Do transporters kill?

[Kamakazie Sith]

You want to have a discussion on something that is a matter of opinion?...

Yes

This is a topic that is determined by your own personal views and philosophy. What 'evidence' can be brought into that?

Read the entire thread and find out

If discussion is the point of this 'forum' then go ahead and discuss. I stated my opinion on the matter which is all I originally intended to do. Unfortunately I forgot how many people don't like it when someone else's opinion differs from theirs. Basically, I believe that it is murder and I already stated why I believe that. Dismiss my belief if you wish. I'll try not to lose any sleep over your disapproval.

Would you shut the fuck up with your whining "people are mean because I have different beliefs". People don't like it when you don't justify your beliefs. Do you understand?

And... just because I feel it's relevant here... here's a quote that has relevance to your 'discussion' in this topic.
"You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."

With that, I'm done posting in this thread. Take care.

Yeah, that's why people are required to justify their positions because the many truths people cling to are based on their point of view and are also objectively false.

[Wyrm]

Precisely. "It's death because I say so."

Would you rather I say it's because Obama says so or something?

I was trying to point out that you were committing an argument from authority. Back it up, kiddo. Why should I consider it death, when it rather spectacularly fails the definition of death?

So basically it's taking the original and reconstructing it. Similar to a clone? I still wouldn't like the idea of myself dying and a clone taking my place even if it has all my thoughts and memories.

Translation: "It's a clone because I say so." Define what you mean by "original" — and yes, you do have to define this term — and show why the resultant person after transport does not fit. Be careful, because it is very easy to define "original" such that no object qualifies.

As to the taking the wrecking ball to a house, this is how I see it. I don't know if you ever have a sense of being at home or maybe going into the house where you grew up. But it's kind of like you know the house and it's different characteristics that have developed over time by the original builders and your family as they lived in it. If someone was to take that house down meticulously and move it to a different location and reconstruct it I think it would be different as it would still be a copy of the original.

Your feelings are quite irrelevant, and any attempt to appeal to them do not impress. "Death" is a physically relevant condition. The reconstructed house is in every way identical to the house that was at the old location, and a ten year old house has more original parts than you do.

Now you might say I can't prove any difference between either the house or the transported person but I'm one of those people that believe there is an intangible quality to the human body that cannot be duplicated by technology.

You will back up this claim. Now.

Are you going to dismiss this part with one of your not tiresome 'translations'? Wouldn't surprise me.

Please consult Debate Rule 5 in the board rules thread. You brought a claim. I challenged you on it. Back it up or conceed.

The original post asks for discussion, as he was trying to decide how Jedi powers interact with transportation. It's not simply a call for unqualified opinion.

Read it again... he asked the why the different beliefs and I put mine here.

So... why the widespread belief of transporters killing transportees?

My god, you're a moron. Your quote from the OP proves my point, not yours. Didn't you notice the word "why" in that very quote? That's asking for a lot more than a simple opinion. It was inviting discussion!

Besides, who are you to call my opinion unqualified? Do you see me disputing your opinion or calling it unqualified? Is it because you've posted more times than me? If so, good job.

Take your condecending attitude and shove it up your ass, cupcake. I showed exactly why your opinion is unqualified.

Welll, apparently you don't understand it if you won't accept that my point of view differs from yours.

Of course it differes from yours. I'm able to back up my opinion, while you can't.

Uh huh, try reading what I put above. The OP asked why the different beliefs so I stated mine. Not once does he say 'discussion'.

Reading involves more than pattern matching words, moron. You can invite discussion without mentioning the word 'discussion'.

He does mention a different thread but that's about it. As for the discussion point of this being obvious to everyone else; that may be, but I've never really seen things the same way as other people do.

Are you really that bored that you want to keep this up and continue to try insulting me?

I expect you to follow the rules of the forum and back up your shit, or conceed that your opinion is like your asshole.

With that, I'm done posting in this thread. Take care.

Concession accepted.

[Dooso]

Upon actually thinking about my posts I feel I should apologize for acting like an idiot and a jackass...

I forgot that this forum mainly discusses things on a more scientific basis or with theories and ideas that can actually be proven.

You can brand me as an idiot because, hey, I said stupid things without thinking. I'll try to actually think before I post here in the future.

Thanks and sorry for annoying you.

[Sela]

As promised with exams over I came to continue arguing for transport-duplication . . .

