Would you use a Star Trek type transporter?

[Traveler Steve]

No, I'd much prefer a brief vacation over to the "Mirror" universe, where the women dress in black leather and have pleasingly loose morals.

Wouldn't want to live there, though!

 

[Yorkie]

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 don’t think you would know anything about it. If everything about you is reconstructed at the far end - your brain patterns, memories etc etc - then it is in effect you. Isn’t it??

 

[Myriad]

I don’t think you would know anything about it. If everything about you is reconstructed at the far end - your brain patterns, memories etc etc - then it is in effect you. Isn’t it??

Let's simplify the question even more. Say the teleporter does kill you (assume painlessly) while creating a copy elsewhere.

Why is that a problem?

Specifically, exactly what is your objection to dying, that is not resolved by the creation of the identical copy?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I don’t think you would know anything about it.

I agree. You'd be dead, and wouldn't know anything about anything.

If everything about you is reconstructed at the far end - your brain patterns, memories etc etc - then it is in effect you. Isn’t it??

Yes. In every observable way, the new me would be me. I wouldn't be me. I would not be looking out of the copy's eyes. I'd be dead.

 

[Recovering Agnostic]

Yes. In every observable way, the new me would be me. I wouldn't be me. I would not be looking out of the copy's eyes. I'd be dead.

I've highlighted the bit that I see as important. Why wouldn't you be you? What aspect of "you" would be absent? You would have the same appearance, the same thought processes, the same memories, the same dodgy knee, you'd even remember walking into the transporter. What else is necessary to make you "you"?

 

[Farsight]

I am very skeptical of teleporting, and not just because of the physics, which is racked with issues. There's all sorts of philosophical issues with it too, like if you can reconstruct the subject, why not use the energy to reconstruct the previous subject instead? Or would you like to die and be replaced by an identical copy of yourself who just happens to walk like you, talk like you, and have the same memories as you had. Note the past tense. Or why not just use it as a weapon? Beam 'em up Scotty, only materialise them in the middle of a sun. There's a whole can of worms in there which gets swept under the carpet.

ETA:

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.

Yeah, great teleporter that. Unlike the Star Trek transporter, it's kind of "credible". By the way, when I finally watched BattleField Earth, I thought it was really good!

 

[Croydon Bob]

The only type of teleporter I'd feel comfortable using is like the ones described in L Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth (the rubbish book not the rubbish movie)

ftfy!

 

[Beerina]

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. ;-) )

It was my understanding Star Trek transporters disassembled you and beamed (the beam part of "Beam me up") those actual particles down and then reassembled them in their original positions.

That I would have no problem with.

Later trek even kept all the particles and their energies functionally interacting during the beaming so you remained conscious, and could even talk to fellow beamees. If you do the former, this part is even theoretically possible.

Later Trek also introduced new quantum-level transporters, by which I assume they disassemble you down to quarks and electrons rather than atoms and molecules. The latter is now only used for big cargo bay transporters.

 

[PixyMisa]

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.

See The Collapsium by Wil McCarthy.

(Its sequel trilogy examines the subject in more detail, but where The Collapsium is a delightful super-science romp, the sequels are kind of depressing.)

 

[Yorkie]

I agree. You'd be dead, and wouldn't know anything about anything.

No you wouldn't be dead. If absolutely everthing was copied you are still you but in a different place. You are your memories, thoughts and feelings not the stuff you are made from.

Yes. In every observable way, the new me would be me. I wouldn't be me. I would not be looking out of the copy's eyes. I'd be dead.

You are still you looking out of your eyes. Your body keeps 'renewing' every x amount of years but you are still you. Nothing different in a transporter expect that the 'renew' happens almost instantly.

 

[Horatius]

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.

This sort of copying was used in a couple of books by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson, collectively known as the Saga of Cuckoo. It still had its problems.

On the one hand, the copy that steps out of the machine on the far end got pissed off, because he expected to be the one who would be going back to his house that night, and instead, he was billions of miles away, and would never see home again. In another case, it was the one who stepped out of the near end who was pissed off, because he was still in the crashing ship(? or something like that), and was still going to die, when he was expecting to be safe and sound.

Basically, each copy started hating the other copies for all sorts of reasons.

 

[Farsight]

No you wouldn't be dead. If absolutely everthing was copied you are still you but in a different place. You are your memories, thoughts and feelings not the stuff you are made from.

