/sci/ - Science & Math

>Would you commit suicide for x amount of money
Sage

I would never use it an it would terrify the everliving shit out of me if anyone actually used it.

It depends: will I get to meet the Goa'uld or the Asgard?

Yes, I would.

Anyone who wouldn't is a religioustard who believes in the existence of something beyond the realm of physics.

>>3276161
Did you never watch star trek? You are describing the "teleporter".

At first people will be "wary" of it, as they still believe in souls and magic bullshit (religion). Eventually as man gets smarter, and leaves behind such childish notions, they will embrace such technologies.

>>3276161
Do you get paid to drive a car? Take a train? A plane?

LMFAO. You will probably have to pay to use such a device (if its not free), Not the other way around.

>>3276171
>be fully reassembled to original state
>suicide

please no paranormal shit in here

>>3276187
Yes you personally die and another you is created.
sage
>The teleportation machine will disassemble all the matter within (i.e you!)
> disassemble you

Well, I would pick an aleatory human to test it. I also could try with a chimpanzee, but it doesnt deserve to die accidentally.
If it works, I would try again X number of times, if it works i would try it by myself.

>disassemble all the matter within (i.e you!)and then tranfer it to another location

If it can disassemble and reassemble my exact matter, it's not really suicide as long as it can revive me. I mean if you took out someone's heart, disassembled it, reassembled it, and put it back inside, they'd still be themselves after resuscitation. But if it can instantly transport my entire mass in pieces, why can't it do me whole?

>>3276192
out of the exact same shit you were made of in the first place. you are saying that people have souls, or something similar.

>>3276200
No. It means that you when going in see the maschine and then darkness. You have died.

The dude that is created is the copy of you and he has the same memories. He remembers that he went to the maschine but he is not you.

You died when the teleporter destroyed your brain.

You are saying that people have souls.
I'm saying that consciousness is the product of your brain. It's a continuous process that has been going on since you were born. When there is a break you die.

>>3276218
>break in consciousness you die

So, everytime I sleep, I die? Everytime I pass out, I DIE?

WTF dude? You are just fucking wrong!

>>3276232
It might have been the wrong word no that i think about it.
Not a native english speaker.

I mean instead of consciousness, the process of nerve cells firing and generally being alive.

>>3276232

yep. Prove that youre the same person you were when you went to sleep last night.

>>3276254
define 'same person'

>>3276254
Not this guy but, lucid dream.
You can have them every night and not go insane, or any other sympthoms of sleep deprivation.

That pretty much prove you are the same person.

>>3276242
Even disregarding sleep, people who are severely injured can become medically dead for quite a few minutes, with no bloodflow to the brain at all, and still be resuscitated as the same person they were before.

What you are suggesting is so wrong it's hard to know when to begin refuting it.

>>3276263

In the same way that you are I are different people, I and the me of yesterday are different people.

>>3276254
Prove you were the same person 5minutes ago

>>3276242
So if I decided to be cryogenically frozen, then revived in the future, would I be a different person once I've been revived (since all cellular activity stops at these low temperatures)?

>>3276275

not all night you cant

Look, my cells are dieing and being created everyday... DURR HURR, I am different!

>>3276280

constant stream of conciousness between now and 5 minutes ago

>>3276288

are you saying you arent?

Let's put the "are you really you?" faggotry aside, why can't the machine just scan you and reconstruct you at the other side of the galaxy?
Was going to type it would be more difficult than deconstruct you, but that seem counter-intuitive.

>>3276297
It would be easier with portals or blackholes.

>>3276232
It's actually involentarily a good point. We like to think that we are conscious - that there's a smooth "line" of consciousness we are following. However, the only thing that makes us believe this is our memories. We can only know for certain that we are conscious at THIS moment. If, say, there was another person conscious in your body yesterday before you went to sleep, then you will not know - because you have his memories and believe it was you.

>>3276297
Well, if you were thinking that it would be a FAST mode of transportation, consider that information can only travel at the speed of light and no faster in principle.

Even if you used light to transfer the information it would take 100,000 years for you to get across this galaxy. And with that technology you'd hope a method of transportation would be developed that wouldn't force you to be destroyed and recreated entirely. Especially considering by the time the information arrived, that exit gate might have been destroyed centuries beforehand meaning you will now exist eternally as a packet of photons flying off into the void.

