Re: Transports in New Trek (novelization)

[Creedence]

Re: Transports in New Trek

Man I am a nerd, here I am debating technology that doesn't exist about a 40 year old TV show....

Well, my uncle took me see TMP when it came out - I was five! I don't remember much of the movie (that viewing) except for Ilya but I remember what my uncle told me. "Star Trek is intelligent programming for intelligent viewers."

I find it stimulating to discuss the finer points of Star Trek with intelligent fans.

 

[Butters]

Please note that there's no religious issue here: for the sake of argument, we can all agree on a materialist, monist position in which the soul is discounted as either irrelevant or nonexistant.

Clearly.

For transporters to be so widely used and accepted, the concept of "soul" has been consigned to oblivion in Trek.

What I think is also very likely is that Starfleet has a wall of propaganda that purports the inherent safety of transporter technology.

On the contrary, for me, it would take absolute proof of the existence of my soul and the continuation of my conciousness in the copy before I would step on to the platform.

How would you feel about another version of you in bed with your lover? Its a copy, not you You wouldn't be in that bed holding that person. You've been replaced. What if the dematerialisation failed but you still materialised at your destination? Would you be happy for a phaser to complete the process?

Belief in a soul is irrelevant to the existence of the conscious self that can only be described in terms of I or me, unless you live your own life in the third person. I might lay down my life for a loved one, maybe even countryman, but to duplicate of me, for the sake of an hour or so on a shuttle? No chance.

For the sake of suspending disbelief, the tranporter works on magic for me.

 

[Ovation]

I'm seeing a pattern here: if the death advocates encounter a scene that contradicts their position, then the scene is incorrect.

I can't speak for the others, but I consider the "death/non-death" debate WITHIN Trek much like I consider "how fast is warp drive" and "how does time travel really work"--all of them work according to the needs of the story. They are usually, but not always, treated consistently but they are always subordinate to the needs of the particular story being told. As such, I never let it really bother me unless the inconsistency is WITHIN a story, rather than across different ones.

However, if I were to examine the principles of transporter technology as it has been described in Trek and imagine it as a real life device, then I would be in the "death" school of interpretation. It would seem most logical to presume it works like a replicator--only instead of the parameters of an inanimate object being in the computer, it is that of the person being transported. Now, if instead of disassembling the person at the atomic level, the transporter was simply a kind of mini-warp drive, then death would not be the default outcome, as I understand it. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Jeri]

Contradictions of the death theory appeared not once, but numerous times on screen.

It's up to fans to construct an in-universe explanation to encompass these events -- not grouse about writers or directors; and quite frankly, I'm disappointed at the complete lack of rise to the occasion.

To quote Nero, "It DID happen! I saw it happen!"

 

[Ovation]

Contradictions of the death theory appeared not once, but numerous times on screen.

It's up to fans to construct an in-universe explanation to encompass these events -- not grouse about writers or directors; and quite frankly, I'm disappointed at the complete lack of rise to the occasion.

To quote Nero, "It DID happen! I saw it happen!"

I suppose. I've never really bothered to try to account for such discrepancies. My Star Trek watching has never been that focused on resolving any but the grossest of contradictions (the different warp scales in TOS and TNG, for example--but an explanation was proffered long before I tried to work it out for myself). About the only discrepancy that stuck out for me was in DS9's Trials and Tribulations--Worf's "non-responsive response" was a very minor irritant and Enterprise addressed it anyway (I didn't need the Enterprise explanation, but I found it workable and reasonable enough). I guess I'm too laid back about my Trek to be a true fan, eh?

 

[cooleddie74]

Re: Transports in New Trek

Not. canon. .

Or NuCanon depending on whether or not one has a death wish.

 

[Hyperspace05]

I'm seeing a pattern here: if the death advocates encounter a scene that contradicts their position, then the scene is incorrect.

And the opposite isn't true? Or do "lifers" just ignore all scenes that do not support their interpretation?


