Interesting (or perhaps, silly) Philosophical Question

[TWRoO]

SvennoJ said:

IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

miz1q2w3e said:
"You" or your consciousnesses would wake up in your own body, but unless marked with a marker, the outer world wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two.

I was wondering to myself about teleportation once, about how the information that travels through the internet is just a copy of the original, but an outside observer can't tell the difference either way. If humans learned how to teleport, there would always be a small suspicion that the people who come out through the other side would simply be copies of the original people and no one would ever be able to tell the difference... furthermore, that would mean that the original person (or their consciousnesses) was destroyed o_0

Here's a tougher one: If you would split every atom of your body and then put them together again, you would certainly still have all of your memories and consciousness intact. But what if you split all your atoms and replaced them with new ones? o.0

Your constantly swap out cells. You don't keep the same atoms all your life anyway. On average your body is only ever between 11-15 years old. For a long time scientist believed that brain cells never regenerate but since 1998 new found evidence suggest that parts of your brain also regenerates. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11188-brain-cell-regeneration-sniffed-out-in-adult-humans.html

"furthermore, that would mean that the original person (or their consciousnesses) was destroyed"
That depends what conciousness is. I believe conciousness is part of the information, not dependent on the hardware. So you would have effictively copied your conciousness after teleportation. Would 'wiping' out the original then be murder or suicide?

Not a problem though with the current theorical view of quantum teleportation as the original is destroyed in the process of measuring. Would you ever use such a device though, sending yourself without crc checks?

Yes individual cells regenerate, but not all at once... if all cells in the body are destroyed then the thought processes running at the time of destruction would be stopped. As such the newly created body would essentially be a blank slate. And a dead one at that as the heart is regulated by an electrical pulse, though admitedly in that case it would be possible to start the heart with a defibrillator. If that turns out to be a requirement of teleportation though I am pretty sure it won't become a viable method of transportation.

As Dodece mentioned though, if the processes in the body are stopped, either by complete suspended animation or by destruction then re-construction of cells, then the mind would not be recovered. If there is to be a viable method of complete suspension or teleportation then the thought patterns in the brain have to be mapped and stored somehow before being transferred back into the body (be it the original if coming back from suspension, or a new identical body in the total cell reproduction case)