That's the thing. If you exist as one consciousness, then they copy the other while the first dies, the second is, essentially, the same consciousness. Therefore, you are still alive.
I feel like this has been discussed somewhere already in history.
I feel like this has been discussed somewhere already in history.
No matter how many times I say that I'm speaking from the individual's point of view, some readers seem incapable of looking at it from an individual perspective.
In the case of your statement, it would solely depend on how the copy was made. If it's copied by somehow reading the consciousness, storing it as data, and perfectly restoring it in a new brain, then no, it is not the same consciousness, and from your perspective you are dead.
If it's copied through some kind of direct transfer, where the electrical impulses move, through some kind of biological link, to a new brain, then it is possible that the same continuous consciousness could now exist in the new brain.
(to be clear, I don't mean any of what I said to be insulting. I'm just observing that there are perspectives on this issue that I don't quite understand)
Under this premise (as you stated), copying your entire state and spawning it elsewhere (then killing the original) means your original version experiences a stopping of their continuity.
But if you analyze that premise, you realize that the only reason we believe we existed a second ago is because of our memory (the same reason the clone believes it was always alive).
How can you know that you aren't being cloned, in-place, right now? ie. Copied, killed, and spawned in place almost instantaneously. At every instant you carry all your memories and thus "feel" continuity, but it's a new you.
In this view, being killed and spawned elsewhere is no different. It isn't taking anything away from you because you never had it.
Obviously this is just a thought experiment, but just the fact that right now, while you were questioning if being cloned and killed was bad for the original you, this process could have been happening to you without your knowledge, might mean it is irrelevant.
The opposite scenario is that there are now two consciousnesses. If the original dies so does its consciousness and you failed to achieve immortality. Your clone is just your offspring with an identical body and set of memories.
So which is it? I personally picked it based on what I want to believe in, because even if it is a lie it helps me shape the world into one in which I want to life in, rather than one that I do not like and would prefer to get rid of.
Ship of Theseus paradox, if you replace the planks and beams of a ship over and over until they are all replaced, is it still the original ship?
Difference is, humans have a perspective on the world which ships and brooms do not have. If you watched a team busying about with a machine for a few hours, and then a human stepped out of it, and then one of the team members turned to you and said "OK we've got a clone of you, now we're going to shoot you in the head" would you say "yes I see that new person out there across the room looks exactly like me, so it IS me, so go on, shoot me?"
Some things stay rather permanent though, as they're dynamically reinforced, short of serious trauma. Those parts are likely to survive stepped replacement, or rather both the replacement and original adjust to get to the original state. It's like trying to replace a component of a feedback system while it's live, it will be out of whack for a while but if control is good enough will return to baseline.
It's a handle of convenience. If it points to something useful it's useful if not then not there never was or will be a ship of theseus so whether it's the same ship means nothing.
This is easy to say if you're not the one dying. If you know a perfect clone of your current self is going to live from this point forward, are you still comfortable with being killed?
For example: general anesthesia is something I think most people having these conversations should experience (which is to say, generally a lot of people don't). Because it's very different to sleep. Waking up from GA, it's as though no time has passed at all - you were one place, suddenly you're another.
In the case where a person is duplicated exactly, sometime during that period of GA - what's the difference?
It takes a special pleading that somehow, someone would know the difference. While under general anesthesia it's worth considering that people can and do actually die. And unless something metaphysical happens at that point, then the reality is they never know. They went under, expected to wake up, and just don't.
Personally, most nights of normal sleep are like that for me as well. Dreams (or at least the remembrance thereof) are a rare occurrence rather than the norm.
(For reference, yes, I have been under GA. I didn't really find it to be all that different, other than the onset being somewhat more sudden and waking up in a different place.)
This all assumes a destructive copy process -- if a non-destructive teleporter is possible, you don't need to destroy remaining copy, but all kinds of legal issues arise. Maybe you'd want to have one copy destroyed to avoid paying double for lunch.