Probably a better discussion would revolve around a true artificial intelligence, something that is currently not possible but is at least theoretically more plausible than the transporter.
There were several characters in the Star Trek universe who, despite being artificial beings, were nonetheless conscious and were given the same rights to self-determination as anyone else. The problematic one was the Doctor from Voyager, who was not a physical entity but merely a computer program.
The writers dealt with the existential difficulties by giving the Doctor an impossible property: His program could not be copied from one place to another, but only moved. This is nonsensical, since moving is the same process as copying, but with an extra step: Deleting the original.
This was a necessary plot point not only to increase the sense of danger (Oh, noes, what happens if we can't get him back?!?) but to convince the viewers that the Doctor was a "real" entity, who could die just like a human. There was no possibility that he could be simply restored from a backup, because that would somehow "cheapen" the sense that he is a vibrant and unique individual.
This brings up the reality of what it means to make an exact copy of something extremely complex: It is insanely difficult to do. Unless the operating system supporting a program is exactly the same, a complex computer program will not behave the same way when moved from one location to another. There are just too many initial states and other variables to deal with, and here we're talking about something far simpler than a sentient being.
Yeah, there's a great deal of ah... not sure what to call it... 'laziness', sloppiness', 'hand-waving'... 'magic!', basically, in science-fiction; with "what-if" stories, if you want to call them science-fiction, you have to provide some rationale for them which seems a plausible extrapolation from current scientific knowledge and speculation; however, for a lot of it to work requires a massive "suspension of disbelief" as they call it, which, as a fan, I'm happy to do for the sake of the story (doesn't diminish my enjoyment of H G Wells's "War of the Worlds" one bit to know there are no Martians); I wonder though, if some fans, or even the authors themselves, realize how much current science would have to be overturned to make their what-ifs plausible.
The way they dealt with the Voyager Doctor, requiring his program to be 'moved' rather than 'copied', as you say, is nonsensical (yet creates the sense that there is a continuous doctor being transported about, and not a doctor being copied [with the original - whom fans have become quite attached to - being destroyed]). I think they dealt with teleportation in the same way (doesn't McCoy complain about not liking to have his atoms scattered all over space; and isn't there an episode in The Next Generation where they intercept Scotty's beam - his "atoms", presumably, if McCoy's complaint is an accurate description - shooting through space and "beam him" aboard. So the conceit seems to be that identity is preserved if the atoms comprising the individual at that moment (or in the Voyager Doctor's case, the... what... physically-stored bits of the program? doesn't make much sense, does it) are converted into "a beam" (hmm... good luck not disturbing those atoms; they're kinda touchy, y' know) and 'beamed' at the location you want them to reassemble (reassemble themselves, apparently, as there doesn't have to be a transporter at the other end). That's a helluva neat trick; in defiance of several very basic laws of physics, sure, but a great plot-device (when Roddenberry came up with it, I think it was just the quickest way to get the characters off the ship and onto the planet, and it seemed plausible -- until you really think about it -- which is what makes the teletransporter thought experiment so interesting: it tests not only one's assumptions about vague notions like "personal identity", but also one's understanding of basic physics).
Anyway, as I've said, since the teletransporter is an impossible device, we're pretty much at the mercy of the writers for answering whether to get in it or not. If, in their imaginary universe, imaginary characters use it with no ill-effects, then in that imaginary universe, the physical constraints which make it impossible in ours must not exist -- so go for it! Assuming these don't exist however, you do have to wonder what constraints do, and whether they add up to a possible universe (one that could be self-consistent somehow, making self-consistency your criterion for possible existence). It becomes a question of metaphysics then: beyond our own physics, what possible physics are there; is a universe which permits teleportation a possible [self-consistent] universe? I think there are several good reasons for arguing... hmm... if it's not an impossible universe, it's certainly a very strange one. For two, the use-the-teleporter! universe seems to require two very strange principles to be true: (a) The Principle of Positional Irrelevance (if two things in different places are materially identical, they are the same thing, and not two different things with identical structures); (b) The Principle of Subjective Ontology (if a difference can't be established subjectively, then the difference doesn't exist, regardless of any third-party objective history one might point to: for example, if I fall asleep in Pittsburgh, and while I'm sleeping some pranksters move my bed to an identical room in Philadelphia, when I wake up, as long as I can't tell any difference, I am in Pittsburgh, despite the third-party pranksters' knowledge of the move from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia; i.e., my subjective knowledge trumps their objective knowledge for determining what is actually the case). Those are just two that come to mind (from this thread and a
previous); there are probably others.
So, a very strange universe (and sorry to have gone on at such length; my clone again, doesn't know when to
shut beam up).