And if there were two of you? See above.

 

[Yorkie]

And if there were two of you? See above.

To avoid such a dilemma you would have to be deconstructed at the originating end. You would not be killed just reconstructed somewhere else. As I've said though - everything would have to be copied exactly.

 

[Aepervius]

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?

I would not but for another reason. Capitain Kirk died at Star Trek the original Serie at episode 1.

You "kill" the original , transmit the info, then resconstruct the other points. It is a poor consolation for the original that an exact copy of him will be created at the end which will not remember being destroyed.

Anyway the star trek teleporter was more magic to make more plot lines and avoid expansive set than anything else, it could create good and evil twin for example. Think about it.

Now a portable wormhole that would be anotehr story .

 

[Aepervius]

I've highlighted the bit that I see as important. Why wouldn't you be you? What aspect of "you" would be absent? You would have the same appearance, the same thought processes, the same memories, the same dodgy knee, you'd even remember walking into the transporter. What else is necessary to make you "you"?

As usually in thsi thread there is a confusion. What you look like from the universe perspective minus you, and what would be the effect on you.

Let me ask you this, would you be fine if I am allowed to kill you , completely butcher you, and make sure everybody would agree you would be killed, in an horrific and terrible pain, then generate a clone atoms by atoms of you which in he has the exact same as you had before the process and would not be differentiable from the universe perspective ?

Remember you were definitively killed. The other has the same memory, but is not you. just a copy.

If i recall correctely (not a given) this was by the way the false equivocation which was also in that philosophical test. It was equivalenting "having the memory erased of being tortured" with "having you killed then reconsitituted before the killing". They are only equivalent in a philosopher mind.

 

[Recovering Agnostic]

It might be worth differentiating between different lines of discussion. On the one hand, there are the practical considerations - how it would work in real life, the potential risks, reliability, tests, necessary safeguards and so on. Then there are the moral and ethical issues - whether it's right or appropriate to kill someone just because they've been recreated exactly somewhere else, for example. Finally, there's the thought experiment angle - if it was possible, safe and necessary, but the only way of doing it was to blast one person into tiny bits and recreate them somewhere else, would you do it, and would the newly created person be the same as the person you started out with?

To be honest, I think the idea falls at the practical level, but it's still interesting as a thought experiment.

 

[Aepervius]

No you wouldn't be dead. If absolutely everthing was copied you are still you but in a different place. You are your memories, thoughts and feelings not the stuff you are made from.



You are still you looking out of your eyes. Your body keeps 'renewing' every x amount of years but you are still you. Nothing different in a transporter expect that the 'renew' happens almost instantly.

No you are what you are made from, and when that is gone be it dematerialized or decomposed into rot, you are dead. ETA: you are an *emerging* property of that material. Destroy the material and that emerging property is gone. It does not matter if you construct an *exact* equivalent copy somewhere else.

You are confusing or making the false equivalency of separating the memory+thought, and the holder of it (body). This nearly beg an elan vital or a soul.

An identical clon of you atom by atom is not you. It is a copy which is indiferentiable by the external universe, true, but you died. Your consciousness is not continuying. The cosnciousness of the copy started the moment it was created, but with already made memory.

 

[Aepervius]

To avoid such a dilemma you would have to be deconstructed at the originating end. You would not be killed just reconstructed somewhere else. As I've said though - everything would have to be copied exactly.

It is being killed but just with a cosmetic euphemism to help swallow the philosophy behind it.

 

[Recovering Agnostic]

As usually in thsi thread there is a confusion. What you look like from the universe perspective minus you, and what would be the effect on you.

Let me ask you this, would you be fine if I am allowed to kill you , completely butcher you, and make sure everybody would agree you would be killed, in an horrific and terrible pain, then generate a clone atoms by atoms of you which in he has the exact same as you had before the process and would not be differentiable from the universe perspective ?

Remember you were definitively killed. The other has the same memory, but is not you. just a copy.

If i recall correctely (not a given) this was by the way the false equivocation which was also in that philosophical test. It was equivalenting "having the memory erased of being tortured" with "having you killed then reconsitituted before the killing". They are only equivalent in a philosopher mind.

Some of my cells have regenerated since the message you're replying to was posted, so you're arguing with someone who doesn't exist.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I would never trust them. Call me McCoy.