DAY 9 First Class Travel? (Feb 16)

I am away today with the Ski/Board Racing Team but you are still responsible for this work to be done on your own time.  If there's a sign-in then please sign in at the main office and get to work on this - it's a carry over from yesterday's notes.  You'll have to have completed yesterday's notes to do First Class Travel properly.

First Class Travel, p. 140


1.  Evaluate the arguments in favour of interpreting stepping into the transporter as a way of travelling. In BLUE, suggestions from our awesome class, Feb 22.
- the person (self) will not change physically, psychologically and experimentally.  This is convenient, no waiting times.  Efficient in the extreme.  No major collisions, very safe.  Economical.  Potential for danger because anyone from anywhere can just show up on our doorstep - no checks/balances on who goes where.  ICE, quick response time

2. Evaluate the arguments in favour of interpreting stepping into the transporter as a way of dying.  Because it's just a copy of you, it's not the real you thus you die (in a sense), physically.  The machine destroys your body, including your brain, therefore you disappear (die).  We cannot separate mind/body.

3. How would Hobbes and company (Materialists, see. p 113 and your notes) explain or react to each of your evaluations above (in #1 & #2)?  See above.  Materialists would not want to use such a machine because they are "attached" to their physical beings.  On the other hand, materialists might actually want to use the machine because all that's being transported is matter - so at the other end, you are reconstructed and thus able to create the same mental state of being and thus do not change.

4. Explain how well or poorly this time machine would be an acceptable way of travel to a philosopher who adheres to the:
- substance theory (Descartes)  Would like the machine because the mind never changes, we can ignore the temporary decomposition of the brain.  Also, that experience of "time travel" does not change the self.

- bundle theory (Hume) Hume would enjoy the machine as it's just another experience to add to your bundle of experiences, and yes, you'd change because of that experience but that's ok.

- project theory (Sartre)  would enjoy the machine because the self is just an event in time, not a thing, so the machine wouldn't change anything.  Also, experiences are necessary and this is just another experience.  But, the Project theory indicates an unbroken set of experiences and this machine would temporarily break that continuum.



A note about critical thinking (First Class Travel is all about thinking critically on an issue).