A new news article has been published at TrekToday: In a short video at Star Trek.com, Ethan Peck and Rebecca Romijn answered several fan questions about Star Trek. “What kind of... Continue reading...
That video should be titled Ethan Peck asks and Rebecca Romijn answers (as that's the majority of how it played out - Peck moved on without answering much.)
Quoted from the interview: I have to agree with that. I'd love a transporter. Especially when I'm stuck in traffic. Boston traffic in my case.
I have to say, Trnsporter technology would be sometjhing I wouldn't use. Why? It pretty clear from the duplication incidents we've seen with Kirk (TOS) and Riker (TNG) that you are effectively destroyed and recreated eveytime you use it. Meaning the unique consciousness that is 'you' is destroyed and another consciousness is created; but since it has all the memories of the previous cnsciousness; it acts normally and thinks it always was the original consciousness.
That makes sense except when it's Barclay having a look around mid-transport and grabbing floating sausage crewmen in "Realm of Fear." That episode made demolecularization look like nothing at all, in terms of overall cohesion of self during the process.
Well, there are two different theories of consciousness. One is "continuity identity theory" and holds that consciousness is one particular thing bound up in your physical structure. Create a new physical structure (transporter clone, mind uploading, etc) and eliminate the original, and you're dead. The other, "pattern identity theory" holds that consciousness is a pattern of memories and programs inside the body. In this case consciousness can be copied, transmitted, uploaded, etc without any perceptual death. In this case, transporter clones are you, and there's nothing to worry about. Interestingly, if the latter is true, and the universe is infinite (which most physicists believe is the case) then none of us likely ever experience personal oblivion. I say this because in an infinite universe everything physically possible is happening somewhere, which includes someone creating what happens to be a perfect copy of your mind at the moment of death.
I'm not going to lie. Sometimes people act like I can be in two places at once, so I wouldn't mind having a double.
I had a double called Eddy, the reason I know that is because I had been stopped in supermarkets, in the street etc and asked how I was doing, and apparently it was good to see me "out" (Jail, I presume) I even had a very tidy female coming onto me in the queue at the Post Office before she realised that I was not in fact, Eddy. Very strange