Teleportation Safety

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: Raduque

Originally posted by: DanTMWTMP
There was a Star Trek: Enterprise episode about the teleporter yesterday on Sci-Fi. The actress who plays Ensign Hoshi is not too shabby. Rather hawwt if you ask me.

There was also an episode of TNG with Barclay being conscious in the matter stream. People on a station or planet had gotten stuck in the transporter streams or something and were manifesting to him as monsters. And he figured how to get them out.

Anyway, I think the way it works in star trek is that your body is actually scanned, then your molecules converted to data/energy, sent somewhere, and reconstituted.

Think of it this way: You take a small metal object, lets say an iron frying pan, melt it down and carry the liquid metal somewhere else, then put it into molds originally used to make the frying pan. Is it still the same pan? It was remade exactly to how it was, using the material from the original pan.

I'm not sure if thats how it works in star trek. I thought I remembered them saying the replicators, which are based on the transporter technology (as is the holodeck) use existing matter that I assume was stored in the ship to "build" according to the model.

Further evidence of this is the episode where they find a Riker clone (this episode actually discusses the idea of this thread). Riker was involved in sort of accident at a space station. He barely got out of the station alive, they were forced to boost a signal during the teleport and some how the computer made an error. The end result was Riker appears transported safely to the ship...but the stations computer ALSO rebuilt Riker perceiving the transport to have failed.

This implies that in star trek, you are recreated and then destroyed at the site. It also implies that even if energy is converted into matter and vice versa...it is ALSO copied.

I'm not even sure that idea makes sense though...I thought matter could be neither created nor destroyed?

 

[Chiropteran]

I just just watched The Prestige, I like the take they had on the subject. Anyway...

Originally posted by: SunnyD
The physical body doesn't matter, it's the consciousness (or "soul" as some of you have said) that matters. As was previously mentioned, atomically we're constantly building a new "you", but the consciousness is binding.

What is this based on, just what makes sense to you? I don't believe in fairy tales, so any mention of a "soul" in a pseudo-scientific discussion is the same as just saying "it's magic!".

First things first. Can you prove consciousness exists?

You know you are you, thats why you are conscious, is that how it goes? What happens when there are two identical people, clones perhaps, that each have the exact same memories and molecular makeup?

They are both going to think "I'm me", neither one is going to say "well you are you, I'm not you, so I guess I'm just the clone".

They both will think they are the original, so I don't see any need to try to make up a "soul" or "consciousness" as a unique thing distinct from a person's memories. Both clones will think they have the soul, both clones with think they are conscious and the other isn't, so what is so special about that consciousness?

Originally posted by: SunnyD
There is no guarantee that one or the other you will behave exactly the same from that point on - which begs the question then, if you do transport and destroy the original, are you still really you since you're now in a separate space-time. It becomes a paradox... are really boils down to the question which can't be answered - what makes you you? That would be your consciousness at a given point in space-time, and that, my friends can never be replicated.

You become two.

1- Your memories prior to the duplication were the same.
2- Your physical molecular makeup is the same.
3- Your location is different.
4- Your memories AFTER the duplication are different.

Instead of one person, you are now two. You will be virtually identical at the moment of duplication, but as time goes on you would change, just as all people change, and due to differences in location and "butterfly effects" you will eventually end up more and more different.

If one of you is killed the instant of duplication, it's safe to say that the one that isn't killed will be the only "you" from that point on.

To me, it's no different from any other event. If you get robbed at gunpoint on your way home from work, it might well change your life. You might start acting different, maybe more paranoid, maybe you change the route you take to work. In an alternate time-line where you don't get robbed, you would literally be a different person after the event.

Both possible time-lines are you. The idea of a duplication machine just makes multiple "you" at the same time possible, where it was previously impossible.

 

[George P Burdell]

Think about it... you would walk into a transporter, trusting that a copy of you would carry on living your life at the destination. Because you, the person who just walked into the transporter, are going to be killed once the transport cycle begins.

