CW writes: > It's like teleportation. Maybe you can demonstrate with 1 or 2 particles in > QM. > But it's another very different thing when we are talking about human beings > (or simple animals). > Maybe other very knowledgeable prof. (like "scerir"???) in this list can > provide useful ref.
There is a distinction between quantum teleportation and classical teleportation. Quantum teleportation involves transmitting the exact quantum state of an entity and has actually been demonstrated experimentally with handfuls of particles in the past decade. Here is reasonably simple summary: http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/ The cited article states that for reasons of *engineering* difficulty we won't be teleporting people around in the near future, but there is no theoretical reason why it couldn't eventually be done. A person who quantum teleports from A to B would arrive at B in an *identical* physical state, which is actually more than can be said if he had walked, since our quantum state changes every moment. So, if we remain the same person when walking, we should remain the same person when quantum teleporting. It is theoretically possible that there is some non-physical factor necessary for consciousness which does not survive perfect physical duplication but there is no reason whatsoever to believe this. It would be like saying that there is some non-physical factor in my computer, and a perfect physical copy of it would not be functionally equivalent because it would lack this factor. Classical teleportation cannot copy something exact to the quantum level, but rather involves making a "close enough" copy. It is obvious, I think, that this is theoretically possible, but it is not immediately obvious how good the copy of a person would have to be (what Bruno calls the "substitution level") in order to feel himself to be the "same" person. But as mentioned above, I don't think we need to insist on perfect duplication to the quantum level, because this doesn't even happen from moment to moment in everyday life. Stathis Papaioannou _________________________________________________________________ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
