Teleportation

[Balthamael]

The concept of teleportation is rather simple. The teleportee steps into a machine in the source location, whereupon his body is scanned on sub-atomic level. This blueprint of the user's body is then transmitted into the target location, where similar machine uses that information to create an exact replica of the user. Both the original and the replica are scanned again, to make sure that they indeed are identical, after which the replica is released and the original is disintegrated.

 

The destruction of the original is necessary because it is undesirable to have several versions of the same person running free causing who knows what havoc in the world, and most importantly because for the original no teleportation took place. He would still be in the source location and think that the machine didn't work. Only if this point of view disappears from the world can the rest of us point at the replica and say that he was succesfully teleported.

 

For the sake of the argument, we assume that the teleporter is perfectly reliable and does indeed create a replica of the user which is identical with the original to the smallest sub-atomic particle. For all intents and purposes such replica is the same as the original; it will do, say and think exactly the same things the original would. Oh, and we also assume, rather against common sense, that the scanning process does not harm the user. Knowing all this, would you allow yourself to be teleported?

[Blank]

That's like committing suicide and reproducing my ugly self all in one. No for me. And assuming it is even possible to make an exact replica of somebody, would they have a soul?

[alanschu]

Yes.

 

EDIT: Yes to the teleportation question, not the soul question.

Edited September 13, 2006 by alanschu

[thepixiesrock]

Where would I be teleported, and why? This isn't just an easily answered question, it depends on the situation.

[Blank]

You know, getting to school takes 15 minutes, work 30 minutes, home both times 15 and 30. Travelling ends up sucking a lot of time when you could just teleport. It might save fuel and time depending on its efficiency. The thing that stops me from liking it is that there are two simultaneous me's, so I'm still in one spot, but another, newly invented person is in another spot.

 

I wouldn't want to be a clone, so I know what my clone would think, he wouldn't want to be in existance.

Edited September 13, 2006 by Blank

[thepixiesrock]

Getting to school takes five minutes, and getting to work takes four and a half. That isn't a significant enough time for me to want to teleport if that's all I'm using it for. How fast is the teleportation process in question?

[Balthamael]

Where would I be teleported, and why?  This isn't just an easily answered question, it depends on the situation.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Wherever you want to. This method allows you to reach your destination immediately so it is more convenient way to travel to the other side of the world than, say, flying. Of course, if you don't want or need to travel you will stay at home. But presumably you will want to travel somewhere at least once in your life.

 

Do note the point of this question. You will have to decide whether this process in fact kills the user.

Edited September 13, 2006 by Balthamael

[Blank]

Pixies, for conversational purposes, we'll say this is an exact replica of Star Trek's teleportation system. It might be a fuel saver, and in turn, a money saver. Time is money in some people's eyes also, so those 4, 5, 4, 5 minutes all added up is money.

[Pop]

This sounds pretty similar to the process posited in Micheal Crichton's Timeline. Except in that case the "teleportation" was time-travel related and destroyed the original copy of the object to be teleported.

 

That having been said, without a good reason (ie the world is blowing up if I can't press a button in Singapore in an hour) it's simply a matter of convenience, in which case I'll just take my chances on a plane, or in a car.

 

Is there, in fact, a point to this excercise in judgement?

Edited September 13, 2006 by Pop

[thepixiesrock]

How fast are you talking?

[thepixiesrock]

Wait a tick, this wasn't intended to be a scientific discussion at all!

[Blank]

Right, this is starting to sound like one of those physics problems...

 

The best I can do is tell you geometrically if we are sinking when we go on a cruise.

Edited September 13, 2006 by Blank

[thepixiesrock]

I'm just saying, it couldn't be instant. It couldn't take no time at all.

[Blank]

Sure, so like I said, we'll assume it's like star trek, not instantaneous, but pretty fast, within seconds.

[thepixiesrock]

I don't watch Star Trek. What do you think, I'm some sort of nerd or something?

[Balthamael]

That having been said, without a good reason (ie the world is blowing up if I can't press a button in Singapore in an hour) it's simply a matter of convenience, in which case I'll just take my chances on a plane, or in a car.

 

Is there, in fact, a point to this excercise in judgement?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

But surely the teleporter is the most convenient way of traveling. You will simply appear wherever you wanted to be. In fact, given that the machine works without error you are in greater risk of dying in an accident when you use more conventional methods. Why, then, wouldn't you prefer the teleporter?

 

Yes, there is a point to this question, but I'll write my own thoughts on the subject later. Better let everyone to form their own opinions first.

[thepixiesrock]

Better to come into the discussion with your own opinion. But hey, that's just my opinion.

[Atreides]

If this tech was available I could see people cut/copypasta'ing their consciousness into bodies they desire.

[Tigranes]

Teleportation via this method would only be viable, and widely accepted / used, when the physical link between the physical and the spiritual has been sufficiently discovered and analysed. There is no guarantee otherwise on the singularity of the soul and the continuity of that being.

 

Although if human experiments had 'succeeded' i can see people taking the risk. Also, wouldn't the machine double as a cloning machine, by not destroying the original? Who wants to give out that kind of information?

Edited September 13, 2006 by Tigranes

[6 Foot Invisible Rabbit]

Sounds like an Outer Limits plot. Wait a minute, it was.

 

Why not use the model of converting the material body into energy then broadcasting it as an energy wave to a point which has a reciever that can convert the energy my into matter?

 

No messy disintergrations at the send off.

[LostStraw]

It raises some interesting questions.

 

Is it you that's being killed when you teleport or is it someone else? Are you really you anymore when you're really a clone or a different entity entirely? Does the other you still have a right to live? Things like this can get messy pretty fast.

 

I don't think the Startrek teleporter came with these moral dilemmas.

[thepixiesrock]

Sounds like an Outer Limits plot.  Wait a minute, it was. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I saw that episode too.

Edited September 13, 2006 by thepixiesrock

[alanschu]

Wait a minute. I change my answer to no.

[6 Foot Invisible Rabbit]

And you think that you aren't a nerd.

[Pop]

"But surely the teleporter is the most convenient way of traveling. You will simply appear wherever you wanted to be. In fact, given that the machine works without error you are in greater risk of dying in an accident when you use more conventional methods. Why, then, wouldn't you prefer the teleporter?"

 

If the machine works without error, not doing any bodily or psychological harm to its subject, then the issue of whether or not to use it becomes one of preference, and thus the thrust of the question is lost. If a person is "copied" and the original person's physical body is destroyed, then it would be argued that the machine isn't without error. If we can prove, through observation (probably commencing over many decades) that the person coming out is indeed the physical, emotional, and psychological clone of the person going in, perhaps there would be some lifting of the stigma surrounding the tech. The metaphysical concerns brought up would then be relegated to philosophers and clergymen. This is all assuming that the person coming out of the machine doesn't develop schizophrenia, in which case that would be very Philip K. **** (bah!).

 

But even all of that is assuming that the machine works without a hitch, and there are several physical impossibilities attached to such a machine. It could possibly break the second law of thermodynamics. Plus, if you're destroying something in one place and remaking it in another, you're essentially creating something out of nothing. Once you get past that, you'll probably encounter poblems with the finished product, possibly damage to one's DNA not unlike an actual clone, whose cells degenerate at a greater rate than normal.

Edited September 13, 2006 by Pop