18 hours ago, dave2013 said:

Charlie is right, though, that if the unique molecules are actually converted to energy and then converted back into matter at the destination then it is not a copy but a reconstruction using the same molecules.. 

 

Its still a copy though. The original person is broken down into basic atoms, at that point, no person exists, no consciousness exists, all you end up with is atoms that are identical to any other atoms in the universe. So reconstructing that person from those atoms is no different to reconstructing that atoms from any other atoms anywhere in the universe. That persons identity is gone, they are no more.

You are making a copy of the person from the atoms that are left over. But its still a copy, because the original consciousness, the original person is totally gone, nonexistent. 

If I took my PC and smashed it to bits, broke it down into the smallest components I could, melted the plastic, melted the metals, so all I ended up with was the raw materials it was made from... what would it be, that's right, its no longer a PC, its just plastics, various metals and minerals. Now if I took those raw materials and made a NEW PC, it would be a new PC, not the old PC. 😁

17 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

Also, one of my original questions was: Is a 'person' the 'meat' that he/she is made of, or are 'you' more granularly described as the accumulated thought's/knowledge/outlook/patterns/habits of a life?

 

A person in the perspective we are talking about , in regard to whether your mind is  alive or dead, is the consciousness that's generated by the neurological connections in the brain. That includes your personality, memories emotions and everything that those neurological patterns generate. When that brain activity is no more, when those patterns are destroyed, you are brain dread and non-existent as a conscious mind. 

 

17 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

I asked does it objectively matter, except to people's feelings.

 

Well obviously we are emotional beings, we have feelings and emotions. So it matters to YOU as an individual if you don't like the idea of dying in this form of transportation. If you are a weird person that doesn't care if you die when you take a trip, then no it doesn't matter to you.

It matters to your relatives if they have to live with the fact that their loved one is dead and no more and a copy is in that persons place. Now there may be individuals in the world who could adapt to that realization, and there will be a multitude who would be highly disturbed by it and not be able to habituate to that negative emotional state. As for reality itself, the universe, then the universe isn't conscious, so whether it "matters" or not isn't a relevant question. Nothing "matters" to the universe because the universe just is. "Matter" is an emotional state defined as something that is felt to be important, significant, and the universe has no emotions so nothing matters, even its own existence. 

Unless like some think, the universe is a conscious entity. But I don't subscribe to that point of view. 

 

17 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

We are also not genetically hardwired to fly to the moon or drive cars or spend half of our lives in offices doing strange human stuff away from the sun.... But.. we do it daily as part of our current reality as a species.

 

Actually, some would argue we are. We are genetically inclined as a species to explore new horizons. Why we migrated across the entire planet, It wasn't just due to environmental changes. What's on the other side of the hill is always a driving factor for mankind and the new horizon is the rest of the solar system. I don't see your point though, we clearly aren't going to override something as basic, intrinsic, essential as self preservation. 

 

17 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

and if transporters were ever a thing, some portion of humanity would adapt to that

 

There are  weird people in the world, but something tells me that there would be significant protests against the technology. I think the vast majority of people wouldn't want to commit suicide every time they visited Aunt Mable. Unless the manufactures managed to con people into thinking they "weren't really dead" with some form of twisted philosophical argument. 

 

17 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

being a copy (or the deceased original) only mattered on an emotional level, and objective reality 'cares' nothing about fear/emotions etc.

 

Well of course, But we human beings, with our  human consciousness,  aren't "objective reality" we are subjective, emotional, sentient beings. We know the universe as a whole is not conscious, has no emotional attachment, isn't "alive", so not relevant. W are alive, we do have emotions.

 

18 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

If the only way to get to a colony transport receptor around Barnard's star (for instance) in less than a thousand years and without the chance of being irradiated by cosmic rays or smashing into a pebble at a good portion of lightspeed is/was to be transported....

Well...

Hmmmmmm..... Are we meat? Or are we information?

 

We are meat, and that meat in our skulls is composed of 80 billion neurons, and each one of the neurons can connect to any of the others. In fact the brain is the most complex arrangement of mater we know of. 100 trillion connections is pretty typical in the average brain. Its an astounding organ. And that complexity is capable of generating what we know of as consciousness. 

You may find some weird people who don't mind dying in order to place a copy of themselves on a distant world, but given the inverse square law, that signal would be so degraded as to be unrecoverable as a copy of  human being. 

