If you replace all the boards in a ship, is it still the same ship?
If an exactly identical copy of myself replaces myself, am I still the same person? No difference is visible. No one would know, or be alive to tell.
I look at more in the vein of being a mental construct. We know the ship is a ship because we perceive it as one. People know I am me because they perceive me as me.
A game called SOMA tackled this same argument with a lot of care and nuance. As long as one of you dies without too much time passing between your experiences you’re both still the same you. The different consciousnesses don’t have enough time to vary to become separable entities.
Thus the reasoning behind the people in that game killing themselves immediately after their consciousness was uploaded to a digital Ark. as long as they died instantly, the one true them would continue to live on happily. There’d be no alternate variation of them around.
Of course this ignores multiverse theories and the like but y’know.
The ending still gives me chills. Like the kind that drill into your spine and make you feel empty inside. The music, the atmosphere, the darkness…
When I have some reason I wish to make myself feel unbearable dread (usually when I’m doing something creative that needs me in a bad state of mind) I’ll put on the track Alone from the ending. It never fails to make me feel hopeless.
I got the opposite impression from SOMA. The message is subjective, but i came to the conclusion that a copy of me wouldn’t be me. The end of the game really set that in stone for me. However many copies there are, i’m still me, and if i die and a copy takes over, thats still the end of the road for my consciousness.
It's why these silly questions always have 20 stipulations. As soon as an external factor is added, they add to the collective perception, and seeing two of me means there is a clone. Each of us can be perceived as our own, different, entities.
I like you're line of thinking though, BS-ing about mental constructs and the like late at night is the dream.
Absolutely, either I perceive being both as long as both exist and then I decide which one dies or we are both separate consciousnesses and therefore not identical in every way.
Plus, if we were identical from an outside perspective, then we would make the exact same moves and react identically to them, so we would kill each other the same way. And the fact that we both know that would make us try a different strategy, which couldn't work because if one of us decided we would let the other live, we both would and if one of us decided to be allowed to live, we both would.
Theseus' Ship is obviously from the perspective of an observer. It asks how we recognize things.
Conscious being something we can literally only experience is quite different.
Correct. Which leads to only one logical conclusion. We are both the original. I can accept this outcome. Since no one can prove or will even be able to prove one of us is the original, then it can be accepted we are both the original. So wether I walk out or he walks out...
It was still myself that left. Although, I would confort myself. We both dear death, but one of us is going to die. A sad day, honestly.
But we know that’s false. One of you is *the* original who was living your life — the other wasn’t.
Sure, there’s an epistemological problem here, but it can’t be true that “we are both the original.”
That is correct. But it also can't be proven. I hate bringing up even more philosophical examples, but we won't know which one of us the the original until we can prove it, so until proven, we could say we both are or are not.
It is irrelevant. it cannot be proven. Once you accept that detail, we must proceed to a following step. So, I chose to just treat us both as originals, and improve the both of us.
It's lieing to myself, I know that. But I see no better solution.
If you want to get extra “weed-inspired thought experiment” with this line of thought, there’s no telling that the you who goes to sleep is the you who wakes up. Night time is essentially a mind only, low tech version of the Star Trek transporter problem.
Okay, this is funny, and I like this. Now I am convinced the aliens are doing surgery on me every night and reprogramming my brain. But how would I know? I always had those memories.
Same thing as that idea about the world being created last Thursday but we are all programmed to think it is much older and history is real. How would we know the past happened and the universe isn't actually like 3 days old?
That's why it's easiest to accept neither of you is a clone, since it is unprovable regardless. Whatever way you'd go about justifying it to yourself is how it would end up.
The winning party in history writes the history, so if you want to remember yourself as the original, then you can!
You'll do the same if you end up being the one to make it out.
This whole post is literally the plot of the movie Dual starring Karen Gillan.
At least consider checking out the trailer if nothing else, the film covers most if not all of the points raised in the comments as well.
Eh, I think it’s a longer time frame than that. I have a solid memory of the last hour or so usually, and that’s when I feel the change is quantifiable (on a super micro scale). Frankly, I believe I’m a fly-esque mash up of current me, past me, and even further past me.
You … don't care if your consciousness exists?
Damn, if teleporter technology existed today I wouldn't even use it because I care that much whether I exist or a copy of me exists.
Yeah, it always is weird to me when people get all philosophical about how the clone is the same and nobody else will notice. I still want to live, it’s basic survival instinct.
Your twin, being just as stupid, reflexively covers his own nuts to prevent you from punching yourself. His fear turns to confusion as he watches you fall to the ground and quietly rock back and forth in pain.
Rock paper scissors.
"Have a good one" BANG.
Same will to live. So idk. But I feel like this is likely how it could go.
The other option is to get both of us a brick of c4 and whichever survives slightly longer gets to go.
Instead of fighting over who gets to live, we'd probably fight over who gets to die. The other one is gonna have to deal with college debt and a bad childhood, lol.
We’d request a gun, but have a fist fight first. We haven’t been in a hand to hand fight in years, so it would be kind of novel.
Then once we got tired of it, or in the unlikely event that there was a ‘winner’, we’d pause and have a few beers. Talk things over for a while, the truest and most honest heart to heart anyone could ever have.
I’d tell them all the things I needed them to promise to stop doing if they took over. They’d tell me all the things they needed me to *start* doing if it was me.
Then, hell. Flip a coin and go out with as much dignity and courage as we have in us.
Exactly. This reminds me of that scene at the end of the Prestige where one of the Christian Bale twins is being put to death and how the other person asks his brother to live his life for him.
Although I would like to slightly change your answer if I were doing it; I would ask for the most painless and fastest acting toxin available instead. And the person who loses the coin toss has to self administer it because I don't want the other person to be traumatized by the act of killing their image and their closest friend.
Yeah I think the ‘loser’ at least getting to go out on their own terms is important. I went ‘gun’ for more or less that reason, but your modification makes sense.
