When a person is beamed up it's not the same person

Not if he turned into Quark's bar.

 

It is in the best interest of the creator of the transporter to have a biased view on the matter.

Riker1 and Riker2 unambiguously PROVED the transporter duplicates a person and - normally - then kills the original.
This is reuquired for the transporter to do what it did in 'Second chances'

You can try as many technobabble evasive arguments as you wish. Even a superficial analysis of such arguments will reveal they make no sense.
For example:
"It's sort of like converting water into steam and then converting that steam back into water again."
So - you transform a drop of liquid water into steam and then into liquid water again.
And how, in this process, do you obtain two liquid drops of water, each identical to the initial drop of water?

 

I don't think the analogy quite works though. At all times the water molecules are water molecules whether they are in liquid form or gaseous form. If you boil the constituent parts of a human into liquid form is that human alive or are they just a dead pile of liquid chemicals? When someone is transported their molecules are converted from matter to energy. If the physical object ceases to exist as matter, the person is physically dead. Their heart is no longer pumping (as they no longer have a heart) and there is no brain activity (as they no longer have a brain) - by any definition that person is no longer alive.

Just because the same sub-atomic particles are used to reconstruct the person doesn't make it the same person that was deconstructed. Genetically and biologically the person is the same and they have the same memories as when they were deconstructed because the transporter (hopefully) reproduces all the chemical signatures that are in the pattern buffer. Nevertheless, I think it must be a copy because nobody has yet been able to explain to me how a person can remain alive without a brain.

We must also be aware that the original writers' understanding of how memory and human consciousness works was nowhere near as comprehensive as it is today. Recent studies into Alzheimers and memory formation are giving us a greater understanding and the romanticised assumption that human consciousness is independent of our bodies is on far shakier scientific grounds.

It's no different to putting your mind in a robot body. All you are doing is duplicating your memories so that the robot 'thinks' it is the original. The original is still dead.

This is also no different to rejuvenating Spock. He duplicated the chemical signatures of his memories in Bones' brain and they were then re-encoded into his new body but surely nobody can believe that regenerated Spock is anything other than a copy?

 

Okay. Let me ask you this then: If you are a copy when you go thru the transporter, then where does the transporter get the similar (but not original) materials needed to reproduce you? A copy of something suggests that it requires additional new materials in order to make that new copy. The transporter doesn't create new matter, or new matter from the code it is given: It simply reconverts (re-materializes) that matter back into it's original state. I mean, your suggesting that the transporter is a replicator. However, the replicator cannot create living organisms, though. Otherwise the Federation would have found a way to compress the genetic code of live chickens, baby pigs, and fish inside the network of computers on board the ship for the replicators within the 24th Century then.

I mean, think about it for a second. Whenever you make a copy of something, you need to have additional materials in order to make it. Your basically saying that the transporter makes an imitation of the original. Then how on Earth does it know to create new materials that don't quite match up with the original? If it recreates the original in perfect detail and is perfectly identical to the original... then it is the original and not a copy. Which means that the original is simply a conversion from matter to energy and then back to matter again.

I mean, it's sort of like the black female version of "Captain Marvel". She has the ability to transform from her normal flesh like self and into an energy state and then back again.

http://comicbookdb.com/character.php?ID=3253

She isn't another new copy every time she transforms.

Also, you would think that by the 24th Century, they would have addressed this issue within any of the series or films that you are indeed an actual copy (and not the original). I mean, seriously. No where within any of the series is it said that you are a copy. And I don't think Star Trek will ever come out and admit to that fact because it would sort of degrade or cheapen the characters existence (by having them be transporter clones).

I mean, I can sort of see by looking at "Second Chances" that you could suggest that the transporter is a clone maker. But, that was a special circumstance of the transporter re-materializing one person twice in perfect detail that was indistinguishable from the original.

Now, if you can bring me evidence or point to something within the series that proves that the Riker that stepped onto the transporter pad is physically different from the two Rikers that that later came out of the transporter....

Well then that would be different. Until then, you guys are just speculating.


Side Note:

Also, concerning the death issue with the transporter: Well, many people have died and come back to life through out history. Doesn't make them a clone or anything when they come back to the land of the living.

 

In addition, this scene from "Realm of Fear" further proves that transporters are not doppelganger makers.

