So, if you were able to make an exact copy of yourself...

SaltyNuts

Platinum Member
May 1, 2001
2,399
275
126
Another thread, as well as a book I read many years ago, got me thinking deep philosophical thoughts again.

Let's say the technology is there to make an EXACT copy of yourself. And you do so, and IMMEDIATELY upon the copy being made, your "old self" is executed while unconscious.

So, in that scenario, aren't you still alive?
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,518
5,340
136
Depends, in this hypothetical situation, do you have a soul? Because then the soul would be a duplicate.

I can't remember the book series, maybe it was the same one - sci-fi space book where the guy would fight for some great being who could bring him back to life. He later finds out he was basically being copy/pasted into someone else's body, so the person he was right at that moment was "him", and if he were to die & come back, it would be someone else with his memories. Pretty good concept!
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,518
5,340
136
Also two of me would be great, dinner would get made in half the time!
 

Yakk

Golden Member
May 28, 2016
1,574
275
81
If you can create an exact neural duplicate at a specific point in time then that copy would be your brain at that point in time. After this point in time both duplicates would be adding to their Neural network different information and gradually be growing apart, but still built from the same base.

If you take alive to mean coming from that same base neural activity then yes you would be alive as you were at that point in time.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,518
5,340
136
If you can create an exact neural duplicate at a specific point in time then that copy would be your brain at that point in time. After this point in time both duplicates would be adding to their Neural network different information and gradually be growing apart, but still built from the same base.

If you take alive to mean coming from that same base neural activity then yes you would be alive as you were at that point in time.

Well if you've ever been friends with twins, I think that's kind of the same idea...you get the 2-for-1 deal up-front, but no matter how similar they are, they are always going to be a little bit different.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
67,904
12,374
126
www.anyf.ca
Technically the duplicate would get a new soul (or whatever you want to call it, a "consciousness" so to speak) so while both would probably think and act and look basically the same, they would still be two different people that have two different consciousnesses.

What would be interesting is the fact that if the brain got copied too, would they both remember the same stuff? Would the duplicate even realize he got duplicated.

Now what happens if you clone a ginger... I would be willing to volunteer for that experiment.

I knew someone with two dogs that were basically clones of each other, came from same litter and were super similar. They did everything the same, the way they ran, the toys they liked, their bark, everything. The only way to tell them apart was when they ate. The black one ate more than the white one.
 
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sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,128
5,657
126
I might be willing to do a simultaneous BJ with it. We'd have to count down though, don't want to end up the one to start then have the Clone refuse to follow through.....
 

Paratus

Lifer
Jun 4, 2004
16,846
13,777
146
Depends, in this hypothetical situation, do you have a soul? Because then the soul would be a duplicate.

I can't remember the book series, maybe it was the same one - sci-fi space book where the guy would fight for some great being who could bring him back to life. He later finds out he was basically being copy/pasted into someone else's body, so the person he was right at that moment was "him", and if he were to die & come back, it would be someone else with his memories. Pretty good concept!

Ben Bova's Orion series was like that. The Antagonist Orion was fighting was traveling forward in time trying to end the human race at various points in history. Orion would stop him each time and die only to be resurrected as someone else in an earlier time by the "god" who created him to stop his nemesis once again.


Another series that tackled this was The Commonwealth Saga. Similar to the human Cyclons in BSG the humans in this series have a memory implant that allows them to store copies of themselves if they die. A clone would be force grown and loaded with the memory implant if It survived. In that case it would have a complete recording of you up till the moment of your death. If the implant didn't survive then they used a backup saved earlier.

The issue was the clone could only be force grown until it was a "teenager" so you'd have to go back through puberty. It was also psychologically difficult for those who were revived from backup since they tended to not be sure the "real me" wasn't still out there alive. Still it was used to great effect when a naval ship rammed the enemy at relativistic speeds to buy time since they'd all be revived from backup.

If you weren't killed the people in the story would never die due to rejuvenation. Average people worked until they could afford to be rejuvenated backdown to their early 20's. The rich of course treated it like cosmetic surgery.
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
1,013
126
Another thread, as well as a book I read many years ago, got me thinking deep philosophical thoughts again.

Let's say the technology is there to make an EXACT copy of yourself. And you do so, and IMMEDIATELY upon the copy being made, your "old self" is executed while unconscious.

So, in that scenario, aren't you still alive?

