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Comment by Nux | Hacker News Reader

Once the brain has been powered off and the back on, is it even "you" anymore? Hasn't that person died and a new one was "born"?

Used to go a little bit crazy thinking about this when watching people getting transported in StarTrek.

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Thinking about that is like getting spooked by your reflection in a mirror - instincts being used in a situation where they don't apply.

If there's only one you at a time, neither you nor an outside observer can tell the difference.

If all the theory is correct, yes you are still you. Maybe damaged you, but you nonetheless.

Imagine the ship of theseus thought experiment, but instead of replacing part by part you store it on a dry dock (lost its function), some time after you put it in the sea again (recover the function), for all effects this still is the ship of Theseus

I like how the video game Soma showed it. If you fork a brain you kind of have a 50% chance of it continuing into the copy, and 50% chance of you being "left behind". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x790AjID0FA

I get the point, but I think the most self-consistent answer is that your conscious experience has a 100% chance of staying in the original body. (And similarly for destroy-and-remake teleporters.)

Indeed, the coin toss explanation "Catharine" uses on the Simon copies is merely a manipulation to ensure he continues following her instructions so that the ARK is launched, obscured to the player by the necessary mechanic of always controlling the surviving Simon copy. The only "real" Simon died in Toronto.

LOL, "we're not married, your husband died in the transporter".

"Ah can I have his laptop? He's got some saved games he wanted me to have"

See the Bobiverse books for some fun sci-fi on this.

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