Star Trek Transporters, are they a death trap?

[Candleicious Ghost]

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@Qonundrum posted it over in Misc and I was a bit snippy with them for which I apologise.

The video asks if the transporter is a death trap and I responded with one word saying "Incorrect"

But can we debate this here now with everyone? I'm in the no camp because I thought transporting was a singular contiguous process, what goes in is the same thing that comes out, and there have been episodes of Trek where we see the POV of someone using the transporter and it's a continuous experience for them with no obvious death or break.

Anyway let's discuss

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

EMORY: People said it was unsafe, that it caused brain cancer, psychosis, and even sleep disorders. And then there was all that metaphysical chatter about whether or not the person who arrived after the transport was the same person who left, and not some weird copy.
TUCKER: Which would make all of us copies.
EMORY: I had to fight all of that nonsense

If Star Trek says it doesn't kill people, I'm willing to believe it.

It does copy people sometimes to be fair, but that almost never happens! And you just end up with two people afterwards, no one dies.

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

If Star Trek says it doesn't kill people, I'm willing to believe it.

It does copy people sometimes to be fair, but that almost never happens! And you just end up with two people afterwards, no one dies.

I love that particular episode of Enterprise and the ghost story they made up during that episode about someone still bouncing around the void in the beam, or did that happen? It's been ages since I watched Enterprise

 

[David cgc]

I remember reading somewhere that Okuda said that he would've rather technobabbled something about the transporter working with tiny wormholes or something that moves the subject intact to the destination, in order to sidestep the whole "Is 'dematerializing' fatal?" question, but there was too much dialog in TOS and the movies establishing how the transporter worked for them to come up with a less ethically fraught explanation than matter-to-energy-to-matter during TNG.

I love that particular episode of Enterprise and the ghost story they made up during that episode about someone still bouncing around the void in the beam, or did that happen? It's been ages since I watched Enterprise

The "ghost" in that episode was real, but there was an earlier episode that turned out to be an elaborate dream Hoshi had mid-beam where she made up a transporter ghost story as part of the dream (she mentioned it when she was back in the real world at the end of the episode and no one had heard about it, so not only was the incident not real, the urban legend was something she dreamed, too).

 

[DSG2k]

"Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter."

First we would have to establish what the transporter does. Canonically, there can be a little variation, here, but we can broadly say it dismantles a person and reassembles the dismantled form elsewhere . . . details vary, but that's the relevant portion.

Typically, disassembly of a living being is a one-way affair, which is what sticks in people's minds. However, if you have reassembly instructions, this is no longer true.

The Kelvan dehydrator system was similar, and it was the loss of pattern (by crushing the geometric shape into powder) that was identified as death. (Similarly, Scotty treats the loss of pattern as death rather than the disassembly.)

There is also distinction to be made insofar as whether the same material is used or not. Some notions of transporter function involve conversion to energy, with that same energy reconstituted to matter. That is, arguably, still the same "stuff". But what of new stuff?

Even if original material is not perfectly preserved, we can also ponder the Ship of Theseus. If all the matter of you today was replaced by new matter over years and it is still you, does a more sudden change matter?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Statically it's still the safest way to travel.

 

[knightgrace]

While reading this, I realized something. Define 'dismantle'.

Here's the problem: we "think" we know what is happening in Star Trek, but do we?

Back when 'Jurassic Park' came out, there was a discussion as to whether or not it was even possible to reconstitute anything that way...

The conclusion was that it was just an data encoding problem. In other words just how does one encode the DNA, of an extinct species? It was determined that we should have the technical knowledge required by fifty years after the motion picture.


One of my understandings about encoding is that you place the decode, into a cube, and then rotate the cube till you see a pattern. So, with a Transporter, you rotate the subject until a stable condition occurs. At that point you may now Transporter.

It is in just how you look at the problem.

But don't be the first to try it.

Remember 'The Fly'.

 

[Jedman67]

in canon, it doesn't matter what the process is, transporters don't kill the subject. If it did, it would be kind of a dumb plot device.