. . . and quickly realized that you were right, Wyrm, that I did not have enough evidence. As such I concede the argument.


PS: I hope this isn't a necro. It's just under 2 weeks, and still one of the top few topics so I figured I'm okay.

[DanielLC]

I didn't read through this whole thing, so sorry if I repeat something.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with death. It's bad because you're not alive anymore, and thus can't be happy. If you die but a clone lives life in your place, there's no ethical difference. Of course, if cloning you and not killing the original was a possibility, you probably should have done that.

What's more, even if there is something wrong with it, wouldn't that mean that there's something good about birth? Certainly the good caused by creating a life is as significant as the bad created by destroying one. Again, you should probably just create one, but if the choices are somehow mutually exclusive, it doesn't matter which you choose.

[SapphireFox]

DanielLC, the thread topic is not about whether death is a good or bad thing only whether the transporter kills or not in it's normal use. The morality of transporter use is a completely different subject not touched upon here.

I didn't read through this whole thing, so sorry if I repeat something.

*sigh* Reading the entire thread is a requirement for proper intelligent posting, especially if you plan on not looking foolish. If you had then you would know that other people have done as you and have been chastised on that kind of stupidity already in this thread.

However if you believe that your views on the morality of death is worth discussing and debating then I entreat you to start a thread in the appropriate forum to discuss it.

[Eipok_Kruden]

I doubt transporters can reconstruct midichlorians, so could that mean that any Force user that uses a transporter would have his connection to the Force taken away? Permanently?

[Srelex]

Eh? If they can reconstruct individual cells, what's to stop midichlorians from being exempt?

[Wyrm]

Force powers aren't necessarily caused by midichlorians, though.

[Havok]

Force powers aren't necessarily caused by midichlorians, though.

No they aren't, but if you have enough of them, you have more access to the Force. The powers themselves come through actual training.

As for transporters not being able to duplicate midichlorians, that is just fucking stupid. If they can duplicate/render into data, every other cell in your body perfectly, there is absolutely zero reason why midichlorians would be immune.

[Havok]

I didn't read through this whole thing, so sorry if I repeat something.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with death. It's bad because you're not alive anymore, and thus can't be happy. If you die but a clone lives life in your place, there's no ethical difference. Of course, if cloning you and not killing the original was a possibility, you probably should have done that.

What's more, even if there is something wrong with it, wouldn't that mean that there's something good about birth? Certainly the good caused by creating a life is as significant as the bad created by destroying one. Again, you should probably just create one, but if the choices are somehow mutually exclusive, it doesn't matter which you choose.

Dude, you need to put a little more thought into death... or I dunno, maybe not, ignorance is bliss.

If the transporter is just a cloning machine as people argue, then the person that goes in does not come out. They are dead. That is it. No more thought. No more anything. No looking down from the heavens seeing how many people are at your funeral and seeing how much they loved you. DEAD. Complete nothingness. Never again to exist in the universe.

The clone has that dead persons memories, and everything else, but they are a different entity. YOU are dead.

I still don't think this is what the transporter does, but if it does, I would never go any where near that fucking thing.

[Darwin]

Jesus on a unicycle, how do we even quantify this? If we had a real, working teleporter and no shortage of volunteers, how could we possibly prove one way or another? The participant/victim can't tell us if they're dead or not, the soul is an abstract meaningless concept that can't be quantified or measured, and if we were putting people in to die, nobody would ever know because their perfect copies are perfectly happy being alive and believing they've been alive all this time and who is to say that they're wrong?

Seriously, how could we even go about proving the transporters kill theory? I'm out of ideas.

[Serafina]

That's easy:
Measure whether the person has the same brain activity, memories, personality and whatnot.
If you can't find a difference, there is no reason to assume anything is wrong. If there is, then there is a problem.

[SCRawl]

That's easy:
Measure whether the person has the same brain activity, memories, personality and whatnot.
If you can't find a difference, there is no reason to assume anything is wrong. If there is, then there is a problem.

But it's not that easy. The transporter (apparently) creates an exact copy of the person at the receiving end, and will for all available tests be examined to be identical -- as if you had a perfect fax machine. But the fax you receive is not the same piece of paper as the one that was sent; you can only do that by using something like a courier or the mail service.

If my body were to be dissolved, my consciousness stopped, but an exact copy (with my exact memories and personality) were to take its place, then to the outside world nothing has been lost. To "me", the person who stepped on to the transporter pad, my life is over. I really don't see how else to resolve this.