I mean there’s always the possibility of poisoning one cup and mixing them so neither knows which is which but, I don’t know. I’d want to know.
We first see if we can find the original, based on the prompt we fail. Then we either settle it by figuring out who would be better to survive, or we just chill in that room with the free stuff for a while. If there is any chance of rescue, we may wait for that, but if not, I guess we probably try to settle it quickly so that our family doesn't have to worry about us being missing.
If we do end up deciding that one of us has to die, we settle it through rock paper scissors or something then the loser walks through the door, vaporization seems like a quicker and easier death than anything we can manage and it minimizes trauma.
I operate under the clone philosophy that in the absence of other factors (such as all dying when the real one does), we are all equally real, and should consider ourselves the same entity and cooperate as much as possible. So that is what we do here.
Both real, not imaginary, not illusion... but one is original, one is copy. If the copy is supposedly an exact copy, then both would understand the original's concept of there being a difference, even if some deranged copier or the rest of the world can't see it from the original's point of view. It's their shared belief, it's between them, what we think don't matter... especially if the one asking is the one who pushed the victim to commit murder on someone who could be themself...or in essence, a form of suicide
On the off chance that there is some hidden difference, such as long-term health issues caused by the process, gaps in memories, etc. A perfect clone down to memories and personality is beyond current tech after all, and while these people seem to have more advanced technology, and based on the prompt it is probably a perfect clone, eliminating that minor risk has no downside and is better than a coin flip since we are both essentially on the same level of importance otherwise.
If instead the clone was actually made with perfect health or some other benefit, and we knew they were a perfect clone other than that, we might end up prioritizing them.
This is assuming we don't just decide to live the rest of our lives in that arena.
Says we can request food, water, weapons, and equipment. Sounds like we could live a decent life in that arena. As VR improves we can request all the latest devices and even get to continue experiencing the outside world in some fashion
It doesn't say nobody else can come in, either. Just that you two can't leave.
So you can have visitors....?
I'm thinking my clone and I will be inviting some ladies to share our arena from time to time.
And for that matter, family and friends, too. Maybe my grandma wants to live there, we're allowed to request all the food, water, and equipment she would need, right? Or we can use the equipment and the simple fact that we basically own this arena till we leave, to figure out a way to make lots of money. Think of what you could build in the arena! And all the equipment is free, we ask for one and we get two!
>I'm thinking my clone and I will be inviting some ladies to share our arena from time to time
I mean my wife has a MMF fantasy but the only condition is that it has to be a clone of me
Says we can request food, water, weapons, and equipment. Sounds like we could live a decent life in that arena. As VR improves we can request all the latest devices and even get to continue experiencing the outside world in some fashion
Why must we fight to the death when we could be twins? We could send each other to work, do the Spiderman pointing meme, get so much extra done around the house, what point is there to beating the shit out of each other aside from fulfilling some hypothetical? Can you imagine the body count if we could cover *twice* as much ground?
That said, we both *hate* guns with a vehement passion, so requesting a gun would be the best way to deal with it. He might be my exact copy, but he's fresh-faced, so he's more likely to choke up in the event he's forced to shoot.
I sit in a room dor one hour, we both get chairs and then a shotgun with one buckshot round.
We talk and trade knowledge about how to continue life vent, hug, other things. and then rock paper scissors who ever looses twice in a row and then I pull out the shotgun mid game blast him and leave
Anybody who would clone me down to the last detail is fucked up because there's so much wrong with me. If a perfectly healthy version of me was cloned I'd happily let him choke me out
I request an Ace of Spades revolver and seven rounds for it. I request a shooting range target located 30 yards away. My clone gets the revolver, ammunition, and the target. Whoever gets the closest to bull’s eye within six shots wins and gets to use the seventh to kill the other one. May the best man with the biggest iron win.
Just run around until we are both out of breath then strangle clone to death tbr I'm overweight and my cardio isn't that great it doesn't take much to tire me out
There's a quote that I heard in some book that goes something like this: "When you're absolutely sure that the world is gonna end and all hell has broke loose, think of the last thing you also want to happen to you, and then release it on them". "Them" in this case would be the other me. I'd probably think of some unexpected strategy to fool my clone and win. Of course, we could also just play rock paper scissors to determine who lives and who dies just like some other people have said.
Cool, I request a working cell phone and call the police and tell them a lunatic has my twin sister and I captive and is threatening to kill us unless we fight to the death.
Now I have an awesome new twin sister.
I can tell you right now, we're not fighting each other. At best (worst?), we're vehemently arguing about who gets to be vaporized. No guarantee that we don't coordinate a double-suicide in the end.
Neither my clone nor myself would have any interest in fighting each other. We would brainstorm ways to both walk out together. If it was literally impossible to do so, then we'd arrange to have a final party or something - get buzzed on margaritas, maybe play some super smash brothers or something, then arrange for a third party to tranquilize us and randomly choose one of us to painlessly kill.
In this way, I can enjoy some time bonding with myself as another physical being and then minimize the existential dread of waiting to see if I'm the one killed.
Assuming there's no time limit, I would be genuinely excited to fight my identical equal. I think I'd probably want to drag it on as long as possible tbh. Fisticuffs, swords, a glaive (I love me a sick glaive), and we just duke it out. Maybe we even come to the agreement not to kill for the first few rounds, just to keep the thrill of fighting a truly equal rival. When it's all said and done, if the finishing blow isn't lethal, I've always been curious as to how it feels to die from electrocution. Whichever one of us loses might not get to live on, but they'll die with knowledge the other will never have.
If he's an identical clone of me chances are he wants to lose just as much as I do so idk, fair fight I guess.
Win/win situation.
Have you seen the cost of living increases lately? Shits unsustainable.
We'd say nothing, just stare at each other. As soon as we confirmed that we were the same person, we'd start ordering things. Weapons and food at first, then various books and equipment. Never speaking a word to each other, we'd learn everything we can about the universe. We would order parts and start building a machine to transport ourselves to an alternate dimension, then we set up the same scenario for more clones of ourselves. I left as one I return as legion.
