For the purposes of this thread ignore the fact that the teleporter on the Federation flagship, (and therefore probably one of the best maintained in the entire Federation), seems to have more bugs than Windows Vista; assume that it will work as intended.
Would you use a Star Trek teleporter if they were to become readily available? If yes would you use the following service?
Cloning makes a breakthrough, and creates the ability to scan an unconscious person instantly. It can gather the entire information about that person in that instance, including their full memory and thoughts at the time, which could be sent to another area instantly.They also have the ability to make up a full scale person with that info in 10 minutes. Due to the possiblilty of extreme overpopulation there is a strict law that there can only be one “you” at any time, so as soon as you have been recreated safely at point B, they kill the guy at point A. From your perspective you will just get put to sleep, and wake up where you wanted to go 1 minutes later.
If you would use a standard Star Trek transporter, but not the other service, what’s the real difference?
Only if I am wearing a red shirt and beaming directly into a currently running holodeck simulation featuring a well know crime solving fictional character…
How about if the process of transporting is the most horrific painful hell you can possibly imagine, but at the very end you forget the whole process?
By default we should assume that it is someone else. It’s a Xerox of the the original person; the original person is dead on account of having just been disintegrated.
Now, what if were like having an out-of-body experience?
Traveller’s soul is in body 1 at point A.
Transporter disintegrates body 1; Traveller is momentarily dead, and his disembodied soul lingers at point A.
Transporter assembles body 2 at point B. Traveller’s soul is quickly drawn into body 2, and “snaps” into place.
Traveller is in body 2 at point B, once more alive and well.
This would take some getting used to, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be the first one to try it.
I read a story a little while ago about this kind of technology being used to send people out into outer space, except they didn’t kill the old versions. It was an interesting study of how bitter some of them became, because they were sent out far away from everyone, all the while knowing that one version of them stayed home comfortably with all their loved ones.
The OP - yes, I would use it. Well, I wouldn’t be one of the first to use it, but once the technology was proven as safe as can be expected, I would.
*Aldebaran’s great, okay,
Algol’s pretty neat,
Betelgeuse’s pretty girls
Will knock you off your feet.
They’ll do anything you like
Real fast and then real slow,
But if you have to take me apart to get me there
Then I don’t want to go. *
The only way that I would do it would be if it could be absolutely demonstrated that the teleportation were due to something like a rip in space-time, and not simply the transmission of quantum-level data to a bunch of new particles.
That or conclusive evidence that the self is something like a soul. Because as long as I believe it possible that all I am is this pile of flesh and neurons and synapses, I’m not going to be tempted to rip them apart.
I don’t expect either to be absolutely proven, so. . .nope. Wouldn’t do it. Call me unadventurous.
If I’ve understood you correctly up to this point, then the part I quoted is incorrect. From our perspective, we just bit the bullet. We will not awaken on the other side–that person is the clone. An identical twin, if you will. It doesn’t matter that they’re functionally identical to ourselves, they are now their own unique being.
So no, I would not use such a service as it wouldn’t be “me” using it.
Absolutely not, under any circumstances. I’d have to be dragged kicking and screaming - it’s an execution. In fact, that might not be a bad use of such technology, assuming unlimited range: persons sentenced to death would be “transported” to the offworld colonies for lives at hard labor. (“A new life awaits you on the offworld colonies” indeed.)
But you aren’t. All the cells in your body have been replaced by now. The flesh that you celebrated your fifth birthday with however many years ago is not the flesh you’re reading this with now, but you did both things.
IIRC, the most recent ST transporters actually transport you - it isn’t matter of copying. Then again, they’re not consistent with this: see for example Thomas Riker.
If it really existed and could get people out of having to endure travel, everybody here would jump at the chance. I’d go first. I hate travel. Everybody hates travel. Even George Clooney in *Up in the Air *hates travel, no matter what he says.
As for the philosophical aspects… I don’t believe in philosophy and I don’t believe anybody does.
BTW, if anyone didn’t recognize it, the scenario in the OP is from James Patrick Kelly’s great story, “Think Like a Dinosaur.”
He feared the transporter too.