05-28-2009, 08:51 AM
Slamz Wrote:Your brain pattern continues on in the copy, so if you are your brain pattern, then you didn't die. In order to argue otherwise, you would have to believe that there is a "you" which is somehow separate from the brain pattern, such that when the brain pattern teleports from here to there, "you" somehow don't go with it.
I am my contiguous brain pattern, not just a snapshot of a brain pattern at any given moment.
If I make an exact copy of Slamz and then shoot one of you, the fact that the one remaining has the same brain pattern as the dead one doesn't change the fact that I killed one of you. To the living one and everyone else it doesn't make a difference, but to the one I killed it certainly does.
Quote:Besides, I always thought the Star Trek teleporters literally sent the same atoms and molecules from the origin to the destination. After all, there isn't always a teleporter pad at the destination to supply material from, so it must be coming from the source.
Hmm, maybe, although essentially its the same problem, you've killed someone and then rebuilt them - just using the same material.