______________________________________________________

BARCLAY
(re: transporter)
If I didn't know so much about
these things... maybe they
wouldn't scare me so much...

O'Brien continues working. Barclay sighs.

BARCLAY
I can still remember the day in
Doctor Olafson's class on
Transporter Theory when he talked
about the body being converted
into billions of kiloquads of
data... zipping through
subspace... and I realized,
there's no margin for error. One
atom out of place and poof! You
never come back...
(beat)
It's amazing people don't get lost
all the time.

O'Brien gives him a look.

O'BRIEN
With all due respect sir -- I've
been doing this for twenty-two
years, and I haven't lost anybody
yet.

Barclay considers -- he won't let it go.


BARCLAY
Yes, but... you realize if these
imaging scanners are off by even
a thousandth of a percent --

O'BRIEN
(right back at him)
That's why each pad has four
redundant scanners. If any one
scanner fails, the other three
take over.

Geordi looks at Barclay.


GEORDI
How many Transporter accidents
have there been in the last ten
years, Reg? Two... three? What
about the millions of people who
transport every day without a
problem?

Barclay thinks for a moment... he's feeling better,
but still...

BARCLAY
I've... I've heard about
problems... what about...
Transporter Psychosis?

O'BRIEN
(reacts)
Transporter Psychosis -- there
hasn't been a case of that in over
fifty years. Not since they
perfected multiplex pattern
buffers.

GEORDI
Transporting really is the safest
way to travel, Reg.
​

______________________________________________________

Okay, for one: Reg says if he didn't know so much about the transporters then they wouldn't scare him so much. In other words, Reg would have known about the transporters turning him into a copied version of himself. So if this was true and he did know that, he would never use the transporter in a million years then.


Secondly, Reg says that the transporters are a very precise piece of machinery...

"I can still remember the day in Doctor Olafson's class on Transporter Theory when he talked about the body being converted into billions of kiloquads of data... zipping through subspace... and I realized, there's no margin for error. One atom out of place and poof! You never come back..."

He essentially says that there is no room for the transporter to adapt or create a copy that is not unlike the original. If even one atom is out place you don't come back. In other words: This suggests that ALL YOUR ATOMS are in place and perfectly re-materialized with identical precision and detail. There is no margin for error. And the transporter doesn't have back up DNA files to create new matter or new material that is similar to the original pattern. The transporter doesn't re-materialize the person using materials it doesn't have. It is simply converting the matter back to it's original state after the energy transfer. In other words: if you are exactly like the original person that stepped onto the transporter pad to begin with... Then you are identical and indistinguishable to the original and not a copy.

A copy of something suggests that it is no longer identical to the original anymore. And we know that there is no difference between the person who stepped onto the transporter pad and the person who ends up later re-materializing.

 

The transporter converts the matter in your body to energy, then sends that energy somewhere and reconverts that energy back into matter, right?

Energy is energy, regardless of what sort of matter was used to create it. And they have a vast amount of energy in the Warp Core. Why not use that to top up the transport system as required?

 

Yes - in order to copy a human being, one needs to have all information that describes this person (down to the quantum level, apparently) and one needs to have a huge amount of energy to 'build' the copy from scratch.

In 'Second chances' the transporter did exactly that. Riker1 AND Riker2.
Riker1 and Riker2 may be identical, physically and mentally - but they're different persons - twins, if you will. This becomes evident when you consider that one is on the Enterprise and one in a cardassian prison. This becomes evident when you put them in the same room and see that they're two distinct persons, not one person.

And, given the incredible precision work and huge energies needed to copy a human, a random phenomenon can't explain the EXACT copying of a person satisfactorily.
A random phenomenon would result in two puddles of organic goo that were once Riker.

O'Brien's or the transporter inventor's technobabble is inconsistant with what WE KNOW the transporter can do - copy a human being.

 

I think this is where the Trek Tech gets fuzzy. You have to go beyond the semantics and question how this could actually work within the laws of Trek science.

You convert the person into 'data' or rather matter that used to make up the person (converted to energy) and data (the original pattern in order to reconstruct the person) which is sent on a subspace carrier wave. The person no longer exists (except as data). The energy is formed from the matter that used to be the person but isn't the person any more than if you boiled them down to mush in in a vat AND we know that an infusion of energy can allow a person to be duplicated (Kirk & Riker). The data pattern tells you how to reconstruct the person but is just information - there is no consciousness there. At the other end the transporter takes the energy, reconverts it to matter using the data pattern and the person is back with their memories intact - but only because chemical signatures have been inserted into the reconstructed brain from the data pattern. They appear to be the same person but they are just a facscimile reconstructed from data.

Are there is any Trek citations that say that a person's brain activity is somehow preserved in the matter stream e.g. within an energy matrix that can be transported as distinct from their pattern being preserved as with Scotty? If so, then one could argue that the transporter transports the consciousness into a cloned body but I'm not sure how that might work.

I think it is more likely that people in 23rd century understand that people are simply a combination of DNA and their experiences. To them the real person does step off the pad. It's also why Decker can still feel for Ilia Probe.

 

The memories, heart, and soul of a person continues on in a person after transport.

Just as people die and come back from the dead. So do people in transporters.

If one atom is off. Your not coming back.
So the transporter cannot add anything then what it is given. It cannot leave anything out either.

So if the transporter transports every atom of you identically as it states.... and you are indeed identical to the original after transport... then you are just as much the original person who stepped onto the transporter pad and not a copy.

A copy usually suggests that it is something that is of lesser quality or a close imitation of the original. The person who ends up re-materializing on the other side is just as identical to the person who de-materialized.

That's not a copy.

 

No. Every scene within Star Trek needs to be considered and not ignored. You are twisting around what the series tells us about transporters. Pure and simple.

Give me some evidence that shows me different.
So far I have cited numerous examples within the series. So far your theories are just that. Theories. They are not based on anything that is actually within the show itself.

 

The memories heart and soul are not transported though. The heart is broken down to energy and the memories are stored in some kind of computerised format. Further, although the person is ordinarily reconstructed from the energy that made them up orignally, this doesn't have to be the case. The transporter can reconstruct a person from any energy it has to hand - it just isn't designed to do that as standard.

Far more than a molecule can be out too. Kirk's DNA was royally screwed (so his molecules were not the same) and while this was actually killing him slowly, he lived for some time before it became essential to go back and recombine the pattern.

Interestingly, I'm not sure how that worked. I'm not sure how they saved Sulu in the New Voyages story off the top of my head. They may have used the scan from his last physical? In any event, when he came back, his memories were re-set to the last time that scan was taken. This may be fanwank but it fits with the notion that the transporter is just spouting out a copy based on the information it has to hand.

 

I think the restrictions on producing duplicates could be legal as much as anything else.

 

Proof? Already done:

"Yes - in order to copy a human being, one needs to have all information that describes this person (down to the quantum level, apparently) and one needs to have a huge amount of energy to 'build' the copy from scratch.

In 'Second chances' the transporter did exactly that. Riker1 AND Riker2.
Riker1 and Riker2 may be identical, physically and mentally - but they're different persons - twins, if you will. This becomes evident when you consider that one is on the Enterprise and one in a cardassian prison. This becomes evident when you put them in the same room and see that they're two distinct persons, not one person.

And, given the incredible precision work and huge energies needed to copy a human, a random phenomenon can't explain the EXACT copying of a person satisfactorily.
A random phenomenon would result in two puddles of organic goo that were once Riker."

 

So, a person who's transported is reconstructed from a template taken at the moment of dematerialisation, using the energy derived from his original mass.

If that template is saved in the computer's memory, what's to stop anyone from using energy from the warp core to build another fully functioning person?

That's essentially how replicators are said to work, isn't it?

 

Pauln6:

Let's see. Every character I have ran into within the show had retained their memories after transporting many times. Also, they didn't seem to be any different than when they first went through either. Also, characters have went thru the transporters and have traveled to their spiritual places (i.e. Sisko) after transport.

I mean, the wormhole aliens didn't say to Sisko... "Ummm where are the other Siskos at?"

No. The wormhole aliens treated Sisko as the one and only being.

Your theory just doesn't hold water man. Not in light of the series anyways.

No. Each atom has to be replicated identically in it's right place. Otherwise there is going to be serious problems. And there was no mention that the transporter had ever added it's own data to a person to compensate for a person's pattern. You either have the whole person or you don't.

