Scientsts Create Scotty, The World's First "Teleporter"

[Brennan]

And this is why Transporters as depicted in Star Trek are a nonsense; they don't transport you, they murder you and create an exact duplicate at the target location. To the world at large there may be no difference, but the you that steps in won't be the same you that steps out the other end.

I prefer the Displacer from Iain M Banks' Culture novels - creates something like a wormhole between two locations and instantaneously swaps exactly equivalent amounts of matter and energy from one end to the other, intact.

Right, but given that your body does this naturally ... what's the problem? You are, for all intents and purposes, stepping through a 'transporter' by your definition every 6 months .... in some cases (like red blood cells) every 60 days. What the problem with a machine that does so more efficiently?

Because one process is a slow "grandfather's axe" process which allows consciousness to continue functioning smoothly while it it occurs, and the other is an all-in-one process that necessarily interrupts and restarts consciousness*.

That's the thing people are objecting to: the total stop/restart interruption of the processes of consciousness, not the replacement of the "hardware". I feel like this is pretty obvious, as it's been spelled out repeatedly by several people, so anyone saying that your own cells/atoms gradually replacing yourselves is the same thing have either been TL/DRing so agressively that they don't even know what they're arguing about at all, or they're deliberately "misunderstanding" for some rhetorical reason.

*I did point out earlier that Star Trek transporters visibly don't interrupt consciousness, and neither could any hypothetical real work tech that does the same thing, but it looks like no one read that.

 

[Brennan]

Based on all the knowledge we currently have, continuity of neural activity is not just significant but in my view required in order to keep considering a conscious being to be the same entity.

There are people who have been brain-dead and then resuscitated.
Are they not the same person anymore?

No one's ever been resuscitated from brain death. Unfortunately that's physically impossible without some kind of Star Trek-like tech anyway, since when the brain dies, it doesn't just go inert, but actually actively fries itself on the cellular level (asphyxia causes seizure-like overexcitation in the dying neurons, which destroys chemicals and ruptures membranes). Once that's happened, even if you revive the body, the brain is just pudding, and all the data it used to contain has been either wiped or utterly corrupted. In order to revive someone from brain death and get anything other than a vegetable on life support, you'd need to completely reconstruct the brain and its data from the ground up, in which place, yes: they would basically be a copy of the original person rather than the actual original (a "Commander Shepherd" scenario at best, rather than a "transporter copy" scenario).

People have been resuscitated from circulatory death, but that's really more the dying process being reversed in the last moments than bringing someone back from the dead.

 

[Do4600]

Yeah, well try imagining teleporting somebody using this thing, it would be absolutely horrific. I mean sure you could say it's technically teleportation but not in the same way as science fiction.

 

[Do4600]

And this is why Transporters as depicted in Star Trek are a nonsense; they don't transport you, they murder you and create an exact duplicate at the target location. To the world at large there may be no difference, but the you that steps in won't be the same you that steps out the other end.

I prefer the Displacer from Iain M Banks' Culture novels - creates something like a wormhole between two locations and instantaneously swaps exactly equivalent amounts of matter and energy from one end to the other, intact.

Right, but given that your body does this naturally ... what's the problem? You are, for all intents and purposes, stepping through a 'transporter' by your definition every 6 months .... in some cases (like red blood cells) every 60 days. What the problem with a machine that does so more efficiently?

Because one process is a slow "grandfather's axe" process which allows consciousness to continue functioning smoothly while it it occurs, and the other is an all-in-one process that necessarily interrupts and restarts consciousness*.

That's the thing people are objecting to: the total stop/restart interruption of the processes of consciousness, not the replacement of the "hardware". I feel like this is pretty obvious, as it's been spelled out repeatedly by several people, so anyone saying that your own cells/atoms gradually replacing yourselves is the same thing have either been TL/DRing so agressively that they don't even know what they're arguing about at all, or they're deliberately "misunderstanding" for some rhetorical reason.

*I did point out earlier that Star Trek transporters visibly don't interrupt consciousness, and neither could any hypothetical real work tech that does the same thing, but it looks like no one read that.

What if that's the reason for the relatively slow transport cycle? As in the transporter acts in a way which gradually moves the conscious mind from one collection of brain matter to another collection of brain matter in the same way that aging moves the conscious mind slowly from one set of cells over time to another set of cells. It would make sense that it would need to act as a bridge for electrical activity or else pretty much every cell in the body would be inactive on the other side of a transport.

 

[Strazdas]

This is merely a scanner and a 3D printer, not a true matter replicator based on cloning. but its progress i guess.

you'll never know if you'll be the one materialising on the other side.

they don't transport you, they murder you and create an exact duplicate at the target location.

Either way, 'you' are gone. What happens next has no bearing on 'you'.

What all 3 of you and others in comments are missing is that.... it happens all the time. to you, me, and everyone else. atoms in our bodies change. we gain new ones, we loose old ones. in fact they change so rapidly almost all atoms in our bodies change within a year to a new ones that replace them. we are constantly gaining and loosing our body structure. this would only be same thing but much faster.

