the kind that makes a copy at the other end.
or you are given an ‘immortality’ machine that can recreate you in any form you wish, with all your memories etc up to the moment when it comes alive, and you have to complete the process by killing yourself within a week after it comes alive. would you use it?
presently i won’t. it’s just so… wrong.
now i know why all the star trek characters talk funny - they’re all clones…
Teleportation technology like they have on Star Trek is based on the idea that the machine destroys your molecules, recording every knowable piece of information about the state of each one, and sends the information to another machine that recreates you based on that molecular information.
The problem with that is you’ve still been destroyed! You’re dead! Your molecules have been converted into energy and you no longer function as an organic life form. What you have on the other end is a copy of you who doesn’t know he’s not you, because he has all your memories, up to the moment you stepped into the transporter! What the hell good is that? It’s nothing but a killing machine! I agree with Bones McCoy. If they invent Star Trek-style transporters someday, I won’t use them.
Now, if they put a tasty chicken dinner in there, saved the molecular information, and made infinitely many copies and fed the world with it, that would be a good thing.
We’ve had this kind of discussion before (and I love it) - there’s no real way to be sure that the person you were yesterday ceased to exist when you fell asleep and that ‘you’ woke this morning as an entirely new person with nothing more than the illusion of continuous existence - if this were the case, then climbing into the teleporter wouldn’t be qualitatively any different.
Well yes I would, I could really do without the 2hr round trip to work and back.
But I wouldn’t use it all the same.
Anyway, you’ve seen what happened to Jeff Goldblum - how could this not happen to you? - your DNA would be mixed with that of your intestinal; bacteria and your eyelash mites - imagine if you happened to have a tapeworm!
But I wouldn’t use it all the same.
Anyway, you’ve seen what happened to Jeff Goldblum - how could this not happen to you? - your DNA would be mixed with that of your intestinal bacteria and your eyelash mites - imagine if you happened to have a tapeworm!
I teleported home one night
With Ron and Sid and Meg
Ron stole Meggie’s heart away
And I got Sidney’s leg
There has been at least one TNG episode that dealt with things happening and perception continuing through the transporter transmission. They even slowed down the transmission in order to get a better look at it.
Did they ever address how this could happen, or was it just magicked in?
I’d definately use it. All the time. Even for very short trips like to the grocery store and back. I’m just soooooo lazy 
Oh my goodness yes I would use it. Only because you mentioned that the replica would be kiled after a week.
I’d use it for having a week off work. Going overseas without the 20 hour plane trip, and visiting my parents regularly without feeling guilty.
I’d keep my transpoter clean and tidy and out of site of everything, so that there was no chance of a morphing with flies, spiders, old newspapers or my kids football!
but it won’t be you, you could very well have stayed home all day at the SDMB while the clo… 
anyway, so let’s say the required process for killing yourself is just a government regulation to keep things sane. you’re willing to knowingly kill yourself everyday just to cut down on transportation? (i’m just wondering out loud)
Mangetout, yes i’d found several threads on the subject before i asked. it’s all very interesting because i just couldn’t accept it, and i wanted to know how many people would actually use the thing if such was available, despite their believes on the matter.
if i made myself a hundred identical clones to live separate lives, i wouldn’t willingly kill myself anytime with the thought that i’ll still be alive anyway, for there are ninety-nine more me(s) ; then why would i think the clone (from the OP) i see in front of me , is me? just because it wouldn’t know the difference or care? but i do!
and yes, i’ll be soo much happier not knowing or am replaced bit by bit, instead of being replicated wholesale right in front of me. but shouldn’t it not make a difference??
well i’m having fun confusing myself, do carry on…
Paraphrased from one of the actual serious conversations in an Enterprise thread:
I believe that the sum of who you are is your mind and its synapses, not some ethereal spirit residing somewhere in your body so if my clone (with memory and personality intact) lives on, then my genes will too.
If I think I’m me, everyone else thinks I’m me, and all the diagnostic tests that people can come up with say that I’m me then I’m me.
Er. All that meaning that yes, I would.
But, from the perspective of the You that stepped into the transporter, you no longer exist. The fact that the copy of you thinks he’s you doesn’t mean a thing to you, because you’re dead. You just blinked out of existence. And for what? Laziness, that’s what!
[homer simpson]
“twenty five cents, eh? And you say it only transports matter…”
[/homer simpson]
Given the destruction/reconstruction bit? No way in hell.
Not to say I necessarily follow this logic, but let’s look at it from a conservative christian vantage point. You die and go to heaven. Another you is created. Does it have a soul? Does your soul go into it? If it has it’s own version of your soul, does that mean that there are 8,000 “Jim Kirks” (or any other SF officer) in heaven or hell? Would that, in itself, be hell?
Bah! Y’all are sissies.
Assuming the technology has been proven to work and is relatively safe, I’d beam myself all over the damn place.
I’d beam to work, and beam home at night.
I’d beam to my friends’ houses and to stores.
I’d beam to Bermuda for the weekend.
I’d beam into Penelope Cruz’s bedroom.
And if I don’t like you, I’ll beam you to the moon!
You get the idea. Loads of fun.
There was an old science fiction story, I don’t remember what it’s called, about a future where matter transporters were common. Whenever something newsworthy happened, bored people would transport to the site to watch. So the police of the future had to come up with very unusual methods of crowd control.
Yeah, what the hell…Beam me up, Scottie!
Oh HELL yeah!!! Commuting is one of the biggest pains in the butt of my existance, I could DEFINITELY do with the extra hours in a day to do things other than travel from and to work, the grocery store, my second and third jobs, etc etc.
I step onto the transporter pad, and as I’m waiting for Mr. Scott to fiddle with the controls, I wonder what it will be like on the surface of the planet. If I get an answer, that’s good. If a carbon copy of me gets the answer, that’s not so good.
I don’t think we know enough about the nature of consciousness or the ‘self’ to know what might happen, but it probably would be impossible to test anyway. Either I come out the other end just fine, or I’m dead and someone identical to me comes out the other end, complete with a distinct (but false?) memory of having just wondered about the planet’s surface.
I’d tend to think that my sense of ‘self’ would be transported along with the rest of me, so I’d take the transporter. In the worst case, at least my carbon copies would appreciate the convenience.
A nifty story I read once upon a time… Steven King, I think.
It dealt with teleportation, and the fact that this particular form of transport wasn’t the old “kill you and make a clone on the other end” style.
What did happen, however…
(Spoilers for The Jaunt, if I recall the title correctly)
You had to be unconscious when you went through the thing. The few test subjects that went through whilst still awake went completely stark staring insane, declaring that “it’s eternity in there.”
That style I’d use in a heartbeat. Hell, I hate having to drive anywhere further than an hour from the house.
But the death chamber/cloning machine? “I’m too young, I’m too virile… I’m too me to die!”
[sub]I’d attribute that quote, but I can’t remember where the hell I heard it, now. Bugs Bunny, maybe?[/sub]