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Would you use a Star Trek type transporter?

Travis

Misanthrope of the Mountains
Travis
Joined
Mar 31, 2007
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I don't think I would. I would be too afraid that a mess up in the transmission would leave me without skin on the other side or something. Or, for that matter, that I might apparate someplace where I shouldn't be apparating. You know like half of me is in a rock or something.

And what would happen if a person was standing where I beam into?
 
Depends on how well tested it was. I certainly don't want to be a guinea pig, but if it's transporting millions of people a day, then it shouldn't be any more dangerous than cars or planes.
 
I've thought about this plenty, participated in discussions of the topic, and...

I'm not sure :o
 
Well the way it would likely have to work in our reality is that it would take all the information the comprises your being, where all the atoms are and what they're doing (somehow) and then assemble some matter already on the site into you again. But that leaves us with two yous doesn't it? So you just atomize the original.

So what I'm saying is, no I wouldn't.
 
Nope. I figure that when they energize, they actually kill the person, and then create a clone when they rematerialize them. The clone obviously believes that it is still the original, so just carries on regardless.

The only type of teleporter I'd feel comfortable using is like the ones described in L Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth (the book not the rubbish movie) That one folded space so that the two points existed in the same place for a moment before unfolding it again.
 
tyr_13 said:
Well the way it would likely have to work in our reality is that it would take all the information the comprises your being, where all the atoms are and what they're doing (somehow) and then assemble some matter already on the site into you again. But that leaves us with two yous doesn't it? So you just atomize the original.

So what I'm saying is, no I wouldn't.
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Yeah I'm with that too. Haven't you people seen The Prestige?
 
tyr_13 said:
Well the way it would likely have to work in our reality is that it would take all the information the comprises your being, where all the atoms are and what they're doing (somehow) and then assemble some matter already on the site into you again. But that leaves us with two yous doesn't it? So you just atomize the original.

So what I'm saying is, no I wouldn't.
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If the information is conveyed by way of quantum teleportation, then doing so necessarily destroys the information in the original

In that case, it seems to me, in some sense the copy really is the original: it's not made of the same particles, but it's in the exact same quantum state, and by transferring that quantum state from one object to the other, it's necessary to remove that quantum state from other first object

In my view are are not defined by what we are made of, but by its information content, and in that case it seems to me that the view that the copy is the original has some validity

But as I said, I'm still uncertain about this topic :boxedin:
 
I'm frankly shocked Doctor McCoy was coerced into using a transporter at all as he knew exactly how it worked and he knew he was being destroyed only to be replaced by a perfect copy, memories and all.

In one of the early Trek novels from the 70s he said:

I have a horrible suspicion that I'm a ghost. And that I've been one for maybe as long as twenty years."
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It's just creepy. And it makes me sad to think of all the times my favorite TNG characters died before my eyes, yet I never realized it.
 
Do I want to be be shredded into a zillion pieces and then have a perfect clone of me created elsewhere?

Nah, no thanks. The lights will go out for me as soon as that teleporter activates. Regardless of what the clone on the other end says.

I might be onboard that folding space thingamajig though.
 
I dont understand when "teleporting" via data copies, Why sci fi writers feel it is nesseasry to deconstruct the original (why maintain the illusion that the persons matter is actually being transported when its not?) I could just step in have my data sent of say, to Mars complete with all my knowledge and charaterisitics up to that point and the Earth me steps out again continuing my life, while the Mars copy steps out and continues his life. Atomising or Deconstructing the original is just dumb and unnecessary.

Aside from that, as far as I know in any situation where you make a copy of something (including cellular reproduction) there is always some degridation. Wouldn't this degridation be mulitplied everytime you teleported a copy which died and a copy of that copy stepped out?
 
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Hungry81 said:
I dont understand when "teleporting" via data copies, Why sci fi writers feel it is nesseasry to deconstruct the original (why maintain the illusion that the persons matter is actually being transported when its not?) I could just step in have my data sent of say, to Mars complete with all my knowledge and charaterisitics up to that point and the Earth me steps out again continuing my life, while the Mars copy steps out and continues his life. Atomising or Deconstructing the original is just dumb and unnecessary.
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As I said, quantum teleportation is weird that way, it would require destroying the original

Now, maybe we're only teleporting classical information; it would certainly be easier to do this, and I suspect that it would be a good enough copy that the copy and the original would be indistinguishable, for instance they'd have the same personality

However, I don't think I'd step into a teleporter that only transfers classical information, for the same reason as everyone else in this thread
 
Hungry81 said:
I dont understand when "teleporting" via data copies, Why sci fi writers feel it is nesseasry to deconstruct the original (why maintain the illusion that the persons matter is actually being transported when its not?) I could just step in have my data sent of say, to Mars complete with all my knowledge and charaterisitics up to that point and the Earth me steps out again continuing my life, while the Mars copy steps out and continues his life. Atomising or Deconstructing the original is just dumb and unnecessary.
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Good point. And you could also make copies of yourself without even going anywhere (well, as long as they're "disposable").

Aside from that, as far as I know in any situation where you make a copy of something (including cellular reproduction) there is always some degridation. Wouldn't this degridation be mulitplied everytime you teleported a copy which died and a copy of that copy stepped out?
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I don't think that would be much of a problem, seeing as how our DNA is normally breaking and getting repaired 1000 to 1000000 times a day, in every cell!

Not to mention that due to the 10-year average molecular turnover, we're always being slowly "transported" into a new body. It's only the continuity of our pattern that matters.
 
Hungry81 said:
I dont understand when "teleporting" via data copies, Why sci fi writers feel it is nesseasry to deconstruct the original (why maintain the illusion that the persons matter is actually being transported when its not?) I could just step in have my data sent of say, to Mars complete with all my knowledge and charaterisitics up to that point and the Earth me steps out again continuing my life, while the Mars copy steps out and continues his life.
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Which one of you would own that 1960's Triumph Bonneville in the garage?

My worry would be how the teleport machine would reconstruct my immortal soul.

:)
 
I'd use it, just not on myself. I like the idea of teleporting weird things into odd places.
 
For the same reason almost every one else has said, I would not use a "StarTrek" transporter, It kills you, and then creates a copy elsewhere. I would be happy to transfer Physical goods via it, although I would have to think twice about sending something that had a lot of personal meaning. After all it might be a perfect copy, but it is still a copy.

I remember taking a philosophical test on-line some where that asked this question and others, and then tried to tell you what your philosophy was. It said that I was inconsistent for some reason because I was a materialist, yet I would not use the transporter. I disagreed! ;-) I'd love to take the test again, but I cant find it.

Also the stargates used in "Stargate SG1" do effectively the same thing, so I wouldn't use those either. (Just ignore this part when I watch. ;-) )
 
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Thunderchief said:
I remember taking a philosophical test on-line some where that asked this question and others, and then tried to tell you what your philosophy was. It said that I was inconsistent for some reason because I was a materialist, yet I would not use the transporter. I disagreed! ;-) I'd love to take the test again, but I cant find it.
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Was it by any chance one of Julian Baggini and Jeremy Stangroom's tests? They turned them into a book, Do You Think What You Think You Think? I think they asked other questions as well, one involving a choice of whether to download your mind to a computer in the case of some sort of neurodegenerative disease, in an attempt to identify apparent contradictions. I read it at the start of the year, and got a clean bill of philosophical health! :cool:

I liked their approach to the question, because it seems like a scary and unnecessary risk in isolation, but by setting up various scenarios, it teases out some interesting ideas about how we see ourselves. I don't find it an appealing option, but in their scenario, which discounted the very reasonable practical quibbles, I said I'd take the transporter.
 
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