>>3276199
Alright let's look at this from a different perspective (I am not saying one way or the other who is right).

1. Your material composition at a given point in time is stored by a super computer.
2. You are immediately vaporized by a giant laser beam or some other incinerating device.
3. 300 years later, a team of scientists finds your stored composition stored on the super computer.
4. Team re-assembles you according to the data in super computer.

Were you dead for three hundred years and then "resuscitated" or is it someone else who is just like you?

Would you be willing to be incinerated on the premise that you would be rebuilt 300 years later?

If not, how is this different from the teleporter?

>>3276292
>constant stream of conciousness

If you took small enough time frames your concsiousness would become discreet. Your brain and body on the most fundemental level are quantum systems. Like everything, it is discreet, not continious.

Do you even know the difference?

Why would you insist on giving merit to a "continious consciousness" over a "discreet consciouss"? Explain?

It seems like you are just making your own shitty half-assed definitions and randomly assigning merit based on some bullshit dogma. Or prove me wrong...

>>3276301

Now you're thinking with portals!

>>3276311
Your brain for these purposes behaves like a complicated combustion engine.
Neurons use a chemically-induced change in polarity of their axons to communicate with each other. It's literally like little switches. Obviously the dynamics of the whole system are immensely more complicated than these individual cells triggering each other, but in the end it is, like the other poster mentioned, lots of DISCRETE actions being performed. Pausing this in time, and restarting it in the exact same state on an atomic level will result in the brain continuing exactly what it was doing, like if you paused an engine or a computer process.

I don't get where this stream of consciousness shit comes in.

I guess I would use it. I mean I realize that it would technically destroy you and then recreate you, but if you define that as dieing, then technically you have died dozens of times. I mean every part of the body is replaced over the course of years, molecule by molecule of course. so honestly, this would be no different.

>>3276327
What if your original body wasn't destroyed in the process? Which one would you be, the copy or the original?

>>3276313
For future reference, discreet means quietly or with caution, whereas discrete refers to separate parts.

I did this same thing for the longest time, actually not even realizing they were two discrete words.

>>3276171
Not that I'd care if others used it.

>>3276331
WTF? DID NONE OF YOU FUCKING WATCH STAR TREK TNG? WTF IS WRONG WITH YALL?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chances_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)

>>3276326
In the post you are referring to (my only post besides this one in the thread), I did not assert a position and it wasn't my intention to bait with my scenario either, i am legitimately curious if people would see having their structure stored perfectly, and then they could willingly step into a furnace knowing that in 300 years, they would, as far as mankind's knowledge of reality went, be rebuilt exactly as they were the moment before they were incinerated.

Another poster brought up a curious point, what if this occurred at x point in your life, and then instead of being killed, the machine immediately reconstructed you.

Would the other you also be you?

>>3276331

doesn't uncertainty imply that you can't obtain a perfect image of something unless you fuck it up with lasers?

i.e. it would be impossible to keep your original body if it were scanned

>>3276341

Ya'll ask the stupidest motherfucking questions. It really is apparent that you don't spend much time thinking about shit. I wouldn't even fucking consider you human, you're like some subspecies not meant for thinking.

Your question is analagous to:
If I print out two copies of my hw (pdf), which one is really my hw?

\thread

>>3276351
So then you believe that it is suicide to go through the teleporter?

Why is it still you when it rebuilds you from its scan only if it first incinerated you?

>>3276341
If they proved to me beyond a reasonable doubt that the machine worked, using studies done on animals and the like, then I would do it in an instant. That is assuming, of course, that I had a reason to use it. I'm unsure about whether traveling 300 years into an unpredictable future would be beneficial.

Also, I am not the other poster you discussed there.

>>3276351

>>3276355
the bigger question is, why does it matter if it already happens to you dozens of times
throughout the course of your life without teleportation involved.

>>3276351
The copy you printed out is only your homework if you burn the original first.

let me ask this...
if you were to go in said teleporter but weren't disassembled, only copied, and another you came out the other end

which one would you be?

>>3276372
both.
if both structures were exactly the same atom for atom, it really doesn't matter which one existed first.

When the electricity in your brain stops, you lose all your memory. Just like when you store memory in computer ram, and then cut it off.

So even if you come back your brain will now be broken.

>>3276386
fullretard.jpg

>>3276386
> Full retard.

That said I believe you are trolling because your pic provides a face palm, which is the reaction anyone who reads your post will have.

>>3276355
>So then you believe that it is suicide to go through the teleporter?

Never said that. Your whole notions of self and consciousness are fucking grade school kid. No, it is not suicide.

>Why is it still you when it rebuilds you from its scan only if it first incinerated you?

Are you really this stupid to ask this question? REALLY? YOU ARE THAT FUCKIN STUPID?

You need to re-evaluate your idea of "self". YOU ARE FUCKING MATERIALS! YOU ARE A MEAT MACHINE! YOU CAN BE DESTROYED AND RECONSTRUCTED, and REPLICATED!

It isn't that fuckIng hard to understand. You are only making it hard by throwing your fucked up fantasy dogma into the mix. Grow the fuck up!

>>3276391
>>3276389

Prove me wrong ,or get the fuck out.

That's how science works.

>>3276372
see
>>3276339

>>3276397
It's wrong on a logical level, you are basically saying that if something is exactly the same as it was 5 minutes ago, it will somehow be different. You're retarded.

>>3276409
No, I'm saying if you are deconstructed the electric flow to your brain is obviously interrupted momentarily.

This kills the brain.

You guys realise that quantum teleportation doesn't actually use the same particles to reconstruct you right? When you are recreated, it's completely different matter, merely in the same arrangement as you were.

>if the brain is interrupted, you die
What makes you think this is how consciousness works?

>>3276413
There is no 'electric flow' to your brain. You don't know how the brain works. That makes no fucking sense, where is your brain 'plugged into'? Does the electricity come from your heart??

After typing that I'm starting to think my words are falling on deaf ears. Because that was really, really dumb.

>>3276434
All of the stupid... how do you contain it?

>>3276177


Yo. Been a couple of weeks guys.

related to this question: is there theoretically a possibility that 2 Carbon atoms are not exactly the same?
could it be possible that atoms are "unique" in a way?

>>3276565
bump because i want this answered by some physics major

>>3276565
>2 Carbon atoms are not exactly the same?

If we're being that generic about describing a "Carbon atom", yes.

>atoms are "unique" in a way?

No.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdxucpPq6Lc

As brainwaves represent bursts of activity, do we not die from moment to moment?

>>3276161
Ok so from what I understand if I use the teleporter I die and another me gets created with all the same memories. Now does the teleporter reset your age? Because its making a new body is the cell decay on said body reset?

No, because when it disassembles me I die and a clone of me is made.

I didn't read the second half of this thread, but I'd like to offer a thought experiment.

Suppose such a device were created, and that the instant you were disintegrated, you were also reintegrated. Some would maintain that the reintegration is in fact you, and that you didn't really die.

Suppose now that instead of disintegrating and reintegrating you simultaneously, the machine first scans you to know the precise position of every atom in your body (in b4 Heisenberg uncertainty principle) and then replicates you, and then, a finite amount of time later, disintegrates you. Suppose that you have had no knowledge of this and that you assumed you were being disintegrated and reintegrated simultaneously. Is the replicated version of you still really you, or did you actually die and have a copy made of yourself? If you didn't die, wouldn't that mean that your consciousness had to travel backwards in time to become you again? If it didn't, and you really did die, than this experiment is no different than the simultaneous disintegration-reintegration method, from the point of view of the original person and the replicated form (whether they are the same entity or not).

I suppose you could say that it's not the same, because if you were allowed to exist a finite amount of time after you were replicated, then it isn't really the same, because you would have changed slightly in some way, but really, does that small amount of change matter? What if you were maintained in stasis after being copied, and your static body were allowed to exist for a finite amount of time while the clone also existed?

tl;dr: You really did die. I would go on with the consequences about this, but I feel like I would scare people too much with its real-word implications.

As long as the destruction and reconstruction are practically simultaneous it's perfectly fine.

However any delay between the two long enough for sensory input would create two unique individuals, and killing one would not solve any problems.

>>3276644
You are copied with all your existing cell damage.

>>3276422
Does that even matter? (Get it?, matter?)

>>3276362
Just blew my mind. Seriously, this IS the actual question of the thread.
Your consciousness is rebuilt all the time, why would anybody fear using the teleporter in that case? I would fear using it, but I realize that its illogical to fear.

>>3276277

The brain can go without blood flow for a few minutes, but that is not the same as having your brain cells dying.

By definition, the teleporter ceases metabolic function in all the cells in your body for some amount of time, so you and all your cells do die.

If electrical activity in your brain ceases for even a moment, you are now brain dead. Just a moment is enough to kill you.

This is not to say however that the brain is different from a hard drive, and that everything that is you is stored in electrical fields and chemical potentials that can be theoretically recorded and replicated.

>>3276183
Wasn't there an episode in Star Trek where it revealed that teleporters just cloned copies of someone? The one where the teleporters didn't disassemble someone but still made one at the other location?

>>3276161
I'll use it if it works with apes.

>>3276161
I wouldn't use it. Too much could theoretically go wrong. I'd need to make sure it wasn't just making a copy with matter at the other end. I wouldn't mind a copy of me being created, but only if I didn't die in the process. I'd rather my own consciousness continue than another unique individual continuing with it somewhere else.

>>3276736
It's not completely remade from scratch though. If you die, but they have blueprints of your body, then rebuild you on a cellular level, would you "wake up" in the body created, or would another identical you be there? Such things don't matter to everyone else, but would matter to the you who died.

>>3278090
If you remember the second you died, then you are the same person, virtually

>>3278063
>>3278063
THAT IS FUCKING WHAT THE TELEPORTER IS, IT JUST COPIES YOU IN ANOTHER PLACE! DESTROYING THE ORIGINIAL!

>>3276161
There's no such thing as teleportation.

>>3276161

It's not suicide. It will be the same you. You of now aren't you of a month ago.

Anyone who speaks of suicide is no better than somebody who believes in some sort of soul.

>>3278101

Earth is flat.

>>3278090

How would it matter? It won't be any stranger than waking up from a nap.

>>3278094
Yes, but not from your own perspective, which ends when you die. It's the same thing as this cloning thing. If people made two perfect copies of you, are you suddenly both? Would you directly and consciously be in both?

>>3278140
>>3278147
Well what if they made two instead of one? Would you be in BOTH? Technically you couldn't. So you would be either one or neither. You would presumably be neither and still be completely dead and unaware that people are cloning your body for some bizarre reason.

http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/sociss/release.cfm?ArticleID=1818

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - For the first time, scientists have successfully teleported information between two separate atoms in unconnected enclosures a meter apart - a significant milestone in the global quest for practical quantum information processing.

Teleportation may be nature's most mysterious form of transport: Quantum information, such as the spin of a particle or the polarization of a photon, is transferred from one place to another, without traveling through any physical medium. It has previously been achieved between photons over very large distances, between photons and ensembles of atoms, and between two nearby atoms through the intermediary action of a third. None of those, however, provides a feasible means of holding and managing quantum information over long distances.

Now a team from the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) at the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan has succeeded in teleporting a quantum state directly from one atom to another over a substantial distance. That capability is necessary for workable quantum information systems because they will require memory storage at both the sending and receiving ends of the transmission. In the Jan. 23 issue of the journal Science, the scientists report, that, by using their protocol, atom-to-atom teleported information can be recovered with perfect accuracy about 90 percent of the time - and that figure can be improved.
....

>>3278155

I don't mean to be hostile but WTF?

You are assigning identities to things that are indistinguishable and irrelevant.

Don't complicate things. We aren't a particular bunch of matter. No, we are just a mixture of common matter and state. It's the state that matters.

Yes. You would be destroyed. From the point of view of the person going into the teleporter, the instant of teleportation would be a cessation of life. You would not 'wake up' on the other side. Rather some identical doppelganger with your exact material composition, memories, and personality would emerge from the other side. Everyone else, including the doppelganger would think you survived, but you would have died at the moment of teleportation.

