Quoting apokrisis

A teleporter scenario seems benign for that reason.

Teleporter:

A enters booth 1 -> disassemble A -> transmit info to booth 2 -> assemble B -> B exits booth 2

My version (what should have happened) :

A enters scanner -> transmit info to printer -> assemble B -> "disassemble" A -> B exits printer

My version (what actually happened) :

A enters scanner -> transmit info to printer -> assemble B -> B exits printer -> "disassemble" A

All three versions perform the same fundamental operations. The only difference is when the disassembly of A happens.

In the teleporter, the disassembly happens right after entering the booth. I'm my version, it was supposed to happen after B was assembled. But the orderly made a mistake, and A saw B walking around before "disassembly".

The later the disassembly happens, the worse the case seems for continuity. But isn't this "seeming" just intuition? Why should it matter, metaphysically speaking, when the disassembly happens?

Quoting apokrisis

You have a single world-line or identity at any moment in that a single embodied state gets broken down, then rebuilt, with no leakage of selfhood, just the kind of halt and reboot of going to bed everynight.

Is this sort of reasoning intuitive, or metaphysical? Does the universe really track such things, such that one scenario counts as embodied continuity, and the other does not? Or is it we who are tracking such things as we read these stories, merely thinking as we do that we are tracking the universe.

Quoting hypericin

Why should it matter, metaphysically speaking, when the disassembly happens?

You built your version of the thought experiment based on a series of confusions. The victim had a mistaken belief about how it worked. The technician let the victim recover consciousness and see the copy. So the argument is based on things going wrong rather than things going to plan. And thus the “when” is indeed an issue already. We should be discussing the plan that was intended where the idiot victim would have got what he paid for and never woke up to realise he had been plainly idiotic.

And then if you consider your the successful version of the plan, there is a both a copying of the info and a “disassembly” which is not actually a disassembly in being a temporary division of a person into his form and his matter. It is a permanent destruction of the originally embodied person rather than a momentary deconstruction.

So we are comparing apples and oranges. The teleporter is being critiqued on the basis that things happen as they should. And it also speaks to an embodied story on consciousness and identity that goes back to Aristotle’s hylomorphic theory of substance.

Again, you leave me unclear what it is you really want to argue here. But to the degree the teleporter operation is conceivable as something real, an embodied approach to the issue of conscious identity would make it seem OK to disassemble and reassemble a person as the combination of some quantity of completely general matter and its equally unique and specific organising pattern.

But your victim seemed to be thinking that the mind was something more. It was not about a structure of material organisation but some kind of spirit that could hop across and wake up somewhere else.

The nature of this confusion in terms of its metaphysical commitments was unclear. But it sounded Cartesian. So as I say, the story is entertaining. But in what way is it enlightening?

Quoting ChrisH

This is an argument against the wisdom of undertaking human cloning.

No that is not what I was going for, I'm not interested in that question. I'm trying to wrap my head around the notion of an individual splitting.

The core question here, for me: is it rational for the original to accept the treatment? According to bodily continuity, it is a hard no. According to psychological continuity... it is deeply unclear. Once or the other must be right, either it is rational or or isn't.

You believe in psychological continuity, so what do you think?

Quoting ChrisH

In my view, neither the original nor the clone will be aware of which they are. The only way they can deduce who they may be is from external information which may or may not be trustworthy.

I'm not sure if you understand. It is a very queer situation. In the intended sequence (original is killed before the clone wakes up), there is no doubt: the original will wake up as the clone (assuming he wakes up at all). But in the scenario I gave, original woke up, then was killed. So to the original, as he woke up, it might have seemed horribly unlucky. Why couldn't he have been the clone?

As if the universe rolled dice, and deposited him in one or the other body depending on the roll. Absurd. But if so, then was there any chance of the original washing up as the clone? If not, it must then be irrational to accept the treatment.

Reply to finarfin

Quoting finarfin

If only the clone were produced (with no operational shenanigans or mishaps), the clone would have the exact same identity as the person who stepped into the machine. They are subjectively the same (even if the clone is produced in a spatially separate location than where the original stepped into the machine), because they have the exact same physical structure that leads to the same mental patterns, memories and personalities.