[Picard]

And you are right.

[Rontu]

But it's not that easy. The transporter (apparently) creates an exact copy of the person at the receiving end, and will for all available tests be examined to be identical -- as if you had a perfect fax machine. But the fax you receive is not the same piece of paper as the one that was sent; you can only do that by using something like a courier or the mail service.

But the transporter is far from perfect. There are so many accidents, that infinitesimal errors have to occur every time a person is transported. These errors will accumulate over time, and differences will be measurable. They might not be apparant after the first time though.
Furthermore they are always scan for infections, viruses ect. These are then removed to avoid ship wide contamination. Like it helps!
These acts represent a measurable change in a persons body information. Thus he has died and clone goes to live on.

[Kamakazie Sith]

But it's not that easy. The transporter (apparently) creates an exact copy of the person at the receiving end, and will for all available tests be examined to be identical -- as if you had a perfect fax machine. But the fax you receive is not the same piece of paper as the one that was sent; you can only do that by using something like a courier or the mail service.

But the transporter is far from perfect. There are so many accidents, that infinitesimal errors have to occur every time a person is transported. These errors will accumulate over time, and differences will be measurable. They might not be apparant after the first time though.
Furthermore they are always scan for infections, viruses ect. These are then removed to avoid ship wide contamination. Like it helps!
These acts represent a measurable change in a persons body information. Thus he has died and clone goes to live on.

Define "so many". Cite your source for these errors. Cite your evidence that the person is in fact a clone, and explain how Barclay maintained consciousness throughout the transport.

[Wyrm]

But it's not that easy. The transporter (apparently) creates an exact copy of the person at the receiving end, and will for all available tests be examined to be identical -- as if you had a perfect fax machine. But the fax you receive is not the same piece of paper as the one that was sent; you can only do that by using something like a courier or the mail service.

You know, I thought I laid the "non-original matter" argument to rest earlier in this very thread. Yes, Yes, I did. The transporter is not a fax machine, as the matter used at the other end is your original matter (assuming we know what that phrase means). It just got scrambled a bit on the way, then unscrambled at the end. The analogy is that the letter got ripped up on the way, and then glued back together.

And I also pointed out the fungibility of bare matter earlier in the thread too. If preserving your original matter is necessary to preserve yourself, then you are already dead, because that's what your body does over the course of years — replace your original matter with similar but different matter (again, assuming we know what that phrase means).

If my body were to be dissolved, my consciousness stopped, but an exact copy (with my exact memories and personality) were to take its place, then to the outside world nothing has been lost. To "me", the person who stepped on to the transporter pad, my life is over. I really don't see how else to resolve this.

UNDEFINED SYMBOL: "ME"

Yes, you really need to define what constitutes "you" before you can claim this. The way you appear to define it (original matter) would break badly in familiar circumstances, like living a couple of years.

[SapphireFox]

If my body were to be dissolved, my consciousness stopped, but an exact copy (with my exact memories and personality) were to take its place, then to the outside world nothing has been lost. To "me", the person who stepped on to the transporter pad, my life is over. I really don't see how else to resolve this.

That only works if "me" is a defined element. Would you care to define it before continuing on that line of thought.

But the transporter is far from perfect. There are so many accidents, that infinitesimal errors have to occur every time a person is transported. These errors will accumulate over time, and differences will be measurable. They might not be apparant after the first time though.
Furthermore they are always scan for infections, viruses ect. These are then removed to avoid ship wide contamination. Like it helps!
These acts represent a measurable change in a persons body information. Thus he has died and clone goes to live on.

I hate to break it to you but that doesn't quite work the way you think it does, as even natural background radiation will alter and create small differences in the body thus invalidating any test you could do to determine differences created by the transporter.

Also please give your sources of the events in question when making your claims, otherwise it just looks like you are spouting off baseless claims. You need to do a little "leg work" if you expect to be taken seriously.

[SCRawl]

Cite your evidence that the person is in fact a clone, and explain how Barclay maintained consciousness throughout the transport.

I have finally reviewed the video in question -- several months after it was first suggested by you -- and let's just say that it's more open to interpretation than you seem to think it is. You suggest that it's fairly conclusive evidence of continuous consciousness; I submit that it could be something else.

