Transporters and Swampmen

[Digit]

If a Star Trek-style transporter functioned by vaporizing your molecules and remotely reorganizing carbon, oxygen, etc. down in the swamp you were transporting to, would you consider the one who came into being down in the swamp you, or some not-you swampman/(woman)?

I'm no deep philosopher, but it's interesting. Also, aren't most of my atoms cycled out of my body as cells die and new ones take their place? Yet I consider myself the same me that was once a third grader in another time.

[M.O.D.A.Q.]

I feel like this has a lot of similarities to the "Brain in a Vat" thought experiment in implications of consciousness/etc.

Personally, I like to believe that we are all just dinosaur pee drinking dinosaur pee to stay alive.

[yayfulness]

Click here for existential crisis.