How about this for a thought experiment...
- If you are not disassembled by a transporter, how can a transporter fail during transport? (producing multiple examples of eh... disastrous effects that have been in the shows/movies)

- Because if you are not disassembled, then you will will either be here or there, intact. You could end up in the wrong place, but there would be no possibility of you being changed or damaged in transit.

- And if you accept that... Then you are left with the argument of whether or not disassembly is (temporary) death or not. And I don't see how you can claim it isn't death.

- And if the concept of such death is so hard to swallow, I assume that you would reject being revived in a hospital... After all, there has been a break in cousciousness. How do you know that you are still you?

Oh... And where was Scotty all those years when he was in the pattern buffer? (TNG: Relics)

 

[Jeri]

... I guess I'm too laid back about my Trek to be a true fan, eh?

Fine by me; I'm just the project manager here, too. But I know there are people out there who can do it.

 

[The Badger]

Re: Transports in New Trek

Based on the show and the movies, there are really only two possibilities here.
1) Transporters kill you and it is the greatest conspiracy in the galaxy since everyone in the show states otherwise.
2) The transporter does what the show says it does and transports the actual person in some currently not understandable way.

Possibility one seems unlikely at best. Consider Montgomery Scott. Or Miles O'Brien. These people understand transporters. The theory. The practice. Every underlying principle. Every nut and bolt.

So if possibility one is true, they must be in on the conspiracy. So they regularly murder their own friends. More, they knowingly commit suicide, every time they use the transporter themselves.
Some how, I can't see that happening.

Besides which, I personally don't feel it fits in with GR's optimistic future to have the heroes casually slaughtered every episode and replaced by doppelgängers. To work in the Star Trek universe, the transporter can't be a killer ('cept when it goes wrong, of course).

 

[Photoman15]

Re: Transports in New Trek

Based on the show and the movies, there are really only two possibilities here.
1) Transporters kill you and it is the greatest conspiracy in the galaxy since everyone in the show states otherwise.
2) The transporter does what the show says it does and transports the actual person in some currently not understandable way.

Possibility one seems unlikely at best. Consider Montgomery Scott. Or Miles O'Brien. These people understand transporters. The theory. The practice. Every underlying principle. Every nut and bolt.

So if possibility one is true, they must be in on the conspiracy. So they regularly murder their own friends. More, they knowingly commit suicide, every time they use the transporter themselves.
Some how, I can't see that happening.

Besides which, I personally don't feel it fits in with GR's optimistic future to have the heroes casually slaughtered every episode and replaced by doppelgängers. To work in the Star Trek universe, the transporter can't be a killer ('cept when it goes wrong, of course).

But the pamphlet Star Fleet gives out to new recruits uses cunning linguistics to subterfuge the actual mechanics of the transporter.

 

[FailedLurker]

Re: Transports in New Trek

I think people are using way too loose a definition of "death" here. If you get stuck at the bottom of a pool, run out of air, and eventually stop breathing, are you dead? If someone then pulls you up out of the water, gives you CPR, performs mouth-to-mouth, and you start breathing again, are you no longer you? You were dead, after all.

If you are in the hospital, and a doctor stops your heart, opens your chest, and removes your heart, are you dead? If the doctor then puts a new heart in your chest, connects it to your circulatory system, and gives it electric shocks until it starts beating, are you alive again? Are you still the same person? Are you just an impostor, pretending to be your former self?

Back when open-heart surgery and heart transplants were still new, somewhat experimental procedures, that last one was a serious concern, and many doctors at the time claimed that doctors who performed these procedures were in fact killing their patients. Eventually people realized that that was fucking stupid, and it appears that if we ever invent a real matter transporter, we'll have to go through a similar process.

This is like saying that you could drop someone into a Cuisinart, reduce them to People Puree - and then if you could somehow reassemble the molecules into a copy it would mean that they hadn't been killed.

Doesn't pass the smell test.

