Teleportation

[Calax]

I would much prefer to use portals.

[Darque]

short answer: No

 

long answer: Nah, hell no!

[alanschu]

I said no because, after thinking about it for a moment, it wouldn't really be "me." My transported self would like fine and would act like normal, but my myself, and my consciousness, has been vapourized. There's no reason why my consciousness should transport as well.

 

The interesting conundrum is that, to a 3rd party, the technology looks impressive. Because to them, the product going in is essentially the exact same as the product coming out. So you could see 1000s of people all doing it, and it would all look rather fantastic and impressive. Because from your perspective, it looks flawless.

[Blank]

short answer: No

 

long answer: Nah, hell no!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A woman of many words.

[Hell Kitty]

I would use the teleporter and my original self would die and my soul would go to heaven because I am a good boy and then I would go on a rampage with my soulless clone freak. Everybody wins!

[LadyCrimson]

Hypothetically, I'd say yes, because one, I don't believe in a soul and two, if the duplicate thought it was you, and acted like you, what's the difference. Even you wouldn't know you weren't you, except for the cold fact on paper. For me it's just a 'queasiness/fear' factor, not a moral one.

 

Realistically tho, I don't even like going on planes to save time. The transporter could malfunction and both copies of you would be lost and...

[mkreku]

Cool.. then the machine could also fix all the genetic problems you might have in your genetic code. Like, if you have any genetic defects that might be inherited by your child (if you combine your genetic code with a woman with the same genetic flaw), the machine would recognize them and remove them. You could, for an extra fee of course, make the machine change your hair colour during your rebuild process. You start the travel with black hair. A time later, you'll have blonde hair in your new destination! Very practical.

[Lucius]

I wanna be even more blond than I already am, so I can act even more clueless and get away with it. :D

[Nartwak]

Now, call me a bio-Luddite, but I don't think eugenics is good idea.

[Checkpoint]

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?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Funny, I was thinking about this exact thing just yesterday. I came to the conclusion that since it isn't me, but a copy of me per se, that emerges "on the other end", as it were, I would effectively be killed by such an action. The other guy coming out would be like a twin of mine who has an identical memory bank, but would possess a different "soul" for lack of a better word.

Edited September 13, 2006 by Checkpoint

[Nartwak]

Pretty much. The identities diverge at the point of replication.

[Moose]

That's not really teleportation. Teleportation is swapping one part of space with another. What you're describing is a glorified fax machine.

[astr0creep]

Let's say Timmy needs to go to his mother's for the weekend. She lives on the west coast and he live on the east coast.

Timmy need to be there for friday night dinner because she wants to intriduce him to this hot babe that was just hired at her workplace.

So, around 5:30pm Timmy prepares to step into his own private teleporter situated in a corner in his apartment. He cleans off both the ceiling and floor of the machine and makes sure there are no insects crawling anywhere. Timmy also makes sure there are no bacterias of any kind or particles in the air inside the teleporter.

Then, when all is ready to go Timmy steps into the machine and presses the little red button.

At that very instance...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...is Timmy naked?

Edited September 13, 2006 by astr0creep

[Nartwak]

I suppose that depends on the state of your marriage and the relationship you have with your mother.

[astr0creep]

I suppose that depends on the state of your marriage and the relationship you have with your mother.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The state of my marriage is fantastic and my mother does live on the west coast and we communicate mostly through emails.

 

I was wondering if the teleporter would also scan and reproduce the clothes on my back or do I have to go through this naked?

 

Oh and thank you Narty for reminding me that although my previous post was purely hypothetical it could've cause some trouble at home.

 

FIXED.

[Nartwak]

I don't see why it wouldn't bear the extra replication load; I imagine that for a device capable of this it would be negligible.

Edited September 13, 2006 by Nartwak

[Rosbjerg]

In no way.. Like Checkpoint said .. it would essentially be a clone! and since the clone and you (in a split second) exist in the same time, it could in no way be considered "you" .. therefore it would be suicide, as the "you" in this equation would be killed.. and a perfekt copy would travel about in your place..

 

The only kinda teleport I would travel through is a wormhole.. stretch me thin, but don't chop me up!

[Gorth]

I think the problem with your machine is the way it works.

 

It's not a teleporter, but a clone and disintegrate one machine you've got there.

 

I'm not a matematician, but if there is a delay between having cloned yourself, the verification process and the disintegration of your original self, you will for a short amount of time exist as a doubleganger of yourself in two places at the same time.

 

A teleporter is for me, a machine that actually teleports you, i.e. moves you over a distance. The move doesn't have to be instantanious, just presumably faster, safer, whatever.

 

For the sake of argument about the definition of the *I*, you might as well just have stuck to a simple clone example. If a machine could duplicate you as a snapshot in time, with matter, exact configuration of electrical charges in yoiur braincells, everything pretty much, which one of them would be the *I*.

 

You would most likely just go nuts when you are faced with the paradox of being half the person you were before

Edited September 13, 2006 by Gorth

[astr0creep]

I like the Star Trek teleporter. It transforms matter into energy into matter and during transport it keeps a record of the exact genetic code and subatomic particle layout of everything in a "pattern buffer" so that if anything goes wrong during the teleportation they can bring a person back.

 

The thing is, humans need to know everything about the human body, for example, what makes up the soul, is it matter and/or chemicals or just energy. And what about memories, skills, knowledge, etc. Things that for now don't seem to have any material to them. We need to make sure we know these things before we start teleporting stuff and people.

[kirottu]

I would teleport myself to girls locker room and to Obsidian HQ at the same time. Then the two of me would meet and talk how great it was to be thrown out from those places. Then they would battle to the death.

[Nartwak]

I would teleport myself to girls locker room and to Obsidian HQ at the same time. Then the two of me would meet and talk how great it was to be thrown out from those places. Then they would battle to the death.

You should shout "THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!" at eachother and swordfight.

Edited September 13, 2006 by Nartwak

[Kaftan Barlast]

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.

 

 

So, youd effectively commit suicide whereupon a perfect copy of yourself would materialize wherever you initially wanted to go? Id prefer to remain alive and travel through ordinary means, thankyou very much.

[Blank]

Actually, with this uber-advanced machinery, one could probably clone parts of their body if reconstruction is needed, or clone healthy blood, or clone eyeballs that got ripped out. Medically, this would be great.

 

As long as it's not the whole body, because it would be morally unacceptable to rip new-me's face off and put it onto old-me. What if you cloned the body without the brain? I'm pretty sure people would object, but if there is clearly no soul... then it's like ripping off pieces of a liquidy bag and placing them on you.

Edited September 13, 2006 by Blank

[Gfted1]

Not factoring in all the miscellaneous stuff everyone has made up and dealing with the question as presented, I vote yes. Imagine if they (teleporter manufacturer) said it was in fact a direct transferrence instead of a clone/kill. With all your memories intact you wouldnt even know the difference.

[alanschu]

Hypothetically, I'd say yes, because one, I don't believe in a soul and two, if the duplicate thought it was you, and acted like you, what's the difference. Even you wouldn't know you weren't you, except for the cold fact on paper. For me it's just a 'queasiness/fear' factor, not a moral one.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

It has nothing to do with a soul. Imagine someone made a clone of you. Why would you expect to have conscious control over that clone? So when you die in the teleportation process, you yourself no longer exist, but rather your clone. Now your clone is a perfect replica of you, so to every other 3rd party observer, it looks and acts just like you. And it probably would. But the fact of the matter would still be that YOUR consciousness has been killed.