Would you use a Star Trek type transporter?

[Jomante]

This replication will disagree with you on that. And if the teletransporter works as advertised, you won't be around to contradict it.

Actually, my replication would think the same way I'm thinking, which means it would know that it's not me, but that it's an individual with just as might right to live as I was.

 

[AvalonXQ]

How do you know that is true in the case of a transporter?

By definition it has to be true if materialism is true. We are defining the teleportation as precisely replicating the material state. Unless there's something beyond the material state, by definition nothing is lost.

 

[Earthborn]

I should have reiterated what I mentioned upthread, that I'm using "clone" here in the pulpy SF sense of a magic box that makes two of you. You're right that it's confusing given the scientific definition, but that's actually science's problem since it was derived from the SF usage. "Clade" I'm deliberately swiping and using incorrectly as a group of clones in revenge, and also because "line" is too specific to the scientific use of "clone."

If you insist on using non-standard terminology, then you don't get to complain when people say "that has nothing to do with it!"

Yes, but once you replicate the body you end up with two personal identities. It doesn't matter a whit how much time they've had or haven't to grow apart, they're already two separate but presumably identical people.

It matters a whit how much time the whole process takes. If the whole process can be done in less time that it takes for one signal to move from one neuron to another, there is no way you can claim there are two people each with a sense of personal identity. All the processes in the body have a finite speed, so if the teleportation happens faster you would not get two separate processes but one process that starts on the sending teleporter and finishes in the receiving one.

Yes, to the rest of the world it may make no difference which lives and which dies, but one of them is still living and one is still dying.

Your choice of words betrays that time is relevant: "living" and "dying" imply processes that take some perceivable time. If the destruction process of the original is fast enough, no one experiences dying.

I found Nick's attempt to NTS me amusing, because I find I'm so materialist I crap secularism.

I suggesting seeing your imam about that.

Up close, each clone has a functioning, healthy brain.

That depends how fast the transfer happens. Let's suppose the destruction part of the transfer doesn't happen to the original, so we can look at the issue without having to consider question of "realness" or "originality". The machine is under development and the researcher testing it is not yet confident enough to have her original instance deconstructed. Instead only a copy is made and if anything is wrong with the copy it is deconstructed within microseconds. Does something that exists for only microseconds have a "functional healthy brain" ? I'd say no. How about if it exists only for femtoseconds? What if it exists for years? The time it takes matters. If the copy hasn't had time to experience anything approaching "personal identity" the original can deconstruct it without it being murder. Not so if the copy has been helping around in the lab for 12 years.

 

[Earthborn]

Even so, deep-sleep still has brain activity going on, does it not?

Yes, which is why I said "your consciousness died for some time" and didn't say "your brain died for some time".

When a loud noise occurs in the house when you are in deep sleep, you awake do you not?

Possibly.

You are still aware.

Not really.

So then when you are replicated with different atoms even though they may have the same quantum states aligned and be put into the same configuration, it is a new entity as well isn't it?

Not necessarily. If the machine functions by quantum entanglement, then no: it is the same entity at two places at once. If it works at a less quantumy scale it depends on how quickly the teleportation occurs: has enough time elapsed for the entities to diverge to a degree that makes them less similar to each other than the original would have been to itself from one moment to the next.

and if something went wrong

That's why I like to be convinced of the safety first.

And that is actually another interesting topic: If the original is not destroyed immediately, do you ask the original to submit to being destroyed later? How would you handle that?

I don't think it is such an interesting topic, because the answer is to me pretty obvious: no, you don't get to ask the original to be destroyed later. You don't ask the copy to be destroyed either. If they differ to the degree of a perceptible amount of time, it would be murder.

 

[xtifr]

How do you know that is true in the case of a transporter?

Because of the original premise. A Star Trek style transporter works properly*--otherwise Starfleet wouldn't use them. Making up alternate scenarios ("would you use something like a Star Trek transporter but with some horrible flaw") may be interesting, but it isn't answering the original question.

eta: * except when it doesn't, but fortunately for all users, it only fails when the plot demands it.