My argument was only that a difference in spatial location would cause the clone and the original to be different people. The difference in spatial location would cause their mental patterns and memories to be different, thus making them different people. I wasn't making a comment on which, if any of them, were "you".

I am sympathetic to the idea that through our life we are not the same person. As our mental patterns and memories change we change as a person. Otherwise you face the problem of having two of the same person walking around.

Quoting hypericin

Once or the other must be right, either it is rational or or isn't.

You believe in psychological continuity, so what do you think?

I'm not sure what you're asking. For me bodily continuity arguments simply don't work. As far as I can tell psychological continuity is what is important to most people.

Quoting hypericin

I'm not sure if you understand.

I'm pretty sure I do.Quoting hypericin

I'm not sure if you understand. It is a very queer situation. In the intended sequence (original is killed before the clone wakes up), there is no doubt: the original will wake up as the clone (assuming he wakes up at all). But in the scenario I gave, original woke up, then was killed. So to the original, as he woke up, it might have seemed horribly unlucky. Why couldn't he have been the clone?

It doesn't matter what scenario you construct, neither the original nor the clone know which they are when they wake (and it's quite possible to construct a scenario where no one knows which is which).The point being that If the two are treated differently, it's because we choose to do so.

As far as I can see nothing you've said impacts in the slightest on whether or not personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity.

Quoting apokrisis

The victim had a mistaken belief about how it worked. The technician let the victim recover consciousness and see the copy. So the argument is based on things going wrong rather than things going to plan. And thus the “when” is indeed an issue already. We should be discussing the plan that was intended where the idiot victim would have got what he paid for and never woke up to realise he had been plainly idiotic.

Why on earth are you concerned about following a "plan" that exists only as a part of a fiction?

What is relevant to us is the implications of when the victim is killed. What are the relevant differences, if any, between the different versions?

Quoting apokrisis

And then if you consider your the successful version of the plan, there is a both a copying of the info and a “disassembly” which is not actually a disassembly in being a temporary division of a person into his form and his matter. It is a permanent destruction of the originally embodied person rather than a momentary deconstruction.

It depends on whether the original molecules are transmitted or not. If they are somehow transmitted, then there is a difference, but it is a difficult argument to explain why this difference matters. If instead, the teleporter operates by scanning the victim, disassembling the victim, sending the information, and reconstructring the victim with a separate set of molecules, I claim that this is logically equivalent to my version.

Quoting apokrisis

Again, you leave me unclear what it is you really want to argue here. But to the degree the teleporter operation is conceivable as something real, an embodied approach to the issue of conscious identity would make it seem OK to disassemble and reassemble a person as the combination of some quantity of completely general matter and its equally unique and specific organising pattern.

My argument is that, if my version doesn't work for you as an example of successful personal continuation, than neither does the teleporter. So I disagree with what you wrote here. If you think my version fails but the teleporter is ok, you are simply falling for a sleight of hand in the teleporter story, such as: that there is only ever one copy of the victim... that the victim's molecules may be recycled... that the process is instantaneous. I don't believe any of these are metaphysically relevant. They are only relevant to our intuitions.

Quoting apokrisis

But your victim seemed to be thinking that the mind was something more. It was not about a structure of material organisation but some kind of spirit that could hop across and wake up somewhere else.

The nature of this confusion in terms of its metaphysical commitments was unclear. But it sounded Cartesian. So as I say, the story is entertaining. But in what way is it enlightening?

He believed either that, or psychological continuity as @ChrisH maintains, or some muddle of the two, or was merely going with the flow. The point is, this example, to me, clearly fails as an instance of personal continuity. So the reader is forced to claim that even this example constitutes continuity (ChrisH), is forced to explain why the teleporter suceeeds while this fails (you), or is forced to reject the teleporter as well (me).

Quoting hypericin

Why on earth are you concerned about following a "plan" that exists only as a part of a fiction?

