teleportation

reesetee Zoiks! I should have read this thread much earlier in the day. My brain is too tired to comprehend it all. But this is fascinating stuff, really. I may check out your recommendation too, seanahan. Thanks. Aug 21, 2007

uselessness Never heard of it. I just looked it up and it sounds pretty fascinating. Added to my shopping list, thanks for the recommendation! :-) Aug 20, 2007

seanahan I suggest that you read "I am a Strange Loop", by Doug Hofstadter, author of "Godel, Escher, Bach". It deals with all of those issues. Aug 20, 2007

uselessness That's beside the point. I'm sure he'd be CERTAIN he was me. Doesn't change the fact that he's just a copy. It would raise some odd ethical questions, but the important thing is that the original non-duplicate person not be killed, or disassembled, or whatever. My life, from my vantage point, ends the moment my personal consciousness ends, regardless of any duplicate consciousness that might carry on after the fact. And that's just wrong.

Killing the duplicate would be wrong too. Problem is solved by just not duplicating people in the first place. ;-) Aug 20, 2007

jennarenn What if he didn't know he wasn't you? Aug 20, 2007

uselessness That's me who said it, actually. I would argue that if I could stand next to a perfect duplicate of myself, I would not *be* both people, and both people would not *be* me. The duplicate is a separate consciousness (or the semblance of such). For all intents and purposes, he's someone else.

If the situation involved "disassembling" me to allow the duplicate to live in my stead, I doubt I'd be too quick to jump at the prospect. Someone exactly like me is not the same as the real me. I'm not ready to die for the sake of an impostor. Even if, to everyone else, he appeared to be the real deal. Aug 20, 2007

seanahan I hate to tell you Reesetee, but if "the automaton has the same brain structure and memories and so on", it is the same person. Aug 20, 2007

jennarenn I'm just trying to keep the site PG, if only for uselessness' sake. ;) Aug 20, 2007

uselessness The Star Trek thing was all about getting a "pattern lock" with a "molecular imaging scanner," mapping the locations and velocities of every subatomic particle, and disassembling the pattern into a "matter stream," which is really just data. The data is then transmitted via subspace frequency and reassembled on the other side. Of course there are lots of safeguards against signal degradation and stuff. Lots of jargon that doesn't really mean anything in the real world, courtesy of Memory Alpha because I'm certainly not qualified to talk about Trek details without help. ;-)

I've speculated my own science fictions for years about a future where material teleportation is real, but doesn't account for the immaterial soul-things (whatever you want to call them). The transporter device would essentially kill everyone who used it, and reassemble some kind of soulless automaton on the other end -- but because the automaton has the same brain structure and memories and so on, it acts exactly like the real person and assumes his identity, which fools everyone else into thinking it's the same person and not a duplicate. As the technology becomes more popular, the whole human race adopts it until no "real" (um, souled?) people are left.

Of course, in any good science fiction there's a resistance group that is aware of the truth and is trying to save humanity from all the fakes that are taking their places. Lots of chase scenes and stuff. Maybe I'll write the book someday, but now that I've told you all I won't be surprised if someone here beats me to it. ;-)

At any rate, a much preferable way to handle teleportation would be to open a wormhole and walk through it, with some sort of protective shield to withstand the pressure. At least then you don't have to worry about that whole icky disassemble/reassemble thing. I don't particularly want to be disassembled! :-P Aug 20, 2007

reesetee Oh, I could think of worse body-part disasters than having an ear on your upper arm, jennarenn. It's just that I don't want to think about them. ;-)

Interesting point, uselessness. How would you teleport the non-physical aspects of yourself? How the heck did they manage that in Star Trek, anyhow? Aug 20, 2007

jennarenn Ew, ew, ew, ew, EW!!!! Can you just imagine someone else's ear landing on your upper arm or something? Ewewewewew! Aug 20, 2007

oroboros AND no stowaway fly parts! Aug 20, 2007

uselessness If there was a way to do it without ripping my body into pieces and reassembling them somewhere else, and hoping that everything got put back together in exactly the right way and that my self, or soul, or consciousness or whatever was kind enough to follow the pieces in transit and not get lost along the way... I'd be game. Aug 20, 2007

jennarenn This would really shorten my commute. Aug 20, 2007