[ExI] essentialism and/or continuity

Stathis Papaioannou stathisp at gmail.com
Mon May 24 10:53:26 UTC 2010


On 24 May 2010 04:50, scerir <scerir at libero.it> wrote:
> Stefano:
> OTOH, as to ordinary teleportation, I posit that
> a) philosophically there is no real way to decide whether to describe
> it as "moving yourself from point A to point B" or "killing yourself
> in point A and have a perfect copy created at point B"; [...]
>
> ------
>
> There is a good and readable paper about "What is actually teleported?"
> by Asher Peres here: http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0304158 .
>
> In general it is possible to say that the (quantum) state is "teleported"
> and not the stuff itself (matter, energy, etc.). As Asher says: "Not the
> body, only the soul." The reason for that is the linearity of the theory
> called quantum mechanics, and the related impossibility of
> 'cloning' (copying) a quantum state (which, in turn, obviously protects
> the uncertainty principle.)
>
> Notice that, according to the many-worlds theory (or interpretation)
> it is even possible there is no 'teleportation' of quantum states,
> i.e. from Alice to Bob space-like separated, because the state
> to be 'teleported' is already there since when Alice performs
> her measurement and creates the famous 'more or less instantaneous
> splitting'. This, in turn, is interesting because the theory called special
> relativity forbids a faster-than-light travel of stuff, or information.
>
> In other words, according to the orthodox view, no stuff is 'teleported',
> only a quantum state. According to the many-worlds theory it is
> possible to say that nothing is 'teleported'. Only a split occurs.
> http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9810089

There are two types of teleportation: quantum teleportation and
classical teleportation. Quantum teleportation is overkill. When you
go for a walk there are gross physical changes in your brain, but you
still feel you are the same person. So the fidelity of a teleportation
device need only be as good as that of walking. A high resolution scan
and reconstruction by an advanced 3D printer would do for classical
teleportation.

Interestingly, quantum teleportation necessarily destroys the
original, making it more like walking than classical teleportation.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou



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