Re: [Phys-l] Star Trek

[Bernard Cleyet <bernardcleyet@redshift.com>]

> ... if you are a dualist and believe in mind (apart from matter),  
> then the transporter's preserving memories would be an open question.

Yes that depends ones concept of mind.  At least one religion thinks  
minds exist before conception.  That''s why they have so many  
children.   I remember a (ca. 1940?) movie in which there's a "mind"  
waiting for the heroine's conception

bc, NOT one of them.
p.s. Is there anyone among us who thinks memory is not physical?

p.p.s.   In another Dr. Who, the evil person, IIRC, unties the life  
line while the Dr. is doing a space walk.  As usual ** he has a  
cricket ball in his pocket which he carefully throws.  The result:   
he moves back to the ship.

** Not the only episode wherein he has one.


On 2009, May 20, , at 15:57, Larry Smith wrote:

> At 1:01 AM -0500 5/20/09, John Clement wrote:
> > Now if you had a transporter how could you tell?  If you ask the  
> > newly
> > transported person they will have all the memories from before  
> > transport and
> > they will tell you that they are the same person.
>
> This would only be necessarily true if you are a philosophical  
> (monist)
> materialist; if you are a dualist and believe in mind (apart from  
> matter),
> then the transporter's preserving memories would be an open question.
>
> > I think we are quite safe from needing to answer that question.  I  
> > did
> > mention an SF story where teleportation was achieved by  
> > replicating the
> > original individual, and destroying the original.  Clearly in that  
> > story the
> > original person died and the transported person was a clone.  The  
> > transport
> > company kept the truth from the public, until a disgusted operator  
> > awakened
> > the original after he had been transported.
>
> This is a plot device in the movie "The Prestige" where Tesla  
> invents a
> machine for a magician.
> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571/
>
> Larry
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