Teleportation...

[KHinfcube22]

Ok Tom, what Idea are you going for, M-Catz's, or Blikes? Or are you suggesting a completely new idea? Me, I'm nuetral. I think it all depends on the questioner.

[Tom Mattson]

Originally posted by KHinfcube22

Ok Tom, what Idea are you going for, M-Catz's, or Blikes? Or are you suggesting a completely new idea?

 

I am inclined towards materialism.

[M-CaTZ]

ok let me lay it out like this. Lets say i cut off my hand it place it on a desk 10 feet away. Thats transferring. Lets say i cut off my hand throw it in the trash and recreate one and put it on the desk 10 feet away, thats replicating. Even if there is not one iota of a difference in the make up, and its still on that desk, its not the same product, its duplicate that was replicated not transferred. AM I GETTING THROUGH NOW???

[blike]

Once again, you're getting hung up on irrelivant definitions of teleporting.

[M-CaTZ]

that is what this whole thread is about. TELEPORTING and what it is. and my whole arguement is that TELEPORTING AND REPLICATING ARE NOT THE SAME THING. how can you be so dense

[JaKiri]

Originally posted by M-CaTZ

how can you be so dense

 

Irony++

[Star-struck]

There isn't a clearly defined definition for teleportation. If you think there is, you have been watching too much Star Trek. Therefore, berating someone for thinking outside of this loosely defined box is not appropriate.

 

Teleportation per most peoples defination may not be possible. Deconstructing someone on the atomic level, transporting the atoms at an almost instantaneous speed, and reconstructing them elsewhere is pretty far fetched. This is the typical definition of "teleportation". Some other method, perhaps the one suggested in this post, may eventually be possible that will produce the desired end result of "teleportation" only by a different means. The end result should be the ability to transfer someone's consciousness vice their body. As long as you can recreate the person's consciousness you can "teleport" them this way. Afterall, the body is just the container for the consciousness. So, the fact that the body itself would be made up of entirely new atoms is irrelevant. The real question here is whether or not our consciousness is an energy free of matter or if it is irrevocably linked to the chemical bonds that form in the brain to make memories and thought. If it is the former then recreating the physical being elsewhere won't transport the "life force". Now lets inject an ethical question. Say you can "transport" someone in this way. Should you replace any damaged atoms during the reconstruction phase so as to rid the "traveller" of disease and aging?

[Sayonara]

For the last ****ing time, no matter if it's teleportation on Star Trek, teleportation in theoretical physics, or teleportation in the ancient lost city of Atlantis, the process could not and would not involve moving atoms from A to B.

 

All that is transmitted from A to B is the INFORMATION required to RECREATE the original object.

 

Anything else - as I have stated plainly before - is magic, and not science.

[Tom Mattson]

Originally posted by M-CaTZ

ok let me lay it out like this. Lets say i cut off my hand it place it on a desk 10 feet away. Thats transferring. Lets say i cut off my hand throw it in the trash and recreate one and put it on the desk 10 feet away, thats replicating. Even if there is not one iota of a difference in the make up, and its still on that desk, its not the same product, its duplicate that was replicated not transferred. AM I GETTING THROUGH NOW???

 

This is utterly irrelevant.

 

that is what this whole thread is about. TELEPORTING and what it is. and my whole arguement is that TELEPORTING AND REPLICATING ARE NOT THE SAME THING. how can you be so dense

 

You just don't get it.

 

This thread is about a thought experiment testing the materialist assumption that all of existence is material existence. The test is that if the exact physical state were duplicated, replicated, teleported, faxed, or whatever else you want to call it, that you would get a person with the exact same identity up till the point of duplication. No one gives a shit about the difference between teleportation and replication.

[Star-struck]

I feel you Tom! Some of these people get caught up in symantics and of having to be right all the time. There is no right or wrong when you are talking about something that doesn't exist outside of Hollywood! All science is magic until it can be done! Lightening was magic to Native Americans until science proved what it truly was. Maybe science will one day find a way to remove ego from an otherwise decent person. Imagine what they could accomplish if they weren't worried about being right all the time.

[KHinfcube22]

This form of teleportation...Might offend religious fanatics...Would the soul of one also be teleported? If you couldn't prove it was, than most people will only believe its cloning, nothing more...

[Tom Mattson]

Originally posted by KHinfcube22

This form of teleportation...Might offend religious fanatics...Would the soul of one also be teleported? If you couldn't prove it was, than most people will only believe its cloning, nothing more...

