Is the Transporter still 'killing' people in Discovery?

[Sci-fi fan]

Ever since I realized dematerialization is effectively death and reassembly I can't get it out of my head when I see transporting in Trek sometimes. Don't they at least get an extreme existential fear at that point? I'm sure they would never do it if they felt that way.

So I wonder if that part of the lore has been revisited lately. Alternatively, maybe their ethics are so high they don't care (i.e. "we'll all die anyway" or "we are in a constant quantum flux anyway, which is similar to death"). Then again, no race in trek fears it.

 

[Cyrus]

Is this Dr Mccoy posting?

 

[Tuskin38]

Ever since I realized dematerialization is effectively death and reassembly I can't get it out of my head when I see transporting in Trek sometimes. Don't they at least get an extreme existential fear at that point? I'm sure they would never do it if they felt that way.

It has never been that way in Star Trek.

In fact we've seen episodes where people were aware of the process happening.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

The transporter kills people when the plot deems it necessary. I'm sure we'll see someone die in a transporter accident in DSC as soon as it's required.

 

[Sci-fi fan]

It has never been that way in Star Trek.

In fact we've seen episodes where people were aware of the process happening.

I know, but that's extremely unrealistic. e.g. on this series' last episode we see a Burnam that is extremely involved with her personal feelings and personal life and personal relationships with other people. Doesn't a person like that have a personal fear of stopping existing? Because it's clear, if the transporter works the way it's usually assumed or told to work, it's a clear death + reconstruction.

Lore could be reconstructed to rectify that. e.g. "It's a direct transport without any dematerialization".

However even in that case, it would still be a temporary death. Then again, come to think of it, in this real world, something similar happens every single moment. Due to quantum flux we practically die every moment! and then become alive again.

 

[Sci-fi fan]

The transporter kills people when the plot deems it necessary. I'm sure we'll see someone die in a transporter accident in DSC as soon as it's required.

That's not what I meant. I'm talking about the effective death of people by the mere technology dematerializing living bodies, at least temporarily.

 

[Tuskin38]

I know, but that's extremely unrealistic.

So it's Star Trek.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

So it's Star Trek.

This.

 

[BeatleJWOL]

Science fiction is all about "what if", so let me posit this to you.

dematerialization is effectively death and reassembly

What if it's not, tho?

 

[Balok's Decoy]

Technically yes, every time someone gets in a transporter, they die and an exact copy of them with all their memories and thoughts and so on are recreated by pulling resources out of the universe and remaking them exactly. So it's not the you who got in the transporter, sort of. It wouldn't be energy efficient to beam your particles through space. However, if like me you subscribe to the philosophy that all reality is basically the same once you get down to the nuts and bolts and strip away all the surface pretense, there's no difference between anything really, that everything is ultimately just a manifestation of a single "thing" we call Reality, then you're not really dying and you're not really being "remade." Because you are both a part of everything, a manifestation of everything, and everything itself.

 

[Tuskin38]

Except, it isn't a copy. They're turned into energy and transferred to your destination. It's their original atoms/molecules.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And we've seen the transport process from the POV of the person being transported ("Realm of Fear"), and conversations being carried on mid-transport (ST II), so that's yet more evidence that you're not killed.

 

[XCV330]

Cars are extremely dangerous but we get into them every day. I commute to work on a motorcycle most days, if I'm not taking someone else, somewhere. I understand that no matter how well I ride, I'm one distracted driver from going to the hospital or worse. All life entails a certain amount of risk and you put up with it because you're mortal and you know no matter what happens our species mortality rate remains 100%.

As for the transporter thing, cogito ergo boom. In Star Trek-ian Logic there is something that prevents it from being a cloning machine, even though the same technology can make you burritos all day. Maybe they have some panpsychism understanding in the future where consciousness is a property of energy/matter but only manefests itself precisely under extremely precise conditions and is impossible except for extremely odd Tom-Rikerish circumstances to replicate.

Otherwise unscrupulous people would be transport copying loved ones and freezing then cryo to bring out later in case of accident, etc. Why would the dominion bother with growing jem hadar when they could just transport them. The Transporter is one of the more fantasy devices on the show, always has been. It made a lot of scenes possible that wouldn't have been otherwise.

 

[Spider]

For the purposes of this discussion, someone should define what life is, something which has eluded the scientific community so far.

And don't give me any of that "it's like porn, I'll know it when I see it" shit. LOL

 

[Sci-fi fan]

Except, it isn't a copy. They're turned into energy and transferred to your destination. It's their original atoms/molecules.

That means little. You are made of elementary particles too. If I take your carbons and your hydrogens and whatnot and keep them in bottles, are you alive?

And we've seen the transport process from the POV of the person being transported ("Realm of Fear"), and conversations being carried on mid-transport (ST II), so that's yet more evidence that you're not killed.

That means nothing. People can instantly die during conversation. Instantly be recreated.

 

[Sci-fi fan]

For the purposes of this discussion, someone should define what life is, something which has eluded the scientific community so far.

To be fair, the most interesting part about this discussion is that in our real too we are also sort of "dying every single moment" like in a Trek transporter. This is because due to quantum indeterminacy and other similar effects there is never "true 100% coherence" of what a human being is. In effect we are "robots made in nature" and momentarily or in the microcosm of quantum mechanics there is no literal life other than that what we are happens to give the external characteristics of what life is (self-preservation, and the like).

 

[Balok's Decoy]

And we've seen the transport process from the POV of the person being transported ("Realm of Fear"), and conversations being carried on mid-transport (ST II), so that's yet more evidence that you're not killed.

This presumes that consciousness is fixed within matter.

 

[Kevman7987]

The transporter works whatever way the plot demands. In the past it's made exact copies and destroyed the originals; it's sent the original matter; it's turned matter into energy and back again; it's somehow sent people whole without any dis-assembly. The Star Trek transporter is essentially magic to avoid landing ships every week. Sometimes "it's TV magic" is the only sensible answer.

 

[Tuskin38]

That means little. You are made of elementary particles too. If I take your carbons and your hydrogens and whatnot and keep them in bottles, are you alive?

Stop trying to see this from a real world perspective and from the perspective of the TV show and its writers.

Star Trek has never said you die, so you don't in this universe.

Suspension of disbelief.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

The Star Trek transporter is essentially magic to avoid landing ships every week.

Necessity (and budgets) are the mother of invention.