You know those sci-fi teleporters like in Star Trek where you disappear from one location then instantaneously reappear in another location? Do you trust that they are safe to use?
To fully understand my question, you need to understand the safety concerns regarding teleporters as explained in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQHBAdShgYI
spoiler
I wouldn’t, because the person that reappears aint me, its a fucking clone. Teleporters are murder machines. Star Trek is a silent massacre!
If the mechanism is that you are broken down in to your constituent matter and then that template is used to reconstruct you elsewhere, then how could it be anything other than a clone? Even if “the same matter” is used to reconstruct you, a copy is just being precisely pieced together based on your template. Surely?
If you were just scanned to build your pattern and then a transporter just spat out another you using that pattern, what would that other you be?
If it is using the same matter then how could it possibly be a copy?
If I take a Lego set, deconstruct here and reconstruct it over there, is the one over there now a copy/clone? Or is it the same thing?
I would explicitly say that it was a copy of what I originally built, but that it is not my original build. What I consider to be me is the consistently maintained configuration of matter, primarily my brain, rather than the constituent matter. If I am unconfigured then I would consider myself dead, and then any further reconfiguration of me I would consider to be a replica of my original configuration.
As a wise philosopher once said: