Star Trek

[Dustie]

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.

Yes! That one!

Was that due to a transporter issue or some other alien technology?

Anyway, we should reference that episode in this debate if it was transporter based.

[Slamz]

Maybe the question isn't whether or not something is destroyed, but whether or not bringing back the replica is as good as bringing back the original. You died, sure, your atoms got scattered to the winds, but yet here you are again, good as new, like nothing ever happened. Is it "you" again? Why not? If you are just a brain, then recreating that brain to the finest detail is recreating you.

[Dustie]

Maybe the question isn't whether or not something is destroyed, but whether or not bringing back the replica is as good as bringing back the original. You died, sure, your atoms got scattered to the winds, but yet here you are again, good as new, like nothing ever happened. Is it "you" again? Why not? If you are just a brain, then recreating that brain to the finest detail is recreating you.

I guess the most practical way to approach it is in terms of the other people or things you interface with.
1. Does this affect your relationships, i.e. with your wife, friends etc. Do they still interact in the same way with the "same old" you?
2. Can you still drive a car and do you have all the skills you had before the incident?
3. Will your life trajectory be changed? After the incident, do you tend to make different choices then you made before?

[Moristans]

Well, you are the sum total of energy you aquired during your life and put into your growth, development, and maintenance. This maintenance has to continue for you to be you. I think Jake was close to it when he said that there has to be some kind of continuity for you to exist.

A transporter doesn't end the existence of your matter and the functionality of that matter. It simply maintains it in the form of energy until it is reconsituted back into you. That's how Scotty was able to survive into TNG.

If your matter is destroyed in a manner in which your energy released in the destruction is dissipated, and that energy cannot be used to reconstitute you, you are gone. It doesn't matter how many times your energy has been replicated and transformed into alternate you's. The actual energy that made you up is gone, dissipated, and therefore you have lost continuity.

All those other you's are on their own trajectories.

So, if Slamz prime is destroyed, and the sum total of his energy is, at that point dissipated, he is gone. If, after that, you gather an equal quantity of energy from someplace else and are somehow able to use Slamz' transporter signature or something to reconstitute that seperate energy into Slamz 2, he's still a replicate and will never be Slamz prime.

He could replicate the trajectory that Slamz prime was going to take, do all the things that Slamz prime was going to do, but as far as the energy that used to be Slamz prime is concerned, he ain't Slamz prime. Nobody else would know the difference, but Slamz prime would be gone.

Wow, that's getting my nerd on, hardcore.

[Moristans]

Was that due to a transporter issue or some other alien technology?

IIRC, it was a transporter issue due to something on the planet that he, Sulu, and some random red shirts had beamed down to. When he beamed back up, his signal was split into two Kirks, one with all his aggressive and impulsive emotions, and one with his more passive and considerate emotions.

The message was that neither one was the "real" Kirk. They both needed each other to function as the Kirk we knew.

[Dustie]

Ok, yeah, it's coming back to me now.

I find it hilarious that we're all having this talk in a serious way. I love it.

[Hoofhurr]

Um yeah. It's hilarious now but for sure some well payed physicists at NASA or private corps do this for a living. The only difference being they devise formulas and predictions that are eventually testable.

[Snowreap]

I find it hilarious that we're all having this talk in a serious way. I love it.

I feel a similar way about our zombie discussions. I never knew, for example, that using a shotgun against a zombie was such a bad idea.

but now I know to go for the brain stem. and knowing is half the battle.

-ken

[Hoofhurr]

To reiterate, it really depends on whether or not the zombification is due to a science based, bloodborne pathogen/virus or something more metaphysical like a liche's fantastical turning of all things living to satisfy the base need of bending life its self to submission. Against the former, the use of a shotgun would not be advised. Against the latter, should you be able to procure one, a shotgun might be exactly the remedy prescribed.

[Snowreap]

that's just silly. everyone knows there's no such thing as a liche.

-ken

[Hoofhurr]

But of course. :twisted:

[Diggles]

Shotgun vs a Liche? Everyone knows Liches are immortal unless you find their lifeforce crystal thingy (forget whats its really called)

[Slamz]

I guess the most practical way to approach it is in terms of the other people or things you interface with.
1. Does this affect your relationships, i.e. with your wife, friends etc. Do they still interact in the same way with the "same old" you?
2. Can you still drive a car and do you have all the skills you had before the incident?
3. Will your life trajectory be changed? After the incident, do you tend to make different choices then you made before?

This is where you need some Dark City tests to find out if people have souls. (In Dark City, aliens kidnapped a bunch of humans and started rearranging their memories. Their reasoning was that if you took a good person and completely swapped his memories with those of a serial killer, would he become a serial killer (no soul) or would he somehow reject his own memories and become a good person again (soul)?


If the transporter duplication was perfect (and there is no soul), then reconstructing a person is no different than reconstructing a brick. Saying that "brick prime" is gone forever may be true, but it's meaningless. You've got a new one that's completely identical to the old one, so for every purpose, you have the original.

[Jakensama]

Saying that "brick prime" is gone forever may be true, but it's meaningless.

Meaningless to everyone but brick prime.

(This is the nerdiest argument we have ever had on this board)

[Flab]

Phylactery.