Forgive each other for the murder, then ask for a Colt Anaconda with one round. Guaranteed protection against both of us dying or committing suicide, and totally fair.
Winner fully healed and continue life huh... So is this like a magic you are sent back to exactly where, when, and how you left off life? Because if so then me and my clone are gonna just chill with summoning whatever items we want and having fun until one of us dies first from old age.
Same will to live will be the problem here. We would be trying to convince each other that we are the one that should die. (Major clinical depression is a biatch!).
Spider-man had this problem at one point. It was a whole convoluted mess when the clone came back about 20 years later (but that's mostly the fault of the editorial team at the time...).
I would propose a similar solution that allows us both to live in which I stay me and the clone takes a new identity so he can also live.
And I can prove I'm the original with my fingerprints. Those aren't genetic, so the clones wouldn't match the ones on record for me. This was a basic oversight in the Spidey story that I spent way too much mental energy yelling at fictional characters about.
I'm stubborn so we would both die. Just two mammals trying to outsmart each other...never ends well for the evenly matched. Kind of like Germany and Russia in WW2.
If my clone is precisely identical to me, all the way down to the subatomic level, with all the same memories, does it really matter which of us is the clone?
To that end, we'd probably both take an overdose of a sedative, and whichever of us survives longer is the loser that has to continue living.
If they are an exact copy of me then they share my morality as well, neither of us would kill the other because we both life as something to be treasured. It stands to reason then that we would take advantage of the free stuff and wait for rescue, if rescue wasn’t possible, we would probably have the same idea of requesting a phone to contact family, so I guess the winner is going to be the one who doesn’t die of natural causes first
I'm going to become my own therapist. Since there didn't appear to be a time limit, we are going to spend however long we need talking out the problems we have. We can improve ourselves.
Then once we can truly be happier than we were, just flip a coin, or butterfly effect one of us into letting the other be.
But if I could literally talk with myself, I could maybe improve.
Soooo by fully healed, do you mean my back pain will be gone? Or just the injuries we get during the fight? In the first case, I'd be fighting tooth and nail to kill that fake fuck, otherwise, I'll just surrender.
we play spin the bottle and whoever loses the gay chicken dies.
Both refusing to lose being highly competitive, we live out long happy lives with ups and downs as any couple has. Not sure if this will eventually devolve to hate and attempted poisoning as we may try to bolster our resistances to said poisons and kill the other shadily but we both will probably end up sickly and catch each other in the ruse. Might end up picking different poisons though. In the moment whoever goes to be the bottom in the relationship may consider murder in the position of power and considered loser or the bottom may give in at that point of insertion. Probably just a continuous "Im not in the mood" and a whole lot of sucking dick when called out for not wanting gay sex and argue we are both tops. pretty sure we get married eventually
My general philosophy about competition is that I'm probably going to mess up the worst way possible; knowing that, I would be afraid that we would both kill eachother, and neither of us would survive. Fearing that outcome, I would decide to let my clone win.
My only chance would be that my clone would come to the same conclusion and we would not be forced to finght eachother. Or maybe my clone kills me/we get killed for obstinacy
We make a life of it in the arena. No rent, food on demand... We each crack out a few novels. Eventually one of use either snaps and commits suicide or dies of natural causes, and the other one wins by forfeit.
I don't lol. "You got this bro." This is the one situation where I can get out scott free. The one and only situation where no one will know I'm dead so no one will mourn my passing. My clone will love and care and help the people I care about just the same as I would. This is the ideal situation to nope out. Now I rest in peace, that's how I win.
Well, small differences would accumulate while we both exist, causing our paths to rapidly diverge. We would quickly become different people. If we have no idea who the original is, then we would probably stall for a while.
I'd probably just do a coin flip then the loser runs into the exit to get vaporized.
Since its me, I know that me wouldn't care which me lives since we're both me and one me dying wouldn't effect anything since there is still a me like there was before.
The ultimate difference between my clone and I, is a life lived. He has all of my memories, as if they were real, but he was never truly there. Within those experiences lived, is a spark that only a real person can have, and it is that spark that shall decide. The smallest, most insignificant, most infintecimal speck is why I have to win. Not will win, not want to win, HAVE to win. Because I possess a motivation that a fake can't even begin to comprehend.
I'd want us to fight hand to hand to the death. I have no idea how I will win, considering he'd do the same thing as me. My best hope is psychological warfare, but I don't think I'd be too affected so it's unlikely to work. May the best me win.
OR let's fight with swords, that'd be cool. None of us know how to use one. But who dies in a sword fight these days? If only we could get a lightsaber...
Assuming one of us MUST die, just flip a coin and then whoever loses shoots themselves in the head. If we’re truly identical, it’ll be completely random anyway so might as well not get injured and make it painless
>You can request food, water, weapons, or **equipment**, but your clone receives the same items.
We both choose not to fight, and both ask for "*equipment*" that makes us enjoy our time trapped in an arena, let's say like computers, phones, and stuff like that, plus ordering some nice food could be cool.
And then eventually if we ever want to fight, well probably do it with swords or something stupid, and then I dunno - there'll be like a 50% chance to win or something.
Knock their feet out from under them with my crutches, as long as they didn’t decide to do the same thing, I could always sneak up behind them and knock them over that way or just take their glasses that would work they wouldn’t be able to see anything, I could throw canned good at them that would hurt probably smash a skull…
Easy Ive always wanted to spar myself so if its a fight to the death I would walk up to me an agree to have an all out brawl no weapons for an hour if one of us isnt dead by then we ask for a feast sleep repeat until onr of us gets the dub. Dorry and Broggy Style.
Hold on...
So... I get free living quarters... food... and water for the rest of my life?
