Saturday, September 20, 2014

Beam me up! Part 2 – The Ship of Thesus Paradox


This is part two of three of my theory on teleportation:

Theory: Spacetime altering wormholes aside, being instantly transported from point A to point B means certain death.

Last time, I talked about the most well known types of teleportation and a few of the obstacles associated with each. For the rest of this discussion, let’s just assume that teleportation is not only possible, but is a common point of social debate. I can’t even begin to conceive all of concerns people could have with teleportation, but the one that hits me hardest is the possibility that the object to be teleported is not the same as the object that comes out on the other side. This isn’t really a problem until we start talking about living creatures, especially those of the human variety.

As mentioned in the first article, it would be theoretically possible to instantly transport an object across spacetime through a wormhole, but that’s not really what I think of as teleportation. In practice, teleportation would be the dematerialization of an object in point A, and the rematerialization of said object in point B a la Star Trek. Contrast this with the use of a warp drive to compress space, creating a worm hole as seen in numerous space based science fiction shows.

The problem with teleportation is that the very atoms composing the original object are not necessarily the same as those recreating the teleported object. Of course, this type of teleportation could be possible if the object were literally transformed into some form of energy, and that energy itself could be (almost) instantly transported somewhere else to be transformed back into the original object. But even that idea that has problems. For example, as current moves through a wire (seemingly instantaneously) when a light switch is flipped, no single electron traverses the entire wire. It is the propagation of the electrons (a wave, akin to the ripple of disturbed water) that causes the light bulb to turn on. In the end, the atoms are not the same as those at the beginning. Does this replacement of identical atoms qualify the teleported object the same as the original?

Enter the Paradox


This is known as the Ship of Thesus Paradox – if an item has had all of its individual pieces replaced, is it still the same item? Now, this topic has been discussed at much length by many famous philosophers, many of whom disagreed about the fundamental principles behind the paradox and how the question should be answered.

It was Aristotle’s concept of a thing that really garners my attention. The answer to the original question is dependent upon one’s definition of the meaning of “the same thing.” Does an item have a specific identity, or could one include every item of the same formal design. For example, I own a 1992 GMC Sierra. There are numerous models of the this truck in existence, and certainly there is at least one more with an identical body style, trim, interior, and paint coloration as mine. However, as is common with vehicles, I treat my truck with a bit of anthropomorphism, in so much as I refer to it as she and have named her "Candi," based on the red and white paint job resembling a candy cane. My truck seems to have its own personality, so I would not consider an identical truck of the same year, model, etc, as the same, not to mention each has a unique VIN.

I believe I can answer the original question by rephrasing it to something more personal: What would happen if I had to replace the parts of Candi, one by one? This is not entirely out of the question for a vehicle. The tires, fluids, and filters are all obviously changed, but there are other new parts as well including the transmission, rims, grill, windshield, seats, headliner, exhaust system, bed and so on. It would not be outlandish if the entire engine was replaced one day, or even the drive train, cab body parts, or the entire frame. It’s no question that I would continue to refer to my truck as Candi, even as every last piece was replaced. Wouldn't the DMV continue to consider this the same vehicle, too? Of course, the only real-world reason everything would be replaced all at once would be if the truck were completely totaled, in which case, Candi would cease to exist altogether.

But there is an inherent duality hidden in these details. Where did these new parts come from? Most likely, they were parts from a store, but some could possibly be from another truck. With that in mind, what if I voluntarily replaced the parts of my truck, one by one, over the course of a year. Each time I replaced a part, I took the old (still working) part to the local dump – right down to the nuts and bolts. Extending this further, what if there was a person there who began collecting my parts, building an identical truck, one piece at a time? After the course of the year, I would still consider myself to be in possession of Candi, even though every single piece had been replaced. How then should I refer to the new(?) truck which was built from the parts I had removed from the original Candi? This other truck would essentially be the Candi from the previous year – the exact same truck built of the exact same pieces. My definition of “the same” here is as literal as I can make it. It would literally be the Candi from the previous year, but not the current Candi which I would still claim to be in possession of. Quite the conundrum we have here…

So Far, So Good...


Are you still with me? Good, but it could get bumpy from here. Try to wrap you brain around this: what if the same process used in the previous example of my truck could be applied to a living object… such as a human being? At the time of this writing, the worlds of robotics and prosthesis are quite young, but that would be the first avenue of this line of thought. It isn't unreasonable to imagine a future similar to Robocop, or even The Surrogates, where humanity and technology have (somewhat) seamlessly merged. Then again, we could move more in the biological direction, where spare human parts (or even complete human bodies (remember your favorite actor/politician in The 6th Day?) are created and stored for use later. Scientists are already trying to do this, to an extent, to create an endless supply of organs for transplants. If successful, I can’t imagine they will stop there…

So I pose the original question again with a slight alteration: if a living person has had all of his/her individual parts replaced, including all brain patterns and signals (thoughts, memories, goals, personality, etc) is it still the same person? To really answer that question, we have to diverge into another fundamental question… what constitutes consciousness?


Stay tuned for Part 3 – Consciousness and Conclusions

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