Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages

Personal Identity

Teletransportation

(Text as at 06/07/2023 00:43:12)

Discussion

1. Original Case Study - “Beam me up Scottie”
   Thesis Text:
   1. There are two obvious supposed mechanisms for teletransportation:
      1. Transferring both matter and information; or simply
      2. Transferring information, utilising local matter.
   2. I gather that in the Star Trek series itself, it's plasma that's transmitted, but as this is unlikely to get to its destination without causing havoc, the information-only transfer is more reasonable. However, even in the plasma-transfer case, I'm unconvinced that I'd survive¹, for two reasons:
      1. Some things (eg. bicycles, and analogous artifacts²) can survive disassembly and re-assembly, but only if they are disassembled into recognisable parts. If a bicycle is disassembled into iron filings and latex goo, and then re-manufactured, we might be reluctant to say it's the same bicycle.
      2. As a matter of empirical fact, fundamental particles are not distinguishable, so the labelling cannot be undertaken even in principle. If it doesn't matter which particle fits where, provided they are of the right sort, the case seems to collapse into the information-transfer variant. On consideration, I’m not 100% confident on this point. In any case, since we are biological organisms³, the particular atoms that make us up aren’t important, provided they are replaced gradually, and the structure is maintained.
         
   3. We now turn to the information-transfer case. My main worries initially here have to do with the possibility of duplicates⁴. We all know that a counterfeit, however well done, isn't the same as the original. The logic of identity⁵ is constraining. A thing is identical to itself and to nothing else, so if a thing is identical to two "other" things, these "two" must be identical to one another. Given that my two beamed-up versions aren't identical to one another, at least one of them can't be identical to me. And, since they are exactly similar⁶, why choose one rather than the other? So, neither is me. Both are exactly similar⁷ to me, but identity is to be distinguished from exact similarity. This situation is comparable to the case where the "original" human being isn't destroyed. This sort of thought experiment⁸ is referred to as the “Branch-line Case”: see section 75 in "Parfit (Derek) - What We Believe Ourselves To Be", in "Parfit (Derek) - Reasons and Persons". Canonically, it's where I've only a few days left to live (because the scanner has done me a mischief). Would I be happy in the knowledge that my duplicate⁹ would go on and on, and take up with my partner and career where I left off? Is this as good as if I survived? Not likely, unless we’re Parfitian¹⁰ saints! Note, however, that the case is tendentiously described (ie. as teletransportation) to lead to this seemingly obvious conclusion that this is a form of transport. Note that the technology is described tendentiously with the opposite intuition as “Telecloning” in "Dennett (Daniel) - The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul: Introduction". The "main line" candidate would be perfectly happy that his rival back home was about to perish.
   4. Philosophers split into two main camps in response to these situations (though - jumping ahead a little - even if perdurantism¹¹ is true, we still might not have the teletransportation of a persisting¹² individual¹³, because of the wrong sort of causal¹⁴ link leading to a lack of forward continuity¹⁵ of consciousness¹⁶, or even of physical continuity). So there are multiple bifurcations, but we keep things simple here and just follow those who think that I either survive¹⁷ or have what matters¹⁸ in survival:-
      1. 4-dimensionalists (Perdurantists¹⁹): A thing is really a 4-dimensional worm through space-time, which consists in a set of instantaneous 3-D stages. In this situation, where multiple teletransportations occur, all copies are me. They are different 4-D worms, but they share all their pre-beaming-up stages. There were always at least 2 people present.
      2. 3-dimensionalists (Endurantists²⁰) claim that while I'm not identical to the beamed-up person, yet I have what matters²¹ in survival²².