18 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

If the only way to get to a colony transport receptor around Barnard's star (for instance) in less than a thousand years and without the chance of being irradiated by cosmic rays or smashing into a pebble at a good portion of lightspeed is/was to be transported....

Good luck with that. They have a range of only 30,000 km.

20 hours ago, charliearon said:

If transported people are dead, then how did Lt. Barkley grab a hold of the giant worm-like people in the matter stream to save them?

That episode should be completely disregarded. Transporting is instantaneous. If two people are punching each other's lights out at the moment of dematerialisation, they are rematerialised in exactly the same positions and they don't immediately realise they have been transported.

Same thing with individuals from less advanced civilisations;. From their point of view, they are suddenly in a different location and have no recollection of how they got there.

Edit: I have just found that, in episode 10 of season 4 of Star Trek Enterprise, there is a character Emory Erickson who was the inventor of the transporter. “Emory recalls the early days of the transporter and how he was the first person to go through it. He remembers it taking a full minute and a half to cycle through and that he could actually feel himself being taken apart and put back together again. He lost his lunch the first time he materialized.”

Edited December 1, 20232 yr by dmwalker

2 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

Good luck with that. They have a range of only 30,000 km.

 

If we stick with only Star Trek examples (which I was not) then I would point out that Khan beamed himself several lightyear's in the "Into Darkness" movie......

 

55 minutes ago, martin-w said:

You may find some weird people

53 minutes ago, martin-w said:

There are  weird people in the world

52 minutes ago, martin-w said:

If you are a weird person that doesn't care if you die

46 minutes ago, martin-w said:

some form of twisted philosophical argument.

 

🤔 So we come down to; you feel how you feel, humans and animals are apparently uniformly frightened by the prospect (or certainty) of death (notwithstanding all the historical examples of those who have repeatedly offered their lives for the greater good, etc) and disagreement with that premise is.... 'Weird'. 🙃

I would simply point out that there are now several billion people on this planet, and that it would be logical to assume that some (possibly quit significant) number of them may have backgrounds/beliefs allowing or even compelling them to take actions or behave in ways you might find 'weird'.

 

24 minutes ago, martin-w said:

but given the inverse square law, that signal would be so degraded as to be unrecoverable as a copy of  human being. 

 

Very firmly stated, but if we are back to current-day physics, then the conversation is moot, since the whole idea, at least under currently understood science, is 'impossible'.

Except..... In a thread I posted recently, it was described how its (apparently) within the realm of theoretical, if not practical, science for aliens to destroy the earth with an energy weapon from halfway across the galaxy....

Maybe if you have enough power, inverse square is a negligible issue.....

The moral of that story might be, never underestimate sufficiently advanced (possibly near-magical from our perspective) civilizations, especially some of the oldest out there, who might have been up to who-knows-whut' in the last few billion years.... (and who might also have some 'weird' ideas, from some perspectives)

1 hour ago, HiFlyer said:

I would point out that Khan beamed himself several lightyear's in the "Into Darkness" movie......

I didn't see that movie but I wonder how Khan, in 2259, could do something which, as far as I  know, even Star Trek TNG couldn't do in the 24th century.

4 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

So we come down to; you feel how you feel, humans and animals are apparently uniformly frightened by the prospect (or certainty) of death (notwithstanding all the historical examples of those who have repeatedly offered their lives for the greater good, etc) and disagreement with that premise is.... 'Weird'. 🙃

 

Out of context, and I think you know that... this is not about giving your life for a greater good. It's a transportation device, a way to get from a to b. And yes, I would say a person is indeed weird if they have no issue dying in the process of visiting Aunt Mabel. Dying to save others, or the planet or any other kind of laudable endeavor is obviously entirely different to mere transportation, and human beings can override their instinct for self-preservation in certain circumstances.   

And yes, self preservation, avoidance of death is obviously built into us.

 

Quote

Self-preservation is essentially the process of an organism preventing itself from being harmed or killed and is considered a basic instinct in most organisms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-preservation

 

4 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

I would simply point out that there are now several billion people on this planet, and that it would be logical to assume that some (possibly quit significant) number of them may have backgrounds/beliefs allowing or even compelling them to take actions or behave in ways you might find 'weird'.

 

But they are unlikely to kill themselves to simply visit Aunt Mabel. Its a transportation device, that's all. 

 

4 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

Very firmly stated, but if we are back to current-day physics, then the conversation is moot, since the whole idea, at least under currently understood science, is 'impossible'.

Except..... In a thread I posted recently, it was described how its (apparently) within the realm of theoretical, if not practical, science for aliens to destroy the earth with an energy weapon from halfway across the galaxy....

