Philosophical Q - Emotional compromised

Cor Azer · Sep 1, 2012

Just watched JJ Abrams Star Trek again, and got to think after an Old Spock comment (not quite Old Spock's sitch, but inpsiration is inspiration):

Hypothetical situation: you find yourself in an alternate universe - one you know is an alternate and not necessarily an evil twin one; say the difference could be as minor as someone picked a blue shirt instead of a red one at some point. While there, people who mostly seem to be like people you know from your own universe come to harm - do you feel any more sympathy for them than you would just a random person (if so, is it because you could see your actual friends and family in that position? How "different" would the alternate universe need to be for your sympathy to be no more than for a random person?

Rune · Sep 1, 2012

Similarly, the way matter transference technology works in the Trek-universe, each time a person reforms after being "beamed," it is actually (technically), a new person formed with new matter in the exact same pattern as the one that started the beaming process (remember what happened to Ryker!).

That said, your question applies equally as well to anyone who has ever been beamed from one location to another.

Dannyalcatraz · Sep 1, 2012

The emotional portions of the brain engage before the rational side. So it would have to be pretty "alternative"- the people would have to LOOK different- before your rational mind would stop you from reacting as if you were still home.

Umbran · Sep 1, 2012

Rune said:
Similarly, the way matter transference technology works in the Trek-universe, each time a person reforms after being "beamed," it is actually (technically), a new person formed with new matter in the exact same pattern as the one that started the beaming process (remember what happened to Ryker!).

That depends upon what you call a, "new person". In the ethical and legal senses in the Trek universe it is the *same* person, not a new one.

If you take the Trek Tech manuals as canon, a Trek transporter takes your body, scans it to get the pattern, converts the matter to energy, moves the energy, and then reforms the body. The body has, in essence, changed phases and been reconstituted - it is still the same "stuff", so to speak, just transformed and transformed back.

In accidents, well, then things get hairy (and usually violate conservation of energy - a sure sign of something hokey happening).

Rune · Sep 1, 2012

Umbran said:
That depends upon what you call a, "new person". In the ethical and legal senses in the Trek universe it is the *same* person, not a new one.

If you take the Trek Tech manuals as canon, a Trek transporter takes your body, scans it to get the pattern, converts the matter to energy, moves the energy, and then reforms the body. The body has, in essence, changed phases and been reconstituted - it is still the same "stuff", so to speak, just transformed and transformed back.

In accidents, well, then things get hairy (and usually violate conservation of energy - a sure sign of something hokey happening).

Having never read a Trek Tech manual, I cannot personally take it as canon, but it seems to me that moving the energy from one location to another and then converting that energy back to matter would be an incredibly inefficient process--particularly if the ship has replicator technology from which to draw matter.

Furthermore, this totally fails to explain how Ryker could have a doppleganger just because his beam was refracted in transit.

Of note, also, is that an important step in the beaming process is the deletion of the pattern specifically to avoid the ethical ramifications of what could essentially result in cloning (Scotty bypassed this step once when he needed a way to survive for an undetermined length of time, because he's...well, Scotty.).

(Jeez, I'm kind of a nerd, aren't I?)

Umbran · Sep 2, 2012

Rune said:
Furthermore, this totally fails to explain how Ryker could have a doppleganger just because his beam was refracted in transit.

In the process, the beam picks up energy from the radiation layer which split the beam. So, the information is duplicated, and the energy to make a new body is accounted for.

Of note, also, is that an important step in the beaming process is the deletion of the pattern specifically to avoid the ethical ramifications of what could essentially result in cloning (Scotty bypassed this step once when he needed a way to survive for an undetermined length of time, because he's...well, Scotty.).

No, you see that's what trek "pattern buffers" are - the energy your body is converted into is also the energy into which your pattern is encoded. So, when you reconstitute the body out of that energy, the pattern is no longer stored anywhere.

This actually makes a sort of sense, insofar as the amount of information required to *completely* specify a human body, down to the quantum level, is large, even by Trek standards. They get around that by not actually storing that information in a computer.

(Jeez, I'm kind of a nerd, aren't I?)

You're on a D&D messageboard. Like we get anything but nerds here?

Dannyalcatraz · Sep 2, 2012

[IT]We're all nerds down here...[/IT]

Cor Azer · Sep 2, 2012

Dannyalcatraz said:
The emotional portions of the brain engage before the rational side. So it would have to be pretty "alternative"- the people would have to LOOK different- before your rational mind would stop you from reacting as if you were still home.

So...

Would it change your thoughts if the situation that inspired this involved a race/species that say... rejected emotion for rationality and logic?

Although I can't recall the clinical name for the condition right now, I remember in my Cognition class discussion about a type of brain damage that left identification memories in tact, but not emotional attachment ones - led to "imposter syndrome" where people suffering from this condition thought all their loved ones had been replaced because while they knew who they were, they felt no real attachment to them.

This hypothetical is kinda a flip on that - you recognize people and feel attachments to people you don't really know...

Cor Azer · Sep 2, 2012

Dannyalcatraz said:
[IT]We're all nerds down here...[/IT]

Oh well... at least I own the basement I dwell in

Richards · Sep 3, 2012

I think I read somewhere that the human body replaces every single cell over the course of seven years. So technically, a person you last saw over seven years ago is no longer the same person anymore, either.

Johnathan

Philosophical Q - Emotional compromised

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