   5. Note that there's a modal²³ argument to the effect that even in the usual case where only one copy is beamed up, and the original is destroyed, because there might have been multiple copies, this means that identity isn't preserved even in the case where there's only one teletransportation-result created. This seems to lead to paradox. Imagine the situation - I'm beamed up and think I've survived²⁴, and am then told that the machine has malfunctioned and produced a duplicate²⁵, and hence, contrary to my experience, I haven't survived after all! Unfortunately, some philosophers go along with a "closest continuer²⁶" theory of identity across nasty cases of fission²⁷ or fusion²⁸. I'm identical to (or even “survive as²⁹”) the continuer that most closely continues me, either psychologically³⁰ or physically³¹, according to taste. How can my survival depend on what happens to someone else, the thought goes? See the “Only 'X' and 'Y' Principle³²”. While this does seem odd, in fact you can’t trust the feelings of the teletransportees – for even if multiple copies are made, they all subjectively feel like the original.
   6. There are two questions outstanding.
      1. Do I survive the transfer? And, if I don’t,
      2. Does it matter that I'm not identical to the post-beamed person?
      I’m here ignoring the (as it seems to me) illogical “survival³³ without identity” option.
   7. We have seen that it is possible that it appears to me that I survive, yet I do not. On the endurantist³⁴ view, the logic of identity³⁵ means that I cannot trust my experience. So, it seems possible that the person “waking up” is not me. I never wake up – in the sense that I lose consciousness, but never experience a re-awakening - but someone else with my past in his memories is created in my stead.
   8. So, is survival³⁶ itself what matters³⁷? Well, on the perdurantist³⁸ view, survival is not even sufficient for me to have what matters in the sense Parfit³⁹ intends. Imagine the case where the machine goes haywire and 1,000 exactly similar teletransportees are created. All these share my pre-teletransportation stages, so are all me (except that “I” was always 1,000 co-located individuals – and maybe more – who knows how often the machine may go wrong in the future!). In this case 1,000 individuals would be squabbling over the same friends, relations, job etc, and that might be rather a nuisance, and it seems that I wouldn’t really have what most matters to me, though no doubt I would be able to rebuild my life from scratch. However, this isn't fundamental to whether I do or don't survive, and it seem that what really matters to me is survival itself. If I'm a violin virtuoso or a body-builder, I might not find it much fun surviving as a brain in a vat⁴⁰, but that would just be tough. The standard philosophical test is the "future great pain test⁴¹". I believe that the future continuant will be me, whether I like it or not, if I'm as terrified of that continuant being tortured as I would be if I were to be tortured in the normal course of events. Our BIVs⁴² would be even more upset at the prospect of torture-simulation being fed into their brains than at the loss of their beautiful bodies. Our fears have to be moderated by logic, however. But this is no worse than ignoring a revivalist rant on Hellfire. If I’m not identical to a particular teletransportatee, I won’t survive⁴³, and if I don’t survive⁴⁴ I won’t feel anything. I may have a moral obligation not to land others in a pickle, but it won’t be the selfish problem of avoiding landing myself in one.
   9. I can imagine fissioning⁴⁵, by the bungled-beaming-up process, into 1,000 continuants, none of which (on a 3-D view) is identical to me, but all of whom seem to themselves to continue my first-person perspective⁴⁶. I can imagine (just about) going into the machine, and coming out again 1,000 times (when the life-histories of the 1,000 then start to diverge). While the psychologies of the 1,000 are initially identical, they are not connected to one another, though they are each connected continuously to the pre-beamed-up person. So, if even one of them were to be threatened with torture, I'd be terrified if I thought that that one (even amongst all the others) would be me, in the sense that my experience continues into that body.
   10. But, do I survive⁴⁷? I don't think I do, for reasons given above. It’s not that I reject perdurantism⁴⁸, it’s just that even accepting perdurantism there’s too radical a discontinuity. It's clear that a duplicate⁴⁹, looking backwards, wouldn't be able to tell apart the situation from the normal one of (say) just having woken up after a dreamless sleep. However, I imagine it's possible (even in a supposedly successful teletransportation) for – moving forward⁵⁰ – there to be nothing it's like for me after the beaming - it's as though I never woke up, though someone else woke up thinking he was me. This would be a tragedy but, we'd never know about it, because (on this hypothesis) I wouldn't be around to tell the tale, and my duplicate⁵¹ would claim everything was fine (he remembered going to bed and waking up, as it were).
