The teletransportation paradox or teletransport paradox (also known in alternative forms as the duplicates paradox) is a

thought experiment A thought experiment is an imaginary scenario that is meant to elucidate or test an argument or theory. It is often an experiment that would be hard, impossible, or unethical to actually perform. It can also be an abstract hypothetical that is ...

on the philosophy of identity that challenges common intuitions on the nature of

self In philosophy, the self is an individual's own being, knowledge, and values, and the relationship between these attributes. The first-person perspective distinguishes selfhood from personal identity. Whereas "identity" is (literally) same ...

and

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...

, formulated by

Derek Parfit Derek Antony Parfit (; 11 December 1942 – 2 January 2017) was a British philosopher who specialised in personal identity, rationality, and ethics. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of the lat ...

in his 1984 book ''

Reasons and Persons ''Reasons and Persons'' is a 1984 book by the philosopher Derek Parfit, in which the author discusses ethics, rationality and personal identity. It is divided into four parts, dedicated to self-defeating theories, rationality and time, personal ...

.'' If a person is somehow re-created, say by teletransportation, is the re-creation the same person?

Older versions

The Polish science-fiction writer

Stanisław Lem Stanisław Herman Lem (; 12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer. He was the author of many novels, short stories, and essays on various subjects, including philosophy, futurology, and literary criticism. Many of his science fi ...

described the same problem in the mid-twentieth century. He put it in writing in his philosophical text '' Dialogs'' in 1957. Similarly, in Lem's '' Star Diaries'' ("Fourteenth Voyage") of 1957, the hero visits a planet and finds himself recreated from a backup record, after his death from a meteorite strike, which on this planet is a very commonplace procedure. In chapter 6 of his later discursive book " Summa Technologiae", first published in 1964, he discussed in detail the identity paradoxes associated with teleportation and hibernation of human beings. Similar questions of identity have been raised as early as 1775.

Derek Parfit's version

Derek Parfit and others consider a hypothetical "teletransporter", a machine that puts a person to sleep, records their molecular composition, breaking it down into atoms, and relaying its recording to Mars at the speed of light. On Mars, another machine re-creates the person (from local stores of carbon, hydrogen, and so on), each atom in exactly the same relative position. Parfit poses the question of whether or not the teletransporter is actually a method of travel, or if it simply kills and makes an exact replica of the user. Then the teleporter is upgraded. The teletransporter on Earth is modified to not destroy the person who enters it, but instead it can simply make infinite replicas, all of whom would claim to remember entering the teletransporter on Earth in the first place. Using thought experiments such as these, Parfit argues that any criteria we attempt to use to determine sameness of person will be lacking, because there is no further fact. What matters, to Parfit, is simply "Relation R", psychological connectedness, including memory, personality, and so on. Parfit continues this logic to establish a new context for morality and social control. He cites that it is morally wrong for one person to harm or interfere with another person and it is incumbent on society to protect individuals from such transgressions. That accepted, it is a short extrapolation to conclude that it is also incumbent on society to protect an individual's "Future Self" from such transgressions; tobacco use could be classified as an abuse of a Future Self's right to a healthy existence. Parfit resolves the logic to reach this conclusion, which appears to justify incursion into personal freedoms, but he does not explicitly endorse such invasive control.

References

External links

The Identity of Theseus: Ship and Man – The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research, Spring 2012, Volume 11 Issue 1, page 60

{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150204141104/http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2010-11/DownloadingConsciousness/index.html , date=4 February 2015
The Trouble with Transporters – CGP Grey
Cloning Concepts in the philosophy of mind Paradoxes Teleportation Thought experiments in philosophy

Older versions

Derek Parfit's version

See also

References

External links