# Willing to be teleported as in Star Trek? I'm not. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 23, 2013, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544 "2013-09-23T21:19:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Sterling\_Archer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Sterling\_Archer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterling_Archer)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/121 "2013-09-26T00:49:15Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > If my stream of consciousness ends here, and resumes there, at exactly the point it left off, then it’s the same continuous stream - the person who’s there is the person who was here. Yes, to the NEW person it’s the same conscious stream and they are the same person who WAS here. But the person who was here (who is you-right-now) is not the person who is now there. ---
**Author:** ![Sterling\_Archer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Sterling\_Archer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterling_Archer)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/122 "2013-09-26T00:51:42Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Do you also get confused when you find three hundred books all bound together between the same covers, each one taking up where the previous one left off? When you turn the page, continuity is maintained, and it’s the same book, even though it’s now continuing on a different page. When you beam up, continuity is maintained, and it’s still the same person, even though it’s now continuing in a different place. Not a good analogy. A better analogy would be if you were reading the story by following the words with your finger and then suddenly that finger was chopped off. Sure you can keep reading the book with a different finger, but that original finger is no longer experiencing the following of the words on the page. You might be fine with the change, but your original finger wanted to read the rest of the story. ---
**Author:** ![Sterling\_Archer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Sterling\_Archer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterling_Archer)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/123 "2013-09-26T00:54:57Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > If I froze you to absolute zero and then brought you back, would you still be you? Actually, this is a very interesting question. Do people ever come back from complete brain death? ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/124 "2013-09-26T01:02:12Z")
> [@Sterling\_Archer](#): > > I don’t get it. You believe you have a soul. I believe I am a soul. Really, it’s that simple. ---
**Author:** ![Breen11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c0e974/32.png) [@Breen11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Breen11)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/125 "2013-09-26T01:10:31Z")
Id do it. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/126 "2013-09-26T01:15:41Z")
I was on the fence, but **Ellis Dee** has me convinced. Forget about shooting yourself, though, lets just say the transporter works by shooting you in the head at the exact same moment that it creates a copy of you somewhere else. So you end up with a live you, and a dead you. And lets say the gun is aimed just right that it kills you instantly. I’m still not willing to be shot dead. And the real transporter (real in the Star Trek world) is basically just the limiting case where the gun is so powerful that it blasts you into your constituent atoms. How is that better? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/127 "2013-09-26T01:40:22Z")
How about this: What if, instead of creating a duplicate and blasting you, what if it created a duplicate and instantly blasted that duplicate? Would that do anything objectionable to you? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/128 "2013-09-26T02:44:29Z")
> [@Sterling\_Archer](#): > > It’s not an argument from ignorance. I understand your point completely. . . . No, you don’t. You said that yourself. You don’t get it. You can’t fathom it. You don’t understand. Those are your words. > [@](#): > > You claim to be OK with this as long as you continue to exist, even if you don’t get to experience that existence. What I don’t get is WHY that is OK with you. Personally, I prefer to continue having experiences. And this is why it is obvious to us that you don’t get it. I do continue having experiences after I come out of the transporter. It’s still me. (Who the hell else could it be? You figure it’s Sonny Bono who comes out?) > [@](#): > > What if your teleported self was not an exact copy of you? What if it was missing a pinky finger? Small price to pay for instantaneous transport, right? Or what if it looked completely different, but it still had all your memories? So it thinks/feels like it’s you, but it looks in the mirror and thinks “Wow, I have a whole different body now.” Been done, wasn’t convincing. Plato asked the same question. If you cut off my arm, am I not still myself? Okay, exactly how much flesh can you lose and still be “you?” There isn’t any possible answer. The Star Trek transporter doesn’t cut off pinky fingers. If it did, I’d be reluctant to use it. In an emergency, sure. For a vacation, no thanks. So what? > [@Shakes](#): > > If I froze you to absolute zero and then brought you back, would you still be you? Exactly! Or, how about this one: If I replace every water molecule in your body with an identical water molecule, are you now “someone else?” Which water molecule holds the mystical secret to “selfhood?” And if it doesn’t matter, then if I replace every single atom in your body with an identical atom, are you somehow magically “not you” any more? So why, then, is it such a big effing deal if I move those atoms a few miles one way or another at the same time I replace them? These guys are thinking “magical” thoughts. They’re applying “soul” logic to matter, and matter doesn’t give a hang. They’re like the homeopathists who claim that water “remembers” the molecules once dissolved in it. They argue that matter somehow “remembers” where it should be, and when it is, instead, somewhere else, it’s completely different matter. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/129 "2013-09-26T03:06:55Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Why are you guys so hung up on guns? Shoot the duplicate. Use a disrupter on the duplicate. What is it with you guys and violence? They’re trying to get you to look past the family-friendly exterior of the transporter. Murder is still murder even if the victim is a hermit nobody will miss, and the transporter still kills you even if it covers up the killing by fabricating a doppelganger to take your place. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/130 "2013-09-26T03:15:56Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > They’re trying to get you to look past the family-friendly exterior of the transporter. Murder is still murder even if the victim is a hermit nobody will miss, and the transporter still kills you even if it covers up the killing by fabricating a doppelganger to take your place. Your posting indicates two dimensional thinking. ^:dubious:^ ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/131 "2013-09-26T03:24:57Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Your posting indicates two dimensional thinking. ^:dubious:^ Yes, because it’s a two dimensional scenario. You get disintegrated, you die. It’s not rocket science. Unless you can identify a real difference between being disintegrated at T+0 seconds and T+1 seconds, all you’ve got is wishful thinking and willful ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/132 "2013-09-26T03:38:31Z")
I’d do it. By Kirk’s time, it’s shown to be just as safe, if not safer, than airplane travel today. I have no problem getting on planes. As for whether you’re killed and an exact duplicate of you is created, or you’re entirely reconstituted down to the last tiny atom, I don’t care one way or another - a difference that makes no difference is no difference. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/133 "2013-09-26T03:45:27Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > By Kirk’s time, it’s shown to be just as safe, if not safer, than airplane travel today. I have no problem getting on planes. Airplane travel does not have a 100% fatality rate. > [@](#): > > As for whether you’re killed and an exact duplicate of you is created, or you’re entirely reconstituted down to the last tiny atom, I don’t care one way or another - a difference that makes no difference is no difference. It makes a difference to _you_. Do you want to keep on living, or is having someone else carry out your last will and testament good enough? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/134 "2013-09-26T03:54:42Z")
Anyone that wants to pour through 10 pages of this, might want to know there’s a [current thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=700599&page=10) in GD (I think the discussion of the transporter hypothetical kicks in after about 2 pages). For my part, I just want to say that this is a well-known, unsolved problem in philosophy of identity. And, although everyone likes to depict the _other_ position as requiring souls, there are solid arguments defending Bodily continuity, Psychological Continuity, Discontinuous Consciousness, and other positions that don’t require souls. Few philosophers see it as “My position vs the souls position” but that’s how it seems to go down on discussion forums. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/135 "2013-09-26T04:17:33Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > They’re trying to get you to look past the family-friendly exterior of the transporter. Murder is still murder even if the victim is a hermit nobody will miss, and the transporter still kills you even if it covers up the killing by fabricating a doppelganger to take your place. Yeah, yeah, you guys keep on saying this. But the thing is, the doppelganger is me. It is me to the very last atom. It knows things only I know; it smiles at jokes only I might get. It knows all my passwords. When you say, “Howdy, Trinopus” to it, it says “Howdy” right back, exactly the way I do. It cannot conceivably be anyone else, and it cannot be discerned as “not me” by any test in the cosmos. It, itself, doesn’t know it “isn’t me” because – it is me. Damn odd kind of “murder” where the “victim” walks right up to you afterward and says, “So, what’s the big deal, eh?” Will someone answer my damned question? If your best friend/lover/favorite uncle came out of the transporter from a vacation in Ibiza, would you shun him? Would you turn your back? “You’re only a doppelganger! I will have no part of you! Begone from my door and never speak to me again!” Is that really how you would behave? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/136 "2013-09-26T04:19:09Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Anyone that wants to pour through 10 pages of this, might want to know there’s a [current thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=700599&page=10) in GD (I think the discussion of the transporter hypothetical kicks in after about 2 pages). . . . As I just quipped over there, the thread has merely teleported. There is no scientific test possible to discern it from the original. (In fact, a many-times duplicate, as it’s been chewed to very atoms on the SDMB, many times before.) ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/137 "2013-09-26T04:39:24Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > It, itself, doesn’t know it “isn’t me” because – it is me. Actually, if I walked out of a transporter, and was asked whether I am a continuation of one and the same consciousness, or a new, entirely separate entity, I would say “I don’t know. But I suspect the latter”. > [@](#): > > Damn odd kind of “murder” where the “victim” walks right up to you afterward and says, “So, what’s the big deal, eh?” OTOH you may have footage of someone dying on the start transporter, and, indeed, their body. > [@](#): > > Will someone answer my damned question? If your best friend/lover/favorite uncle came out of the transporter from a vacation in Ibiza, would you shun him? Would you turn your back? “You’re only a doppelganger! I will have no part of you! Begone from my door and never speak to me again!” Is that really how you would behave? No. They have equal claim to being my best friend/lover/favorite uncle. But what we’re interested in in this hypothetical is what happened from the POV of the person on the start transporter. ---
**Author:** ![Section\_Maker\_Jupe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/section_maker_jupe/32/1424_2.png) [@Section\_Maker\_Jupe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Section_Maker_Jupe)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/138 "2013-09-26T06:07:22Z")
Wouldnt this transfer be instantaneous? Full consciousness through start to finish? I leave, I arrive? Isnt that where the question of continuity should be addressed? The question of the person “dying” and then being perfectly copied…seems obvious no one would want that… ---
**Author:** ![Sterling\_Archer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Sterling\_Archer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterling_Archer)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/139 "2013-09-26T06:13:39Z")
> [@](#): > > No. They have equal claim to being my best friend/lover/favorite uncle. But what we’re interested in in this hypothetical is what happened from the POV of the person on the start transporter. Exactly. The difference here is the reference point. From the reference point of the universe and everyone else, yes the same person steps out of the transporter and nothing has changed with regard to that person’s identity. But from the perspective of the guy who steps INTO the teleporter, his life ends right then and there. That is a problem for me. If one of my loved ones wanted to use a teleporter, I would BEG them not to. I would tell them they are choosing to END their LIFE. Sure, the rest of us will be fine with the doppelganger, but their experience of us and the universe will come to an end. If they decided to go through with it anyway, afterwards I would treat that person as if nothing changed. After all, from the perspective of the post-teleportation person, nothing has. But I would also simultaneously be grieving the end of their existence, since they chose to end their stream of experiencing life. It would be quite confusing, actually. I would be grieving because I loved that person and I cared for them, and I am regretting THEIR loss, but I haven’t lost anything myself at all. I keep saying it, but it bears repeating because you guys keep arguing the wrong thing. Those of us who say transporter = death are not trying to claim that the teleported person is not you. We are claiming that you will not be that teleported person. There is a critically important difference there, and if that just seems like nonsensical gibberish to you I suggest you keep reading it until you get it. We’re not arguing about the guy on the other end of the teleporter. Yes, he’s just like you, with all your memories and a stream of consciousness that from HIS point of view, seems unbroken. The problem is YOUR stream of consciousness has no means of transferring into that new body. You can claim SOC is just an illusion all you want, but right now you know you will experience future events. The second before you step into that transporter, you know you will never experience another future event. This is the end! That is a HUGE difference. ---
**Author:** ![Sterling\_Archer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Sterling\_Archer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterling_Archer)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544/140 "2013-09-26T06:22:58Z")
> [@](#): > > And this is why it is obvious to us that you don’t get it. I do continue having experiences after I come out of the transporter. It’s still me. (Who the hell else could it be? You figure it’s Sonny Bono who comes out?) You say “I do continue having experiences” but when you say “I” in this sentence you mean “my doppelganger”. You, the right-now-you who I am speaking to, will not experience those things after teleportation. You will experience breakfast tomorrow, I can say that with confidence, but if you are disintegrated and reconstructed somewhere else, sorry, you are not going to know it. It doesn’t matter who comes out if the “you” who went in doesn’t get to know about it. > [@](#): > > The question of the person “dying” and then being perfectly copied…seems obvious no one would want that… It does seem obvious, doesn’t it? And yet people insist they’d be OK with it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willing-to-be-teleported-as-in-star-trek-im-not/669544.md?page=8)