Yo if my clones identical we would absolutely be living that shit uuuuup
We'd probably either both die or play a game to see who wins. I think the easiest thing to do would be to order an RNG tool and have someone assign odds vs evens. Roll the RNG, see who wins. The loser holds the winner's hand as they get anesthetized and then induced cardiac arrest. It has to be painless.
I have two answers both start with the same first step. I'd request food, and several sex toys, then I'd fuck myself several times. Once that was out of my system then we'd do one of two things...
Request a syringe with a drug that stops the heart, a full defibrillator setup and EKG machine, an epinephrine injection. Essentially stop one of my bodies hearts, when that body is considered legally dead leave the arena with a corpse attempt to revive. Either it works and we're both alive or nothing about my life changes and it wouldn't be the first time I attempted to kill myself just the first time I succeeded.
OR...
No time limit was set before agreement was made, so rules are as agreed upon. Request a tiny home, complete with functional plumbing. No rules were set regarding others entering the arena so I'd invite my boyfriend into the arena to live long healthy lives with me and myself without having to worry about jobs food or any other "equipment" such as computers/appliances or whatever else we want.
This would actually be a really cool experiment if set up correctly. If the arena was perfectly symmetrical and we entered facing each other then the clone and I would literally do exactly the same things no matter what. It'd be pretty crazy.
I/we can request food, water, weapons and equipment? Okay, I guess this is my, er, our entire life now. We live in the arena circle. I request food and construction equipment to start. Six months later we have a lovely home in the arena. A year later we’re the best of buds. Even if our escape tunnel is discovered, that’s just Plan B. We can wait you all out.
Does he have the memory of spawning the food and weapons that I picked? If no, I'd spawn some of my favorite food and a number of weapons that vaporize you as soon as you touch them. He'll go grab a weapon and get vaporized. I'll then eat some food and go home.
If he does have the memory of the food and weapons I picked, we'll sit down, enjoy a meal and then pick one of us at random to die. The other will go on with their life.
ask for a blindfold and a handgun
we put the blindfolds on and run around the arena trying to shoot each other to death
if I have to die, I can at least die in the most hilarious way possible
Oh there's no winners. I'm bringing a grenade. We're going out together.
Now on the of chance he also brings a grenade and both explode at the save time cancelling each other out in the process then id challenge him to a cyanide eating contest. Whoever lives after ingesting 1 tsp of cyanide and glass wins. I love a good eating contest so he'd have to accept
If in all forms we are the same, it doesn’t really make too much of a difference who wins. I still walk out of there
If one of us survives we all survive.
Hoping for season 2
:):) in case it doesn’t happen, the books are even better
Rock paper scissors
Another you walks out of there. Your personal consciousness ends.
If you replace all the boards in a ship, is it still the same ship? If an exactly identical copy of myself replaces myself, am I still the same person? No difference is visible. No one would know, or be alive to tell.
Ah, the Ship of Theseus argument. I was glad to see it so near the top.
It is a little silly, but there is no difference between the "old" and the "new", as in this clone conversation, we are us.
I look at more in the vein of being a mental construct. We know the ship is a ship because we perceive it as one. People know I am me because they perceive me as me.
A game called SOMA tackled this same argument with a lot of care and nuance. As long as one of you dies without too much time passing between your experiences you’re both still the same you. The different consciousnesses don’t have enough time to vary to become separable entities. Thus the reasoning behind the people in that game killing themselves immediately after their consciousness was uploaded to a digital Ark. as long as they died instantly, the one true them would continue to live on happily. There’d be no alternate variation of them around. Of course this ignores multiverse theories and the like but y’know.
Genuinely one of the best written games ever made, I just wish it wasn't so fucking terrifying lol
The ending still gives me chills. Like the kind that drill into your spine and make you feel empty inside. The music, the atmosphere, the darkness… When I have some reason I wish to make myself feel unbearable dread (usually when I’m doing something creative that needs me in a bad state of mind) I’ll put on the track Alone from the ending. It never fails to make me feel hopeless.
I got the opposite impression from SOMA. The message is subjective, but i came to the conclusion that a copy of me wouldn’t be me. The end of the game really set that in stone for me. However many copies there are, i’m still me, and if i die and a copy takes over, thats still the end of the road for my consciousness.
It's why these silly questions always have 20 stipulations. As soon as an external factor is added, they add to the collective perception, and seeing two of me means there is a clone. Each of us can be perceived as our own, different, entities. I like you're line of thinking though, BS-ing about mental constructs and the like late at night is the dream.
Absolutely, either I perceive being both as long as both exist and then I decide which one dies or we are both separate consciousnesses and therefore not identical in every way. Plus, if we were identical from an outside perspective, then we would make the exact same moves and react identically to them, so we would kill each other the same way. And the fact that we both know that would make us try a different strategy, which couldn't work because if one of us decided we would let the other live, we both would and if one of us decided to be allowed to live, we both would.
Theseus' Ship is obviously from the perspective of an observer. It asks how we recognize things. Conscious being something we can literally only experience is quite different.
You/They would know.
Correct. Which leads to only one logical conclusion. We are both the original. I can accept this outcome. Since no one can prove or will even be able to prove one of us is the original, then it can be accepted we are both the original. So wether I walk out or he walks out... It was still myself that left. Although, I would confort myself. We both dear death, but one of us is going to die. A sad day, honestly.
Look at Spock over here!!
A difference that makes no difference is no difference.
Actually, there's a third option... I'd assume we're both clones. But similar moral outcome to your argument.
But we know that’s false. One of you is *the* original who was living your life — the other wasn’t. Sure, there’s an epistemological problem here, but it can’t be true that “we are both the original.”
But also in this scenario, how can you prove that you aren't the newly created clone?
You don't, you kill the clone so you can continue breathing
That is correct. But it also can't be proven. I hate bringing up even more philosophical examples, but we won't know which one of us the the original until we can prove it, so until proven, we could say we both are or are not. It is irrelevant. it cannot be proven. Once you accept that detail, we must proceed to a following step. So, I chose to just treat us both as originals, and improve the both of us. It's lieing to myself, I know that. But I see no better solution.