   11. This worries me slightly about our every-night bouts of unconsciousness. How do I know that “the me” that wakes up is “the same me” that went to sleep, and would it matter if it wasn't? Was my mother right in saying “it’ll be all right in the morning”, in the sense that I’d have no further experience of the current problem, or indeed of anything at all? Is this worry parallel to beam-me-up case? Or is sleep a pain-free death?
   12. I suspect the answer to these questions is that for a physical thing to persist, there needs to be appropriate physical continuity, and this continuity guarantees its persistence (though this intuition is a bit of a feeble response). On the assumption that my brain⁵² supports my conscious experience, this is enough to reassure me that, as it's the same continuing brain in my skull overnight, it's the same me that's conscious in the morning. I don't have the same reassurance in the case of beaming-up. So, I wouldn't go in for it, even if it came to be seen as a cheap form of transportation.
2. John Weldon's "To Be"
   Thesis Text:
   1. This is a 10-minute animated cartoon that discusses the question of teletransportation. Last I looked, it was available on Vimeo at John Weldon’s "To Be". It was originally (as far as I remember) on YouTube, but was taken down with the legend “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by National Film Board of Canada”. No doubt the Vimeo copy will disappear in due course.
   2. In it, a mad scientist invents a teletransportation device as a means of free travel. The necessity of destroying the original is discussed, initially to avoid overpopulation, and then to prevent disputes as to who is who. The branch-line case, where the original is destroyed five minutes after the replication⁵³, also features. There, it is clear that the original is a different individual to the teletransportee, and clings to life. Destroying the original is (in retrospect) murder – but what’s the difference between this situation and the one where the original is immediately destroyed? There’s obviously the anticipatory angle – in the “normal” case, the original thinks of the situation as one of travel, and no-one thinks that identity is not preserved in the process, whereas in the branch-line case the confusion is exposed, and the original knows that the teletransportee is a clone⁵⁴. So, maybe the branch-line case is clearly a case of murder, whereas the “normal” case is a case of accidental homicide where the perpetrator is unaware that he’s killed someone?
   3. The twist in the tail is that the heroine, overcome with guilt after the branch-line case (which she’d originally just thought of as a logical demonstration) – and now understanding the metaphysics of teletransportation – thinks she can now
      1. atone for her crime,
      2. escape the guilt and
      3. escape her creditors by being herself teletransported.
      For (i) she dies and is cloned⁵⁵ and (ii) / (iii) the teletransportee is a different individual to the original, so why should this individual have any moral connection to the other? There seems to be something fishy about this, but maybe it’s perfectly sound reasoning. However, …
   4. In the animation, the original and the teletransportee get muddled up (after all, both look alike and think alike), so for practical purposes we are in a situation similar to Locke’s “amnesiac drunkard” case – society⁵⁶ has to find the drunkard guilty for his forgotten crimes (in that case because of the possibility of dissimulation); so, maybe the possibility of dissimulation or devious intent (as in the animated case) would for practical purposes mean that the teletransportee would inherit the moral and legal baggage of the original – and surely they would, or the practical consequences of people routinely escaping their debts would be grave.
   5. Yet, metaphysically, it’s no different from escaping your debts by committing suicide, because the teletransportee is not the same individual. And, I think the Branch-line case shows that it’s not the same person either, unless we allow the non-substance term “Person” to have multiple instances – as immediately post teletransportation, both the original and the teletransportee would seem to be the same person (however this is defined non-substantially) even though they would rapidly diverge into two different persons. Just as in the case of suicide, society⁵⁷ has in the past tried to show that you “can’t really escape” – because of the prospect of Hell, so in the teletransportation case the same myth would be propagated. The teletransportee would be deemed to inherit the moral baggage of the original and, if not up to speed on the metaphysics, would think rightly so. But the original would have escaped for all that!

