You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Matthew_Opitz comments on The Useful Definition of "I" - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: ete 28 May 2014 11:44AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (47)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Matthew_Opitz 30 May 2014 01:41:36AM 0 points [-]

"The teleporter to Mars does not kill you in the most important sense (unless somehow your location on Earth is a particularly core part of your identity)."

My location on Earth is not a particularly core part of my identity. If I traveled to Mars in a space shuttle in several months, I would still consider myself to be the same person.

But my being able to experience what my body is experiencing, or what replicas of my body are experiencing, is a core part of my identity—perhaps the core part of my identity, personally.

If I teleport to Mars, do "I" get to experience what that body then experiences on Mars? If not, then yes, I would consider that teleporter to be a suicide machine.