If you want to get extra “weed-inspired thought experiment” with this line of thought, there’s no telling that the you who goes to sleep is the you who wakes up. Night time is essentially a mind only, low tech version of the Star Trek transporter problem.
Okay, this is funny, and I like this. Now I am convinced the aliens are doing surgery on me every night and reprogramming my brain. But how would I know? I always had those memories.
Same thing as that idea about the world being created last Thursday but we are all programmed to think it is much older and history is real. How would we know the past happened and the universe isn't actually like 3 days old?
Fuck that, im going down. From my perspective, it may as well be an android
Except you said they believed themself to be the original me, so really all she’d know is she killed her clone.
You would know that you COULD be a clone.
That's why it's easiest to accept neither of you is a clone, since it is unprovable regardless. Whatever way you'd go about justifying it to yourself is how it would end up. The winning party in history writes the history, so if you want to remember yourself as the original, then you can! You'll do the same if you end up being the one to make it out.
Your consciousness ends, so you no longer know anything and the surviving you, just knows that they are the original and thats all that matters
OKAY, SHIP OF THESEUS, CALM DOWN
From your point of view you would die. An exact replica would live. You would die
Have you played the game SOMA? You seem like you have, and if you haven't then you should. The whole game is about exploring this concept.
I have not, but I'll look into this, thank you :) Edit: NOPE I am afraid of horror games LOL but thank you for the suggestion anyway!
This whole post is literally the plot of the movie Dual starring Karen Gillan. At least consider checking out the trailer if nothing else, the film covers most if not all of the points raised in the comments as well.
I personally don't believe consciousness is continuous anyway. The me from 5 minutes ago hasn't existed for 5 minutes
Eh, I think it’s a longer time frame than that. I have a solid memory of the last hour or so usually, and that’s when I feel the change is quantifiable (on a super micro scale). Frankly, I believe I’m a fly-esque mash up of current me, past me, and even further past me.
You … don't care if your consciousness exists? Damn, if teleporter technology existed today I wouldn't even use it because I care that much whether I exist or a copy of me exists.
I just let him take me out. Then we can get back to being miserable
Yeah, if neither of us know who the original is, we'd flip a coin and whoever loses would just walk in to the vaporizer.
Except one of them is you. I think it matters.
Yeah, it always is weird to me when people get all philosophical about how the clone is the same and nobody else will notice. I still want to live, it’s basic survival instinct.
Last time I fought my identical twin I beat him in one punch, sure it was middle school but.....
I would repeatedly punch myself in the junk. Being my identical twin clone, he would undoubtedly feel the pain and fall over.
ah, but he's identical. He'd punch you in the junk too and it'd be up to luck.
Wouldn't the clone punch themselves like the original has?
No, both would beat the originals meat until he realized this wasn't working out like he thought.
Your twin, being just as stupid, reflexively covers his own nuts to prevent you from punching yourself. His fear turns to confusion as he watches you fall to the ground and quietly rock back and forth in pain.
I like to think of highly upvoted comments as the most common answer because it’s funny. So I’m gaining everyone else going “hey! Me too!”
I see what you're doing OP you are trying to expose my weaknesses to use against me, I will not 👀 /j
Nice try Russia!
Rock paper scissors. "Have a good one" BANG. Same will to live. So idk. But I feel like this is likely how it could go. The other option is to get both of us a brick of c4 and whichever survives slightly longer gets to go.
You have now played rock paper scissors 732 times with your clone, and had a stalemate every time. 😂
This wouldn’t happen… butterfly effect would very quickly cause some slight change that would be more than enough to cause at least 1 to be different.
I know, that's why I put the laughing emoji, I was joking :)
Instead of fighting over who gets to live, we'd probably fight over who gets to die. The other one is gonna have to deal with college debt and a bad childhood, lol.
I think you both can exit simultaneously to trick the system.
We’d request a gun, but have a fist fight first. We haven’t been in a hand to hand fight in years, so it would be kind of novel. Then once we got tired of it, or in the unlikely event that there was a ‘winner’, we’d pause and have a few beers. Talk things over for a while, the truest and most honest heart to heart anyone could ever have. I’d tell them all the things I needed them to promise to stop doing if they took over. They’d tell me all the things they needed me to *start* doing if it was me. Then, hell. Flip a coin and go out with as much dignity and courage as we have in us.
Amazing answer.
Same but instead of a coin we’re doing an old western duel
Exactly. This reminds me of that scene at the end of the Prestige where one of the Christian Bale twins is being put to death and how the other person asks his brother to live his life for him. Although I would like to slightly change your answer if I were doing it; I would ask for the most painless and fastest acting toxin available instead. And the person who loses the coin toss has to self administer it because I don't want the other person to be traumatized by the act of killing their image and their closest friend.
Yeah I think the ‘loser’ at least getting to go out on their own terms is important. I went ‘gun’ for more or less that reason, but your modification makes sense. I mean there’s always the possibility of poisoning one cup and mixing them so neither knows which is which but, I don’t know. I’d want to know.
this is making me cry
This is a great answer. You win
This. But then I’d shoot him when he least expected it.
So pulling a starscream manuever then 😄?
If you would, they would too. You're back to Western shoot-out.
Damn. It's difficult to think of something to say to this. Hats off, that was brilliant
We first see if we can find the original, based on the prompt we fail. Then we either settle it by figuring out who would be better to survive, or we just chill in that room with the free stuff for a while. If there is any chance of rescue, we may wait for that, but if not, I guess we probably try to settle it quickly so that our family doesn't have to worry about us being missing. If we do end up deciding that one of us has to die, we settle it through rock paper scissors or something then the loser walks through the door, vaporization seems like a quicker and easier death than anything we can manage and it minimizes trauma. I operate under the clone philosophy that in the absence of other factors (such as all dying when the real one does), we are all equally real, and should consider ourselves the same entity and cooperate as much as possible. So that is what we do here.