3. ---

   Further Remarks:
   1. I’ve used the term “Teletransportation” in the discussions above because that is the term used by Derek Parfit⁵⁸ in "Parfit (Derek) - Reasons and Persons". However, in Star Trek, the function is performed by the “Teleporter”. See:-
      → "Wikipedia - Teleportation" and
      → "Wikipedia - Teletransportation paradox"
   2. Consequently, I’ve used both terms in the Page of Links below. I also note that "Dennett (Daniel) - The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul: Introduction" uses the tendentious term “Teleclone⁵⁹”.

References

• Relevant Works cited above:
  1. "Dennett (Daniel) - The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul: Introduction", 1981, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Read
  2. "Parfit (Derek) - Reasons and Persons", 1987, Book, Read
  3. "Parfit (Derek) - What We Believe Ourselves To Be", 1986, Write-Up Note⁶⁰, Read
  4. "Wikipedia - Teleportation", 2023, External Link, Read = 17%
  5. "Wikipedia - Teletransportation paradox", 2023, External Link, Read = 33%
• For a Page of Links⁶¹ to this Note, Click here.
• Works on this topic that I’ve actually read⁶², include the following:-
  • Aeon:
    1. "Aeon - Video - Why Teleportation Isn't Total Science Fiction", 2022, External Link
    2. "Clark (Andy) & Kuhn (Robert Lawrence) - Aeon: Video - Andy Clark - Virtual immortality", 2019, External Link, Footnote₆₃
    3. "Huenemann (Charlie) - If I teleport from Mars, does the original me get destroyed?", 2017, No Abstract, External Link, Internal PDF Link
  • General:
    1. "Baillie (James) - What Am I?", 1993, Write-Up Note⁶⁴, Footnote₆₅
    2. "Bourget (David) & Chalmers (David) - The PhilPapers Surveys: What Do Philosophers Believe?", 2014, Annotations, Internal PDF Link, Footnote₆₆
    3. "Dainton (Barry) - Self: Philosophy In Transit: Prologue", 2014
    4. "Dennett (Daniel) - The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul: Introduction", 1981, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    5. "Garrett (Brian) - The Problem (of Personal Identity) and Its Place in Philosophy", 1998
    6. "Gasser (Georg) - Personal Identity and Resurrection: Introduction", 2010, Annotations
    7. "Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek: To Beam or Not to Beam?"
    8. "Johnston (Mark) - Human Beings", 1987, Write-Up Note⁶⁷, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    9. "Krauss (Lawrence M.) - The Physics of Star Trek: Atoms or Bits?"
    10. "Lockwood (Michael) - When Does a Life Begin?", 1987, Annotations
    11. "Olson (Eric) - Life After Death and the Devastation of the Grave", 2015, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    12. "Olson (Eric) - What Are We? Bundles", 2007, Write-Up Note⁶⁸, Internal PDF Link
    13. "Parfit (Derek) - Reasons and Persons", 1987, Book, Footnote₆₉
    14. "Parfit (Derek) - What We Believe Ourselves To Be", 1986, Write-Up Note⁷⁰
    15. "Parfit (Derek) - Why Our Identity is Not What Matters (Excerpts)", 1986
    16. "Science Unbound - Teleporters: The Death Machines You Don't Want", 2022, External Link
    17. "Shoemaker (David) - Personal Identity and Immortality", 2009
    18. "Shoemaker (Sydney) - Persons and Personal Identity", 1996
    19. "Smith (Barry C.), Broks (Paul), Kennedy (A.L.) & Evans (Jules) - Audio: What Does It Mean to Be Me?", 2015, External Link
    20. "YouTube - Video - The Trouble with Transporters"
    21. "Zimmerman (Dean) - Bodily Resurrection: The Falling Elevator Model Revisited", 2010, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
• A further reading list might start with:-
  • General:
    1. "Agar (Nicholas) - Functionalism and Personal Identity", 2003, Internal PDF Link, Read = 6%
    2. "Bourgeois (Warren) - Contemporary Philosophers' Views on Persons: Parfit: The Oxford Buddhist", 2003, Read = 5%
    3. "Brennan (Andrew) - Personal Identity and Personal Survival", 1982, Internal PDF Link, Read = 17%
    4. "Brennan (Andrew) - Survival", 1984, Internal PDF Link, Read = 5%
    5. "Campbell (Scott) - Persons and Substances", 2001
    6. "Campbell (Scott) - The Conception of a Person as a Series of Mental Events", 2006, Internal PDF Link
    7. "Dainton (Barry) - Modes of Incapacitation", 2008
    8. "Elliot (Robert) - How to Travel Faster than Light", 1981, Internal PDF Link
    9. "Fuller (Gary) - Functionalism and Personal Identity", 1992, Internal PDF Link, Read = 22%
    10. "Gribbin (John) - Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality", 2003, Book, Read = 2%
    11. "Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek", Book, Read = 52%
    12. "Johnston (Mark) - A New Refutation Of Death", 2010, Read = 3%
    13. "Johnston (Mark) - Remnant Persons: Animalism's Undoing", 2016, Read = 15%
    14. "Kihlstrom (John F.), Beer (Jennifer S.) & Klein (Stanley B.) - Self and Identity as Memory", 2002, Internal PDF Link
    15. "Ord (Toby) - Implications of fission, fusion and teletransportation to a view of personal identity through psychological continuity", Undated, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Read = 40%
    16. "Parfit (Derek) - A Response (to Gillett - Reasoning About Persons)", 1987
    17. "Parfit (Derek) - The Unimportance of Identity", 1995, Internal PDF Link, Read = 3%
    18. "Parfit (Derek) - We Are Not Human Beings", 2016, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Read = 38%
    19. "Shoemaker (Sydney) - Functionalism and Personal Identity - a Reply", 2004, Internal PDF Link, Read = 22%
    20. "Shoemaker (Sydney) - Self and Substance", 2003, Internal PDF Link
    21. "Wikipedia - Teleportation", 2023, External Link, Read = 17%
    22. "Wikipedia - Teletransportation paradox", 2023, External Link, Read = 33%
• For further papers held on-line of potential interest, follow this Link⁷¹. Total papers = 2.