I was confused by what you were directing an argument against. It seems that you were attacking misconceptions shown in some other thread. So sure, it all you want to do is highlight the fact that minds can't jump into different bodies, then go for it.

But I still don't follow how it is then that argument.

If the business model of the clone facility relies on the metaphysical belief that mind is the pattern that informs the structure of the body, that is one thing. One can kind of go along with that from the embodied perspective that I would take. And that would only leave what seems to be the queasy decision that one would have to make to think the procedure was worthwhile.

One has already accepted that there is no "psychological continuity" in the sense your mind would somehow jump across and occupy the clone with its already functionally ready to go neural machinery, prepared with a fully faithful copy of your embodied state.

But if the issue is that some poster needs to be convinced that the mind is then not something over and above its physical instantiation as some pattern of information that all the relevant neurology has, then maybe your tale of confusions might have some impact on that.

And indeed, it should be hard to find the clone procedure plausible and not then see it as support for the embodied physicalist view while still also treating the mind as something – as in some kind of Cartesian spirit stuff – that can flit off to inhabit the cloned self. There is an inconsistency if that is the misconception in play.

So sorry but I thought you were first asking as straight-out "would you still do it?" question. And then that you were wanting a general metaphysical conclusion. But now it seems to be just targeting the problem that the standard Cartesianist would have here.

Quoting hypericin

My argument is that, if my version doesn't work for you as an example of successful personal continuation, than neither does the teleporter.

Again, we are debating science fiction at this point. And my view of personal continuation is based on science fact. So I pointed out that we deal with some level of this issue for real just when we go to sleep, when we turnover our molecules, when we think back over our many years of growing up.

The teleporter and the cloner might be on some kind of continuum as to how they might then stretch that everyday acceptance that I am me, based on the fact that I wake up in the same bed with the same aches every morning and a "to do" list of intentions for the day ahead.

The teleporter promises to disassemble my information and my matter and then reassemble them. I would probably be OK with that whether or not my existing atoms were recycled or replaced like for like. If it worked as advertised, then psychologically I wouldn't have any clear reason to be more worried than when I go to sleep – and understand there will be some busy rewiring going on inside my head to do stuff like consolidate memories and do some molecular level house-cleaning.

But the clone procedure creates a lot of messiness about psychological continuity, even if it is just on the larger social side of that equation. An embodied mind exists not just in a body but in a society and a world that already has a "me" shaped hole for myself. There is my wife, kids, bank account, rights and responsibilities, a personal history that a lot of other people are connected to and would be affected by.

Society at large would have to accept the procedure as unproblematic for my clone to be treated as me after it replaced me. My wife would have to not mind that a copy of her husband returned home that night and maybe brought a little urn of ashes to sprinkle under her favourite rose bush.

So viewed from the embodied perspective, I would say that my death would have to be concealed from society for the cloning operation to be counted as a success. Would you treat a clone as actually the same person? Well I guess if the clone is a greatly improved one, perhaps you would. There are all sorts of things you might want gene edited or neurally tweaked.

Getting off the track but you can see why I would say the teleporter raises less confusions. The cloning process might be put on a similar footing if instead everyone knew I had climbed into some dissolving vat after having my information scanned, and then that information was used to regrow me rapidly until a few hours later, I suddenly stood up and started wiping off the slimy goo from my limbs, ready to shower and slot back into the society-shaped hole that is just as much part of any claims to a "psychological continuity".

Quoting hypericin

So the reader is forced to claim that even this example constitutes continuity (ChrisH), is forced to explain why the teleporter suceeeds while this fails (you), or is forced to reject the teleporter as well (me).

Yes, I see now that what seemed like a general question was a targeted repost. Good luck with your efforts. :up:

Didn't see topic until late
Quoting hypericin

In the far future, cloning has been perfected. It is possible not merely to grow a new body with the same genetics, but to create an absolutely perfect physical duplicate, with any undesirable features edited away.

Given such ability, it would seem prudent, if your hand hurts due to arthritis, to simply cut it off and print a new one without the problem. This seems far easier than printing a whole new, but different body. If it's a photocopy, it's going to have all the same problems, so you want to 'shop' it first to fix the pains or maybe the cancer or tattoos or whatever.

