Chapter 13
The Teleporter Problem
Science fiction has given us one of the best thought experiments for understanding identity and consciousness: the teleporter.
In a typical science fiction teleporter (think Star Trek), your body is scanned at the molecular level, the information is transmitted to a distant location, and a new body is assembled from local matter using that information. You step into the teleporter on Earth and step out on Mars a moment later. Simple, right?
But here is the question that science fiction usually glosses over: What happens to the original?
Three Scenarios
Scenario 1: Destructive teleportation. The original body is destroyed during the scanning process. A new body is assembled at the destination. This is the standard science fiction version.
Is the person who steps out on Mars the same person who stepped in on Earth? If consciousness is produced by structure and functioning, and the Mars body has the same structure and functioning as the Earth body did, then the answer is yes. The person on Mars has your memories, your personality, your ixperiencitness. From their perspective, they stepped into a booth on Earth and stepped out on Mars. They experienced no gap, no death, no discontinuity.
Scenario 2: Non-destructive teleportation. The original body is not destroyed. It continues to exist on Earth while a copy is assembled on Mars.
When the original is destroyed after one hour, one set of experiences ends and the other continues. From the perspective of the continuing body on Mars, nothing special happens at that moment; they don't feel the original's death. From the perspective of the original on Earth, they experience one hour of continued existence and then... nothing. Not death, exactly, because there is no experience of non-existence. Just a transition from one set of experiences to no experiences — experienced as nothing at all.
What Teleportation Teaches Us
The teleportation thought experiment teaches us several important lessons:
First, the identity of the teleported person does not depend on what happens to the original. If the Mars person is you (which they are, based on ixperiencitness), they are you regardless of whether the Earth person survives, is destroyed immediately, or is destroyed an hour later. Identity is determined by the consciousness being produced, not by the fate of other bodies.
Second, conscious multiplicity is a natural consequence of the physics of consciousness. Whenever two or more physical systems produce the same ixperiencitness, multiplicity exists. There is nothing paradoxical about this, any more than it is paradoxical for two rivers to carve the same winding pattern through similar terrain.
Why the Original Need Not Worry
Here is a thought that might trouble you: if the teleporter creates a copy that is equally "you," then stepping into a destructive teleporter is effectively committing suicide while a copy of you walks away.
But this worry is based on the singularity view of identity, the view that there is exactly one "you," located in one body. If you accept multiplicity, the worry dissolves.
If this still feels wrong, ask yourself: is there a difference between destructive teleportation and the normal process of atomic replacement that your body undergoes every day? In both cases, the atoms are replaced and the pattern continues. The only difference is the speed. And as we established in Chapter 4, the speed of matter replacement is irrelevant.
The Teleporter Litmus Test
Here is a useful exercise. Ask yourself honestly: Would you step into a destructive teleporter?
If yes, if you would accept that the person who steps out on Mars is you, then you have already accepted the core premises of Ixperiencit Theory. You have accepted that identity follows structure and functioning, not specific atoms or bodily continuity. And if identity follows structure and functioning, then superimmortality follows logically.
Key Terms in This Chapter
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The remaining text (examples, counter-arguments, and longer connective passages) is in the book.