Consider: Barclay-A steps onto the pad, shivers, and the transport cycle begins. He sees the shimmering, sparkly lights, which grow in intensity until the transporter room is completely obscured by them. According to my interpretation, this is the point at which Barclay-A's consciousness is interrupted, and he is dead. Barclay-B takes over, going from the completely obscured sparkly lights which quickly diminish in intensity to reveal the interior of the other ship. He shivers again, and greets Commander LaForge, etc.

Can you show my interpretation to be incorrect? I don't think so, though of course you're free to disagree with it, and I can see other interpretations which fit the facts just as well, starting with different assumptions. I can't imagine a test -- other than one which would reveal imperfections in the transport process, which I am assuming to be perfect in every detectable way -- that would reveal a difference between Barclay-A and Barclay-B, and yet according to my (reasonable, I think) interpretation the person that was Barclay-A has quite definitely ceased to be.

But it's not that easy. The transporter (apparently) creates an exact copy of the person at the receiving end, and will for all available tests be examined to be identical -- as if you had a perfect fax machine. But the fax you receive is not the same piece of paper as the one that was sent; you can only do that by using something like a courier or the mail service.

You know, I thought I laid the "non-original matter" argument to rest earlier in this very thread. Yes, Yes, I did. The transporter is not a fax machine, as the matter used at the other end is your original matter (assuming we know what that phrase means). It just got scrambled a bit on the way, then unscrambled at the end. The analogy is that the letter got ripped up on the way, and then glued back together.

And I also pointed out the fungibility of bare matter earlier in the thread too. If preserving your original matter is necessary to preserve yourself, then you are already dead, because that's what your body does over the course of years — replace your original matter with similar but different matter (again, assuming we know what that phrase means).

(I let this thread get away from me for some time, and only re-entered it recently.)

I never suggested that the original matter was required to maintain continuity of consciousness. It is completely irrelevant to my position, and my analogy with a fax machine, while not perfect, still illustrates the point I was making fairly well. And anyways, we know for certain that the original's matter is not always used to form the copy: if that were the case, then the episode where Cmdr Riker was duplicated would have resulted in two half-sized versions, and while that's an amusing thing to contemplate, it isn't what we saw on the screen.

Just to beat this thing on the head again, if we use the fax machine analogy (which uses the original paper to be torn up and re-assembled at its destination), I think we can agree that there must be a point, however brief, during which the thing being faxed is definitely not the way it started out: document ---> mangled something ---> exact copy of document. If the thing being transported is a person, then during that intermediate stage, however brief it is, there is no way it has a functioning brain to contain that person's mind (or consciousness, or whatever you want to call it). This is the basis for my siding on the "yes" answer to the OP's question.

If my body were to be dissolved, my consciousness stopped, but an exact copy (with my exact memories and personality) were to take its place, then to the outside world nothing has been lost. To "me", the person who stepped on to the transporter pad, my life is over. I really don't see how else to resolve this.

UNDEFINED SYMBOL: "ME"

Yes, you really need to define what constitutes "you" before you can claim this. The way you appear to define it (original matter) would break badly in familiar circumstances, like living a couple of years.

It is a difficult thing to define, isn't it? I already tried this earlier in the thread, when I wrote this:

If there's a transporter accident causing -- let's say me, for the sake of argument -- to both re-materialize at my destination and remain on the transporter pad, then are both "me"? If one of them subsequently dies, then is anything lost?

I would argue that they are both "you," and that if one of them dies, one of "you" is lost. There's another you, a slightly different version of you, but a you still died. Just as if I destroy a computer running Microsoft Word, a Microsoft Word is gone, but the program Microsoft Word still exists, both as an abstract entity and in millions of instances running on computers around the world.

This is the point on which we disagree, I think. By my definition there can't be more than one of "me", since what makes me "me" is the fact that I'm experiencing it right now, and adding those experiences to the sum of "my" existence. I can't see through my copy's eyes, or compel him to scratch his nose. My copy will appear to all external tests to be just like me, but in that one sense -- the one that is most crucial to me (or is it "me"? ) -- he is fundamentally different.

Clearly, if there really is such a thing as free will, and it isn't just an illusion on top of a completely deterministic universe, and if I as a person possess it, then I can define myself in something like this manner, as a separate entity from everything else. You don't see me like this, and you shouldn't; to you I'm just another person, but you probably define yourself in a manner something like I just described. Or you don't, I really can't say.

