Cloning

I am an astronaut stranded on Mars whose spaceship has broken down beyond repair. In my disabled craft there is a Teleclone Mark IV teleporter that can swiftly and painlessly dismantle my body, producing a molecule-by-molecule blueprint to be beamed to Earth. There, a Teleclone receiver stocked with the requisite atoms will produce, from the beamed instructions me- composite with all my memories, thoughts, feelings, and opinions. If I activate the Teleclone Mark IV, I believe that I am the astronaut produced from a blueprint on Earth because the astronaut that was dismantled on Mars is now only a bunch of molecules instead of a living, breathing human being. Suppose further that an improved Teleclone Mark V is developed that can obtain its blueprint without destroying the original, thus “cloning” me. In that case, I believe that I am both astronauts at once, just with two different consciousnesses.

When I activate the Teleclone Mark IV, the machine dismantles me into molecules and makes a blueprint of it to send to Earth. On Earth, I am reassembled into myself exactly as I was on Mars. I am now the astronaut that was reassembled because the astronaut that was disassembled on Mars no longer exists and is now a bunch of random molecules. It is the same concept as in “Star Trek” and “Power Rangers” when people get “beamed” to a certain place, except with the Teleclone Mark IV, you are being recreated to be exactly like your original form. There was an episode of “The Magic School Bus” where one of the students accidentally destroyed one of her classmate’s toy soldiers. She then went to a recycling factory, picked out the same material that made up the old toy soldier, and made him a new toy soldier. Even though it is made of the same material and looks exactly the same as the old toy soldier, it is not the same toy soldier because the old toy soldier was destroyed and it ceased to exist. When I was destroyed, I died and my soul went to heaven or hell. When I was reassembled on Earth, I was exactly like myself physically but I had no soul and my soul makes me who I am and separates me from everyone else. Suppose you are using a computer. It is the same thing as “cutting” something and pasting it to a new location.