 

[DSG2k]

While reading this, I realized something. Define 'dismantle'.

Better yet, consider Data.

First, focus on dismantling:

- If you remove his head and all his limbs then put him back together, did he die? Is the reassembled person the same?

- If you take each macroscopic piece of him apart so there's no major part of him that is connected to other major parts then reassemble him, did he die? Is the reassembled person the same?

- Now go microscopic. Assuming the connections and energies of his positronic brain are unchanged, did he die? Is the reassembled person the same?

- Now go atomic. Did he die? Is the reassembled person the same?

Once you have decided that, you can focus on replacement of parts as part of the above questions. Transport is often explained as matter-energy conversion, and back again. Even if we are treating each particle as brand new, despite being made of the same energy as before, did he die? Is the reassembled person the same?

 

[publiusr]

I remember reading somewhere that Okuda said that he would've rather technobabbled something about the transporter working with tiny wormholes or something that moves the subject intact to the destination.

The Federation needed the Inverter, and the terrorists suffering the many deaths:

Inverter

The inverter was a folded-space transporter developed on the planet Rutia IV. It was used by Ansata separatists to carry out terrorist attacks. Based on the Elway Theorem, it operated by transporting a subject from one place to another through a dimensional shift. Although the inverter made it...

memory-alpha.fandom.com

I think one could make an argument that there is a kind of cascade effect, in which you are still intact, with relationships/soul/whatever being "poured."

Everything at some level is digital down to planck length/time.

A lower level replicator materializer? Dunno.
In ST II you see people speaking in transit, so clearly there is some frame of reference intact.

For a person who came back...changed...there I might have an individual visit a "weakness" universe, with what returned being more "hollow."

It might all come down to the level of resolution.

Every seven years, we are "new" except for neurons.

At the lowest setting, say, where death is assured---only transport me if I am in danger from a lava flow...in that I'm dead either way.

Also, in Trek there are psionics/paranormal, so if a person is reconstituted to no longer be old or whatever--they still have memory. The only "reset" seems to be the F-104 pilot and the guard.

Careful with those three slides (mind, body, soul).

As long as the transfer largely worked, your essence will complete the trip on its own... perhaps.

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

So we're arguing against what the show directly tells us, are we?

 

[publiusr]

It says a lot of different things.

In the Enterprise series, there was no death, just dissolution.

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

It says a lot of different things.

In the Enterprise series, there was no death, just dissolution.

I guess, so. But I'm firmly in the "not a death machine camp"

 

[knightgrace]

One of the more fascinating definitions that I have run across is the ancient Hebreic definition of their concept of the 'Soul'.

A 'SOUL' is that portion of a Man, that can carry on a conversation. '

Not mystical at all.

However in modern parlance it brings up something very interesting.

If you are one of those who don't believe in souls, then how are you carrying on a conversation?

Answer: you are not. Very disturbing. Very, very disturbing.

To put this another way, a transporter system that doesn't take this into account, is creating automatons. Not people.

 

[Ithekro]

We have on screen evidence of people maintaining a conversation through transport.

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

We have on screen evidence of people maintaining a conversation through transport.

Well, you know that, and I know that, but there is a sizeable chunk of people that despite the on screen evidence and written notes from the creators of the show they still argue the opposite, and insist that they are correct, but it's also fun to have these kind of debates despite the no side being wrong LOL

 

[knightgrace]

Which is merely proof that all relevant tests are basically complete.

Or is it?

How far can you go with an automaton?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Which is merely proof that all relevant tests are basically complete.

Or is it?

How far can you go with an automaton?

In fiction? All the way.

 

[scotthm]

Yes, it's a deathtrap, hallucinations notwithstanding. What appears at the destination is a duplicate, which has been established. We just don't call them duplicates when they're singular.
---------------

 

[The Salt Umpire]

Yes, it's a deathtrap, hallucinations notwithstanding. What appears at the destination is a duplicate, which has been established. We just don't call them duplicates when they're singular.
---------------

And we call them Riker when they're not.