Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utcsrgv.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!nick
From: nick@utcsrgv.UUCP (T.C. Nicholas Graham)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: U-Haul from the Milky Way to Andromeda.
Message-ID: <4995@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 5-Aug-84 12:33:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.4995
Posted: Sun Aug  5 12:33:09 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 5-Aug-84 14:15:41 EDT
References: <2272@dartvax.UUCP>
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 42

Somehow, this business of matter transmission and self-duplication
seems to be one of those questions that keeps coming up.  It would
seem to me that the result of the exact physical duplication of a
human being will dependent upon what actually makes up a human being.
Either you take a view that man consists of his physical component
only, or else you take the view that in addition to man's material
flesh and bones form, there is 'something else' that gives man his
elevated place in the animal world.  Elaboration:

If you follow a strictly traditional evolutionary view, and say that
man is just a collection of chemicals that has attained through evolutionary
selection an illusion of conciousness, then fine:  the exact duplication
of every molecule of somebody's body will create a new, living human being.
However, there is no reason to assume that this new being in any sense
would provide a continuity for the original person should the original
person cease to exist upon the creation of the duplicate.  If you were
to give me, say, a small wooden statue, I could meticulously copy every
detail of it, and create a new statue that to all external tests would
appear to be the same statue.  However, if I were to burn your statue, I
do not think that I could seriously claim that your statue still existed.
Only one rather like it.

If you believe that there is more to man than his physical form (eg, a
soul), then simply copying the physical form is not going to be good enough.
The crucial part, the soul is not going to be captured during the molecular-
level transfer.  This is a little more scary:  imagine, a matter transfer
takes place, the body is trnsmitted, the soul remains stranded outside the
evaporated original host body, and a new, soulless body is assembled at the
other end of the transmitter.  The soul makes it's merry way off to the
next world, but what happens to the body?  If we follow the Christian
religion, it is quite possible for a body to survive without a soul --
animals do it all the time.  So do we, in one fell swoop, wipe out the
souls of every person on earth?  Sounds like a good 50's horror movie.
All we need is a mad scientist...

Anyway, that's about it as far as I can see.  I don't claim to know whether
a soul exists or not; however neither situation seems really thrilling to
me.  Guess I'll never walk into a matter transmitter.


						Nick Graham,
						University of Toronto