| Imagine a star trek transporter was a real thing. In that show, I think the common explanation was that the transporter didn't send you places, but merely created a copy of you somewhere else and destroyed the original. Now imagine if it were possible to instantly and cheaply travel to Paris this way. Many people would likely be just fine with doing this. Now imagine that one day, the transporter doesn't destroy the original you and now two copies of you exist. From that moment on, the individual experiences diverge but each copy believes it's the original. If ten days after that a technician came and said "ok, time to disintegrate you, don't worry, your copy in Paris is A-OK" I think that most people wouldn't agree to be disintegrated just because another mostly identical consciousness is alive. And yet, if it were to happen flawlessly and instantaneously, likely that same existential fear doesn't exist. Most people think the star trek transporter is pretty cool. But why? We have to realize that our consciousness is really an evolutionary trick that's expedient for our continued survival. The idea that the survival of my own ego and continuous conscious experience is pretty much the basest mechanism I have that makes me value staying alive. But there's a paradox in the case of my exact copy. Logically, I shouldn't care of the star trek transporter works instantaneously or not. Let's say that it makes a copy that exists for twenty minutes before disintegrating me, but I have no way of knowing that and instead just sit in a room bored for twenty minutes until disintegration. Functionally that's a nearly identical experience to instant transport, but also seems a lot more like the broken transporter scenario. But let's say this is the future of travel and everyone accepts the fact that my continued conscious experience is what's really important, so I'm willing to be disintegrated painlessly as long as a copy of me exists somewhere else in the universe. That's not too big a leap to make, but it seems strange, right? Why am I not then just fine being disintegrated as long as any consciousness continues to exist? My answer to that question is that it's an evolutionary advantage to want to live, therefore we want to live. A bit of circular reasoning. It's also our species' biggest unquestioned assumption too - that consciousness and self-awareness is better than the alternative. But "better" might just be "important to the survival of the human species." I think the article touches on that. |