[Kamakazie Sith]

I have finally reviewed the video in question -- several months after it was first suggested by you -- and let's just say that it's more open to interpretation than you seem to think it is. You suggest that it's fairly conclusive evidence of continuous consciousness; I submit that it could be something else.

You're adding an interpretation that isn't supported by any canon evidence. We see the point of view through Barclay's eyes. It is uninterrupted which would be required for there to be a loss of consciousness.

Consider: Barclay-A steps onto the pad, shivers, and the transport cycle begins. He sees the shimmering, sparkly lights, which grow in intensity until the transporter room is completely obscured by them. According to my interpretation, this is the point at which Barclay-A's consciousness is interrupted, and he is dead. Barclay-B takes over, going from the completely obscured sparkly lights which quickly diminish in intensity to reveal the interior of the other ship. He shivers again, and greets Commander LaForge, etc.

So, when you loose consciousness your eyes continue to perceive light? Fascinating.

Can you show my interpretation to be incorrect? I don't think so, though of course you're free to disagree with it, and I can see other interpretations which fit the facts just as well, starting with different assumptions. I can't imagine a test -- other than one which would reveal imperfections in the transport process, which I am assuming to be perfect in every detectable way -- that would reveal a difference between Barclay-A and Barclay-B, and yet according to my (reasonable, I think) interpretation the person that was Barclay-A has quite definitely ceased to be.

It's easy. Barclay doesn't loose consciousness because his eyes which you are looking through continue to receive light. If he blacked out then I would take your side, but the information doesn't support that. Your interpretation is absurd because you do not take account for this fact.

As for the Commander Riker cloning. That involved an outside energy source acting upon the transporter beam which destroys your argument that the original matter could not be used.

[SCRawl]

I have finally reviewed the video in question -- several months after it was first suggested by you -- and let's just say that it's more open to interpretation than you seem to think it is. You suggest that it's fairly conclusive evidence of continuous consciousness; I submit that it could be something else.

You're adding an interpretation that isn't supported by any canon evidence. We see the point of view through Barclay's eyes. It is uninterrupted which would be required for there to be a loss of consciousness.

From Barclay-B, who steps off the receiving end of the transport system, he would perceive no loss of consciousness. Just like I don't notice the passage of time between when the anaesthetist (sp?) puts me out and wakes me up, Barclay-B will notice nothing amiss.

(It's interesting to note that while I do believe in the continuity of consciousness between going to sleep and waking up, I would have no way to prove it. In the case of the transporter, though, without the meatbag to hold the consciousness, I just don't see how it can be maintained throughout the whole process.)

As for seeing "through Barclay's eyes", er, what eyes? There is a point during transport during which he has no eyes, and no brain, and no consciousness, unless you believe that consciousness can exist without a brain to house it.

Consider: Barclay-A steps onto the pad, shivers, and the transport cycle begins. He sees the shimmering, sparkly lights, which grow in intensity until the transporter room is completely obscured by them. According to my interpretation, this is the point at which Barclay-A's consciousness is interrupted, and he is dead. Barclay-B takes over, going from the completely obscured sparkly lights which quickly diminish in intensity to reveal the interior of the other ship. He shivers again, and greets Commander LaForge, etc.

So, when you loose consciousness your eyes continue to perceive light? Fascinating.

See above: what eyes?

Can you show my interpretation to be incorrect? I don't think so, though of course you're free to disagree with it, and I can see other interpretations which fit the facts just as well, starting with different assumptions. I can't imagine a test -- other than one which would reveal imperfections in the transport process, which I am assuming to be perfect in every detectable way -- that would reveal a difference between Barclay-A and Barclay-B, and yet according to my (reasonable, I think) interpretation the person that was Barclay-A has quite definitely ceased to be.

It's easy. Barclay doesn't loose consciousness because his eyes which you are looking through continue to receive light. If he blacked out then I would take your side, but the information doesn't support that. Your interpretation is absurd because you do not take account for this fact.

See above: for at least a short time there are no eyes to do seeing with, nor brain to process what the eyes see (etc.) That's how the transporter works. If Barclay wanted to see what was happening the whole time, he'd need to take a shuttlecraft or something.

As for the Commander Riker cloning. That involved an outside energy source acting upon the transporter beam which destroys your argument that the original matter could not be used.