That just freaks me out.

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: Chiropteran

Originally posted by: Throckmorton

You are talking about personality, not consciousness. Our consciousnesses could be switched, and we'd still be the same people we were previously because all the memories, behaviors, etc would be the same. The only difference would be I'd be you and you'd be me.

If our consciousness switched, and I'm you and you are me, with each others perspective memories, how would either of us ever know it happened?

I say we couldn't, nobody could. And I think it's easier to just remove the whole idea of "consciousness" as a state separate from our memories and working brain.

It's sort of meaningless, so why even try to think about it when it's not needed for a complete understanding?

It's the only thing that matters in this transporter debate... because the question is whether YOU die, not whether you appear to die to everyone else.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: Chiropteran
This *already* occurs.

The "you" of you now is slightly different than the "you" of 1 second ago. All of your living cells are constantly changing in slight ways. Your memory and consciousness only exist in your mind based on the biological arrangement of neurons.


Here is a hypothetical situation.

An alien UFO scans you, and records you exact makeup- every single atom in your body, at this moment. 5 minutes later the alien UFO obliterates the planet earth, for fun. A week later the aliens recreate a planet just like earth, using their amazing advanced technology and create an exact copy of you using the scan they made- from your perspective you would go from being on earth to being on the cloned earth instantly without any memory of the destruction, and you would only ever know anything happened if you noticed flaws in the alien copy.

The only problem with this idea, and the idea of cloning for teleportation, is... will we actually 'switch' our viewpoint from the first body to the second? Or do we simply suffer the fate of the first body, while the second body continues to behave just like you, but YOU aren't experiencing it... much like you wouldn't experience two lives if you had an exact clone made and both continued to live. So essentially, during teleportation, you die, but nobody really knows because the copy of you running around is basically you.
So teleportation, if we are to ever achieve the technology, cannot be merely a cloning, and actually has to make use of some kind of wormhole-type system that alters the fabric of space for your travel.

+

 

[Chiropteran]

Originally posted by: destrekor

The only problem with this idea, and the idea of cloning for teleportation, is... will we actually 'switch' our viewpoint from the first body to the second? Or do we simply suffer the fate of the first body, while the second body continues to behave just like you, but YOU aren't experiencing it... much like you wouldn't experience two lives if you had an exact clone made and both continued to live. So essentially, during teleportation, you die, but nobody really knows because the copy of you running around is basically you.
So teleportation, if we are to ever achieve the technology, cannot be merely a cloning, and actually has to make use of some kind of wormhole-type system that alters the fabric of space for your travel.

+

It's sort of like that, sure.

I'm trying to say though, our life is *already* a case where you do one thing and "die" and someone else just like you takes over and continues to live your life.

I don't believe in a soul or a consciousness as anything more than our memories and mental capabilities. The "you" you are referring to only exists in the moment. The person I am right now is not the same person who went to sleep 6 hours ago. The person I am an hour from now is not the same as the person I am right now. Every moment our body changes and the only reason it feels like a consistent stream of consciousnesses is because of our memory.

If your memory was erased, you would cease to be "you".

Clone was probably a poor choice of words on my part, because current clones *don't* have any of the memories of the thing they are cloned from. So they wouldn't be the same creature at all, merely the same dna. The molecular makeup would be different, and the memories would be different.

With a transporter, those things wouldn't be different, they would be the same. Your copy would be you in every testable way. You would be both your original and your copy, because both would have your memories. If one was instantly erased, obviously you would continue on as the remaining copy.

It's like people who have a near death experience- they basically die, at least as far as prior medical science is concerned, and through CPR and electroshocks are brought back. Being disintegrated and recreated would be similar to going under for a few seconds before being brought back through CPR, IMO. Are people brought back with CPR different people? They have the same memories and so think they are the same person, but it's a break in the stream of consciousness.