The equation must be balanced!
Also a fantastic “Outer Limits” episode.
I teleported home one night
With Ron and Sid and Meg
Ron stole meggies heart away
And I got Sidney’s leg.
I wouldn’t.
I’ve seen Spaceballs.
They’re called transporters, not teleporters.
And I wouldn’t want to have my atoms scattered back and forth across space by those gadgets.
Holodeck would be great. You’d just have to avoid any Sherlock Holmes scenarios.
an attempt to infuse some science into this…
Differences between a teleporter and a cloner:
1 - you can’t move inorganic material.
2 - cancer. multiplying cells has a nasty habit of causing mutations
if a teleporter was ever on the market, i’d ride it multiple times a day. i would pee off my bed directly into the toilet. i’d *69 my teleporter and shoot bb’s into random houses. i would do all of my shopping directly from my friends/parents’ fridge (mom. you should really be drinking more orange juice. with pulp. buy more orange juice. with pulp. and beef jerkey)
a cloner? notsomuch. i wouldn’t be comfortable with getting cancer because i’m too cheap and lazy to get my own orange juice.
What about a holodeck that was simulating a scenario where you transporting a failing warp core?
Talk about horror cubed!!!
I would jump at the opportunity. I’d even volunteer to be the first to try it.
After they send a rhesus monkey and a couple of hamsters first, right?
This is an exact explanation why teleportation will never sell.
Big Bang Theory
I would be destroyed and my doppelganger would never know the difference. He’d be me and think that teleportation worked. However, when he went back home, he’d be completely destroyed and a second doppelganger would emerge.
One of the worst problems about this is there would be no way to prove whether you did transfer a consciousness or simply duplicated a person. They wouldn’t know the difference.
Man, for a board full of atheists, I’m surprised this is such a bad problem, If you have no soul, then what makes you you is the information stored in your brain. That information is transfered. so that means YOU were transfered.
The problem shows up when you do believe in a soul. Because then, transferring the information doesn’t necessarily transfer you. If it doesn’t, then the person with the soul is killed.
It seems that people do believe in a soul, even if they don’t call it that. (Or maybe there aren’t as many atheists on this board as I thought.)
WRONG! We aren’t talking about a soul. If you copy me, duplicate me on the other end, and destroy me, I won’t wake up on the other side. my duplicate will.
I’m not sure how I feel about exploding all my atoms into a transportable state, then move them, and finally reassemble them. I guess if they’re the same atoms, I’d be ok with that. I believe I’d wake up. I’m not sure how Star Trek works exactly. Is that a matter duplicator or a matter mover?
The transporter in Star Trek is a matter mover. In other words, a person’s molecules are converted to energy, beamed to their destination, and reassembled on the other end. In fact, Star Trek has depicted the transportee as staying conscious through the whole procedure. That was one thing about the transportation process that had Reg Barclay spooked.
Yea, but in the TNG episode Relics, Mr. Scott had been in the transporter for 75 years and had not figured out that time had passed.
:dubious:
Would that be Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys?
Your physical and mental forms are copied exactly. Unless there’s something else that makes you you, then both the original and the copy are still you. Traditionally, this difference is called a soul.
So it seems to me that humans intrinsically know there is something other than our physical and mental form. Or, at least, the hypothetical requires it to be so.
BTW, I’m fine if you think I’m wrong. But give me something else besides begging the question* if you want to prove it to me.
*You’re response was basically “If I’m duplicated and the original is destroyed, is the copy me? No, because the original is destroyed.”
Grrr. You’re == Your
Well, he does drink a lot.
Well. I may be an atheist, but do I really want to put it to the test? I’m going to go on the safe side a la Pascal and NOT go in the transporter 'cause hey…you never know.
No. Two words. Transporter psychosis.