Right. This is true. But that was a rare and special case. Normally, you end up dying if the transporter doesn't get your atoms in the right place. Thus why Kirk was slowly dying.

The transporter in the normal Star Trek universe doesn't operate that way. Patterns normally degrade in the memory buffer if it is not transported after a certain point of time. Only Scotty was able to rig a system to keep himself sustained inside the memory buffer once. But that was because he was able to do something special to it.

However, let's hypoethicalty say that something like that did happen. The transporter is still re-materializing the exact replica of whatever exact DNA or molecules it was given. If it was a copy it would create something close to whatever DNA or molecules it scanned. However, seeing the transporter creates an indistinguishable replica of the original person or thing that was transported during transport... it is still the original because it hasn't been changed.

I mean, one could say that you are not the same person in 10 years from now because you age physically, mentally, and have shed and re-grown numerous skin cells.

In fact, you could even die, and come back from the dead. You could even lose your short term memory. However, that doesn't make you a copy of what you used to be though. You are still the same person.

Although people will argue that you are not the same person anymore because you have changed so much over the years.

Proto Avatar:

Twisting the meaning of what happened within ONE episode and pointing to ONE occurrence when you ignore everything else is not evidence.

 

Oh, and again, just to be clear: a copy is something that is not the original anymore. Like a song on a CD: the song is now a copy of the tune played in real time. The only way to hear that first original song that was being played for the first time is to be there when it originally happened (when it was being recorded).

Seeing the person who ends up on the other side of the transporter is indistinguishable (mentally and physically) from the person who went into into it from the start: They are essentially identical and not a copy.

Copies (like with clones) usually have a loss of quality or some type of noticeable degradation of some kind to set it apart from the original. That is not the case when it comes to the transporters. Otherwise the doctors of the 24th Century would have picked up on this important piece of information and limit how much a person could transport.

Now, my side of the argument is just my opinion of course. So please don't take it personally guys. I am just reporting my experience of how the transporter works in light of all of the information given to me by all of the series and not within just one episode.

 

Just a couple of observations-

1) I don't think you're using "copy" by the standard definition.

2) Based on the above, I'd say that, using your terminology, in Second Chances two originals of Will Riker were created. Or whatever you'd use to avoid the term "copy".

 

Yes and no. It appears that because molecules are not static e.g. electrons move, blood moves, brain neurons fire etc, the only way to rebuild a live person is using Heisenberg Compensators from a very recent pattern. I think this is why a second copy can't ordinarily be produced - the system cannot generate enough energy through a single confinement beam unless some outside source buggers this up. Replicators produce only inanimate matter so they don't have this problem.

Scotty's jury-rig was a rare exception preventing a pattern from degrading - it's not something that would be possible in the normal running of the ship and we should probably forget it.

SPOILERS: In the New Voyages story (World and Enough Time I or something - great story btw) Sulu was out of phase with time and lived for years down on a planet before being beamed back up as a middle-aged man. I cannot recall exactly how they did it but they used an earlier scan and integrated it with the transporter to edit him back into current space time. Because the earlier pattern's brain did not contain his recent memories, he 'forgot' the events that happened down on the planet i.e. it was an earlier copy of Sulu that was re-materilaised.

This concurs with how I understand the transporter to work apart from the rapid degradation in the buffer. I can't recall exactly how they managed to overscome that problem or edit the current template to return to its earlier state but according to the writers of that particular story, it was a possibility.

 

The wormhole aliens existed outside linear time and at any one point in time there was only one Sisko.

Up to a point I agree with what you are saying. For all intents and purposes they are the same person in the same way that regenerated Spock was the same person. However, the reality is that they just APPEAR to be the same person because they have been reconstructed with the same DNA and the same memories. Technically, they are still copies.

If the transporter opened up a subspace corridor that they could step through, it would be the same person. However, their matter is destroyed and converted to energy. A living carbon life form cannot survive that!

The buffer degradation is a problem and I can't remember how New Voyages (now Phase II) overcame it. They are pretty hot on this sort of thing though - I'm sure they came up with something (like super-imposing his most recent medical scan into the transporter and letting the system integrate the old scan with the live pattern in the buffer). One assumes this must be a dangerous procedure that you would only attempt as a last resort to avoid it becoming an easy-fix fountain of youth.