We are not human beings
Philosophy, vol. 87, no. 1, 2012, pp. 5–28
Abstract
We can start with some science fiction. Here on Earth, I enter the Teletransporter . When I press some button, a machine destroys my body, while recording the exact states of all my cells. This information is sent by radio to Mars, where another machine makes, out of organic materials, a perfect copy of my body. The person who wakes up on Mars seems to remember living my life up to the moment when I pressed the button, and is in every other way just like me.