"You" are not the same "you" you were a month ago. "you" are changing every minute with every new memory. the whole concept of some static "you" is flawed from the grounds up. there is no "You".

Very much this. Essentially from the travelers perspective, stepping into the teleport chamber is the same as putting a shotgun in your mouth, in practical terms. What happens after that he will not witness, not even with an absolutely identical copy of him now running around somewhere.

If that so, then opening a book is also the same happening, because you after reading a book is not the same you before reading a book. you are very similar, but different. the old "you" is gone forever, dead.

Because one process is a slow "grandfather's axe" process which allows consciousness to continue functioning smoothly while it it occurs, and the other is an all-in-one process that necessarily interrupts and restarts consciousness*.

So its ok if its less efficient and slower process?

I can hold but make a joke about "Have you tried turning it off and on again".

 

[Kathinka]

Very much this. Essentially from the travelers perspective, stepping into the teleport chamber is the same as putting a shotgun in your mouth, in practical terms. What happens after that he will not witness, not even with an absolutely identical copy of him now running around somewhere.

If that so, then opening a book is also the same happening, because you after reading a book is not the same you before reading a book. you are very similar, but different. the old "you" is gone forever, dead.

I don't think you fully grasp the concept of conscious life. You can't seriously argue that reading a book or making a new experience is the same as shooting yourself or stepping onto a guillotine. One merely changes you, the other puts a permanent end to your conscious existence.

 

[Loonyyy]

And this is why Transporters as depicted in Star Trek are a nonsense; they don't transport you, they murder you and create an exact duplicate at the target location. To the world at large there may be no difference, but the you that steps in won't be the same you that steps out the other end.

I prefer the Displacer from Iain M Banks' Culture novels - creates something like a wormhole between two locations and instantaneously swaps exactly equivalent amounts of matter and energy from one end to the other, intact.

Right, but given that your body does this naturally ... what's the problem? You are, for all intents and purposes, stepping through a 'transporter' by your definition every 6 months .... in some cases (like red blood cells) every 60 days. What the problem with a machine that does so more efficiently?

I think it's continuity. There's a continuity between you and the cells you replace. You maintain a distinct consciousness, whilst a transporter hypothetically removes that continuity, and creates another you, identical in every way, but your consciousness ceases to be, in effect, you die.

This item actually reminded me, I saw a 3D printer that could make a kit for itself, the idea being you pooled to buy one (And it was pretty cheap too) and then you could print others for your friends, to spread the tech around. That was a neat piece of kit.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I don't think we're ever going to use the teleporter, once we get there, for live subjects, due to the ol' Prestige problem: you'll never know if you'll be the one materialising on the other side. I think Enterprise did bring this up once and dismissed it as hokey, which I always thought was quite unfair.

Well it's a matter of perspective, if you hang onto notions of life sanctity and possibly religious jazz then this process is very disturbing. But if you go the most technical way and simply see it as the recreation of a machine in different places then there is no real issue. Although Star Trek goes one further and reinforces that they only beam over your original parts so it's even more legit.

Never the less shit would get real bizarre if the shredding part malfunctioned and it would just continue to make more and more replicas, how do you resolve that one with a clean conscience.

 

[hermes]

WOW! A teleporter that takes 90 minutes to travel to a room that takes 5 seconds to walk to! This shit right here is the future!

Honestly, I wouldn't care if I was disintegrated and rebuilt at the other end (if it works flawlessly) I would still use a teleporter! That would be the greatest thing ever in history!

OT: Yeah, I don't think I would ever use one. Even if it is invented tomorrow, I would still not use it in my lifetime, just for the risk of ending up inside out.

 

[Baldr]

Besides that, the teleporter isn't the "holy grail" of Star Trek. That would very much be the replicator, closely followed by the warp drive.

The replicator was just an off-shoot of the more sophisticated teleporter technology. It was the the reassemble stage of the teleporter that didn't have to reassemble things from a current target, but from a database of stuff.

 

[Strazdas]

Very much this. Essentially from the travelers perspective, stepping into the teleport chamber is the same as putting a shotgun in your mouth, in practical terms. What happens after that he will not witness, not even with an absolutely identical copy of him now running around somewhere.

If that so, then opening a book is also the same happening, because you after reading a book is not the same you before reading a book. you are very similar, but different. the old "you" is gone forever, dead.

I don't think you fully grasp the concept of conscious life. You can't seriously argue that reading a book or making a new experience is the same as shooting yourself or stepping onto a guillotine. One merely changes you, the other puts a permanent end to your conscious existence.

in which case you cannot compare the shooting with this type of teleports, as that does not end your concision existence permanently, only temporarily. And if you argue that the person on the other end is no longer you, then you are no longer you after reading a book too.

