Beaming Bodies: A Neo-Lockean Account of Material Persistence

Philosophies 9 (4):109 (2024)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Conventional wisdom holds that human bodies do not and cannot persist through beaming: scanning and destruction of the body, followed by transmission of the scan information and replication of the body in another location. I argue that given the minimal time travel assumption that information can be sent into the past, it is logically possible for (duplicates of) human bodies to exist in object loops. If so, then conventional wisdom is wrong, and bodies can persist through beaming. The lesson generalizes to all composite material objects that can persist through intrinsic change.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 101,505

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Personal Identity in Black Mirror.Molly Gardner & Robert Sloane - 2020 - In William Irwin & David Kyle Johnson (eds.), Black Mirror and Philosophy. Wiley. pp. 282–291.
A dilemma for the soul theory of personal identity.Jacob Berger - 2018 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 83 (1):41-55.
Spinoza on Conatus and Persistence through Time.Jason Waller - 2012 - Journal of Philosophical Research 37:51-72.
Time travel without causal loops.Bradley Monton - 2009 - Philosophical Quarterly 59 (234):54-67.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies.Stephanie Rennick - 2021 - Philosophies 6 (3):78.
Towards an Animalist Conception of Personal Identity.Keith Hess - 2017 - Dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara

Analytics

Added to PP
2024-07-18

Downloads
8 (#1,582,940)

6 months
6 (#869,904)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Why We Should Reject S.Derek Parfit - 1984 - In Reasons and Persons. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Material Beings.Peter Van Inwagen - 1990 - Philosophy 67 (259):126-127.
Personal identity.Derek Parfit - 1971 - Philosophical Review 80 (January):3-27.
We Are Not Human Beings.Derek Parfit - 2012 - Philosophy 87 (1):5-28.
Identities of Persons.Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.) - 1976 - University of California Press.

View all 6 references / Add more references