Charles Liu

You only get an imperfect copy every time you try to retrieve that information.

So in the altered carbon situation, every time you're put into a new body, you could be fundamentally different in your consciousness.

It is an exact copy as well as it can be digitized.

But then once you start running it, if you're a quantum consciousness, then all the decisions start changing again, right?

So everything is different the moment you turn it back on.

Well, yes.

And if you're talking about like fictional characters, which are digital, like the holographic doctor in the Star Trek Enterprise.

What you're doing is that you're assuming that consciousness can be digitized, at least to a facsimile to where a starting point can be produced that is reproducible.

In other words, every time you turn on the doctor, it's please state the nature of the medical emergency.

And if you can get to that point, and then the future time evolution is also digital and not quantum, then maybe you can get some semblance of consciousness.

But if it's quantum, no chance.

Right.

So the principle is good.

I mean, we humans don't interact with one another on the quantum level.

So it's certainly possible that we could get to a point where we humans could not tell the difference between Chuck and Chuck, too.

Right.

But that doesn't mean that they're the same.

Right.

True.

And this is, you know, we don't even have to go go to, you know, 20th century nonfiction to think about this on Broadway.