 

Actually, it's up to the religious fanatics to prove the existence of the soul. I see no reason to believe in souls or spirits.

[JaKiri]

Originally posted by KHinfcube22

This form of teleportation...Might offend religious fanatics...Would the soul of one also be teleported? If you couldn't prove it was, than most people will only believe its cloning, nothing more...

 

It depends what you mean by cloning.

 

And I've already commented on this SEVERAL TIMES

[KHinfcube22]

Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri

 

It depends what you mean by cloning.

 

And I've already commented on this SEVERAL TIMES

 

I know.....What I'm mean y cloning is the kind from The 6th Day..... thats all those religious fanatics will believe it is....Luckily I'm not into that stuff much......

[Guest Syntax]

If teleporting means that you're broken down into particles and moved to another location, why would replication be relevant? Also, if you're copied, and the original is destroyed, while the new copy is *exactly* the same, can that be a problem?

[KHinfcube22]

Originally posted by Syntax

If teleporting means that you're broken down into particles and moved to another location, why would replication be relevant? Also, if you're copied, and the original is destroyed, while the new copy is *exactly* the same, can that be a problem?

 

Not if the mind is based off of cells and chemicals and stuff....But not everyone is going to destroy the original if we made this thing.....There will be some hackers who will think it funny to have two of himselves....And some cheap lonely people........Oh wel....

[Halzman]

Heres how I look at teleportation.

 

Im in location A. I step into a machine that scans my body, gathers all the information (position of cells, characteristics, etc etc) while destroying the cells at the same time. In order to have an exact copy, the cell must be the same as it was when it was scanned. Then all that information is sent over to the transporter at location B. My body is then reassembled as it was when I was scanned at location A. Therefore, I have been teleported.

 

To me the soal is nothing more then our minds constant interaction with our environment. Yes, our soul is what makes us who we are, but its the interactions that we have that feed that information to our subconcious, which then relays the processed information to our conscious.

 

Cloning is completely different. Lets look at the same scenario i used to explain teleportation. For this method to be concidered cloning, would the person at Location A still remain after the person at location B arrived? The fact that I was destroyed while be scanned at location A, and then reassembled at location B clearly shows the act of teleportation, not cloning.

 

I actually just answered of mine by explaining transporting lol I watch alot of stargate/atlantis and i've always had an understanding of how transporters could work, but beaming technology always left me scratching my head. Now, i'm just thinking outloud over here. I would suspect that the best medium to scan/analyze an objects cells is a beam. Only the beam would shift quickly between scan/destroy, therefore obtaining the information and then destroying it immediatly. Now, in a transporter, this would be relatively simple since the transporter would most likely be some sort of platofmr or something that would have the equipment to do this. With beaming it gets trickier since you dont actually have the transporter platform. However, im guessing now that a higher powered/more directed beam could pinpoint an object (lets say from orbit) and carry out the same function - only difference is that there would be a delay in time from the light reaching the object on the planets surface, to the 'transporter information receiver' on a ship or w/e in orbit.

 

hmm... comments/ideas/suggestions?

[pljames]

If you copy the original words of Plato and then modify it with todays philosophy have you created a second philosophy or cloned the original thought? pljames

[Halzman]

you would created a second philosophy based on platos work.

[Citizen Zero]

The really scary thing about the concept of teleportation is that because the result would have all the same memories etc there is never any way to know prior to using a teleport whether or not you were going to your death.

 

It could be that your consiousness ends at the teleport entrance and a new one is created on the other side that acts in every way similar to you.

[Mokele]

The really scary thing about the concept of teleportation is that because the result would have all the same memories etc there is never any way to know prior to using a teleport whether or not you were going to your death.

 

Test it on animals. Teach a mouse a maze, teleport it, see if it still knows the maze.

 

It could be that your consiousness ends at the teleport entrance and a new one is created on the other side that acts in every way similar to you.

 

How is that not you?

 

Remember, your body is *not* constant. Every 7 years, it's a whole new you. Within 7 years, ever cell or molecule in your body has been shed, died, excreted, etc and replaced with a new cell or molecule. You 7 years ago has no atoms in common with you now.

 

Mokele

[Ndi]

It could be that your consiousness ends at the teleport entrance and a new one is created on the other side that acts in every way similar to you.

 

And the problem is?

