Source Page. Credit is to SMBC-Comics and even more credit to @aperson@beehaw.org who noticed it was missing and found the credit in this comment. Sorry about that and thanks, you're awesome aperson <3
this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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This is the struggle session that launches a million "a sufficiently high fidelity copy of a person is literally the same person" takes, which often conveniently require the original person to die to maintain that "literally the same person" take. If the person didn't "go anywhere" and was told "congratulations, you teleported! Now kindly step into the biomass recycler because literally you is already at the destination" I don't blame that original from not going quietly.
https://www.existentialcomics.com/comic/1
Two people can be literally the same person. Your argument only works if there's a magic law that says there can be only one real 'you'.
The “magic law” is just the consequence of what it means to be the “same” person. To be the same person, you have to, among other similarities, take up the same spatial-temporal space. This is why if we ask “is Bruce Wayne the same person as Batman” one of the first thoughts is “you know, I’ve never seen them in the same room before.”
Maybe what you’re getting hung up on here is the split. Let’s imagine there is one river (river A) which goes for a bit before it forks and becomes river b and river c. In some sense, we could say that both river b and river c are river a. But if you’re river b, then river c is not the same as you, and vice versa.
In the moment of copying, they're the same, after that, they're diverging through different experience. The difference in atoms/location is irrelevant from the perspective of that person's consciousness. They both are the original in any sense that counts for them or others.
Am I not the same person as I was yesterday?
Sure, I am now different both to a molecular level and due to the experiences I have made since, but for all linguistic and social intents and purposes, I am the same person I was yesterday. Because "person" is already an arbitrary term we put on this collection of atoms merely based on continuity, like the Ship of Theseus. If we went by "spatial-temporal space", then I would be space dust, a collection of bacteria, fluids, cells, proteins... and who "I" am would change every few seconds.
The same is true for two Rikers. That's the entire point of the episode; that despite them diverging at the point of the cloning into two different people, they are still the same person and need to live with that.
I don't think that as the point of the episode. As their lives diverged their interests and desires did so as well. They were similar, yes, but still different people. Will was promoted after successfully evacuating the people of Nervala IV and he became focused on his career. Thomas was stuck on Nervala IV thinking of the woman he left behind, and when he's rescued he wants to rekindle that relationship whereas Will let it fizzle.
To say nothing of Thomas eventually choosing to join the Maquis. That is not something we'd ever see from Will.
Will: Good luck, Will.
Thomas: I actually thought I might go with the name Thomas.
Troi: Your middle name.
Will: I guess we really are different. I never really cared for that name.
Thomas: Well, I sort of like it. I guess I'd better get going.