Would you use a transporter beam?

[RangerWickett]

As an emergency escape device, sure.

As daily travel? I'm leaning toward yes.

The me that exists this instant is not the same me that existed a moment before. We're linked in a chronolinear sense, and we're close enough that I feel a sense of continuity, a definition of my 'self.'

I don't know if I'll be alive in 50 years, but I'd like some of my 'self' to carry on, either through kids that I've raised, or memories and ideas I've given my friends. Would I trade a total continuity with an earlier version of myself for a near continuity and the ability to jaunt all over the world in a hurry? Heck yeah.


Now, it'd be less philosophically challenging if the technology was a sort of spatial shifting instead of disintegration and recreation. Like, I always hoped Trek transporters actually worked by creating a billion tiny wormholes that were perfectly aligned to suck your molecules and deposit them in the right spot on the far side. But even then, even if all the molecules are the same molecules that made you up in the first place, will they necessarily be arranged exactly the same as they were before the teleportation?

 

[freyar]

Well, if I answered the question as originally posed, I don't think I'd do it. On the other hand, if it worked like in Star Trek, it could be very useful.

But I want to comment on the physics stuff....

As we understand it today, quantum mechanics answers the question for us, through Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. You *cannot* be copied *exactly*, as the information about your original body cannot be known *exactly*. There *will* be differences. So, yes, you got disintegrated, and there's a very close copy of you walking around. Star Trek had to invoke gobbledigook (the "Heisenberg Compensators") to get around this

I think this is close to the answer, but, I thought that state could be transported without it being determined?

But, there is another problem: Quantum mechanics apparently doesn't allow copying. See "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-cloning_theorem".

<snip>

As noted, it is impossible within quantum mechanics to duplicate (or clone, using the jargon) the state of a given system onto another system without messing up the state of the first one. In other words, you can't have the teleporter that creates the duplicate before getting rid of the first one. However, it is completely possible quantum mechanically to teleport a system (that's the technical term), meaning you can take one system and transfer its quantum state to another of the same kind of system at a distance. It's just that the first system's state gets jumbled up. This has also been done experimentally over a distance of almost 150 km (for photons). I think someone asked, so here's the answer: this physics is inextricably related to entanglement.

That's also a problem if you wanted to use quantum teleportation to actually teleport someone. The system you want to teleport has to be entangled from the start with the system at a distance (so it really works by setting up two systems at one place, then shipping one of them somewhere else in a normal way). I don't know how you would entangle a person with a set of exactly the same numbers of atoms, etc, but I imagine it would mess you up even before you get to the point where you want to destroy yourself to create the copy at a distance. Anyway, seems difficult.

 

[Janx]

As an emergency escape device, sure.

As daily travel? I'm leaning toward yes.

The me that exists this instant is not the same me that existed a moment before. We're linked in a chronolinear sense, and we're close enough that I feel a sense of continuity, a definition of my 'self.'

I don't know if I'll be alive in 50 years, but I'd like some of my 'self' to carry on, either through kids that I've raised, or memories and ideas I've given my friends. Would I trade a total continuity with an earlier version of myself for a near continuity and the ability to jaunt all over the world in a hurry? Heck yeah.


Now, it'd be less philosophically challenging if the technology was a sort of spatial shifting instead of disintegration and recreation. Like, I always hoped Trek transporters actually worked by creating a billion tiny wormholes that were perfectly aligned to suck your molecules and deposit them in the right spot on the far side. But even then, even if all the molecules are the same molecules that made you up in the first place, will they necessarily be arranged exactly the same as they were before the teleportation?

Also consider that I could record what happened in Pad A, put a screen in the room for Pad B and play it back right after you respawn on Pad B.

Which means, I could trick you into thinking that I've been disintegrating your body and killing the original you every time. Even if it's really been a magic worm hole that simply looks like a copy and disintegrate macro.

 

[Tonguez]

Thus, the moment there are two of you (one on Pad A and one on Pad B), there are two souls in existance, initially very similar but immediately diverging (like forks in realities). And the MorrusPort is about to kill one of them.

but does that matter? if the soul is material - just a sum of the neural network - then why not trash one copy in favour of another? do copies have inherent value?

if we are a wave function then it all pans out


(also as someone with leukemia I'm not too worried about particles being slightly different with each iteration, how long would it take until the accumulation of changes became noticeable)

 

[Alzrius]

Nah, those things cause psychosis.

 

[Morrus]

but does that matter? if the soul is material - just a sum of the neural network - then why not trash one copy in favour of another? do copies have inherent value?

if we are a wave function then it all pans out

Does it? You're on Pad A. I flip the switch. Your copy appears in Pad B. I then hand you (the original on Pad A) a gun and tell you to blow your own brains out. Do you do it?

 

[Janx]

Does it? You're on Pad A. I flip the switch. Your copy appears in Pad B. I then hand you (the original on Pad A) a gun and tell you to blow your own brains out. Do you do it?

That I feel was the real "gotcha" point of the question. It's not about the guy on Pad B.

It's the fact that YOU are still standing on Pad A when they said you'd be over on B, and what's this laser doing burning your feet?

 

[Tonguez]

Does it? You're on Pad A. I flip the switch. Your copy appears in Pad B. I then hand you (the original on Pad A) a gun and tell you to blow your own brains out. Do you do it?

no thats messy, and pain is real (even if fleeting). personally I wait for the dis integrator and gently fade, confident that Pad B is still Me.

 

[tomBitonti]

That's also a problem if you wanted to use quantum teleportation to actually teleport someone. The system you want to teleport has to be entangled from the start with the system at a distance (so it really works by setting up two systems at one place, then shipping one of them somewhere else in a normal way). I don't know how you would entangle a person with a set of exactly the same numbers of atoms, etc, but I imagine it would mess you up even before you get to the point where you want to destroy yourself to create the copy at a distance. Anyway, seems difficult.

Heh: Create a magic "entangled foam" which fits in a coffin shaped device (since a coffin is about the right size for most folks), entangle that with a similar device, then transport the second device to wherever.

Then you just need to figure out how to entangle the foam on one end to yourself, and the second device to a "blank" on the other side.

Press the button and bang, you have some non-sentient goo on this side and (with luck) you emerge from the blank on the far side.

If we say that the full quantum copy is necessary to preserve consciousness, then we can have the blank be a copy accurate up to but not including the detailed quantum state.

Lots of magic, for sure. The coffin filled with foam seems to be a person sized ensemble of quantum bits, and we are struggling to make just a half dozen. Maybe copying the state of the nervous system would be sufficient? (But, that's still huge.)

Not sure if the basic mechanism is valid: Can you entangle B with C, then entangle A with B and C with D, then force the state of A to D? Applying natural language reasoning to "entangle" seems iffy.

Thx!

TomB

 

[tomBitonti]

Eh, if that would work, it seems to create the possibility of faster-than-light travel. The notion of entanglement that I proposed must be wrong.

Thx!

TomB