 

[Jomante]

You are still aware.

Not really.

Ok, admittedly this is my own viewpoint and I haven't found any scientific evidence to back it up, nor contradict it. We assume that since we don't remember we must have not been aware. Yet, we woke up when there was a funny sound -- why? To me it indicates that there must have been some awareness. I've had dreams where I've incorporated the sounds I heard into the dream (and then awoke so I remembered it). To me that indicates there is some level of awareness, even though the conscious is not thinking about it.

Not necessarily. If the machine functions by quantum entanglement, then no: it is the same entity at two places at once. If it works at a less quantumy scale it depends on how quickly the teleportation occurs: has enough time elapsed for the entities to diverge to a degree that makes them less similar to each other than the original would have been to itself from one moment to the next.

If the ST teletransporter worked by quantum entanglement, then I would actually feel more comfortable with the concept because then there is a link between the original and replicated particles and now it's not just a copy of the particles reassembled. But I don't think you can do quantum entanglement with two particles that do not interact physically. If they proposed that somehow they were able to quantum entangle the particles at a distance, then I must have missed that. My understanding was that the star trek transporter worked on the same premise as the replicators, but where the replicators only stored data about the atoms, the transporter required the data at the quantum level and that was more information than the computer could possibly store so it could only be done in process.

 

[xtifr]

If the ST teletransporter worked by quantum entanglement, then I would actually feel more comfortable with the concept because then there is a link between the original and replicated particles and now it's not just a copy of the particles reassembled. But I don't think you can do quantum entanglement with two particles that do not interact physically. If they proposed that somehow they were able to quantum entangle the particles at a distance, then I must have missed that. My understanding was that the star trek transporter worked on the same premise as the replicators, but where the replicators only stored data about the atoms, the transporter required the data at the quantum level and that was more information than the computer could possibly store so it could only be done in process.

Your understanding of the ST transporter mechanism matches mine, but I'm still not sure why it matters. Of course, I'm a firm advocate of "a difference that makes no difference is no difference", which is why I'm fine with getting into a (well-tested) ST-type transporter. Those who get all funny about the philosophical implications are welcome to stay home and miss out on all the fun.

 

[Jomante]

Your understanding of the ST transporter mechanism matches mine, but I'm still not sure why it matters. Of course, I'm a firm advocate of "a difference that makes no difference is no difference", which is why I'm fine with getting into a (well-tested) ST-type transporter.

Simply put, a copy is not the original not matter how accurate the copy is and whether or not the original was kept. Does it make a difference to anybody who doesn't know that it is just a copy? No. It can just make a difference to the original.

 

[Mudcat]

Raw materials. Given a 5% failure rate, say, it'd be insane to use on humans, but shipping steel, air, etc to a colony on Mars would be invaluable.

If you set up a bunch of relays, you could probably beam those same materials from one planet to the next, provided they are in conjunction with each other on their orbits around the sun.

Otherwise, interplanetary shipping would be done using industrial ships.

I can't see transporters being used for anything but transporting materials into transport ships, however.

 

[Edx]

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?

lol no because as far as I understand it, you arent being transported you are being essentially killed and recreated each time. So, everytime you used it you're just being copied. Now my clone may believe it has been successfully transported, and there may be no way to tell the difference, but the original me is still dead. I want to be transported, not copied.

 

[Croc411]

I don't think it is such an interesting topic, because the answer is to me pretty obvious: no, you don't get to ask the original to be destroyed later. You don't ask the copy to be destroyed either. If they differ to the degree of a perceptible amount of time, it would be murder.

I don't think so, Earthborn. Can you call it 'murder' if you know that 99.999% of the original is preserved in the copy that lives on? Wouldn't this be equivalent to call it 'murder' when someone somehow erased just your last thought from your brain?

I guess a civilization that can copy, teleport or create individuals at will would have very different standards regarding the destruction of bodies than we have now. They might just file such events under 'minor accident' and go on.

