# Are we any closer to beam me up scotty **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 13, 2016, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118 "2016-04-13T20:10:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/41 "2016-04-15T16:30:46Z")
> [@joema](#): > > Consider a much easier replication scenario than the human brain. A functioning Intel Xeon E7-8890 v3 (18 cores, 5.6 billion transistors) is sent back in time so an electronics researcher from 1958 could examine it and try to replicate it. > > He could try to examine the signals with an oscilloscope, but his equipment could not resolve the gigahertz-rate bus signals. > > He could de-cap it and look at it the die with an electron microscope, but this would not reveal the underlying operational principles. He could make a photomicrograph of the silicon die, but this would reveal nothing about the hidden functional complexity. It would not reveal the microcode, or anything about the immense complexity of the instruction decoding – prefetching, dependency checking, branch prediction, hyperthreading, register scoreboarding. He could make a lithographic copy of that die and reproduce it to the degree 1958 technology allowed, but it would not function. It would be a child’s crayon drawing of a machine, and would have about equal success of working. > > If his boss asked what direction should they pursue to replicate it, he would likely say he doesn’t know until he understands more about the internal function. [No Copying Allowed](http://jlsaga.blogspot.ca/2016/02/john-w-campbell-no-copying-allowed.html?m=1) by John W Campbell presents a scenario where people from 1920 are baffled by a 1948 air-launched cruise missile. Same conclusion… ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/42 "2016-04-15T16:51:33Z")
Getting back to the original question, and assuming that we mean “beaming” the original from point A to point B, what we have is a 3-part problem. Part 1. Breaking the body bits down without destroying the body or killing the person. Part 2. Safely transporting the body bits in whatever form they have been converted into from point A to Point B without killing the person. At first, they might want to try doing this via a controlled conduit rather through open air. Part 3. Reassembling said body bits in the proper order to make a living human bean. At this point in time we have made an ant’s fart worth of progress in any _one_ of the three parts of the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/43 "2016-04-15T18:00:17Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > From any technical standpoint, a matter transporter of the Star Trek variety is so much garbage. … Trek is pure space opera, written by people who have only the faintest grasp of science, and at best a vehicle for interesting allegorical concepts. > … > There is a more extensive discussion of the various ways a matter transporter makes no sense in this 2007 thread: [THREAD=406812]“Whgat would it be like to go through a Transporter? (Star Trek style)”?[/THREAD] > > Stranger I see you’ve cut-and-pasted part of your reply from that earlier thread—either that, or your mind runs in some extremely well-worn grooves. 🙂 As I understand it, the transporter was included in _Star Trek_ for reasons of technical and narrative convenience, and not because the creators didn’t know or care that it wasn’t scientifically feasible. [QUOTE=Wikipedia] According to _The Making of Star Trek_, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s original plan did not include transporters, instead calling for characters to land the starship itself. However, this would have required unfeasible and unaffordable sets and model filming, as well as episode running time spent while landing, taking off, etc. The shuttlecraft was the next idea, but when filming began, the full-sized shooting model was not ready. Transporters were devised as a less expensive alternative, achieved by a simple fade-out/fade-in of the subject. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/44 "2016-04-15T18:53:08Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Getting back to the original question, and assuming that we mean “beaming” the original from point A to point B, what we have is a 3-part problem. > Part 1. Breaking the body bits down without destroying the body or killing the person. > Part 2. Safely transporting the body bits in whatever form they have been converted into from point A to Point B without killing the person. At first, they might want to try doing this via a controlled conduit rather through open air. > Part 3. Reassembling said body bits in the proper order to make a living human bean. > > At this point in time we have made an ant’s fart worth of progress in any _one_ of the three parts of the problem. We do, however, have a methodological breakthrough that seems to have been lost in the 23rd century: The concept to developing the above parts using smaller animals (like mice) instead of humans as test subjects. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/45 "2016-04-15T19:43:05Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Getting back to the original question, and assuming that we mean “beaming” the original from point A to point B, what we have is a 3-part problem. > Part 1. Breaking the body bits down without destroying the body or killing the person. > Part 2. Safely transporting the body bits in whatever form they have been converted into from point A to Point B without killing the person. At first, they might want to try doing this via a controlled conduit rather through open air. > Part 3. Reassembling said body bits in the proper order to make a living human bean. > > At this point in time we have made an ant’s fart worth of progress in any _one_ of the three parts of the problem. I think you’re overstating the situation. _Part 1. Breaking the body bits down without destroying the body or killing the person._ This isn’t correct. Disintegrating the body of the person being transported is part of the process we’re seeking. Transporting somebody without destroying the original leads to the duplication problem we’ve already mentioned. So I think this step should be revised as _Part 1. Breaking down the body is such a way that all of its relevant information is recorded._ That said, we haven’t made any significant progress on such a process. We can only record the most basic physical information about a person. _Part 2. Safely transporting the body bits in whatever form they have been converted into from point A to Point B without killing the person. At first, they might want to try doing this via a controlled conduit rather through open air._ On this one, I think we’re making clear process. Once a person is broken down and recorded, it’s just a matter of transmitting information and perhaps energy. We have technology that transmits both of these and we continue to advance in this area. _Part 3. Reassembling said body bits in the proper order to make a living human bean._ The opposite side of Part 1. Even if we somehow developed a means of recording all of the information a person contained, we don’t have any means of assembling a person from that information. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/46 "2016-04-15T19:56:11Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think you’re overstating the situation. > > _Part 1. Breaking the body bits down without destroying the body or killing the person._ > > This isn’t correct. Disintegrating the body of the person being transported is part of the process we’re seeking. Transporting somebody without destroying the original leads to the duplication problem we’ve already mentioned. > > So I think this step should be revised as _Part 1. Breaking down the body is such a way that all of its relevant information is recorded._ > > That said, we haven’t made any significant progress on such a process. We can only record the most basic physical information about a person. > > _Part 2. Safely transporting the body bits in whatever form they have been converted into from point A to Point B without killing the person. At first, they might want to try doing this via a controlled conduit rather through open air._ > > On this one, I think we’re making clear process. Once a person is broken down and recorded, it’s just a matter of transmitting information and perhaps energy. We have technology that transmits both of these and we continue to advance in this area. > > _Part 3. Reassembling said body bits in the proper order to make a living human bean._ > > The opposite side of Part 1. Even if we somehow developed a means of recording all of the information a person contained, we don’t have any means of assembling a person from that information. This “information” you talk about: are we still talking about transporting the original from point A to point B, or creating a perfect copy at point B using information about the original? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/47 "2016-04-15T20:30:44Z")
Actually, we do have the tools, right now, to sequence and then re-write DNA molecules. This is currently a proposal for Mars exploration. If we find Martian DNA, we don’t have to bring it back physically, but can transmit the data and build the DNA here. This is very definitely duplicating technology (including destroying the original) as opposed to “transporting” technology, but when it comes to a DNA molecule, what’s the difference? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/48 "2016-04-15T20:42:48Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Actually, we do have the tools, right now, to sequence and then re-write DNA molecules. > > This is currently a proposal for Mars exploration. If we find Martian DNA, we don’t have to bring it back physically, but can transmit the data and build the DNA here. > > This is very definitely duplicating technology (including destroying the original) as opposed to “transporting” technology, but when it comes to a DNA molecule, what’s the difference? It’s fine and/or dandy for “transporting” technology-It’s when you get to people… “Now that we have confirmed that we have successfully recreated you in our remote base, would you mind stepping out onto the middle of that large plastic sheet over there? Bruno will be with you shortly.” ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/49 "2016-04-15T21:49:09Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > This is very definitely duplicating technology (including destroying the original) as opposed to “transporting” technology, but when it comes to a DNA molecule, what’s the difference? The difference is that you are not just DNA; you are the cumulation of development, environmental influences, and experience. To suggest that we could “transport” a person by recreating their genome sequences is like saying we could transport Notre Dame de Paris to Mars by carving stone and building flying buttresses to the same plans. Sure, it would look something like the famous cathedral as long as you don’t examine it too closely, but it isn’t the same building by any practical definition. Even breaking down the structure and transporting the materials somehow to a new site isn’t going to give you the same object, any more than the London Bridge of Lake Havasu is the same structure as the original bridge built by John Rennie. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/50 "2016-04-15T22:51:27Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > But that’s only _half_ of the entire question, though: The premise is that which is left behind is destroyed to make room for the new creation. Does the original _lose_ all human rights if it is to be killed once the copy is made? Does the original lose all human rights if the original is to be killed _before_ the copy is completed? > Every time this transporter question comes up in a thread I try to pose this question or a variation of it: If you claim that the transporter-created copy is, to all intents and purposes, you once it arrives at the intended destination, if there were a slight glitch and the original you weren’t instantly dissipated during the original action would you be willing to to be taken off to a small room and be killed? No one who has claimed that the copy is just the same as the original has ever replied back. Sure the copy is me. Just like the original is me. I wouldn’t want to die just because someone made a copy of me, and neither would the copy want to die just because there’s an original out there. Or to put it another way, what’s all this talk of “original” and “copy”? I’ve split into two people, both of whom can plausibly claim to be the same person as the person I was before I was split. I wouldn’t agree to be killed, no matter which of me you ask to volunteer. That doesn’t mean the thing that arrives at the other end isn’t me. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/51 "2016-04-16T01:12:05Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > The difference is that you are not just DNA; you are the cumulation of development, environmental influences, and experience. To suggest that we could “transport” a person by recreating their genome sequences is like saying we could transport Notre Dame de Paris to Mars by carving stone and building flying buttresses to the same plans. Sure, it would look something like the famous cathedral as long as you don’t examine it too closely, but it isn’t the same building by any practical definition. Even breaking down the structure and transporting the materials somehow to a new site isn’t going to give you the same object, any more than the London Bridge of Lake Havasu is the same structure as the original bridge built by John Rennie. > > Stranger I see some shades of the Ship of Theseus problem here. In most of this whole discussion, actually. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/52 "2016-04-16T01:16:48Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > I see some shades of the Ship of Theseus problem here. In most of this whole discussion, actually. Not really, because in this case the original parts are still there unless they are _deliberately_ destroyed. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/53 "2016-04-16T02:08:22Z")