Theoretically yes. Indeed the idea of "resleeving" your consciousness into a new body is a key concept in numerous sci-fi novels like the Takeshi Kovacs series and movies like Sixth Day with Ahhnold.

https://www.amazon.com/Altered-Carb...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=GKG281SYMPHYS26A5QK1
 

MongGrel

Lifer
Dec 3, 2013
38,751
3,068
121

brianmanahan

Lifer
Sep 2, 2006
24,300
5,730
136
nope. i would be dead, the clone of me would live. my consciousness would end. hence, death.

this is why i will not support teleportation technology unless they can transport the same subatomic particles
 
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Yakk

Golden Member
May 28, 2016
1,574
275
81
Well if you've ever been friends with twins, I think that's kind of the same idea...you get the 2-for-1 deal up-front, but no matter how similar they are, they are always going to be a little bit different.

Pretty much. Even made from the same genetic base, experiences and memories will change a person's neural makeup and affect their thinking and choices since those are made based upon those same experiences and memories. Fascinating the brain. ..
 

disappoint

Lifer
Dec 7, 2009
10,137
382
126
There's a soul?

Maybe. I don't subscribe to the religious guesswork newsletter, so let's take a scientific approach to defining a soul.

While you're alive you have consciousness, which I personally define as the emergent property of the collective interactions between billions of neurons working together.

To aid your understanding: Let's take the example of a switch. It turns a light on or off. Pretty basic and boring. It doesn't do much on it's own. Similarly a transistor in a circuit can be made to act as a switch with the same boring functionality. It merely turns something on or off, and nothing else. Doesn't do much on it's own.

Now look at what happens when you have billions of them working together collectively. Suddenly an emergent property that wasn't obvious before emerges. It can do calculations, with the right software even make decisions. Even beat a Jeopardy champion. And more.

A single transistor not only couldn't do that but there was no indication it ever could. In fact billions of transistors working as switches independently can't either. Only when working together does a property emerge that wasn't there before.

Another way to describe this is that the sum is greater than it's parts.



Like transistors working together having emergent properties, neurons working together have the emergent property of consciousness. This is actually more well understood by neuroscientists than most lay people realize.

So I'd define a soul as consciousness. But that's just another label. If I've learned anything from Richard Feynman it's this: Knowing the label is not equivalent to knowing anything about it. Those aren't his exact words, I'm paraphrasing, but the meaning is the same as what he said.

Back to the consciousness topic, I'd say when you die this interaction stops. So what makes up the interaction?

Well the interaction of transistors occurs through the flow of currents.

The interaction of neurons occurs through the flow of currents and chemicals as well.

These energies in the form of flowing currents and flowing chemicals and the structure of neurons as well as the structure of the software stored among them is how I would define consciousness, which is the essence of who you are as a person, which can be labeled as a soul. It's there when you're alive and gone when you die. It is the difference between a live mind and a dead one. In death the matter is there but the information, information processing ability is gone.

We have no technology that I know of to make an exact duplicate of the intricate nature of the matter of the body of a person let alone the consciousness of that person.

Theoretically, if the duplicate were identical in every way, both known and unknown (remember there is a lot unknown to us at this stage), then yes it would be you. But when we say "you" what do we mean? Who or what is you exactly? We have to define that as well.

Keep in mind that you are not the same person you were just a few seconds ago. You are constantly changing. In some ways you are the same, in some ways you are not as you have learned new things, changed thoughts, grew new pathways, severed some pathways. You may not realize how different you are because the changes are gradual and you think of yourself as you, as the same person you have always been even though you might think quite differently about things than you did years ago or even seconds ago.
 
Last edited:

MongGrel

Lifer
Dec 3, 2013
38,751
3,068
121
The whole thread is speculative fiction from many decades ago to begin with.

The OP needs to get over the fact he thought he has debunked Einstein , he is obviously a bit deluded.
 

Meghan54

Lifer
Oct 18, 2009
11,573
5,096
136
I knew someone with two dogs that were basically clones of each other, came from same litter and were super similar. They did everything the same, the way they ran, the toys they liked, their bark, everything. The only way to tell them apart was when they ate. The black one ate more than the white one.

Not to be an ass or anything, but do you see a problem with the last two sentences? Can't tell the two dogs apart except by what they eat? Other than one is black and one is white, which to my mind, is an easy way to tell one from another.
 
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sttubs

Member
Oct 3, 2008
145
2
76
I wouldn't want an exact replica of me, I would be interested in the upgraded version 2.0 though.
 
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