Star Trek

[Zouji]

Yeah I loved it on Stargate Atlantis when they got a ship with transporter technology (called beaming tech in the show). The 1st thing they used it for was to save a major charcter then that major charcter saw that it could transporter anything anywhere. So he then promptly told them to beam some nukes aboard all of the enemy vessels. What's amazingly funny is that the Asgard (the people who game them the tech) told them that it can not be used as a weapon. Then it was pointed out to the Asgard who was on board that if the ship got blown up he would be killed too and so he promptly rewrote the beaming code. From then on they had plenty of fun beaming various nukes all over the damned place.

[Jakensama]

I would never use a transporter since it would in effect kill you. I mean, it disintegrates you and then creates an exact copy back at the destination, so the original you is essentially dead.

[Snowreap]

don't be such a baby. since you end up with an exact copy of yourself at the destination, what's the difference?

besides losing your soul, of course. but admit it, you weren't really using it anyway, were you?

-ken

[Jakensama]

I don't even believe in a soul, but my existence is simply the continuation of my brain pattern from birth till death. If I get teleported I'm dead, it doesn't matter to me if there is an exact copy of me living afterwards, its not me.

If anything just don't disintegrate me, use it to copy me and send a copy of me down on the dangerous away mission. If it lives, then good for us, now there are two mes and the universe is twice as awesome.

[Slamz]

I don't even believe in a soul, but my existence is simply the continuation of my brain pattern from birth till death. If I get teleported I'm dead, it doesn't matter to me if there is an exact copy of me living afterwards, its not me.

That would seem to imply a soul.

Your brain pattern continues on in the copy, so if you are your brain pattern, then you didn't die. In order to argue otherwise, you would have to believe that there is a "you" which is somehow separate from the brain pattern, such that when the brain pattern teleports from here to there, "you" somehow don't go with it.


Besides, I always thought the Star Trek teleporters literally sent the same atoms and molecules from the origin to the destination. After all, there isn't always a teleporter pad at the destination to supply material from, so it must be coming from the source.

[Jakensama]

Your brain pattern continues on in the copy, so if you are your brain pattern, then you didn't die. In order to argue otherwise, you would have to believe that there is a "you" which is somehow separate from the brain pattern, such that when the brain pattern teleports from here to there, "you" somehow don't go with it.

I am my contiguous brain pattern, not just a snapshot of a brain pattern at any given moment.

If I make an exact copy of Slamz and then shoot one of you, the fact that the one remaining has the same brain pattern as the dead one doesn't change the fact that I killed one of you. To the living one and everyone else it doesn't make a difference, but to the one I killed it certainly does.

Besides, I always thought the Star Trek teleporters literally sent the same atoms and molecules from the origin to the destination. After all, there isn't always a teleporter pad at the destination to supply material from, so it must be coming from the source.

Hmm, maybe, although essentially its the same problem, you've killed someone and then rebuilt them - just using the same material.

[Slamz]

I am my contiguous brain pattern, not just a snapshot of a brain pattern at any given moment.

If I make an exact copy of Slamz and then shoot one of you, the fact that the one remaining has the same brain pattern as the dead one doesn't change the fact that I killed one of you. To the living one and everyone else it doesn't make a difference, but to the one I killed it certainly does.

Yes but in that case, the very second you make the copy, you now have two divergent brain patterns, so two separate human beings, no longer identical duplicates.

But if you destroy one and then recreate it, you haven't killed anyone. It's as if nothing happened.

Basically, if there is no soul, then human brains are basically just biological computers, and you wouldn't be dead if they made a perfect reconstruction of you because there is nothing to be dead. It would be like halting your current machine, copying the contents to a new, identical machine and then smashing the old one to bits. Nothing "died" and no data was lost -- just some useless hardware got wrecked.


If you believe in souls, then stuff like teleporters and stasis would get more dicey.

[Vllad]

Where did you come up with this copy thing?

A transporter takes your atoms breaks them ups and re-assembles them at the destination. It isn't a copy of you, it is you.


Vllad

[Dustie]

What do you mean by contiguous? Do you mean continuous or having continuity or electrical activity? For example, if a person is frozen under water for 45 minutes and then revived, she lost the continuity in brain activity (it totally stopped) and then was restarted later. She died and then was brought back. She's still the same person right?

[Vllad]

It would be like halting your current machine, copying the contents to a new, identical machine and then smashing the old one to bits. Nothing "died" and no data was lost -- just some useless hardware got wrecked.

Yea tell that to the machine you just smashed to bits.


Vllad

[Slamz]

Yea tell that to the machine you just smashed to bits.

As long as it doesn't have a soul!

"We're just going to shut you down, copy your intellect to this new machine, and then toss the old hardware in the garbage."

[Jakensama]

What do you mean by contiguous? Do you mean continuous or having continuity or electrical activity? For example, if a person is frozen under water for 45 minutes and then revived, she lost the continuity in brain activity (it totally stopped) and then was restarted later. She died and then was brought back. She's still the same person right?

I thought in frozen instances there was minimal brain activity, but if not I suppose no, the me who is my consciousness died at that point.

Anyways, I thought it was just a disintigration / reconstruction technology, it doesn't explain it too much during star trek.

[Dustie]

I agree Jake, we need more information.