There is "an outside energy source" -- what now? To pick a round number, 100kg of Riker starts out on the planet when transport begins, and once it's all done, there's 100kg of Riker on his ship and 100kg of Riker still on the planet. Where did the extra 100kg come from? It clearly can't all be from him. And I didn't say that the original matter could not be used, but rather that it is "not always used to form the copy", using this instance as evidence to back up my claim.

[Kamakazie Sith]

From Barclay-B, who steps off the receiving end of the transport system, he would perceive no loss of consciousness. Just like I don't notice the passage of time between when the anaesthetist (sp?) puts me out and wakes me up, Barclay-B will notice nothing amiss.

(It's interesting to note that while I do believe in the continuity of consciousness between going to sleep and waking up, I would have no way to prove it. In the case of the transporter, though, without the meatbag to hold the consciousness, I just don't see how it can be maintained throughout the whole process.)

As for seeing "through Barclay's eyes", er, what eyes? There is a point during transport during which he has no eyes, and no brain, and no consciousness, unless you believe that consciousness can exist without a brain to house it.

Don't know. Don't care. That's what the scene shows. Regardless, even if Barclay did loose consciousness that does not support the cloning hypothesis. In addition, the scene where we see the form moving through the matter stream. It's movement is not interupted during the process. That form represents the trapped people...

There is "an outside energy source" -- what now? To pick a round number, 100kg of Riker starts out on the planet when transport begins, and once it's all done, there's 100kg of Riker on his ship and 100kg of Riker still on the planet. Where did the extra 100kg come from? It clearly can't all be from him. And I didn't say that the original matter could not be used, but rather that it is "not always used to form the copy", using this instance as evidence to back up my claim.

When Commander Riker starts to beam out an energy beam interacts with the beam which causes the creation of Thomas Riker. Thus, it supplied the extra matter that the transporter rearranged back into Riker. Since clones won't have your memories this would explain why Thomas Riker did.

[Wyrm]

I never suggested that the original matter was required to maintain continuity of consciousness. It is completely irrelevant to my position, and my analogy with a fax machine, while not perfect, still illustrates the point I was making fairly well. And anyways, we know for certain that the original's matter is not always used to form the copy: if that were the case, then the episode where Cmdr Riker was duplicated would have resulted in two half-sized versions, and while that's an amusing thing to contemplate, it isn't what we saw on the screen.

Reverse fallacy of accident. Again, mass balance. In the Riker duplication we have a plausable source of where the extra matter came from. In normal transports, we have a definite problem of where the extra mass comes from if it doesn't come from the ship.

Just to beat this thing on the head again, if we use the fax machine analogy (which uses the original paper to be torn up and re-assembled at its destination), I think we can agree that there must be a point, however brief, during which the thing being faxed is definitely not the way it started out: document ---> mangled something ---> exact copy of document. If the thing being transported is a person, then during that intermediate stage, however brief it is, there is no way it has a functioning brain to contain that person's mind (or consciousness, or whatever you want to call it). This is the basis for my siding on the "yes" answer to the OP's question.

So if I knock you out, you die, even though your life functions do not cease or even cause significant brain damage? I don't see you running about claiming people who have undergone surgery under general anesthesia or have suffered mild head trauma are in fact not the original people.

It is a difficult thing to define, isn't it? I already tried this earlier in the thread, when I wrote this:

This is the point on which we disagree, I think. By my definition there can't be more than one of "me", since what makes me "me" is the fact that I'm experiencing it right now, and adding those experiences to the sum of "my" existence. I can't see through my copy's eyes, or compel him to scratch his nose. My copy will appear to all external tests to be just like me, but in that one sense -- the one that is most crucial to me (or is it "me"? ) -- he is fundamentally different.

Clearly, if there really is such a thing as free will, and it isn't just an illusion on top of a completely deterministic universe, and if I as a person possess it, then I can define myself in something like this manner, as a separate entity from everything else. You don't see me like this, and you shouldn't; to you I'm just another person, but you probably define yourself in a manner something like I just described. Or you don't, I really can't say.

Both you and your copy (if that phrase has any meaning) have equal claim of being "you". If it's just a clone, then "you" should still exist, yet by your own premises, we'd have to conclude that you have ceased to exist, because there are only two logically consistent possibilities: the two are both "you", or neither are "you", and only the latter is consistent with your premise.

The bottom line is that you're expecting this definition of "me" to work the way you want it to, but it doesn't. It breaks under mildly unusual circumstances.

