Mangus and squad:
>Suppose there is a teleportation system that copies your DNA, kills you
then >instantaneously builds a perfect copy of you at a different
location would you agree >to travel by it?
>
>Or suppose it doesn't kill you, would it create another you?
>
>What does it take? Is it enough to copy your DNA? Are you defined by
your DNA?
Our teleportation system is different than the Star Trek transporter. In
fact, ours is not a means of travel at all. Instead it is an instant
clone machine and the fact that the clone is created at a different
location is just incidental. If I used the machine, I would be
killeddand copied, but naot actually relocated. That's a trip I'm not
prepared to take.
If our instant clone machine didn't have to kill the original, I still
wouldn't use it. To create another me requires the exact duplication of
all my experiences, not just my DNA. The clone would not be me without
those experiences. Like Diana said, it would be like a baby, only
bigger. (Tom Hanks takes a bow...)
Some of the more crucial experiences missing from the clone would even
include the first divisions of those undifferentiated cells. He would
not have experienced any of the stages of growth or birth itself. Birth
is a big one to Jungians and Freudians alike. Learning to crawl, eat,
walk, talk and drive a car were important experiences my clone would
have to do without. Not only has the poor ignorant creature never been
to school, he has missed the stages of cognitive development that allow
the acquisition of language and other skills. It's well known that
children pass THROUGH these stages and the capacity learn certain
mental skills fades as they mature. The clone's ability to learn most
things would be forever lost.
I imagine at the moment of creation the clone would fall to the ground
and be injured. He hasn't even learned about gravity yet and doesn't
know enough to catch himself. I see a huge knot on his head and he's
bleeding. Imagine the tears of a clone. (Any extra points for bad puns?)
Within seconds of creation he is a crying, quivering, drooling,
wild-eyed, bloody mess. The staff at the hospital where he ends up would
certainly make him an object of study and he'd be proded and poked for
years, if not for his entire existence. Ph.D.s would come from all over
the world to find out what he could learn and do.
Naturally, I would get a killer book deal and do all the talk shows.
Of course, to create such a miserable, empty creature would be highly
immoral. The ultimate airhead would almost certainly be doomed to alot
of suffering and abuse.
I can't help thinking that our "teleportation system" is just a science
fiction version of the old mind/body problem. In effect, it takes the
mind out of the body. As I understand it, the MOQ dissolves that problem
entirely. The MOQ would say the question is predicated on false or
mistaken assumptions, namely SOM. The MOQ would say the questions are
meaningless.
David
MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Jan 17 2002 - 13:08:35 GMT