 

[Mudcat]

I'm not a fan of the show, I haven't seen many episodes. What kind of things used to go wrong?

You get transported with your insides on the outside, you get transported into a solid object, you get transported into another person (not good for either person, by the way), if all of the information that makes you up isn't transmitted faithfully you could materialize without a vital organ (like your brain, for example), it could scramble your internals up, stray solar flare could crop up and interrupt the signal and you simply cease to exist...

And the list goes on.

 

[Edx]

Am I really going to spoil The Prestige if I say go watch that and then tell me you dont have a problem with teleportation?

 

[xtifr]

Simply put, a copy is not the original not matter how accurate the copy is and whether or not the original was kept. Does it make a difference to anybody who doesn't know that it is just a copy? No. It can just make a difference to the original.

What original? The original is gone, therefore it makes no difference to the original. QED.

 

[Croc411]

Simply put, a copy is not the original not matter how accurate the copy is and whether or not the original was kept.

As long as no one can show me what exactly is supposed to get lost in the process of copying I consider this an argument from intuition and reject it.

 

[Edx]

Your understanding of the ST transporter mechanism matches mine, but I'm still not sure why it matters. Of course, I'm a firm advocate of "a difference that makes no difference is no difference", which is why I'm fine with getting into a (well-tested) ST-type transporter. Those who get all funny about the philosophical implications are welcome to stay home and miss out on all the fun.

But it does make a difference, it makes a difference to you because YOU will be dead. Your conciousness doesnt get transported into the copied body, your conciousness is being copied. It doesnt matter if your copy doesnt perceive it differently, or anyone else. YOU will be dead, your COPY will be alive, that is until it is also copied and therefore also dies only to be copied again. If at the end of my life I could be copied into a new body, I wouldnt care because I personally wouldnt be living on. I am a proponent of transhumanism, I want to live as long as possible, but such an idea is not preferable as I wouldnt really be living on. If you could get copied right now and you could stand next to your copy who is exactly the same in every possible way, would you feel fine if someone killed you? Thats how I see it.

 

[Croc411]

But it does make a difference, it makes a difference to you because YOU will be dead. Your conciousness doesnt get transported into the copied body, your conciousness is being copied. It doesnt matter if your copy doesnt perceive it differently, or anyone else. YOU will be dead, your COPY will be alive, that is until it is also copied and therefore also dies only to be copied again. If at the end of my life I could be copied into a new body, I wouldnt care because I personally wouldnt be living on. I am a proponent of transhumanism, I want to live as long as possible, but such an idea is not preferable as I wouldnt really be living on. If you could get copied right now and you could stand next to your copy who is exactly the same in every possible way, would you feel fine if someone killed you? Thats how I see it.

Yes, I would feel fine. Because I know there is no persistent "me" anyway and there never was, that it's just an illusion. Because I know that the copy is so similar to me that I would not lose anything significant. Because I know that this world view is simple, fits the data perfectly and doesn't require magic.

 

[Myriad]

I'd really like to know if there is anyone who would not use the teletransporter, but who would accept the freezing and revival process (without teleportation in between) I described earlier.

Assume an important, but not pure-survival, reason for doing either one, such as a space mission.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Nick227]

But it does make a difference, it makes a difference to you because YOU will be dead. Your conciousness doesnt get transported into the copied body, your conciousness is being copied. It doesnt matter if your copy doesnt perceive it differently, or anyone else. YOU will be dead, your COPY will be alive, that is until it is also copied and therefore also dies only to be copied again.

This paragraph is about as dualistic as it gets. Nick

 

[xtifr]

But it does make a difference, it makes a difference to you because YOU will be dead.

No I won't. There'll be one me, just as there was before. If you can't tell whether a "death" really occurred without studying the intricate details of the mechanism, then it's a difference that makes no difference.

Basically, I'm using a black-box analogy to determine whether a difference can be described as meaningful. From the outside, there is no way to distinguish the copying teleporter from the transporting teleporter. Even for the subject. The original will be gone, and by definition, can't distinguish anything.