 

[Kathinka]

Very much this. Essentially from the travelers perspective, stepping into the teleport chamber is the same as putting a shotgun in your mouth, in practical terms. What happens after that he will not witness, not even with an absolutely identical copy of him now running around somewhere.

If that so, then opening a book is also the same happening, because you after reading a book is not the same you before reading a book. you are very similar, but different. the old "you" is gone forever, dead.

I don't think you fully grasp the concept of conscious life. You can't seriously argue that reading a book or making a new experience is the same as shooting yourself or stepping onto a guillotine. One merely changes you, the other puts a permanent end to your conscious existence.

in which case you cannot compare the shooting with this type of teleports, as that does not end your concision existence permanently, only temporarily. And if you argue that the person on the other end is no longer you, then you are no longer you after reading a book too.

Ahhh OK I see the problem. We are talking about two different devices here. I'm speaking of the type of teleporter that is specifically designed in a way that it destroys you and just "3D prints" a copy of you at the target location.

If we are talking the kind that transports you, yeah, totally, I'm with you.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Not a teleporter, this is clearly the machine from the Blake's 7 episode Moloch.

 

[Strazdas]

Ahhh OK I see the problem. We are talking about two different devices here. I'm speaking of the type of teleporter that is specifically designed in a way that it destroys you and just "3D prints" a copy of you at the target location.

If we are talking the kind that transports you, yeah, totally, I'm with you.

Not necessarely. What does the "3D printer" one does differently than one you think i am talking about? Our conciuosness is nothing but the neurons firing in our brain. if we "print" those neuroms completely identically, we replicate the exact same conciusness. So even a teleporter that destroys you and reprints you exactly merely "pauses" the conciusness in practice. while technically it does destroy and create it a new.

The question arrises though - why does it matter. if your conciusness is identical and no sideeffects are present, for all practical purposes nothing changed.

 

[Kathinka]

Ahhh OK I see the problem. We are talking about two different devices here. I'm speaking of the type of teleporter that is specifically designed in a way that it destroys you and just "3D prints" a copy of you at the target location.

If we are talking the kind that transports you, yeah, totally, I'm with you.

Not necessarely. What does the "3D printer" one does differently than one you think i am talking about? Our conciuosness is nothing but the neurons firing in our brain. if we "print" those neuroms completely identically, we replicate the exact same conciusness. So even a teleporter that destroys you and reprints you exactly merely "pauses" the conciusness in practice. while technically it does destroy and create it a new.

The question arrises though - why does it matter. if your conciusness is identical and no sideeffects are present, for all practical purposes nothing changed.

I'd say the difference is what happens from the perspective of the person that steps into the teleporter.

he gets in, buttons get pushed, and he wakes up at another place: transport.
he steps into the device, it gets activated, everything goes black and that's the end for him: more iffy.

 

[LordTwinkie]

I've been saying for over a decade those teleporters are murder machines, no different than the disintegration booths from that planet with computer simulated war

 

[CaitSeith]

When I saw the result, I remembered the live baboon turned inside-out in The Fly.

 

[XMark]

If you think of it, you're always being destroyed and re-assembled, just very slowly. Some of what you ate today will become part of you in the future, and you'll lose bits of yourself as your skin, nails and hair flake off, as your cells regenerate, and as you expel waste. You're not made of any of the same stuff that you were made of 10 years ago, so are you still really you? It's just like you went through a teleporter that makes a copy of you and destroys the original. It's just that only little bits of you got replaced at a time.

If a teleporter like that were created, what does it mean for your consciousness if the copy is exact and the original is destroyed?

Whatever your answer to that question, you then have to ask yourself what it would mean if the original WASN'T destroyed.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I think it's continuity. There's a continuity between you and the cells you replace. You maintain a distinct consciousness, whilst a transporter hypothetically removes that continuity, and creates another you, identical in every way, but your consciousness ceases to be, in effect, you die.

This item actually reminded me, I saw a 3D printer that could make a kit for itself, the idea being you pooled to buy one (And it was pretty cheap too) and then you could print others for your friends, to spread the tech around. That was a neat piece of kit.

I guess so ... but I still kind of see it as a moot point. It's not like you 'die' in any realistic sense. You're merely transmutated through three steps in the Star Trek examination of things. Matter, energy, matter. Which is arguably all our body does in the firstplace. Arguably that's all the universe does in the first place.

I mean do you consider yourself dead inbetween heart beats? Or when your brain has a petit (or grand) mal seizure? When you experience a moment of deja vu? When you move between REM and the four stages of sleep? It seems like unnecessary dialogue, unless there is someone is actively fiddling with the data stream to create a new consciousness from an old one.

How can you be 'murdered' if you have your consciousness merely alter location? Does Neo get 'murdered' everytime he goes into the Matrix (or more to the point, when he exits)? I would say it's a moral good. No damage or alteration to one's mind, AND you can eliminate foreign, deleterious bodies from your physical nature.

You are still you, with benefits. Which is all you can ask for from the progression of science.