Maybe if you have enough power, inverse square is a negligible issue.....

The moral of that story might be, never underestimate sufficiently advanced (possibly near-magical from our perspective) civilizations, especially some of the oldest out there, who might have been up to who-knows-whut' in the last few billion years.... (and who might also have some 'weird' ideas, from some perspectives)

 

True... current-day physics. And obviously with enough power the signal quality could be maintained. The amount of power required to maintain the integrity of that signal though, the full 6 lightyear distance to the star you mention (I get that to 36 trillion miles) and maintain enough signal integrity to get every single atom in the human body  (6,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms) in exactly the right place  to generate the copy, while avoiding all of the dust and interstellar matter in its way... would pretty much render that technology godlike I would say. In which case the species you mention  would indeed probably be " near magical"  and rather than using the transporter, would probably be punching a whole in the fabric of spacetime, propping open a wormhole with negative energy and simply stepping through fully intact. No death to worry about and no limitation of traveling at the speed of light as you would with your transporter. 😵

Unless its the Stargate SG1 wormhole... that thing does dematerialize the traveler. 🤔

 

Edited December 1, 20232 yr by martin-w

2 hours ago, dmwalker said:

I didn't see that movie but I wonder how Khan, in 2259, could do something which, as far as I  know, even Star Trek TNG couldn't do in the 24th century.

 

Khan used trans-warp beaming. It was supposed to be a theory that Scotty came up with. Beaming from one star system to another or even to a starship traveling at warp speed. To prove his theory correct, Scotty tested it on Admiral Archers Beagle. The dog was lost. Yikes! 

It's the alternate reality don't forget. It was cretaed when Nero did his time traveling thing. 

 

 

5:04 they use trans-warp beaming to beam onto the Enterprise while it's travelling at warp speed.

 

 

Edited December 1, 20232 yr by martin-w

34 minutes ago, martin-w said:

In which case the species you mention  would indeed probably be " near magical"  and rather than using the transporter, would probably be punching a whole in the fabric of spacetime, propping open a wormhole with negative energy and simply stepping through fully intact

Enter Q from the Continuum.

 

20 minutes ago, martin-w said:

To prove his theory correct, Scotty tested it on Admiral Archers Beagle. The dog was lost. Yikes! 

At least, it wasn't a cat.

@martin-w  I think the test with the Admiral's dog was a simpler planet to planet test and not star system to star system.  Didn't go to well, that's why Scotty was transferred to Delta Vega to man the station with his little buddy Keenser

2 hours ago, martin-w said:

this is not about giving your life for a greater good. It's a transportation device, a way to get from a to b. And yes, I would say a person is indeed weird if they have no issue dying in the process of visiting Aunt Mabel. Dying to save others, or the planet or any other kind of laudable endeavor is obviously entirely different to mere transportation, and human beings can override their instinct for self-preservation in certain circumstances.   

Given the difficulty of the process, the energy required, etc, its less and less probable that any but the most power-rich super-civilizations' would be using a Star Trek style transporter, and 'probably' not simply to "Visit Aunt Mabel".

You'd conceivably see such a thing used for (perhaps) interstellar colonization (after forerunner robots/mechanisms had already established at least an initial bridgehead) at which point noble goals such as expansion of the species, not keeping all our eggs in one basket, exploration of the unknown etc begin to play into the endeavor and attract uhmmmmm...... 'weird' volunteers that would give anything to go to the stars.

Per aspera, ad astra!

Being a science fiction fan, I could probably write a small encyclopedia of rationalizations/justifications why some civilization might feel compelled to use a transporter either individually or en masse, or how even a far future society on earth with different belief systems and cultural norms might find existential squeamishness about using such devices immaterial, irrelevant, or even silly.

Yes as you said, all animals have a built-in instinct for self preservation, but one of the differences between an animal and a human is our ability to consciously override even the strongest instincts if presented with a good enough reason.

I agree.

I would add (again) that such a reason does not necessarily need to be one that is shared by every member of a given society.

3 hours ago, martin-w said:

But they are unlikely to kill themselves to simply visit Aunt Mabel. Its a transportation device, that's all.

See above. (but I would add that they indeed might!) I could imagine a society using such a device sparingly at first, then evolving increasing reasons to use it/them, perhaps in emergencies, and those uses evolving and expanding as the culture got used to the process and became desensitized to fears that might (eventually) become seen as irrelevant compared to the benefits of nearly instantaneous transportation.