Is the new thing you? Probably the same answer as asking if you're the same person you were 20 years ago. Different, but pragmatically the same person.

As the brain is physical, mental features survive with perfect fidelity.

You're assuming physicalism here. Under dualism, the new body will have its own immaterial mind, not the original, or maybe it will be a p-zombie, not having a mind at all. It will not be able to tell the difference.

The main question is, not that you've printed a new you, will the original-you be willing to jump into the chipper-shredder so that the new thing can assume your identity? Will the new thing be you? That depends on definitions. The original surely knows that he's going into this not to make a 2nd copy.

The doctor explains: "The procedure is quite simple. We put you under, and scan your entire cellular structure.

Why do these stories always require being 'put under'. If it does what it claims, it should work as you walk down the hall. No pain felt, since anything painful is alteration of the body and will be felt by the new body.

Tears of joy streaming down your face

Correction: Tears of joy stream down the face of the copy. Your use of pronouns is inconsistent.

Both the doctor and yourself turn to you in shock. "He's still alive!" shouts the doctor. "Nurse, get in here now!"

OK, so smiting the original is part of the plan, hence the anesthesia to prevent objection.

and you realize with dismay that this large red face is the last thing you will ever see.

Not necessarily so, since you called the printed guy 'you'. Problem is, you're using that pronoun for two different characters. Best to be clear about things.

The clone is somebody else entirely

How do you know this? By what criteria is this assessment made, and by whom? By what criteria do you currently assert that you're the same person as 'you' last year? Without these answers, you're just being either undefined or at least unclear.

You mention 'bodily continuity', but you're hardly the same parts as you were a long time back. You don't have a gram of original material in you. Continuity is usually based on memory, but the clone has that much.

For the record, they do have teleport machines, but only for small things (small enough that 'intact' isn't an applicable adjective), and it isn't a copy/delete op, it's definitely a move. The issue of 'is it the original' did come up.

Would you accept the treatment?

Strangely enough, I would, but I don't have a dualistic notion of identity, but rather a pragmatic one. It is meaningfully different than the transporter since the copy/paste method leaves both versions, even if one is slated to be terminated shortly thereafter.


Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole

I think what makes you you is your mental patterns and memories. The material that gives rise to this is irrelevant.

Agree.

Quoting Hanover

Why would I choose to die so that my replica can live? I don't understand that. You've not cured my illness.

You seem to use different definitions then. Do you know what they are? From my PoV, I chose that the defective replica dies (who would only get in the way). My illness has been cured. Hence my willingness to do something like that.

What if both live? Then a new identity must be assigned to one of the two. Who gets the wife, and what happens to the other when severed from his relationship with all loved ones?

Quoting noAxioms

Who gets the wife

I suspect, in any event, the wife chooses.

Quoting noAxioms

Given such ability, it would seem prudent, if your hand hurts due to arthritis, to simply cut it off and print a new one without the problem.

Perhaps, but that is a different thought experiment.

Quoting noAxioms

Is the new thing you? Probably the same answer as asking if you're the same person you were 20 years ago. Different, but pragmatically the same person.

It is more than pragmatic. We defer immediate gratification for rewards in the future, sometimes 20 years or more. This would only make sense if we believed we were the same person. These actions are never altruistic, we don't save money to benefit some alien successor entity.

Quoting noAxioms

You're assuming physicalism here. Under dualism, the new body will have its own immaterial mind, not the original, or maybe it will be a p-zombie, not having a mind at all. It will not be able to tell the difference.

For the purposes of this thought experiment I am assuming physicalism.

Quoting noAxioms

Why do these stories always require being 'put under'.

I did this to stimulate the intuition that the original->clone one continuous individual, in the same way that teleporter TEs do. But then challenge that intuition when the original wakes up.

Quoting noAxioms

Correction: Tears of joy stream down the face of the copy. Your use of pronouns is inconsistent.

This was intentional, to emphasize that from the clone's perspective, the clone feels they are continuous with the original.