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• For a list of Works that have been considered, but have missed the cut for inclusion in this Section of my Thesis, see the following:-
  1. Read: No items to list.
  2. Further Reading: No items to list.

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In-Page Footnotes:

Footnote 63:

• Also look through other works by Andy Clark to get a handle on what he means by 'patterns in information space'.

Footnote 65:

• This paper – inter alia – confirms my “take” on the Cheshire Cat’s smile.
• See Draft Note, Review Comments.

Footnote 66:

• This is a useful head-count on contemporary philosophers’ views on surviving teletransportation.
• See my comment therein.

Footnote 69:

• Restrict a close reading to Part 3 (Personal Identity).

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Table of the Previous 10 Versions of this Note:

Date	Length	Title
20/09/2022 11:24:00	17835	Teletransportation
15/05/2022 13:19:12	17455	Teletransportation
18/02/2021 01:01:55	17287	Teletransportation
03/06/2020 11:28:19	16207	Teletransportation
18/12/2010 19:58:05	13005	Teletransportation
12/12/2009 17:21:07	13021	Teletransportation
12/12/2009 17:12:29	12854	Teletransportation
12/12/2009 11:42:43	12819	Teletransportation
26/11/2007 23:25:26	9522	Teletransportation
12/08/2007 10:17:46	9520	Teletransportation

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Note last updated	Reading List for this Topic	Parent Topic
06/07/2023 00:43:12	Teletransportation	Thought Experiments

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Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note

Artifacts	Baillie - What Am I?	Brain	Brains in Vats	Causality
Clones	Closest Continuer	Consciousness	Duplication	Endurantism
First-Person Perspective	Fission	Fusion	Future Great Pain Test	Individual
Jen_080204 (Brandom, Chisholm, Baillie)	Johnston - Human Beings	Logic of Identity	Modality	Note Links Explanation
Olson - What Are We? Bundles	Only 'X' and 'Y' Principle	Organisms	Parfit	Parfit - What We Believe Ourselves To Be
Perdurantism	Persistence Criteria	Physical Continuity	PID Note, Book & Paper Usage	Psychological Continuity
Psychological Continuity - Forward	Replication	Similarity	Society	Survival
Thought Experiments	What Matters	Works Read - Explanation

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Summary of Notes Citing This Note

Aeon Papers - Summary Document: 2017-2018	Baker - Personal Identity Over Time	Causality	Clones, 2	Dualism
Duplication	Fission	Future Great Pain Test	Garrett - Personal Identity and Reductionism	Information
Johnston - Human Beings	Modality	Olson - Immanent Causation and Life After Death, 2	Olson - What Are We? Animals, 2	Olson - What Are We? The Question, 2, 3
Parfit, 2	Physical Continuity	PID Note, Book & Paper Usage, 2, 3, 4, 5	Psychological Continuity - Forward, 2, 3, 4	Quantum Mechanics
Reduplication Objections	Replication	Research - Proposal	Resurrection (Metaphysics). T1	Sleep
Soul Criterion	Status: Personal Identity (2024 - June), 2	Status: Priority Task List (2024 - August)	Status: Summary (2024 - June)	Survival, 2
Thesis - Chapter 01 (Introduction), 2, 3	Thesis - Chapter 02 (What are We?), 2, 3	Thesis - Chapter 05 (Persistence and Time), 2, 3, 4	Thesis - Chapter 06 (Animalism and Arguments for It)	Thesis - Chapter 10 (Thought Experiments), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Thesis - Current Stance	Transhumanism	Uploading	Website Generator Documentation - Functors, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note

