Thread: A Falsifiable Solution to the Star Trek Problem...

The Star Trek teleporter problem is well-known: if you are deconstructed bit by bit, then reconstructed exactly, where does the consciousness go?

In it's most extreme form, the problem is as follows (see: I am a Strange Loop, by Douglas Hofstadter): If you're deconstructed by a teleporter, and then one copy of you is sent to Venus, and the other to Mars, where does the "you" go?

Here's a novel answer to the dilemma (as far as the chairman of philosophy at my uni says):

Premise 1: Matter != Consciousness. Consciousness can arise from matter, it is an emergent property of matter, but matter alone is not conscious. How can an atom "experience green"? We are software running on hardware. (This is not a dualist view.) Patterns running on matter, is another way to say it.
Premise 2: If two brains are indistinguishable on the level of chemistry/biology and neural patterns, the only thing to distinguish them is their physical location.
Premise 3: Consciousness does not necessarily have a physical location.
Premise 4: If Premise 2 is true (as a thought experiment, though technology isn't quite there yet, imagine two identical brains. Not twins, since even those genes are altered in the womb. Imagine these brains are hooked up to the same sensory inputs), then their mental patterns should be the same, since there is no difference in input or software or hardware. (The technology to scan mental outputs is already being developed.)

Conclusion: Leibniz's Law of Indiscernability of Identity (google it) is flawed and Spinoza perhaps was onto something (both the man on Venus and the man on Mars would become independent individuals as soon as their inputs changed; each would have equal claim as to which was the original), or consciousness has a physical location (every mind pattern is unique and dependent on its physical location, ie. you die when you teleport).

Also, colons errwhere. Additionally I'll probably edit this eventually after you guys rip it apart (to make it more easily understandable).