Turning someone into energy = killing them.
The safety of Transporters.. Tmp and more.
- Thread starter valkyrie013
- Start date
Where Trek lore is concerned, the notion that the transporter is 100% and unquestionably fatal... doesn't work. This is because, while Trek doesn't affiliate itself with any traditional religion, it does adhere to the belief that people have souls. They might be called katras, or essences, or whatever. But they seem to be what defines whether a person is alive or deceased. Remember that Spock and Dr. Culber were able to return from the grave because their souls were preserved, Spock's in McCoy's head and Culber's in the mycelium network.
Since a person's katra/essence/soul remains with them in transport, we must assume that they survive the trip.
Since a person's katra/essence/soul remains with them in transport, we must assume that they survive the trip.
Eh?
Trek seemed to have emphasized more the notion of consciousness rather than the soul when it came to most SF officers.
The notion of a 'soul' was usually used in a discussion that was of more spiritual or religious make, but tended to be discarded for the most part as something unlikely (as it should have been). Of course, this has in turn been 'mocked' by some characters who described it as short sighted... but to me, I find that clinging to a concept as ridiculous as a 'soul' to be short sighted.
If you ask me, the notion of a soul should be something Trek would be best to discard... unless its talked about within the religious or spiritual frame... not scientific one.
Its annoying to say the least and highly unscientific when a Trek scientist goes on to mention the word 'soul' to provide an emotional context (which its how its often used)... I'm becoming increasingly allergic to these messups in Trek (which I know can do a lot better when it tries).
Preservation of consciousness within Trek works from a more in universe scientific point of view, and Spock can be explained using Telepathy as a biological transfer mechanism into another brain (at the time McCoy's) which is able to sustain that information [albeit temporarily] much like its discussed today of transferring human consciousness into a computer so we can continue to live in a virtual environment of our own choosing and further minimise chances of biological death resulting in permanent loss of consciousness - even biological immortality doesn't insulate our bodies against being smashed, exploded or something else... because our bodies are not indestructible after all - or at least, not YET... and besides, according to actual science, 'soul' as a concept doesn't really exist.
There is actually a difference between 'soul' and consciousness... they are NOT interchangeable terms... something Trek writers (and people) should probably pay more attention to.
Culber's consciousness apparently never dissipated because of Stamets who was connected to the mycelial network at the time Culber's physical death and served as a biological conduit which transferred Culber's consciusness/data into the mycelial network which was able to reconstitute him there from that information by essentially using energy to matter conversion principles (like what 24th century replicators were described to do).
Soul as a concept had little or nothing to do with any of that... and I don't recall the word 'soul' being used in this context.
I also don't like how cavalier Trek has become in interchanging words that have clear distinctions in real life just for the sake of making things 'easier' on an audience that doesn't know the distinction... it just creates more confusion and nonsense... but then again, Trek IS a fictional show - however, that shouldn't be an excuse.
I think that Trek can and should do better.
What's even worse, Disco made better use of real life science compared to other Trek series, but it also had large problems with incorrect use of terminologies that had massive differences between them (especially in S2 and 3).
As for the person surviving the trip through the transporter and continue to remain who they are... well, that's much more easily explained with a consciousness rather than a 'soul'.
If the sum of who we are is contained within our bodies, our past experiences etc... the Trek transporter simply converts the body into an energy and pushes it to another location... the body actually maintains cohesion, just in energy form (at least temporarily - its effectively PHASED out of existence during this time) before its re-assembled into an exactly the same way it was when the transport started.
Loss of consciousness doesn't really occur when you're in the Trek transporter.
'Soul' doesn't really work in this context... otherwise, one would have to aply some kind of ludicrous properties that a 'soul' is bound to your physical body and moves with it until the point of its death... and this wouldn't hold up to snuff if the body gets converted into energy. At that point, what's the soul to 'latch on to' specifically? Nothing. In that small moment while the body is phased into energy, the 'soul' would likely cease to be connected to the physical body, resulting in actual 'death' of the person... and yet that doesn't happen.
Applying some kind of metaphisical property to the body just so the 'soul' would be given credibility seems nonsensical to me.
Even Janeway wasn't that stupid when she fought off that alien creature in Coda with strong determination and desire to live. She had a hard time accepting the premise the 'soul' exists... least of all that it was her father who appeared to her.
And the alien described his domain as a matrix... quite an interesting term... which alludes to the premise of a container that is capable of transferring and maintaining a consciousness/information of a biologically deceased human.
Yet another form of technology and science really... nothing spiritual or religious about it.
For the straight-faced use "soul" in Star Trek to mean the essence of a person, see for example The Search for Spock and "The Measure Of A Man."
And has been demonstrated repeatedly in Trek to be movable from the body itself. Kirk, and Chakotay are both examples of humans experiencing this, which means it is difficult to dismiss this as alien oddness, like with Spock.
If your emoji is in response to the broken photo link, the photo was the cover of "The Physics of Star Trek" by Lawrence M. Kraus (who talks about this subject extensively in his book).
The theory behind a person's "self" coming out the other end (with his or her body) is that if you "re-esemble" a person on the other end of the transporter with the brain structure in place, and with all of the fluids in your brain in the exact same place, you will come out with the exact same consciousness.
I am not overly confident. Why don't you try first, and we'll see what happens.
Sorry. Turning someone into "energy" = killing them.E = mc².
We all already are energy.
You got that right! lol"This isn't reality. This is fantasy!" — Nyota Uhura.
Checkmate.
Exactly."This isn't reality. This is fantasy!" — Nyota Uhura.
Checkmate.
I would recommend the (now finished) webcomic Schlock Mercenary for an excellent investigation of the ramifications of teleport-based tech, nanotech-powered medicine and digital "mind copies".
If you were given the opportunity to be trasported somewhere just to try it out, would you do it?
I might say no thank you.
I might say no thank you.
No, but I also don't own a Blu-Ray player either. So, I'm probably not the best example.
Yeah, continuity of self is overrated. I mean, how could we even tell?
People with ideologial objections to transporting would be found among those who can afford to have ideological objections, just like in everything else; hating and fearing buses today doesn't mean you can stop riding those in the general case. But the limiting issue in Trek might not be the affording - just about everybody probably could abstain, what with every location being a paradise you don't need to leave, either on foot or via transporter. Rather, with so much weird shit being inherent in the Trek way of existence, transporters and their implications simply might fail to arouse antipathy in a large number of people, who have so many better things to do and worry about.
Timo Saloniemi
People with ideologial objections to transporting would be found among those who can afford to have ideological objections, just like in everything else; hating and fearing buses today doesn't mean you can stop riding those in the general case. But the limiting issue in Trek might not be the affording - just about everybody probably could abstain, what with every location being a paradise you don't need to leave, either on foot or via transporter. Rather, with so much weird shit being inherent in the Trek way of existence, transporters and their implications simply might fail to arouse antipathy in a large number of people, who have so many better things to do and worry about.
Timo Saloniemi
I suppose if a person was born in the 1700's, they might be hesitant to ride in a car or train. And if they had been born in the 1800's, they very likely would get nervous at the idea of flying. Conversely, a person born in the 2300's would be so used to transporter travel, it would be like boarding a bus for us.
Buses do not physically dismantle you at the beginning of your trip and then put you back together at the end of your trip. That is absolutely a false equivalency.
