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What are your thoughts to this classic mind-body and personal identity thought experiment?

Asked by gorillapaws (30528points) March 23rd, 2010

Let’s say it’s 1000 years in the future and that a type of “teleportation” has been invented. The way it works is that you step into the machine and it literally maps out each atom inside you. Then the machine kills you, and a second machine builds a perfect atomically identical version of you.

Would the 2nd version of you have a soul? Does the 2nd version of you have the same memories? If you were in mid-thought like: “I hope this doesn’t make my…” do you complete the thought on the other end? If there was a long delay between the death and the reconstruction how does that change things if at all? What if 1 atom was missing, would you still be the same person? How many atoms would need to be missing before you wouldn’t consider this the same person (would this be different if it recycled your atoms from when they killed you to when they re-built you)?

This is a classic thought experiment and i’m curious to hear your take on it.

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