No. I do not believe in a soul, either. Actually, it all really depends on what your personal definition of 'the self' is.

Somebody on here once mention that the matter making up the body will eventually all be replaced in a common lifetime.

Is that true? Any source?

>>3278167
How is it indistinguishable or irrelevant? I personally don't believe in anything silly like a soul, which makes things like possibly being snubbed out and replaced by a perfect replica more terrifying. Worse because it's completely impossible to test aside from the "fact" that perfect replicas of someone aren't that person as long as the "original" is still alive.

If this was feasibly done, they would pretty much be you, but you wouldn't be aware of what they do. If someone were to then kill you, you would "technically" still be alive. Though your consciousness would be gone. It only matters to you though.


I don't understand how this kind of thing could exist in someone with any sort of self-preservation instinct. It's the same as people pretending that their children are living extensions of themselves. It's all just sentimentality.

>>3278184

Again, WTF!

>>3278171
>>3278184
Something like this always seems more "logical" to me. I'm an atheist, I don't believe in a soul, but things like copying people then considering them the same person just strikes me as only technically true, and not a way for the person themselves to be immortal at all.

Looks like /sci/ needs to watch 'The Prestige'.

Neat movie, by the way.

>>3278196
>>3278184

You are essentially claiming that a particle with the same state is not the same thing. Now arguably, the time is different but it's irrelevant in this case because humans themselves live in the same space-time.

Or perhaps are you claiming that the same combination of particles with the same state is not the same thing?

You are really making an argument out of nothing here.

While all of you are bickering about what qualifies as living, wouldn't it be just fucking awesome to be a thinking mass of photons? That would be a true god in the sense as I see it.

Interesting question OP
I would definitely find the idea intriguing
but I'm not sure if I would use it personally...
Now I'm assuming that the theoretical device would scan the user's body,personality,memories and such back them up and then create a exact duplicate at the intended destination?
Yeah as cool as that is (it could in fact be used to grant immortality for one thing) I don't think I could do it
because even though my duplicate would be me in every sense of the word (same memories,personality etc) It also wouldn't be me as in myself the individual
when I use the machine I would not step out on the other side my duplicate (who is me) would but my personal experience would end I wouldn't get to be a part of those future experiences my duplicate has I will be dead my duplicate will become the new me completely the same as I was unaware that I had ever existed or died but I my personal perspective will be gone.
I guess I would have some reservations about using it but I wouldn't judge anyone who did use it they're much braver than I am.

>>3278228

But can photons retain low entropy?

>>3278218
I am claiming that two identical brains are not identical to themselves. If you destroy one the consciousness will not survive, albeit an exact duplicate will survive in the other. i consider them the same thing, but they wouldn't be for the actual people teleported or copied, unless you think they somehow psychically communicate with each other or something.

What I'm trying to say is, that your own consciousness will not spontaneously become aware again if an exact copy of yourself is made and then you are summarily killed. Though to everyone else including the other you, it was you all along. Is it really that hard to understand?

>>3278218
Not the guy you were talking to but:

Would the stream of consciousness be preserved through the teleportation? Would you 'wake up' on the other side of the teleporter as if you had just blinked your eyes in one location and opened them in another, or would you be incinerated instantaneously and have some identical twin carry out your business on the other end none the wiser?

I believe the latter. I don't think you'd just 'wake up' on the other end, even if your copy had all of your thoughts and memories. You'd be just as dead as some bloke who died in a car accident, except you still have to pay taxes.

>>3278243

Well. Let me clarify.

The moment you activate the two clones they will have their own identities. They will still be you of the past but a different selves in the present. Isn't that pretty obvious?

>>3278228
>>3278243
I'm saying that exact duplicates are not the same to the duplicates themselves, if they are somehow self-aware. This isn't hard to understand and I think it's a pretty logical conclusion to come to. You would both survive and not survive if a duplicate of you is made and you die at the same time.

I'm saying that your mind and consciousness created by the brain that is unable to understand what I'm saying... would not suddenly exist or jump through space to continue existing wherever the teleporter went. Especially if it was destroying the original and making a copy with matter already there.

disassemble, trasmit and reassemble, that sounds like its the same atom, moved from one palce to another, so yeah, i would since te is no metaphysical copying invovled

>>3278261
Yes, but my own consciousness won't suddenly jump into either clone body if I'm dead, would it?

