I like to give my kids #philosophy problems. My son and I agree: if you were a person in the #StarTrek universe it would be a bad idea to use the teleported. Because once you are disintegrated, your existence ends. But from a second person standpoint, there is no difference.
The version of you that walks off the transporter on the other side thinks they were transported, because they remember getting on the platform and waking up or whatever in the new place. So the version of you that survives has a consciousness contiguous with your past.
So everyone thinks that transporters don’t harm people. But you are not the very of you that walks off the platform. After all, we could copy you and reassemble you in the same room without destroying you. In that case there is a second version of you...
But you don’t see through their eyes, hear through their ears, or feel through their skin. Hence, when you are disintegrated, that’s it for you. For Kantians, this is a huge deal since you are irreplaceable. But for consequentialists, nobody cares.
So if you think about it, the #StarTrek universe is predicated on routine mass killing and replacement of humans beings. It’s the real dystopia, friends. Bones was right all along.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