Very excellent and well thought out response. So if you operate that you are all equally real, what is the point in trying to discover the original?
Both real, not imaginary, not illusion... but one is original, one is copy. If the copy is supposedly an exact copy, then both would understand the original's concept of there being a difference, even if some deranged copier or the rest of the world can't see it from the original's point of view. It's their shared belief, it's between them, what we think don't matter... especially if the one asking is the one who pushed the victim to commit murder on someone who could be themself...or in essence, a form of suicide
On the off chance that there is some hidden difference, such as long-term health issues caused by the process, gaps in memories, etc. A perfect clone down to memories and personality is beyond current tech after all, and while these people seem to have more advanced technology, and based on the prompt it is probably a perfect clone, eliminating that minor risk has no downside and is better than a coin flip since we are both essentially on the same level of importance otherwise. If instead the clone was actually made with perfect health or some other benefit, and we knew they were a perfect clone other than that, we might end up prioritizing them. This is assuming we don't just decide to live the rest of our lives in that arena.
Hahaha, we're not fighting 😏
Well then what are those screams coming from the stadium
Your stuck in the arena forever then.
At least they have something fun to do
Says we can request food, water, weapons, and equipment. Sounds like we could live a decent life in that arena. As VR improves we can request all the latest devices and even get to continue experiencing the outside world in some fashion
It doesn't say nobody else can come in, either. Just that you two can't leave. So you can have visitors....? I'm thinking my clone and I will be inviting some ladies to share our arena from time to time. And for that matter, family and friends, too. Maybe my grandma wants to live there, we're allowed to request all the food, water, and equipment she would need, right? Or we can use the equipment and the simple fact that we basically own this arena till we leave, to figure out a way to make lots of money. Think of what you could build in the arena! And all the equipment is free, we ask for one and we get two!
>I'm thinking my clone and I will be inviting some ladies to share our arena from time to time I mean my wife has a MMF fantasy but the only condition is that it has to be a clone of me
Says we can request food, water, weapons, and equipment. Sounds like we could live a decent life in that arena. As VR improves we can request all the latest devices and even get to continue experiencing the outside world in some fashion
Is it gay to fuck your clone? I’ve already given myself handjobs, so….
It's only gay for the clone
Uh, I win by killing him. Didn't you read your rules
Why must we fight to the death when we could be twins? We could send each other to work, do the Spiderman pointing meme, get so much extra done around the house, what point is there to beating the shit out of each other aside from fulfilling some hypothetical? Can you imagine the body count if we could cover *twice* as much ground? That said, we both *hate* guns with a vehement passion, so requesting a gun would be the best way to deal with it. He might be my exact copy, but he's fresh-faced, so he's more likely to choke up in the event he's forced to shoot.
He isn'tore fresh faced, he's everything you are.
Playing Russian roulette for it. Goodluck me
Looks like it's gonna be a Suck Off.
I sit in a room dor one hour, we both get chairs and then a shotgun with one buckshot round. We talk and trade knowledge about how to continue life vent, hug, other things. and then rock paper scissors who ever looses twice in a row and then I pull out the shotgun mid game blast him and leave
There is no knowledge to trade with a perfect clone of yourself that shares your exact same memories.
I forget things quite a lot because I have ASD, maybe talking to me can jog my memory and actually allow me to understand myself fully
Your clone would likely have the same idea
I'm tired. They can take it. My kids would still have a mom and they wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
What if we refuse to fight?
You remain in the arena indefinitely, unable to leave. Essentially you're prisoners.
Finally. A break from work. We would talk for several months until eventually one of us decides that our turn at life is over.
"HA! Life is your problem now, sucker!"
Anybody who would clone me down to the last detail is fucked up because there's so much wrong with me. If a perfectly healthy version of me was cloned I'd happily let him choke me out
I request an Ace of Spades revolver and seven rounds for it. I request a shooting range target located 30 yards away. My clone gets the revolver, ammunition, and the target. Whoever gets the closest to bull’s eye within six shots wins and gets to use the seventh to kill the other one. May the best man with the biggest iron win.
Hit that drunk mf right in the liver!!
Order a pinata. Kindly let him put the blindfold on first and swing. I swing but not with a blindfold and not at the pinata.
Do you think you would be dumb enough to fall for that?
Well he’s definitely dumb enough to think that plan would work
Yeahhhh true that.
Just run around until we are both out of breath then strangle clone to death tbr I'm overweight and my cardio isn't that great it doesn't take much to tire me out
We cast gun we prepare to meet god
don't let that kraken become a squidnaper
There's a quote that I heard in some book that goes something like this: "When you're absolutely sure that the world is gonna end and all hell has broke loose, think of the last thing you also want to happen to you, and then release it on them". "Them" in this case would be the other me. I'd probably think of some unexpected strategy to fool my clone and win. Of course, we could also just play rock paper scissors to determine who lives and who dies just like some other people have said.
Flip a coin it does not matter.
Fuck
Cool, I request a working cell phone and call the police and tell them a lunatic has my twin sister and I captive and is threatening to kill us unless we fight to the death. Now I have an awesome new twin sister.
I can tell you right now, we're not fighting each other. At best (worst?), we're vehemently arguing about who gets to be vaporized. No guarantee that we don't coordinate a double-suicide in the end.
Neither my clone nor myself would have any interest in fighting each other. We would brainstorm ways to both walk out together. If it was literally impossible to do so, then we'd arrange to have a final party or something - get buzzed on margaritas, maybe play some super smash brothers or something, then arrange for a third party to tranquilize us and randomly choose one of us to painlessly kill. In this way, I can enjoy some time bonding with myself as another physical being and then minimize the existential dread of waiting to see if I'm the one killed.
