skeptic_ev: I wouldn’t get into an airplane unless I was pretty sure my seat was bolted to the floor, inside the plane. I’d also not use a jaunt station (IIRC, that’s how the author referred to it) unless I was pretty sure the folks working it would make sure I was asleep before they beamed me up. Away. Whatever.
[detail hijack]
In the story in question, these stations are big things, with twenty or thirty “beds” apiece. The techs wheel around little carts with nitrous oxide tanks (or some sleeping gas type stuff, anyway) and zonk everybody out at once, then check 'em all over, and zap the whole works off to wherever they’re going. Near instantaneous mass transit, with a built in nap. Ya can’t beat it.
[/dh]
I swear, if I ever built a teleporter, the first public thing I’d do is go through it with a fly. The odds of ending up with a fly’s head or a fly’s DNA are on a par with having your hand and foot change places.
Since this is IMHO I will avoid correcting your misuse of the term “begging the question.”
The Vlad today only thinks he is the Vlad of last year. He has his memories and those add those his personality. I would doubt very seriously if you think anything like that Vlad, and you certainly cannot prove that you are that same old Vlad. By your definition that Vlad has died and this new Vlad must not have a soul.
i think i understand your point Epimetheus, but an apple on the table now is the same apple one day ago; however if the machine created another identical apple next to it it’ll be a new apple that is simply not the first apple. a simplistic view eh?
likewise as i’ve said before i’ll be happy i guess to have the various failing parts of me replaced for factory new stuff over a period of time; however, making a brand new ‘alive and can talk back’ me may technically be the same thing but that just seems so wrong on so many levels.
you are right though, by the time we have achieved scientific teleportation we will be gods untroubled by such trifles, paradoxes, theological implications or moral dilemmas like those Joel mentioned. pause, well we have always been mentally ready for every new invention that comes our way right?
I am a mixture of my genetics and my memories. Or that is what seems logical given what I know. Chemical imbalances, levels of stress hormones, neural connections, all that. Create a copy and it will be me. Let the current me live and it will cause problems no doubt. I really cannot say WHAT would happen. But if I am correct in taking the side of conciousness and personality is just what I stated above, then that MUST be the case. Sure leads to head scratching conundrums, but so does the other side. Can a human that thinks, breaths and is an exact copy of you that works actually not have a soul? What would the effect of a human without a soul be? Both sides are interesting.
Perhaps I just want to believe that I am nothing more than my memories because that means I CAN have copies of me made that are much younger or get uploaded into virtual memory or something similar that can result in immortality.
With telliporters I often wonder what is the real point of destroying the original copy when making the new copy at the other end. Why not keep Kirk et al onboard ship, whilst sending them down to explore the planet below?
Idea for a book if anyone is interested…
Have the invention of telliporter occuring much like in Fly film. Telliport at tfirst seems completely succesfull, Prof goes in porter A and comes out of porter B. Prof though soon discovers his double in porter A in a coma but allive. Lots of self analysis goes on by Prof as he realises the Prof in the Coma is the real him, and that he is ‘just’ the copy.
The thought of having a society where this kind of teleportation is common is quite troublesome
Imagine a world where people would willingly kill themselves to have an exact clone get to work every morning, then that clone kills itself in the afternoon to have another clone get reconstructed back home.
The fear of stepping into the teleporter would eventually become minimal. The clone doesn’t truly realize that he is just a clone and his predecessor was dead as a door nail, so he doesn’t mind jumping into the teleported and having himself killed… his clone won’t know the difference either.
There was an interesting “Outer Limits” episode on this weekend.
“Beaming” type transporation to other planets by participants called “jumpers”. Once the transmission of the original jumper was confirmed by the receiving station, the “redundancy” back up copy (kept in stasis) was destroyed.
In this episode, something goes wrong during transmission and the jumper ends up not leaving as planned but is taken out of stasis, later it is discovered that the original jumper WAS in fact received at the destination, it was the communications that had been in error.
But now the redunancy, who has been walking around thinking she is the “real” jumper has to be “eliminated” to balance the equation.
Interesting. It’s one thing to disintegrate a “copy” in stasis and covered in stasis fluid and not conscious. Quite another to have to “balance the equation” with a living cognizant being.
Makes me think twice about my original “easy come easy go” attitude about this subject.
If it were one of those destroy the orginal during the “read” process, the yes I’d use it.
But the OP stated, it was one of those you stand there and a copy of you is made somewhere else. Now you have one week to kill yourself. Nope, no way. The second the copy is created, me and the copy are accumulating different memories. We are no longer identical. Plus, I never went anywhere. I’m still right here, there’s no way I’m offing myself so some copy of me can live. He can bite me.
