To move our thoughts on to an alternate medium (i.e., hard disk, network, etc.) would be to create a copy, and then kill the original.
Why would you need to kill the original? How does that complete the transfer process exactly? What would happen if killing the original was botched and the original woke up 4 weeks later? Does that mean the transfer of thoughts didn't occur? What if the original woke up and died 2 minutes later? Was the transfer successful then?
When something is copied, a new one of that something is created and becomes an entity distinct from the old.
If I told you I was going to create an identical copy of you and torture the original or the copy. Altruism aside - would you rather I torture the original or the copy? Why? Personally my answer is 'no' - I have no preference.
If I stipulated that I will kill the one that I didn't torture would that change anything? If you pick the original to die the clone would have this experience: "I woke up, am I the clone or the original? I'm being tortured - I must be the clone, my original body is either dead or will die soon."
Do you really care which particular collection of molecules experiences that? Does it matter to you if when you wake up and make the deduction it happens to be "I'm the original"?
What if I create two copies of you, imprison the original for 1 year before executing it but gave it a choice between which copy it would want to torture? What if, after you made that choice I reveal that you yourself are a copy that was secretly made and the real original was killed five years ago, 1 year after 'you' were copied? How would you cope with learning that you weren't you?
It has nothing to do with duality; it has to do with unique individualityall individuals believe themselves unique, even when confronted with an identical copy.
And neither has claim on being more 'ideal' than the other. They have a separate destiny, but identical past. They both identify the same childhood memories - they belong to both in equal measure. You believe yourself to be a unique instantiation of your personality - but you would be in the unusual position in that there are multiple instantiations rather than one constantly running and changing one.
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
™ Version 4.2