Livia Albeck-Ripka's List: Philosophy Essay Duplicates

Imagine that God, or a scientist with some extremely sophisticated equipment, were to create an exact duplicate of me. Would I and the duplicate be the same person? Imagine that God could create the duplicate after my death, and the duplicate would have all of my personal characteristics, memories, beliefs, and so on. Would that person be me? On the surface, there doesn't seem to be any reason to deny identity here.

The problem arises with the possibility of another duplicate. If God could create one duplicate, the why not two? Then, both duplicates are identical to me. Identity is usually considered to be a transitive relation: If A=B, and B=C, then A=C. If both duplicates are identical to me, then they are identical to each other. Then, there the same person simultaneously occupies two different bodies. This certainly appears to be a paradoxical conclusion.

• Would you mind if this had already happened to you, say yesterday? 
  

    

• Would you mind if you thought this might happen to you tomorrow? Would it be OK to die, knowing that they will create a duplicate of this sort to carry on your life? Suppose that Australia and India pursue different biomedical technologies. In Australia, they become very good at repairing severe trauma, without a body's ever dying. In India, they're not so good with trauma but they become very good at recording neural patterns and creating duplicates. Would it be worse to be attacked by a crocodile in India than by a shark in Australia?