For those who are afraid of getting your DNA mixed with fly’s, there’s nothing to worry about. The process breaks you down to the subatomic level, records every particle’s position, & puts it all back together. The process won’t be able to mix up a few DNA molecules willy-nilly while getting everything else perfect. Either it will work perfect, or what comes out the other end is a mess (if anything comes out).
To quote Larry Niven’s wonderful essay “The Theory and Practice of Teleportation”:
“What if the machine doesn’t destroy the original? Shouldn’t we shooy him? Otherwise he hasn’t gone anywhere!”
Actually, if your teleporter doesn’t destroy the original you have a Replicator. That can cause all sorts of economic havoc. Read about precisely that problem in George O. Smith’s sadly out-of-print Venus Equilateral.
Then why not make the copy be the expendable one? With some data link so that the original can learn what the copy has done, and preferably some sort of auto destruct in the copy (port the copy over with a few grams of poison in a slowly disolving packet buried deep inside, or with a little inventiveness, build the copy without a digestive system! ). This gets rid of most religious/soul type problems, as the original is never killed by the process.
Folks, aren’t we forgetting that the copy is not going to want to be killed? You think after being materially reconstituted from a data stream that this new person is going to say “Oh yeah, I’m ready to be killed now” and step into the replica disposal machine? No, they’re going to want to bust out and have lives of their own, just like you would. After all, they’re you, right?
That is why the copy would be created incapable of living very long, hence no digestive tract would be pretty effective as the copy would survive a few days with the water and food reserves currently in their body. Those few days would be very unlikely to give time to fix this situation medicaly, if the copy decided to try and extend its life.
Of course the reaction of the copy would depend on the psychology of the original. Some people would be able to make useful coppies, other people would only create coppies that resented being coppies and would not work for the original. With some mental training though, most originals would be able to be re-created as useful coppies.
Riker ended up cloned on TNG. The copy was him, just him at the time of the accident and then left unawares on a deserted planet for a number of years. There didn’t seem to be any question as to whether he’d be allowed to live, but he was considered a separate person. A separate person who still loved Troi, still hated ‘their’ father, still expected to be given command of a ship someday…just like original Riker.
Hmm. Don’t think I’ll be jumping into any transporters any time soon.
My first thought: Hey, I’ll hack my home teleporter so that it doesn’t destroy the original, and that it doesn’t actually create a new copy when I’m beaming back from work. Then, I’d have a copy of myself to go to work every day, and it would wipe itself out at the end of the day. All day SDMB surfing for me!
My second thought: Hmm, another day here at work. Hey, wait a minute! I’m a real jackass! I’m gonna hunt myself down and kick my ass!
There are some people who complain about overpopulation now. Just think of what it would be like to have thousands or millions of clones around if we didn’t kill them, or the originals.
Interestingly, if you think about it, the first time a person goes through, and the original is destroyed, there is no more original. If I went through once, and my clone survived, and I got destroyed, then if my clone went though again, it wouldn’t be the original being destroyed, it would be the clone being destroyed, then you’d be left with a clone of the clone.
And, if teleportation worked by making a duplicate, then destroying the “original” as it were, then think of the controversy that would create. You’d probably have a pro/anti teleportation debate that’s as big as the pro life/pro choice debate is today.
Bippy the Beardless, didn’t scwarzenegger did a movie about clones (not twins)
that sorta dealt with the OP? the idmb doesn’t seem to list it… it even implemented your expendable copy idea.
shouldn’t it not make a difference? why would killing the original simultaneously differ from waiting for 1 minute/hour/week?
Trigonal Planar, so you support cloning? yup, come to think of it anyone who uses teleporters support cloning totally and unselfishly.
Joel, not only a debate, but a divide between the originals and the clones.
nobody has mentioned it yet, so… if i could get over killing myself and all, what fun would it be! i would create multiple ‘save games’ of myself and go do all kinda reckless stuff i wouldn’t normally do. (automatic reload on death) i would also customise the machine to retain brains and stuff only and create me a new form! what fun would it be to be cloned into a dragon, take to the skies and go scorch up a roast of lamb? the possibilities are endless… i can be Godzilla!
You can’t do that, because the copies would go berzerk and beging hunting down their makers, and then you have to hire Harrison Ford to hunt THEM down and slay them, all the while listening to an awful 80’s synthesized soundtrack, and you’d be driven insane by the endless whine of fangeeks arguing that Harrison Ford was really a clone himself.