It’s even more distant than that. The “Ship of Theseus” paradox posits the identification of an object as such when parts of a whole are replaced; as more are replaced, the whole is less composed of parts of the original, to the point that it may be the form without any original components. In the case of “matter transportation”, the body is replicated _in toto_, the fidelity of which is limited to the amount of information that can be processed and transmitted, and the lmitation of the process reproducing it. In the case of Notre Dame, the Martian copy is made to the same pattern, but not of the same material, nor will it have the same characteristics flaws and intrinsic differences. It is in no way the same structure and more than one tract home is the other, even though they may be built to the same floorplan. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/54 "2016-04-16T03:41:34Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > The difference is that you are not just DNA . . . You make a jump too far. I didn’t say that scanning and duplicating DNA was the same as scanning and duplicating a person. I said, “When it comes to a DNA molecule, what’s the difference.” You immediately addressed the question, “When it comes to a man, what’s the difference” – which I didn’t ask. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/55 "2016-04-16T12:59:10Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Even breaking down the structure and transporting the materials somehow to a new site isn’t going to give you the same object, any more than the London Bridge of Lake Havasu is the same structure as the original bridge built by John Rennie. That’s more true than you might think. While the granite blocks on the surface were numbered and put into their original positions, they’re just a façade on a [concrete structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_%28Lake_Havasu_City%29). The stones of the interior were also transported but sawn into one-inch cubes to be sold or given away as souvenirs. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/56 "2016-04-16T13:41:48Z")
You guys are thinking too classically. There is a conceivable method of teleportation, although it bears little resemblance to the _Star Trek_ method. It goes like this: First, let’s postulate a Brobdingnagianly huge what-if: that some way exists to place a macroscopic object, like a human being, in a state of quantum superposition. In this (presumably extremely well protected from interaction with the environment) state the thing to be teleported exists as a wave-function of probabilities like Schrödinger’s cat. The teleportation device then consists of two chambers linked by, essentially, a pipe. Person goes into one chamber, becomes a wave-function, which starts out as having 100% probability of existing in the source chamber and 0% probability in the destination chamber. The wave function is then “smeared out” between the two chambers, then shifted so that the probabilities become 0% at the source and 100% percent at the destination. We then assume that the person can be safely decohered at the destination and step out of chamber two. This may strike some as less like teleportation and more like squeezing someone unharmed through a pipe, but we probably could do it now for single atoms or perhaps small molecules, and it would be either light-speed or at least very very fast transport. This form of teleportation is featured in many of Larry Niven’s science fiction stories; or for that matter, the Flue Network in the Harry Potter stories. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/57 "2016-04-16T14:33:09Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > This “information” you talk about: are we still talking about transporting the original from point A to point B, or creating a perfect copy at point B using information about the original? I’m not sure if you’re asking a question about technology or philosophy. If it’s technology, my answer is that I’m staying within the topic. I’m talking about a Star Trek style transporter; a device that disintegrates you at one location and reassembles you at a different location. So there’s never more than one of you in existence. If you’re asking a philosophy question, something about whether you’re still the same person after undergoing such a process, then I feel that’s beyond the scope of the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/58 "2016-04-16T15:10:20Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’m not sure if you’re asking a question about technology or philosophy. > > If it’s technology, my answer is that I’m staying within the topic. I’m talking about a Star Trek style transporter; a device that disintegrates you at one location and reassembles you at a different location. So there’s never more than one of you in existence. > > If you’re asking a philosophy question, something about whether you’re still the same person after undergoing such a process, then I feel that’s beyond the scope of the thread. I’m asking a technical question: Is your process transportation, or is it destruction/duplication? ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/59 "2016-04-16T16:27:48Z")
In the Star Trek style of teleportation, the technical explanation is quite simple really. The person being teleported is put in a state of quantum homeostasis, a field that brings all matter to a stop, for a few seconds using a Schrödinger phase field transducer. This allows the sub-matter scan to make a full analysis of all subatomic states to store in the ships matter-buffer. Beforehand, a vector in spacetime has been pinpointed relative to the ship, and all matter within the buffer is transported through subspace to its final destination, where is can then be safely restored, verified and the Schrödinger phase field transducer shut down. QED. We’ve made no headway on this, because none of that makes any sense. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118/60 "2016-04-16T16:47:20Z")
Of course, nor does transporting parties of crewmen into often hazardous situations and hostile environments rather than sending a remotely operated or autonomous probe. In fact, by the time of the New Generation show, the computer appears to exhibit sufficient artificial general intelligence (e.g. understanding natural language as well as a person, performing complex analysis give very vague criteria, navigating routes, self-diagnostics, et cetera) that there is really no apparent need for a human crew at all except to interpret data or perform specific scientific obserations. It seems more likely that the crew of the _USS Enterprise_ aren’t the best and brightest of the Star Fleet, but more likely untreatable ADHD sufferers and social malcontents which were shipped off to interstellar space on a vessel that provides their every need including stimulation in the form of hazards and plot commplications. Stranger [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-any-closer-to-beam-me-up-scotty/752118.md?page=4)