 

As far as I can tell, what makes me "me" is the sum of all my memories, how I absorbed them, my genetic makeup; all factors that influence my decisions. I am me because I do things in a certain way. You do things differently, you tend to see and favor other arguments, thus forming a different opinion. In this case, I am me by disagreeing. Should we both be ... replicated, we'd still disagree. If not individuality, what are we?

 

When you MOVE a file from one computer to another, the physical info is read, transmitted, rewritten and the original deleted. As long as the second file is identical, it's the same for all known intents and purposes. Checking: move it back to where it was. Can anyone tell the difference? No. Does anyone care? No.

 

By this judgment, if I take a paper that has wet ink on it and smear it transporting it on the next desk is THE SAME, whereas faxing+destroying it is NOT the same, even if the second method is closer to what I intended.

 

Yes the molecules on the drive (of the moved file) would be different, and we will not be completely identical on the other side. But if we were to get into a car and drive there, friction with air, rubbing against the car, etc etc would still bring us different on the other side, perhaps more so (barring the memory of the travel, aging, etc). Teleportation would assure the same number of hairs on my head. A car would almost guarantee a different number. Why is teleporting "not the same" and driving so?

[woelen]

This entire discussion boils down to what is information and what is matter? The analogy between a file and a real-life object (be it a human, an animal or just dome dead matter) is flawed. Files only have meaning, because of the information they represent. How this information is stored physically does not matter, e.g. a file on a harddisk is stored in a totally different way than a file on a CD-ROM or a tape. Still we consider them the same, as long as the information, represented by them is the same.

With real-life objects, we also have information, but besides that, we have matter. Just from a physical point of view, there are already painstakingly large differences. Matter is conserved, matter is organized in elements (particles). Disappearance of the source and appearance of the copy at the remote end would violate physical laws.

What about the sole? Transferring that also would require violation of physical laws, whatever your religious beliefs. From a materialist/naturalist point of view it violates laws of physics, from a transcendental point of view it in addition violates laws of locality (which in some sense also is a violation of a physical law).

[Jon_Lyle]

As long as you didn't alert the fact that the dis-assembly of "you" was being replaced by a new assembly of "you" in such a manner that the collective conciousness of humanity (i.e. the majority of individual cognitive interpretations) realized that the latter "you" was in no way composed of any elements of the origional "you" (the blueprint of "you" not itself consisting of any physical elements of "you", but being in itself a separate reference only), you could be said to have been teleported. This being based on the idea that the identity of "you" can only be defined by what the collective consciousness of humanity depicts you as (in effect, your "soul"). Thereby, the latter "you", being the only "you", would have impressed upon it the "soul" and resulting characteristics of definition of "you" by the collective consciousness of humanity.

 

So, if you controlled the information (realization) of what has transpired in relation to the human majority, you will have teleported.

 

If, however, the information was not supressed (misreported) from that majority, then the collective consciousness would not accept or identify the new "you" as you and therefore the new "you" would not recieve the "soul" of the old "you" and would instead be imparted with a new soul, whose characteristics would be defined by the collective consciousness.

 

It is a matter of information/misinformation control. (or good salesmanship)

[padren]

The way I think of this is you need to break down two different concepts:

 

Instance, and Pattern

 

You copy a song and its the same song, because we identify the pattern as the identifier for songs.

 

If you copy or even transfer a song, while it may be the same song, it is definately a different instance - it exists in a different place in memory.

 

When we talk about people - what are we? Maybe we are just the Pattern and consciousness is all illusion, or maybe we are the Instance and every instance has a unique "observer" phenomenon we call consciousness.

 

 

In that way, both sides of this discussion are right - you can teleport/transfer/replicate a pattern. You can't teleport/transfer/replicate an instance. Those statements are both true.

 

Where we are differing I think, is on whether we should define a "person" as an instance or a pattern, and that is very much in the realm of philosophy and esoteric debates about consciousness.

 

My personal beliefs on that line are one of two possibilities:

A) Consciousness is an illusion and therefore, any two Instances of a person are effectively as interchangable as any two songs in terms of their relevance . * They are still different instances of course, written in different atoms instead of different bits of memory.

B) Whatever consciousness is tied to, even if it is as short lived as the life cycle of the cells in our bodies, or until we go to sleep or the whole length of our lives, is tied intransferrably to the instance and not the pattern, and if you teleport you die and a clone is created. No one would know - not even your clone - but you would die.