Author	Title	Medium	Extra Links	Read?
Aeon	Video - What science tells us about the afterlife	Paper		Yes
Agar (Nicholas)	Functionalism and Personal Identity	Paper	2, 3
Ayer (A.J.)	Postscript to a Postmortem	Paper		Yes
Baillie (James)	What Am I?	Paper		Yes
Baker (Deane-Peter)	Taylor and Parfit on Personal Identity: a Response to Lotter	Paper		Yes
Baker (Lynne Rudder)	Personal Identity Over Time	Paper		Yes
Bourgeois (Warren)	Contemporary Philosophers' Views on Persons: Parfit: The Oxford Buddhist	Paper
Bourget (David) & Chalmers (David)	The PhilPapers Surveys: What Do Philosophers Believe?	Paper		Yes
Brennan (Andrew)	Survival	Paper
Briggs (Rachael) & Nolan (Daniel)	Utility Monsters for the Fission Age	Paper
Campbell (Scott)	Persons and Substances	Paper
Campbell (Scott)	The Conception of a Person as a Series of Mental Events	Paper
Chopra (Deepak) & Hameroff (Stuart)	Can science explain the soul?	Paper
Clark (Andy) & Kuhn (Robert Lawrence)	Aeon: Video - Andy Clark - Virtual immortality	Paper	2, 3, 4	Yes
Dainton (Barry)	Modes of Incapacitation	Paper
Dainton (Barry)	Self: Philosophy In Transit	Book
Dainton (Barry)	Self: Philosophy In Transit: Prologue	Paper		Yes
Dennett (Daniel)	The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul: Introduction	Paper	2, 3, 4	Yes
Fuller (Gary)	Functionalism and Personal Identity	Paper	2
Gale (Richard)	On Some Pernicious Thought-Experiments	Paper	2	Yes
Garrett (Brian)	Personal Identity and Reductionism	Paper		Yes
Garrett (Brian)	The Problem (of Personal Identity) and Its Place in Philosophy	Paper		Yes
Gasser (Georg)	Personal Identity and Resurrection: Introduction	Paper		Yes
Gribbin (John)	Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality	Book	2
Hanley (Richard)	The Metaphysics of Star Trek: Introduction: The Philosophic Enterprise	Paper		Yes
Hanley (Richard)	The Metaphysics of Star Trek: Personal Growth	Paper
Hanley (Richard)	The Metaphysics of Star Trek: To Beam or Not to Beam?	Paper		Yes
Hanson (Robin)	The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth	Book
Jenkins (Robert) & Jenkins (Susan)	The Biology of Star Trek	Book
Johnston (Mark)	A New Refutation Of Death	Paper
Johnston (Mark)	Human Beings	Paper		Yes
Johnston (Mark)	Remnant Persons: Animalism's Undoing	Paper
Kaku (Michio)	Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation and Time Travel	Book	2
Kaku (Michio)	Physics of the Impossible: Teleportation	Paper
Kihlstrom (John F.), Beer (Jennifer S.) & Klein (Stanley B.)	Self and Identity as Memory	Paper
Kotak (Aakash)	The Hybrid Theory of Personal Identity	Paper
Krauss (Lawrence M.)	The Physics of Star Trek	Book		Yes
Krauss (Lawrence M.)	The Physics of Star Trek: Atoms or Bits?	Paper		Yes
Lockwood (Michael)	When Does a Life Begin?	Paper	2	Yes
Love (Shayla)	How to connect with your future self	Paper		Yes
Martin (Raymond)	Self-Concern: An Experiential Approach to what Matters in Survival	Book	2	Yes
Olson (Eric)	Immanent Causation and Life After Death	Paper	2	Yes
Olson (Eric)	Life After Death and the Devastation of the Grave	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10	Yes
Olson (Eric)	Psychology and Personal Identity	Paper	2	Yes
Olson (Eric)	Relativism and Persistence	Paper		Yes
Olson (Eric)	Review of Tye's 'Consciousness and Persons - Unity and Identity'	Paper
Olson (Eric)	The Human Animal: Introduction	Paper		Yes
Olson (Eric)	What Are We? Animals	Paper	2	Yes
Olson (Eric)	What Are We? The Question	Paper	2, 3	Yes
Ord (Toby)	Implications of fission, fusion and teletransportation to a view of personal identity through psychological continuity	Paper	2
Papineau (David)	Introducing Consciousness	Paper		Yes