On 11/29/2023 at 4:31 PM, HiFlyer said:

Assuming he was still around, he would own a private galaxy, or be living eternal godlike fantasys in a self created Matrix.... 🙃

I can't imagine Elon being anything other than a weirder incarnation of the mischievous "Q..." 

15 hours ago, dmwalker said:

At least, it wasn't a cat.

 

Exactly! 

 

15 hours ago, charliearon said:

I think the test with the Admiral's dog was a simpler planet to planet test and not star system to star system. 

 

Yep, it was. Apparently the transwarp beaming can beam to a star ship in warp drive, distant star systems or planet to planet.

 

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Transwarp_beaming#:~:text=Transwarp beaming was a transwarp,starship traveling at high warp.

Edited December 2, 20232 yr by martin-w

12 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

Given the difficulty of the process, the energy required, etc, its less and less probable that any but the most power-rich super-civilizations' would be using a Star Trek style transporter, and 'probably' not simply to "Visit Aunt Mabel".

 

It's not necessarily hugely power hungry to visit Aunt Mabel in the typical Trek  transporter range, Id say its more about computational power to encode all of the positions of all of those atoms and get them back in the right place. Huge power requirements would be more about transporting to other Star Systems (as you brought up earlier) and Aunt Mabel would be safely on Earth doing her knitting or making Mince Pies. And you'd be just popping in from relatively close to taste those lovely pies. In Star Trek of course the transporter is used daily to hop around the planetary surface and down to a planet from orbit. 

If such a thing was ever invented for the purpose of transporting to other Star Systems and mega huge energy requirements involved then it would be used for very important scenarios, planet threatening, existential threats, negotiating with the Feline Galactic Counsel who had become very annoyed with the quality of cat food fed to their representatives on Earth, you know, super important stuff... In which case a possible altruistic reason to kill oneself in the process of "going somewhere" might be manifest. Not good to disobey or annoy our feline rulers.  😾

 

12 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

You'd conceivably see such a thing used for (perhaps) interstellar colonization (after forerunner robots/mechanisms had already established at least an initial bridgehead) at which point noble goals such as expansion of the species, not keeping all our eggs in one basket, exploration of the unknown etc begin to play into the endeavor and attract uhmmmmm...... 'weird' volunteers that would give anything to go to the stars.

 

As I said previously... "Dying to save others, or the planet or any other kind of laudable endeavor is obviously entirely different to mere transportation, and human beings can override their instinct for self-preservation in certain circumstances."   

I would say it would be unlikely to be used for the purpose you mention. As far as we know, the science fiction version of the transporter would be limited to traveling at light speed. And perhaps we could speculate that a species capable of creating such a wonderous device would also have developed close to light speed spaceship travel and to me that would seem less risky than a matter stream being beamed many lightyears away, through dust and debris, radiation fields, etc. 

There is the Abrahams Trek invention of trans-warp beaming of course, which I guess is supposed to be FTL but that's just a deus ex machina contrived by the writers with no explanation of how it could work or any science behind it. 

 

12 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

Yes as you said, all animals have a built-in instinct for self preservation, but one of the differences between an animal and a human is our ability to consciously override even the strongest instincts if presented with a good enough reason.

 

That's exactly what I said...  😏

"Dying to save others, or the planet or any other kind of laudable endeavor is obviously entirely different to mere transportation, and human beings can override their instinct for self-preservation in certain circumstances." 

 

13 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

I could imagine a society using such a device sparingly at first, then evolving increasing reasons to use it/them, perhaps in emergencies, and those uses evolving and expanding as the culture got used to the process and became desensitized to fears that might (eventually) become seen as irrelevant compared to the benefits of nearly instantaneous transportation.

 

Well we only have ourselves as an example to go by. We have no idea what kind of species exist out there, if indeed they do at all. So we have no idea how their minds might work.

In terms of human beings, Its not about "fears" its about "fact". And  in my opinion, if people KNEW they were killing themselves if they used the device, then no, I don't think there's any way the vast majority would use it.

People don't become "desensitized" to killing themselves simply to get somewhere conveniently.  Giving their lives for a VERY important cause is something that human beings have been known to do, but no, not for just getting somewhere conveniently.

 

 

 

@martin-w 

"In Star Trek 2009 Scotty mentioned he tried to interplanetary transport Admiral Archer's prize begal. He lost it in subspace. Oops. But if it makes you feel any better, he found it again in between star trek 2009 and Star Trek into Darkness."