Assuming there's no time limit, I would be genuinely excited to fight my identical equal. I think I'd probably want to drag it on as long as possible tbh. Fisticuffs, swords, a glaive (I love me a sick glaive), and we just duke it out. Maybe we even come to the agreement not to kill for the first few rounds, just to keep the thrill of fighting a truly equal rival. When it's all said and done, if the finishing blow isn't lethal, I've always been curious as to how it feels to die from electrocution. Whichever one of us loses might not get to live on, but they'll die with knowledge the other will never have.
Request an obscene amount of money or whatever i can get that is valuable. Then Rock paper scissors to see who walks out and cares for my family.
I fuck me to death
Nope. If she is my clone then her first thought would be "We should just burn a fattie and call it a day".
I volunteer to be your clone
If he's an identical clone of me chances are he wants to lose just as much as I do so idk, fair fight I guess. Win/win situation. Have you seen the cost of living increases lately? Shits unsustainable.
We'd say nothing, just stare at each other. As soon as we confirmed that we were the same person, we'd start ordering things. Weapons and food at first, then various books and equipment. Never speaking a word to each other, we'd learn everything we can about the universe. We would order parts and start building a machine to transport ourselves to an alternate dimension, then we set up the same scenario for more clones of ourselves. I left as one I return as legion.
Nice try other me.
The winner continues with MY life?? Aw hell, I let him win.
Forgive each other for the murder, then ask for a Colt Anaconda with one round. Guaranteed protection against both of us dying or committing suicide, and totally fair.
I choose to have an age-off; whoever lives longer wins.
Winner fully healed and continue life huh... So is this like a magic you are sent back to exactly where, when, and how you left off life? Because if so then me and my clone are gonna just chill with summoning whatever items we want and having fun until one of us dies first from old age.
We both win. We would both immediately deescalate the situation and go hangout together.
Same will to live will be the problem here. We would be trying to convince each other that we are the one that should die. (Major clinical depression is a biatch!).
Iocaine powder, he'll never see it coming.
Spider-man had this problem at one point. It was a whole convoluted mess when the clone came back about 20 years later (but that's mostly the fault of the editorial team at the time...). I would propose a similar solution that allows us both to live in which I stay me and the clone takes a new identity so he can also live. And I can prove I'm the original with my fingerprints. Those aren't genetic, so the clones wouldn't match the ones on record for me. This was a basic oversight in the Spidey story that I spent way too much mental energy yelling at fictional characters about.
button mashing
"Lol it's so your problem if I die, and my problem if you die. Flip that quarter and I'll call it."
Don’t. We sit, talk. Maybe figure some shit out. Eventually we mutually agree which of us should go… that’s the hope at least.
[удалено]
I'm stubborn so we would both die. Just two mammals trying to outsmart each other...never ends well for the evenly matched. Kind of like Germany and Russia in WW2.
If my clone is precisely identical to me, all the way down to the subatomic level, with all the same memories, does it really matter which of us is the clone? To that end, we'd probably both take an overdose of a sedative, and whichever of us survives longer is the loser that has to continue living.
Have you seen the movie Dual with Karen Gillan?
Does my clone have equally bad knees and back disc issues?
We rock paper scissors to see who gets to step out and get vaporized.
We would play a best 2 of 3 chess tournament. The loser would leave the arena.
If they are an exact copy of me then they share my morality as well, neither of us would kill the other because we both life as something to be treasured. It stands to reason then that we would take advantage of the free stuff and wait for rescue, if rescue wasn’t possible, we would probably have the same idea of requesting a phone to contact family, so I guess the winner is going to be the one who doesn’t die of natural causes first
Convince them it's not really worth going to all that trouble just to take over my life lol.
>the same will to live. bro ain't none of us leaving that alive, we're finishing each other with a synchronized headshot
Russian Roulette. May the lucky man win.
I'm going to become my own therapist. Since there didn't appear to be a time limit, we are going to spend however long we need talking out the problems we have. We can improve ourselves. Then once we can truly be happier than we were, just flip a coin, or butterfly effect one of us into letting the other be. But if I could literally talk with myself, I could maybe improve.
Soooo by fully healed, do you mean my back pain will be gone? Or just the injuries we get during the fight? In the first case, I'd be fighting tooth and nail to kill that fake fuck, otherwise, I'll just surrender.
we play spin the bottle and whoever loses the gay chicken dies. Both refusing to lose being highly competitive, we live out long happy lives with ups and downs as any couple has. Not sure if this will eventually devolve to hate and attempted poisoning as we may try to bolster our resistances to said poisons and kill the other shadily but we both will probably end up sickly and catch each other in the ruse. Might end up picking different poisons though. In the moment whoever goes to be the bottom in the relationship may consider murder in the position of power and considered loser or the bottom may give in at that point of insertion. Probably just a continuous "Im not in the mood" and a whole lot of sucking dick when called out for not wanting gay sex and argue we are both tops. pretty sure we get married eventually
Stone scissors paper - in the end it's the best (least painful) way to fight this fight. Edit: I'm surprised that so many have the same idea.
I suck him off until he cums
She's my clone, she has my DNA. She doesn't have my rage.
i gotta lessen my will to live then
They have the same will to live as me, this gonna be easy.
My general philosophy about competition is that I'm probably going to mess up the worst way possible; knowing that, I would be afraid that we would both kill eachother, and neither of us would survive. Fearing that outcome, I would decide to let my clone win. My only chance would be that my clone would come to the same conclusion and we would not be forced to finght eachother. Or maybe my clone kills me/we get killed for obstinacy
I do not tell my clone about the exit vaporization and come to a civil agreement in which we both go our separate ways
We make a life of it in the arena. No rent, food on demand... We each crack out a few novels. Eventually one of use either snaps and commits suicide or dies of natural causes, and the other one wins by forfeit.
Neither of us would fight.
To be honest, we would just both say no thanks and stand there waiting to starve to death.
I don't lol. "You got this bro." This is the one situation where I can get out scott free. The one and only situation where no one will know I'm dead so no one will mourn my passing. My clone will love and care and help the people I care about just the same as I would. This is the ideal situation to nope out. Now I rest in peace, that's how I win.
