Would you use a transporter beam?

[Umbran]

Yes, assume Heisenberg Compensators or whatever other fictional tech is needed to make the fictional teleporter work. It's a thought experiment predicated on the assumption that it works.

I am saying that, in a purely functional sense, the transporter works. You get something that look, walks, talks, and thinks like you. It has your memories, and all that. On observation and questioning, no human would know the difference.

Except that it's initial state is not *exactly* what your state was when you were scanned. There's an atom out of place here, a few metabolic reactions that'll go differently there. It will progress, going forward, in *slightly* different ways than you would have. If they scanned you, disintegrated you, and put the duplicate exactly where you were - the events and actions you would have experienced and what he will experience will diverge.

Basically, the transporter creates something like an "alternate timeline you".

And maybe it's a big room.

It is still swatting a fly with a bazooka.

 

[Morrus]

I am saying that, in a purely functional sense, the transporter works. You get something that look, walks, talks, and thinks like you. It has your memories, and all that. On observation and questioning, no human would know the difference.

Except that it's initial state is not *exactly* what your state was when you were scanned. There's an atom out of place here, a few metabolic reactions that'll go differently there. It will progress, going forward, in *slightly* different ways than you would have. If they scanned you, disintegrated you, and put the duplicate exactly where you were - the events and actions you would have experienced and what he will experience will diverge.

Basically, the transporter creates something like an "alternate timeline you".



It is still swatting a fly with a bazooka.

So.... assuming the technology 100% works as described above, would you use a transporter?

 

[Hand of Evil]

sure, it would be a proven technology. mindset would be that it is no different from trains, planes and automobiles, you would know there is a risk but acceptable. Now IF it just got on the market, could see myself looking at it like an escalator.

 

[delericho]

Of course, there are other applications - since there's no actual reason why you need to disintegrate the original to get the copy, we could use it to colonise other worlds without having to actually leave Earth. Or use it to take a backup copy of a person, and thus abolish death.

 

[Janx]

To Umbran's point, if that was happening, they'd allegedly find it during testing when repeated transportings eventually result in larger differences from the original baseline. That's shut it down for human transport.

Therefore, since it hasn't been shut down, that problem does not exist and MorrusPorting is the de facto means of teleportation in the latter half of the 21st century.

Are you going to get on the damn pad or not?


I would reckon that even though I know where my steak comes from, and would rather not watch the process before it gets to the grocery store, that I am still happy to eat steak and forget about that little detail.

Knowing that MorrusPorting is safe, reliable and only fails to make perfect copies less often than flying crashes due to Levitator failure, I'd be inclined to trust it and overlook the detail that I am being reassembled as a copy.

 

[Morrus]

Of course, there are other applications - since there's no actual reason why you need to disintegrate the original to get the copy, we could use it to colonise other worlds without having to actually leave Earth. Or use it to take a backup copy of a person, and thus abolish death.

Does it abolish death? So it creates a backup of you. You're standing there looking at your backup smiling at you. Are you happy to accept a bullet to the head?

 

[Umbran]

Anyone here seen The Prestige?

Assuming the thing works as I described it - there is a rate of error under which I might find it acceptable for casual transport (not "cross a room" casual" but, "visit Hawai'i" casual). Over that error rate, I would still accept it for extreme cases (like colonizing a planet).

 

[Morrus]

Anyone here seen The Prestige?

Assuming the thing works as I described it - there is a rate of error under which I might find it acceptable for casual transport (not "cross a room" casual" but, "visit Hawai'i" casual). Over that error rate, I would still accept it for extreme cases (like colonizing a planet).

OK. Forget error rates. It works. It's a thought experiment.

The point isn't that it might go wrong. Just assume it doesn't. It's the issue of continuity. Are you still you? What if the original still exists? Is use of it death?

 

[delericho]

Does it abolish death?

"Abolish death" was somewhat hyperbolic, I'll grant. But I can certainly see people taking regular backups and, in the event of an untimely demise, restoring from backup.

(Another, somewhat ghoulish option: in the event of an organ failure or similar we'd then be able to generate an exact tissue match. Though that would be rather better if we could restore just a part of a person from backup, rather than generating a clone and then killing him/her to harvest organs.)

You're standing there looking at your backup smiling at you.

Perfect! Why didn't I think of it before: another me. One for the week, and one for Sunday best.

(To misquote from AJ Rimmer, twice.)

 

[Janx]

The prestige was a good movie. Better than the book. And that story was not about errors in copying. It was about the very question Morrus is asking.

Would you be ok with killing your original, when you get rebuilt at the other pad?