A classic debate: Is a transporter a suicide machine?

[DrMclony]

I always love reading these threads!

One thought I have - if you were to ask this question when such a device existed, then one proof would be to simply attend the arrival of a telleported person. If they double over as soon as they appear, screaming "J*&*& Suffering F*** Blo*** SH!!! That HURTS!" then there is a fair bet it is the same person, because they felt themselves being disintegrated while still alive.

If however, they appear standing there, all smiles and goofy looking, as though nothing at all has just happened to their shiny new body, then run, because they are clearly some kind of quantum zombie, and not the person you were hoping to collect from the transporter room.

And your friend, (I say as I load my shotgun) well, they're already dead. *BAMMM!*

 

[farntfar]

There are in fact two answers to this question and they are both in the end the same.

We are agreed, I think, that the physical entity, the hunk of meat if you like is transported; its molecules are "energised", ie converted into transportable energy, and then "materialised", or converted back into matter, in exactly the same arrangement.
Whether the molecules are the same ones or an exact copy is largely unimportant.

The real question is whether the life that is contained in those molecules, or at the very least associated to those molecules is transported.

So the first answer is that that life is a function of that arrangement of molecules (to a quantum level if you like, and assuming they are created/recreated to this level in the copy)
Thus the life is recreated exactly as before and I am who I always was after the transport.

The second answer is that the molecules are transferred but the spirit/soul/spark of life/incorporial consciousness is detatched from the original body.

If you believe in a separate and incorporeal entity which holds the life essence, I think you will find it unreasonable to assume the creation of a new copy of the body would automatically create a new spirit (implying the spirit is a function purely of the body.), so the only way to have the transported person alive is to reattach the spirit to the new body.
Thus the association of my detatched spirit and my new body is the only way for me to continue to be alive.
I am again in all ways me on the planet's surface. My molecules are identical if not the same, my spirit is the same, but my hands are perhaps slightly cleaner.


If on the other hand the spirit is not attached you have a new meat statue of me on the planet's surface with no life, no old me in the Enterprise, my spirit wails quietly to itself in the infinite void and the rest of you take the shuttle.

 

[Ursa major]

We are agreed, I think, that the physical entity, the hunk of meat if you like is transported; its molecules are "energised", ie converted into transportable energy, and then "materialised", or converted back into matter, in exactly the same arrangement.

Exactly. Most transporter transfers we get to see have a transporter at one end (either at the origination of the transfer or at the destination) and nothing at all at the other. The "destruction" is actually deconstruction.

Two examples of this are:

1. What happens to Nomad in the ST:TOS season 2 episode, The Changeling. Nomad, about to blow up, is beamed into space where, reconstituted, it explodes. If the transporter worked by destroying the original and then creating a copy, why would they bother to do the second operation at all?
2. Similarly -- in the episode, Wolf in the Fold -- Spock points out that if Redjac survived the dispersion beaming (into space), each individual part of it will drift helplessly through space until the creature finally perishes. It would be simpler not to beam the "destroyed" creature anywhere, simply leave it "destroyed" if that was what the transporter did to the original.

 

[LordOfWizards]

I read in the car (unless I'm driving) or on the bus or train. Not giving more than minimal attention to the process of getting from where I am to where I m going. So however a transporter works, I'd use it! (Provided I believed I was me when I arrived) This coupled with my strong will to live biases my opinion to the side of "no! Not a suicide booth. I don't care if it's magic or tech or what, I'm the me at the other end of the telepoter beam."

Okay, I get it. Why not enjoy the journey, right?

But if it's a case of recording and teleporting an energy pattern (information) where's the necessity in removing the original?

To get there faster. As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, the writers of Star Trek didn't have enough airing time (length of the show) to deal with so many shuttle trips down to the surface and back. Much like you and I would likely use our car to get groceries from a mile away rather than walk.

And if you don't remove the original, then either you have an original with awareness in their original body and the new body at the same time (which I can't rule out, but which seems less likely), or you have two individuals with separate awareness.

And if the latter, then killing the original at that point would result in the death of the original's awareness; their awareness wouldn't then suddenly "jump" to the copy. And since there is no difference in that scenario from the removal of the original at the time of the copy's creation, that makes the transporter a suicide machine as far as the original's awareness is concerned (though it creates a copy that believes it is a continuation of the original).

As I think Farntfar kind of pointed out, there are two camps here in the thread. Those who believe that you cannot separate one's 'self' from the physical body, and those who believe they are indeed two different things altogether. So there is no killing going on. Merely suspension. My point of view (and that's all it is - I have no proof) is that we simultaneously record and capture both the physical body and what I'm calling the 'energy pattern' (the personality) and transport them both to the new location in one piece, unharmed, giggling or perhaps itchy, but very much the same exact person. No cloning, no copies, just moving from one place to another.

 

[farntfar]

what I'm calling the 'energy pattern' (the personality)

Ah well, that's quite interesting.
If you say that the personality is an energy pattern rather than a physical thing, that falls in nicely with my second idea. The physical body can be a copy of the original physical body and therefore not transferred, merely recreated, while the energy pattern would be actually trasferred (possibly as a modulation of the transporter beam). Therefore the life/personality/spirit/energy pattern remains in tact.

Parson, Hope et al would you accept that the spirit is essential energetic and therefore capable of transport in this way, or does this remove it's mystery? (This may sound like I'm taking the mick, but I'm not.)

 

[hopewrites]

No, I'll agree to that. I feel I've already agreed to that, so I'm happy to agree again or for the first time.

 

[farntfar]

Thank you. Thank you. Nay, thrice thank you.