Parfit (Derek)	A Response (to Gillett - Reasoning About Persons)	Paper
Parfit (Derek)	Nagel's Brain	Paper		Yes
Parfit (Derek)	The Unimportance of Identity	Paper	2
Parfit (Derek)	We Are Not Human Beings	Paper	2
Parfit (Derek)	What We Believe Ourselves To Be	Paper		Yes
Parfit (Derek)	Why Our Identity is Not What Matters (Excerpts)	Paper	2	Yes
Peacocke (Arthur) & Gillett (Grant)	Persons and Personality: Introduction	Paper		Yes
Platts-Mills (Ben)	On Matthew’s mind	Paper		Yes
Reid (Mark D.)	A Case in Which Two Persons Exist in One Animal	Paper
Schechtman (Marya)	Empathic Access: The Missing Ingredient in Personal Identity	Paper
Seibt (Johanna)	Fission, Sameness, and Survival: Parfit’s Branch Line Argument Revisited	Paper
Shoemaker (David)	Personal Identity and Immortality	Paper	2, 3, 4	Yes
Shoemaker (Sydney)	Functionalism and Personal Identity - a Reply	Paper	2
Shoemaker (Sydney)	Persons and Personal Identity	Paper	2	Yes
Shoemaker (Sydney)	Self and Substance	Paper
Smith (Barry C.), Broks (Paul), Kennedy (A.L.) & Evans (Jules)	Audio: What Does It Mean to Be Me?	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11	Yes
Snowdon (Paul)	[P & not-A] Cases: An Introduction	Paper
Srinivasan (Amia)	Remembering Derek Parfit	Paper	2, 3, 4	Yes
Thompson (Jon W.)	Personal Identity and Resurrection: Early Modern Philosophical Perspectives	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Causality	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 01 (Introduction)	Paper	2, 3	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 02 (What Are We?)	Paper	2, 3	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 05 (Persistence and Time)	Paper	2, 3, 4	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 06 (Animalism and Arguments for It)	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 10 (Thought Experiments)	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Clones	Paper	2	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Current Position	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Dualism	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Duplication	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Fission	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Future Great Pain Test	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Information	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Modality	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Parfit	Paper	2	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Physical Continuity	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Psychological Continuity - Forward	Paper	2, 3, 4	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Quantum Mechanics	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Reduplication Objections	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Replication	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Sleep	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Soul Criterion	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Survival	Paper	2	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Transhumanism	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Uploading	Paper		Yes
Van Inwagen (Peter)	Materialism and the Psychological-continuity Account of Personal Identity	Paper	2, 3, 4	Yes
Vedral (Vlatko)	Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information	Book	2
Williams (Bernard)	Personal Identity	Paper		Yes
Wilson (Jack)	Beyond Horses and Oak Trees: A New Theory of Individuation for Living Entities	Paper		Yes
YouTube	Video - The Trouble with Transporters	Paper		Yes
Zimmerman (Dean)	Bodily Resurrection: The Falling Elevator Model Revisited	Paper		Yes

