Teleportation For Dummies
If you were hoping for a physics update on theories and solutions to teleportation, you can scroll down to “Teleportation methods”. But frankly, that’s of secondary concern here.
Instead, I will treat you to a dry philosophical examination of the nature of consciousness, and the problems to its continuity presented in things like sleep, death, and yes, teleportation. How fun is that?! Nothing better to get you into the holiday spirit, if you ask me.
If I still have you after this caveat, let’s proceed. Very little of what follows is my original thinking, in fact, this is mostly a book review of Derek Parfit’s classic Reasons and Persons extended with some of my own thoughts and findings. It’s probably been the hardest book to read as a layman, besides the Bible, so here’s the “for dummies” version that I took away and maybe you can digest, too.
Some quick definitions for context
Before we start beaming up anyone, let’s establish what exactly we’re talking about here. Who are “you”, what is consciousness, why is sleep different from death, and when do we get on to teleportation?