[SCRawl]

I never suggested that the original matter was required to maintain continuity of consciousness. It is completely irrelevant to my position, and my analogy with a fax machine, while not perfect, still illustrates the point I was making fairly well. And anyways, we know for certain that the original's matter is not always used to form the copy: if that were the case, then the episode where Cmdr Riker was duplicated would have resulted in two half-sized versions, and while that's an amusing thing to contemplate, it isn't what we saw on the screen.

Reverse fallacy of accident. Again, mass balance. In the Riker duplication we have a plausable source of where the extra matter came from. In normal transports, we have a definite problem of where the extra mass comes from if it doesn't come from the ship.

What I said was that the matter to produce the copy does not always come from the original. I did not state that that matter never comes from the original. We aren't arguing anything here, and anyways I do not hold that the original matter is important to the continuity of consciousness, with the exception that its (at least nominal) structure is critical to that continuity. If I replace the lumber holding my house together piece by piece, my roof will still stay where it is and perform its necessary functions. If I wink every piece of lumber out of existence and replace it with identical lumber a short time later, my roof will cave in, and even if this process creates a new roof in place of the old one the old roof is gone. (It's not a perfect analogy, I freely admit.)

Just to beat this thing on the head again, if we use the fax machine analogy (which uses the original paper to be torn up and re-assembled at its destination), I think we can agree that there must be a point, however brief, during which the thing being faxed is definitely not the way it started out: document ---> mangled something ---> exact copy of document. If the thing being transported is a person, then during that intermediate stage, however brief it is, there is no way it has a functioning brain to contain that person's mind (or consciousness, or whatever you want to call it). This is the basis for my siding on the "yes" answer to the OP's question.

So if I knock you out, you die, even though your life functions do not cease or even cause significant brain damage? I don't see you running about claiming people who have undergone surgery under general anesthesia or have suffered mild head trauma are in fact not the original people.

I addressed this as an aside just a couple of posts ago. I'll requote it here:

(It's interesting to note that while I do believe in the continuity of consciousness between going to sleep and waking up, I would have no way to prove it. In the case of the transporter, though, without the meatbag to hold the consciousness, I just don't see how it can be maintained throughout the whole process.)

It is a difficult thing to define, isn't it? I already tried this earlier in the thread, when I wrote this:

This is the point on which we disagree, I think. By my definition there can't be more than one of "me", since what makes me "me" is the fact that I'm experiencing it right now, and adding those experiences to the sum of "my" existence. I can't see through my copy's eyes, or compel him to scratch his nose. My copy will appear to all external tests to be just like me, but in that one sense -- the one that is most crucial to me (or is it "me"? ) -- he is fundamentally different.

Clearly, if there really is such a thing as free will, and it isn't just an illusion on top of a completely deterministic universe, and if I as a person possess it, then I can define myself in something like this manner, as a separate entity from everything else. You don't see me like this, and you shouldn't; to you I'm just another person, but you probably define yourself in a manner something like I just described. Or you don't, I really can't say.

Both you and your copy (if that phrase has any meaning) have equal claim of being "you". If it's just a clone, then "you" should still exist, yet by your own premises, we'd have to conclude that you have ceased to exist, because there are only two logically consistent possibilities: the two are both "you", or neither are "you", and only the latter is consistent with your premise.

The bottom line is that you're expecting this definition of "me" to work the way you want it to, but it doesn't. It breaks under mildly unusual circumstances.

You've gone to rather serious lengths to miss my point for some reason, so I'll try this again.

If I step onto the transporter pad and someone immediately takes a phaser and disintegrates my head, then the thing I shall call "me" is gone, yes? We can agree on this much, I hope.

If I step onto the pad and the accident I described earlier happens, and this process includes no discontinuity of consciousness (i.e. my body is never disintegrated, my physical form retains all of my vital functions continuously) then the "me" is still intact: the copy is me, down to the most basic level, but I am "me", the self-aware being. The copy is just like any other person I might meet on the street, with the exception that we are alike in all physical (and even psychological) respects. But as I stated earlier, I can't see through his eyes, or add his ongoing experiences to my own. That copy is a new person, with his own new definition of "me" (though, of course, he thinks he's the original just as much as I do).

What happens during a normal transporter process, though, is that I step onto the pad, they make a copy somewhere else, and just as that copy is made I get my body dissolved, and there is no more "me".