Quoting noAxioms

How do you know this? By what criteria is this assessment made, and by whom? By what criteria do you currently assert that you're the same person as 'you' last year? Without these answers, you're just being either undefined or at least unclear.

That which benefits the next year's 'me', benefits me (as far as I believe, and behave). But that which benefits the copy clearly does not benefit the original.

You are dead. Your clone is alive. Your clone is indistinguishable from you. Nobody, not even your colone, will ever know it is a copy.

But what if! What if they fixed your body, and made a clone that had the problem you went in for? Then it would be you who thanked the doctor, and the clone who was murdered in the back.

I feel the need to drop biased language of calling the two people 'original' and 'duplicate', since that language already biases the answer of which one is 'you'.
So I will refer to 'defetive' and 'repaired' versions of the person.

Quoting Hanover

I suspect, in any event, the wife chooses.

Right, but the spouse presumably already agreed to the procedure, and expects a single-repaired partner in return. The choice was already made. The implications of a replace-machine is different than that of a copy machine. The latter is excellent for training one really great soldier and printing countless copies of him to overwhelm the enemy.


Quoting hypericin

It is more than pragmatic. We defer immediate gratification for rewards in the future, sometimes 20 years or more. This would only make sense if we believed we were the same person. These actions are never altruistic, we don't save money to benefit some alien successor entity.

You point out a mistake in my wording. Pragmatic reasoning is driven significantly by beliefs, and my response was a rational one, not a pragmatic one. Given that this was new technology, yes, a person, even me, would approach the device with trepidation.

Imagine otherwise. There's a sort of door that you walk through that builds a new you on the other side, consuming the original. It isn't tech, it's natural, a plant maybe that does this. Any child learns that if he hurts himself (skinned knee), you just pass through the portal and it makes the boo-boo go away. The pragmatic side would very quickly accept such a convenience. But as a grown person with our experience, doing it for the first time, and with such obvious copy/paste/delete in that order with significant delays between where one might even interact with the other, yea, it gets scarier.

The total ease of fixing a boo-boo would evolve away our instinct to not do stupid things. Case in point: divorce is sufficiently easy that far less care is given these days to get it right the first time.

Why do these stories always require being 'put under'. — noAxioms

I did this to stimulate the intuition that the original->clone one continuous individual, in the same way that teleporter TEs do. But then challenge that intuition when the original wakes up.

Sleep not required for any of that, only that the two don't meet.

Thing is, depending on your interpretation of physics, this sort of thing goes on all the time anyway, without the repair of course. This is why I ask how you know you're the same person as last year (or 2 seconds ago). Answer: you don't, since assuming otherwise violates the law of identity. But that's rational thinking, not pragmatic rationalization of beliefs. Difference is which causes the other.

This was intentional, to emphasize that from the clone's perspective, the clone feels they are continuous with the original.

It's deceptive. Tears run down the face of the repaired version. Whether this is you or not is the question, not an answer to be presumed by the wording.

Similarly, one could go the Theseus route and replace one piece at a time until the whole thing has been done, even the non-defective parts. If it's done that way, is it still you? If not, at what point did it cease being the original?

That which benefits the next year's 'me', benefits me

That's the pragmatic thinking. I see it sort of as a pay-it-forward sort of thing. I draw breath not for the benefit of me, but for the benefit of the alien 10 seconds from now, who technically has no claim on being the 'me' that drew the breath.

This having gone on all along, I rationally have little if any trepidation for accepting the procedure. But it would admittedly be nice if the side that holds the intuitive beliefs wasn't told how it works.


Quoting Patterner

Nobody, not even your clone, will ever know it is a copy.

The OP says you know. It was a voluntary procedure.

Quoting noAxioms

Nobody, not even your clone, will ever know it is a copy.
— Patterner
The OP says you know. It was a voluntary procedure.

Somehow, I missed the part that the clone saw what was going on. I was thinking he didn't know, so would live thinking he was the original. And there would be no reason anybody who ever met him would think otherwise.

But the original had been murdered.

So now I realized the clone knows he's not the original. That's bound to have an impact on him.