I remember going through a similar change in my sense of self after reading through particular sections of the sequences—specifically thinking that logically, I have to identify with spatially (or temporally) separated ‘copies’ of me. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to help me in quite the same way it helps you deal with this dilemma. To me, it seems that if I am willing to press a button that will destroy me here and recreate me at my desired destination (which I believe I would be willing to do), the question of ‘what if the teleporter malfunctions and you don’t get recreated at your destination? Is that a bad thing?’ is almost without meaning, as there would no-longer be a ‘me’ to evaluate the utility of such an event. I guess the core confusion is that I find it hard to evaluate states of the universe where I am not conscious.
As pointed out by Richard, this is probably even more absurd than I realise, as I am not ‘conscious’ of all my desires at all times, and thus I cannot go on this road of ‘if I do not currently care about something, does it matter?’. I have to reflect on this some more and see if I can internalise a more useful sense of what matters and when.
Thanks a lot for the fiction examples, I hope to read them and see if the ideas therein cause me to have one of those ‘click’ moments...
The first is a short story that is basically a “garden path” toward this whole idea, and was a real jolt for me; you wonder why the narrator would be worried about this experiment going wrong, because she won’t be harmed regardless. That world-view gets turned on its ear at the end of the story.
The second is longer, but still a pretty short story; I didn’t see a version of it online independent of the novel-length collection it’s published in. It explores the Star Trek transporter idea, in greater detail and more rationally than Star Trek ever dared to do.
The third is a huuuuuuge comic archive (totally worth reading anyhow, but it’s been updating every single day for almost 15 years); the story arc in question is The Teraport Wars ( http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2002-04-15 ), and the specific part starts about here: http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2002-06-20 . Less “thinky” but funnier / more approachable than the others.
I remember going through a similar change in my sense of self after reading through particular sections of the sequences—specifically thinking that logically, I have to identify with spatially (or temporally) separated ‘copies’ of me. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to help me in quite the same way it helps you deal with this dilemma. To me, it seems that if I am willing to press a button that will destroy me here and recreate me at my desired destination (which I believe I would be willing to do), the question of ‘what if the teleporter malfunctions and you don’t get recreated at your destination? Is that a bad thing?’ is almost without meaning, as there would no-longer be a ‘me’ to evaluate the utility of such an event. I guess the core confusion is that I find it hard to evaluate states of the universe where I am not conscious.
As pointed out by Richard, this is probably even more absurd than I realise, as I am not ‘conscious’ of all my desires at all times, and thus I cannot go on this road of ‘if I do not currently care about something, does it matter?’. I have to reflect on this some more and see if I can internalise a more useful sense of what matters and when.
Thanks a lot for the fiction examples, I hope to read them and see if the ideas therein cause me to have one of those ‘click’ moments...
The first is a short story that is basically a “garden path” toward this whole idea, and was a real jolt for me; you wonder why the narrator would be worried about this experiment going wrong, because she won’t be harmed regardless. That world-view gets turned on its ear at the end of the story.
The second is longer, but still a pretty short story; I didn’t see a version of it online independent of the novel-length collection it’s published in. It explores the Star Trek transporter idea, in greater detail and more rationally than Star Trek ever dared to do.
The third is a huuuuuuge comic archive (totally worth reading anyhow, but it’s been updating every single day for almost 15 years); the story arc in question is The Teraport Wars ( http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2002-04-15 ), and the specific part starts about here: http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2002-06-20 . Less “thinky” but funnier / more approachable than the others.