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0 pointsssfrr1y ago0 comments

Say I walk into a machine, and then I walk out, and also an exact duplicate walks out of a nearby chamber. My assumption is that we’d both feel like “me”. One of us would have the experience of walking into the machine and walking out again, and the other would have the experience of walking into the machine and being teleported into the other chamber.

Im probably lacking in imagination, or the relevant background, but I’m having trouble thinking of an alternative.

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selcuka1y ago

> My assumption is that we’d both feel like “me”.

You assume that both would feel like you, but there is no way you can prove it. The other can be a philosophical zombie [1] for all you know.

Would the "current you" feel any different after the duplication? Most people, including me, would find this counterintuitive. What happens if the other you travels to the other end of the world? What would you see? The question is not how the replica would think and act from an outside observer's perspective, but would it have the same consciousness as you. Would you call the replica "I"?

Or to make it more complex, what would happen if you save your current state to a hard disk, and an exact duplicate gets manufactured 100 years after you die, using the stored information?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

kristiandupont1y ago

Like GP, I feel that I might be imagining imagination here, but I really don't follow what this is supposed to reveal.

>Would you call the replica "I"?

The two would start out identical and immediately start to diverge like twins. They would share memories and personality but not experience? What am I missing here?

polishdude201y ago

I too don't get what's being missed.

1 more reply

jstanley1y ago

> Would you call the replica "I"?

Both of the replicas would refer to themselves as "I", but neither would refer to the other as "I".

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