Source Page. Credit is to SMBC-Comics and even more credit to @aperson@beehaw.org who noticed it was missing and found the credit in this comment. Sorry about that and thanks, you're awesome aperson <3
this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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This is the concept of external validation of internal processes, which is part of the problem with the inherent solipsism of the question.
There's no way to externally validate that the you inside is the same.
Just as if you were copied in the teleporter with one destroyed and the other created, your friends and family and videos of you would match the before teleporter and after teleporter versions, even though the old one was dead and the other hadn't existed.
You just kind of have to just go on belief that the you inside is continuous. There is no way to measure it to validate, as there's currently no agreed upon measurement of consciousness in neuroscience even.
Then does it even matter? What's the point of even considering the question if the end result has no detectable difference either way?
Exactly. Duplicating a person and destroying the original or truly transferring every atom from one location to another by teleportation results in the same level of continuity of consciousness as just going to sleep and waking up later.
So why does the cloning version seem so, so much worse?
Because of the difference is that there's a hard cut in continuity with the teleporter. The body is destroyed. In normal life, our body does get replaced, but the continuity remains equal through that time. With the teleporter, everything gets replaced at once, which is a hard continuity cut.
For this reason, sleep doesn't affect continuity, just its potency and what can be accessed during sleep. If we turn a microwave off by unplugging it, whatever continuity it has ceases, this is in no way equal to sleeping. The functions, information, and mind are still present and functional.