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References & Reading List

Author	Title	Medium	Source	Read?
Aeon	Video - Why Teleportation Isn't Total Science Fiction	Paper - Cited	Aeon, 28 January 2022	Yes
Agar (Nicholas)	Functionalism and Personal Identity	Paper - Cited	Nous, Mar2003, Vol. 37 Issue 1, p52-70, 19p;	6%
Baillie (James)	Problems in Personal Identity	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	45%
Baillie (James)	What Am I?	Paper - Cited	Baillie (James) - Problems in Personal Identity, 1993, Chapter 4	Yes
Bourget (David) & Chalmers (David)	The PhilPapers Surveys: What Do Philosophers Believe?	Paper - Cited	Philosophical Studies: Vol. 170, No. 3 (September 2014), pp. 465-500	Yes
Brennan (Andrew)	Personal Identity and Personal Survival	Paper - By Subtopic	Analysis, vol. 42, 1982, pp. 44-50	17%
Brennan (Andrew)	Survival	Paper - By Subtopic	Synthese June 1984; 59: 339-362	5%
Clark (Andy) & Kuhn (Robert Lawrence)	Aeon: Video - Andy Clark - Virtual immortality	Paper - Cited	Aeon, 19 August, 2019	Yes
Dainton (Barry)	Self: Philosophy In Transit	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	7%
Dainton (Barry)	Self: Philosophy In Transit: Prologue	Paper - Cited	Dainton (Barry) - Self: Philosophy In Transit, Prologue	Yes
Dennett (Daniel)	The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul: Introduction	Paper - Cited	Hofstadter & Dennett - The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul	Yes
Elliot (Robert)	How to Travel Faster than Light	Paper - By Subtopic	Analysis 41.1,January 1981, pp. 4-6	No
Fuller (Gary)	Functionalism and Personal Identity	Paper - By Subtopic	Personalist Forum 8, #1 Supplement, 1992, 133-143	22%
Garrett (Brian)	Personal Identity and Self-consciousness	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Garrett (Brian)	The Problem (of Personal Identity) and Its Place in Philosophy	Paper - Cited	Garrett - Personal Identity and Self-consciousness, 1998, Chapter 1	Yes
Gasser (Georg)	Personal Identity and Resurrection: Introduction	Paper - Cited	Gasser (Georg) - Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death? 2010	Yes
Gasser (Georg), Ed.	Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death?	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	96%
Gribbin (John)	Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality	Book - Cited	Gribbin (John) - Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality	6%
Gribbin (John)	Schrodinger's Kittens: Teletransportation	Paper - By Subtopic	Gribbin (John) - Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality, pp. 125-7	No
Hains (Brigid) & Hains (Paul)	Aeon: C-F	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	51%
Hains (Brigid) & Hains (Paul)	Aeon: G-K	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	31%
Hanley (Richard)	The Metaphysics of Star Trek	Book - Cited	Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek	52%
Hanley (Richard)	The Metaphysics of Star Trek: Personal Growth	Paper - By Subtopic	Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek, Chapter 5	20%
Hanley (Richard)	The Metaphysics of Star Trek: To Beam or Not to Beam?	Paper - Cited	Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek, Chapter 4	Yes
Hofstadter (Douglas) & Dennett (Daniel), Eds.	The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	14%
Huenemann (Charlie)	If I teleport from Mars, does the original me get destroyed?	Paper - Cited	Aeon, 01 August, 2017	Yes
Johnston (Mark)	Human Beings	Paper - Cited	Journal of Philosophy, Volume 84, Issue 2 (Feb 1987), 59-83	Yes
Kaku (Michio)	Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation and Time Travel	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Kaku (Michio) - Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation and Time Travel	8%
Kaku (Michio)	Physics of the Impossible: Teleportation	Paper - By Subtopic	Kaku (Michio) - Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation and Time Travel: Chapter 4	33%
Krauss (Lawrence M.)	The Physics of Star Trek	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Krauss (Lawrence M.)	The Physics of Star Trek: Atoms or Bits?	Paper - Cited	Krauss - The Physics of Star Trek; Chapter 5	Yes
Lockwood (Michael)	When Does a Life Begin?	Paper - Cited	Lockwood - Moral Dilemmas in Modern Medicine, 1987	Yes
Lockwood (Michael), Ed.	Moral Dilemmas in Modern Medicine	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	29%
Martin (L. Michael) & Augustine (Keith)	The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	15%
Martin (Raymond) & Barresi (John), Eds.	Personal Identity	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	13%
Olson (Eric)	Life After Death and the Devastation of the Grave	Paper - Cited	Martin & Augustine - The Myth of an Afterlife, Part 2, Chapter 19, 2015: 409-423	Yes
Olson (Eric)	What are We? A Study of Personal Ontology	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Olson (Eric)	What Are We? Bundles	Paper - Cited	What Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology, Chapter 6 (November 2007: Oxford University Press.)	Yes
Ord (Toby)	Implications of fission, fusion and teletransportation to a view of personal identity through psychological continuity	Paper - By Subtopic	Website	40%
Parfit (Derek)	Reasons and Persons	Book - Cited	Parfit (Derek) - Reasons and Persons	Yes
Parfit (Derek)	What We Believe Ourselves To Be	Paper - Cited	Parfit - Reasons and Persons, January 1986, pp. 199-219(21).	Yes
Parfit (Derek)	Why Our Identity is Not What Matters (Excerpts)	Paper - Cited	Parfit - Reasons and Persons, January 1986, Excerpts	Yes
Penrose (Roger)	The Emperor's New Mind	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Penrose (Roger) - The Emperor's New Mind	4%
Penrose (Roger)	The Emperor's New Mind: Teletransportation & Fission	Paper - By Subtopic	Penrose - The Emperor's New Mind, pp. 34-37, 349, 498	No
Platts-Mills (Ben)	On Matthew’s mind	Paper - By Subtopic	Aeon, 17 July, 2020	Yes
Science Unbound	Teleporters: The Death Machines You Don't Want	Paper - By Subtopic	YouTube, 02 October 2022	Yes
Seibt (Johanna)	Fission, Sameness, and Survival: Parfit’s Branch Line Argument Revisited	Paper - By Subtopic	Metaphysica 1.2 (2000), pp. 95-134	No
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Teletransportation	Paper - By Subtopic		Yes
Wikipedia	Teleportation	Paper - Cited	Wikipedia; Extract taken 21st May 2023	17%
Wikipedia	Teletransportation paradox	Paper - Cited	Wikipedia; Extract taken 21st May 2023	No
YouTube	Video - The Trouble with Transporters	Paper - By Subtopic	YouTube, 30 September 2016	Yes

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Text Colour Conventions

1. Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2024

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