>>3278256

I was assuming that somehow the body is rebuilt identically. State of all particles included. If that where to happen, the guy would live.

>>3278270
Well, even that's impossible to know for sure, isn't it? There's not even a way to test that sort of thing. It possibly would work like that, but it's still too sketchy for me to jump into a teleportation machine for 5 million dollars. It seems like the possible cost outweigh the benefit.

if we ever create some kind of machines, then i guess won't we have to disassemble anything but manipulate space enough to create a portal.

>>3278268

The is nothing magical to consciousness. It's just the continuous acknowledgement of knowing who you are. As such consciousness is not a fixed thing. It changes continually because memories change continually.

The consciousness of the clones would be similar and would be rooted from the consciousness of your previous self the same way that your consciousness now is related to the consciousness you have a year ago.

>>3278280

I'm pretty confident that if you get things identical on the quantum scale, the guy will live.

I don't see why he wouldn't.

>>3278283
someone else:
some sort of mithosis may be still dying.

>>3278287
Yes, but it seems like it would be impossible to prove that it works on that sort of scale, or even if it's a perfect atomic copy. Unless I'm able to study the entire device and get an understanding of it, I wouldn't let it detatomize me. There are too many quick ways to do it that would reasonably just clone you that it doesn't seem worth it.

>>3278283
I still wouldn't consider an exact replica of me made five seconds ago to be me if I were still alive to see it. It would presumably feel the exact same way, being a perfect copy.


What's the difference if you're killed before an exact copy is made or after? Deniability?

>>3278283
But if the teleporter merely copied you and didn't destroy the original, would you then be in two places at once? Would you maintain control over both bodies somehow? Would you experience what you're copy is experiencing. Or would you just (more logically) be two separate consciousnesses?

This is the problem I cannot get over in teleportation.

>>3276200
>>3276187
>>3276183
^You are all retarded.

The naturalist/materialist position would have to be that the newly created person does not have the same sense of self as the original. For the self to carry over, some non-local soul would have to exist.

It seems some people have a problem with losing their continuity of consciousness. What's being brought up in the teleporter situation has the same philosophical issues as mind uploading, brain augmentation, and the like.

Below are some links on the philosophy of the mind, in case anyone is interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swampman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity_%28philosophy%29#Personal_continuity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_%28philosophy_of_mind%29

Does the teleporter first destroy you, then reassemble you? Or does it work by slowly disassembling you, then reassembling you? Are you conscious the entire time?

If the latter, I would be okay with it.

>>3276313'

"There is a startling parallelism between today's
physics and the world vision of Eastern mysticism. The increasing contribution of Eastern scientists from India, China and Japan, among others, reinforces this conjecture. Physical science has not become planetary and draws into its fold an increasing number of non-Easterners who find in its new vision of the universe many elements that are quick to note, one cannot always distinguish between statements made by Eastern metaphysics based on mystical insight and the pronouncements of modern physics based on observations, experiments and mathematical calculations"

Werner Karl Heisenberg 1901-1976

No. Lets say that in the future, we can completely construct an exact copy of someone somewhere else. We do that, and we have two of you. There is now two of you, one on earth, one on say, the moon. For the brief second before the earth version's deconstruction, you are now two seperate people, with memories differing for a few seconds. But before they deconstruct the earthen you, they ask, do you want it?

Would you say yes? Would you let them incinerate you?

If it saves me having to get into the car to drive to the store then I'm all for it.

if I exist in two places at the same time, then they kill on of me, no way. If me and the new me exist at the same time for even the briefest of moments, no way, they would be killing me and remaking my past self (even if it is myself from a fraction of a second ago).

If the machine ever gets a single thing wrong, just the slightest mistake, no.

If the machine freezes me, stops all thought, then slowly deconstructs me, then, after this is all done, sends a signal to a constructor which rebuilds me, then absolutely yes.

>>3278654
How would that last part make any difference, if the other you is made in the same way? No time for remorse?