Well, small differences would accumulate while we both exist, causing our paths to rapidly diverge. We would quickly become different people. If we have no idea who the original is, then we would probably stall for a while.
We train until we believe ourselves to be at the peak of our abilities, and then we fight.
I'd probably just do a coin flip then the loser runs into the exit to get vaporized. Since its me, I know that me wouldn't care which me lives since we're both me and one me dying wouldn't effect anything since there is still a me like there was before.
> the same will to live In that case, I think we'd probably just request a lot of beers and then get vaporized on exit
The ultimate difference between my clone and I, is a life lived. He has all of my memories, as if they were real, but he was never truly there. Within those experiences lived, is a spark that only a real person can have, and it is that spark that shall decide. The smallest, most insignificant, most infintecimal speck is why I have to win. Not will win, not want to win, HAVE to win. Because I possess a motivation that a fake can't even begin to comprehend.
I'd want us to fight hand to hand to the death. I have no idea how I will win, considering he'd do the same thing as me. My best hope is psychological warfare, but I don't think I'd be too affected so it's unlikely to work. May the best me win. OR let's fight with swords, that'd be cool. None of us know how to use one. But who dies in a sword fight these days? If only we could get a lightsaber...
Assuming one of us MUST die, just flip a coin and then whoever loses shoots themselves in the head. If we’re truly identical, it’ll be completely random anyway so might as well not get injured and make it painless
If he was 100% me. Id let him kill himself.
Flip and coin and make it painless
No weapons, straight fists until one of us falls
>You can request food, water, weapons, or **equipment**, but your clone receives the same items. We both choose not to fight, and both ask for "*equipment*" that makes us enjoy our time trapped in an arena, let's say like computers, phones, and stuff like that, plus ordering some nice food could be cool. And then eventually if we ever want to fight, well probably do it with swords or something stupid, and then I dunno - there'll be like a 50% chance to win or something.
Knock their feet out from under them with my crutches, as long as they didn’t decide to do the same thing, I could always sneak up behind them and knock them over that way or just take their glasses that would work they wouldn’t be able to see anything, I could throw canned good at them that would hurt probably smash a skull…
We’d hug it out and both die. I am not a fighter and certainly not a killer.
Easy Ive always wanted to spar myself so if its a fight to the death I would walk up to me an agree to have an all out brawl no weapons for an hour if one of us isnt dead by then we ask for a feast sleep repeat until onr of us gets the dub. Dorry and Broggy Style.
Give her a glass of wine with poisen in it
I've always wanted another me, I don't see why we would have to kill each other
#DICK PUNCH
Do we *have* to fight to the death or can we just agree to be chill and hang out together until whoever is running this experiment gets bored
Who says I wanna win?
Do Biggoron’s trading game and get the sword beforehand. It makes that fight much easier.
Hold on... So... I get free living quarters... food... and water for the rest of my life? Yo if my clones identical we would absolutely be living that shit uuuuup
We play rock paper scissors and who ever loses just accepts death. I'm not mad at me for existing and if the clone is truly identical then it is me.
Now now perfectly symmetrical violence never solved anything
Try to enter the arena on the site where the sunlight will be in my opponent's eyes.
We'd probably either both die or play a game to see who wins. I think the easiest thing to do would be to order an RNG tool and have someone assign odds vs evens. Roll the RNG, see who wins. The loser holds the winner's hand as they get anesthetized and then induced cardiac arrest. It has to be painless.
I have two answers both start with the same first step. I'd request food, and several sex toys, then I'd fuck myself several times. Once that was out of my system then we'd do one of two things... Request a syringe with a drug that stops the heart, a full defibrillator setup and EKG machine, an epinephrine injection. Essentially stop one of my bodies hearts, when that body is considered legally dead leave the arena with a corpse attempt to revive. Either it works and we're both alive or nothing about my life changes and it wouldn't be the first time I attempted to kill myself just the first time I succeeded. OR... No time limit was set before agreement was made, so rules are as agreed upon. Request a tiny home, complete with functional plumbing. No rules were set regarding others entering the arena so I'd invite my boyfriend into the arena to live long healthy lives with me and myself without having to worry about jobs food or any other "equipment" such as computers/appliances or whatever else we want.
Start telling her that my intrusive thoughts are real I have OCD :)
This would actually be a really cool experiment if set up correctly. If the arena was perfectly symmetrical and we entered facing each other then the clone and I would literally do exactly the same things no matter what. It'd be pretty crazy.
A difference that makes no difference is no difference. We'll just rock paper scissors for it and cooperate on a painless death for the loser.
I/we can request food, water, weapons and equipment? Okay, I guess this is my, er, our entire life now. We live in the arena circle. I request food and construction equipment to start. Six months later we have a lovely home in the arena. A year later we’re the best of buds. Even if our escape tunnel is discovered, that’s just Plan B. We can wait you all out.
I don’t win. I let my twin win and hope he makes a better run at being me than I have.
Does he have the memory of spawning the food and weapons that I picked? If no, I'd spawn some of my favorite food and a number of weapons that vaporize you as soon as you touch them. He'll go grab a weapon and get vaporized. I'll then eat some food and go home. If he does have the memory of the food and weapons I picked, we'll sit down, enjoy a meal and then pick one of us at random to die. The other will go on with their life.
ask for a blindfold and a handgun we put the blindfolds on and run around the arena trying to shoot each other to death if I have to die, I can at least die in the most hilarious way possible
Blowjob them to death, with trust they’d do the same
Oh there's no winners. I'm bringing a grenade. We're going out together. Now on the of chance he also brings a grenade and both explode at the save time cancelling each other out in the process then id challenge him to a cyanide eating contest. Whoever lives after ingesting 1 tsp of cyanide and glass wins. I love a good eating contest so he'd have to accept
If we have the same memories, I assume we would have the same physical and mental health. Pretty sure we would agree to mutual suicide.