If your arm is torn off in a horrible accident, then later at the hospital they reattach the arm, is it still your arm? If you were to say later "I still have my arm," would that pass the smell test? How is the cuisinart different other than by degree?

Human conscience and self-awareness is a thought process. If every atom were reassembled in the exact places and quantum states, the "copy" at the other end would have the same conscience and self-awareness. Long term memory are permanently etched into the brain, short term memory is active chemical reactions. A quantum level scan and reproduction would duplicate everything. Conscience and self-awareness are not magical things. They are chemistry.

Exactly. If what comes out the other end has my body, my personality, my memories, my thoughts, then it's me.

 

[Augustus]

Re: Transports in New Trek

Well death used loosely as in being broken down to little bits and reassembled into the real you, sure I can go with that.
I am just not into that whole duplicates thing

 

[CommodoreKong]

I'm very sorry I started this whole death vs lifers transporter issue.
I don't think anyone is going to be able to change anyone's opinion.

 

[SalvorHardin]

I'm very sorry I started this whole death vs lifers transporter issue.
I don't think anyone is going to be able to change anyone's opinion.

Well, don't be too sorry.
9.5 times out of 10 nobody changes anyones opinion on any subject anyway

 

[Butters]

Re: Transports in New Trek

Exactly. If what comes out the other end has my body, my personality, my memories, my thoughts, then it's me.

But thats like seeing your own life in the third person. I have to use the duplicate example to get the point across. Yes, to an external observer, the person coming out of the other end is indistinguishable from the original. Both versions have identical memories and niether can admit to not being the original because they were literally the same person, but only until the duplication occured. Following duplication, you have two separate individuals, each with a stake in your identity, but now with their own unique perspective of the world, and each valuing their own existence.

Would you honestly volunteer for the bullet, end you life cos some other guy that came out of a machine has your memories and personality? Or would you sit under house arrest while some guy that looks and talks like you lives your life, and you wait in the shadows incase your duplicate dies early and they need a spare. We are only the sum of our parts to those we interact with, the self is something we can't even define.

 

[The Badger]

Consider the United Federation Of Planets. Given it's respect for the rights of the individual, would it countenance the use of the transporter if it were an 'execute and replicate' device? I doubt it.

 

[Talosian]

Clearly we're speaking at cross-purposes here. Critics of the transporter technology are addressing it's real world implications. In other words, if we take the principle of the transporter technique at face value, it would amount to death, i.e. the termination of consciousness. It would also create a replica of that consciousness elsewhere, which would have no bearing on the original subject's experience.

Of course the characters, being fictional creations, would have a vested interest in upholding a device part and parcel of that same fictional universe.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Captain Robau, feigning death and waiting for just the right moment to unleash the ultimate badassery, waits till Kirk is aboard the Neros ship. As Nero gloats over Kirk, Robau sneaks in from behind carrying Pike over his shoulder and twists Neros head off like a bottlecap with his free hand.

Kirk stares slackjawed as Robau says:

"You're all clear, kid! Now let's blow this thing up and go home!"

 

[Talosian]

Incidentally, when the human heart stops, for instance in open-heart surgery, brain activity continues - as indicated by monitoring EEG systems. Moreover, a cardiopulmonary bypass pump continues to circulate blood throughout the body.

If your body is disassembled on an atomic scale, you will most certainly lose all consciousness. If a new body is materialized elsewhere, it will enjoy all your experience, knowledge, and personality - but, alas, you will only experience a cessation of existence.

 

[Photoman15]

Incidentally, when the human heart stops, for instance in open-heart surgery, brain activity continues - as indicated by monitoring EEG systems. Moreover, a cardiopulmonary bypass pump continues to circulate blood throughout the body.

If your body is disassembled on an atomic scale, you will most certainly lose all consciousness. If a new body is materialized elsewhere, it will enjoy all your experience, knowledge, and personality - but, alas, you will only experience a cessation of existence.

No. YOU will not experience anything. When the molecular cohesion is broken there is nothing to experience.

The reconstructed you is (quantum physically) you.