One of the inspirations for the narrative on this page was the fact that many people who don't believe in a spiritual afterlife still hold on to the fact that our matter "survives", so we're still "here" after our death. I don't think its much of a consolation though, and on this page I give a reason why.
EDIT:
TheMidge28, DAJB, Rockster1039, Stevesan: Thanks a lot! Nepath: Thanks, but don't get too attached, since it's not gonna last :P There'll be many different genres, this explicit sci-fi set-up will only be the framework for the individual chapters. Fitz: Actually I'm a supporter of that theory. And to give some sketchy reason why: Identity of matter does not yield identity of consciousness. It may yield many elements of personal identity though, like identical behavior (or dispositions to identical behavior). But anyway, Heisenberg says we can't teleport because we cannot locate the particles making up any object, so we really don't have to worry about that. Other than that, I wonder if you see a particular link between these teleportation theories and what I said about our matter lingering on after our deaths… consciousness is a product of a certain matter configuration, so once that configuration ceases to exist (because of decay, for example), consciousness is gone. That's a given (no matter your metaphysical theories about what a soul may really be). What's not a given is the relationship between two perfect copies. Clearly they're not identical, since they do not share the same space-time configurations. Maybe we can juxtapose these two trains of thought, like after death our matter persists but structure fades, and in teleportation, different matter is brought to bear the same structure?
Comments
Please login to comment.
Login or Register${ comment.author }} at
${ comment.author }} at