Yea tell that to the machine you just smashed to bits.

As long as it doesn't have a soul!

"We're just going to shut you down, copy your intellect to this new machine, and then toss the old hardware in the garbage."

As we all know from John Henry in "The Sarah Conner Chronicles" machines experience a eons long death each time the power switch is pressed and they DO NOT like that.

[Vllad]

Yea tell that to the machine you just smashed to bits.

As long as it doesn't have a soul!

"We're just going to shut you down, copy your intellect to this new machine, and then toss the old hardware in the garbage."

What relevence does a soul have?

If the original is dead it is dead. If I make a copy of you then knock you off you will stop to exist. Everything goes black for you. Just because I get to enjoy the new copy of Slamz doesn't mean the original Slamz get any benefit from that. The original Slamz is dead.


Vllad

[Dragonzfire]

Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy.

The premise behind the Transporter is matter to energy state change and the same engery is returned back to matter in the same pattern. Hence the Pattern buffers and such in the various story lines.

there are many many flaws in the real physics but that is the idea in the writings of such Sci-Fi.

[Moristans]

IIRC, brain function occurs through chemical reactions in your brain cells, while memories are stored as electrical circuits through nerve cells in various areas of your brain. So, we are a result of chemical reactions, while the history of who we are is stored in circuits through brain cells.

If a transporter can reconstitute the physical parts of your brain, the chemical reactions in those cells, and the electrical communication between cells intact, then I suppose you should be fine because you're alive at the time of reconstitution. If deconstitution killed you, you're dead and the transporter would just reconstitute a corpse.

[Slamz]

What relevence does a soul have?

If the original is dead it is dead. If I make a copy of you then knock you off you will stop to exist. Everything goes black for you. Just because I get to enjoy the new copy of Slamz doesn't mean the original Slamz get any benefit from that. The original Slamz is dead.

Yes but if "Slamz" is simply a particular combination of chemicals and patterns, then if you destroy me and then re-create that exact combination of chemicals and patterns, then you have recreated me.

I will die but then be resurrected, as if I had never died. I might experience the death but in the end I'm brought back to life, so I don't see how we can argue that the original Slamz is still dead.


But if you believe in a "soul", then you could argue that when you got destroyed, that soul, which was the real "you", went off to wherever souls go and the reconstructed body and mind would basically be a flesh golem with no soul. In that case, the real Slamz is dead and gone and has been replaced by something that looks like him and has all of his memories but is not him, because it doesn't have that same soul.

[Moristans]

Yes but if "Slamz" is simply a particular combination of chemicals and patterns, then if you destroy me and then re-create that exact combination of chemicals and patterns, then you have recreated me.

I will die but then be resurrected, as if I had never died. I might experience the death but in the end I'm brought back to life, so I don't see how we can argue that the original Slamz is still dead.

I think he was talking about replicating you.

You can argue that deconstituting (is that even a word?) your matter, converting it to energy, and reconstutituting that energy back into Slamz, with all of your chemical reactions and patterns intact is just temporarily placing you into a state of limbo without destroying what is you.

If you are replicated, then your two selves are placed into states of seperate existences. If you send your replicated self to the nearest pleasure planet, you don't get to experience that simultaneously. Alternatively, if Kirk sends you down to the nearest planet of death and you are destroyed, your replicated self doesn't experience that. You're dead. Your replicate is on the pleasure planet.

[Hoofhurr]

And thus we have the plot for our next star trek movie...

If you send your replicated self to the nearest pleasure planet...

[Slamz]

Yeah, the order of events is important.

Create a copy
Destroy the original

vs

Destroy the original
Create a copy


In the first one, you create a branch and then terminate one branch. You have surely killed a distinct individual in this case.

In the second one, you are simply creating a small gap in a continuous line. No distinct individual has been destroyed (or he was, but then you brought him back).

[Moristans]

I think the important concept is that your physical matter is never destroyed by the transporter. It is just converted to energy and converted back into your matter.

I'm guessing that creating a replicate doesn't destroy your matter either. It simply converts your matter to energy, doubles the amount of energy, recreates the energy pattern precisely, then coverts what was yours back into you, and what will be his back into him.

Either way, once your matter is destroyed in a manner in which your energy cannot be recaptured to recreate you, you are essentially dead.

What happens to excess energy reworked to become a replicate of you has no bearing on what happens your your matter and energy, so the order in which the replicate is created has no bearing on your fate either if your matter is actually destroyed.

[Dustie]

Did the Star Trek TV series ever have an episode about this? Didn't a transporter malfunction make an evil version of Captain Kirk once?

[Moristans]

Nah, sent Kirk, Uhuru, and Scotty (maybe Mcoy?) into an alternate universe where The Federation was evil.

[Dustie]

Nah, sent Kirk, Uhuru, and Scotty (maybe Mcoy?) into an alternate universe where The Federation was evil.

Not that one. I'm thinking of one where a mean version of Kirk was running around the ship and the real Kirk had to eventually convince the others he was the real deal. Is that the same one?

[Moristans]

Oh wait, yer right Dustie. Except that it didn't replicate an evil version, it split Kirk into two versions. One was his aggressive, emotional personality, and the other was his thoughtful, pussified personality, the kind that would probably cry in his corn flakes and splash paint on his walls.