Re: Transports in New Trek (novelization)

[Talosian]

Being transported, amongst other consequences, results in brain death - naturally, because it destroys the brain. Of course, physically the new brain and body is identical to any observers, but the stream of consciousness which made up your life has been broken. There are now two streams - one just terminated, and another which has just begun.

The only escape clause would be if we posit the existence of a soul, an incorporeal entity which is the true seat of sentience, which transmigrates to the new body.

 

[Base_Delta_Zero]

Ah, yes, Trek's favorite answer to anything sticky ... quantum.

I'll side with the temporary death during transport crowd. If people were offered the chance to travel effortlessly (for them) anywhere they wanted nearly instantaneously and the only hitch was they had to be temporarily dead to do it, many, many people would. I would. What are the odds I'll never come back? Slim to impossible? I'm in. Sounds better than the odds of dying in a plane crash. Beam me to Australia. My 'soul' will either make it or it won't. If simple tech can possibly strip me of my 'soul,' doesn't sound all that spiritually important to me.

You can't quantify a 'soul' so debating how it reacts to the body's death is pointless. Who's to say the 'soul' isn't infinite, and each 'part' isn't also infinite, such that division is meaningless and Tom and Will Riker both have a unique and complete 'soul' despite their seperation? Have you measured your 'soul' today?

If your 'soul' didn't make the transit with your body, and your 'soul' is so inherently key to you being you, that without it you aren't you at all, then I would think the first person to pass through a transporter would know instantly whether their soul had accompanied them for the ride, as would anyone they knew witnessing the process. If I can tell when my best friend is having a shitty day, but trying to hide it, I bet I could pick up on it if he literally lost his 'soul.'

Therefore, the transporter can kill people, beam their constituent parts light years (nuTrek), bring them back to life, 'soul' intact, and the world moves on.

 

[wew]

On the other hand, one of the problems I had with that particular scene was that essentially Sulu and Kirk seemed to survive the fall quite easily. I'd have presumed they were at terminal velocity when they were beamed, so shouldn't they have hit the transporter at the same speed?

 

[Creedence]

Ah, yes, Trek's favorite answer to anything sticky ... quantum.

If simple tech can possibly strip me of my 'soul,' doesn't sound all that spiritually important to me.

If your 'soul' didn't make the transit with your body, and your 'soul' is so inherently key to you being you, that without it you aren't you at all, then I would think the first person to pass through a transporter would know instantly whether their soul had accompanied them for the ride, as would anyone they knew witnessing the process. If I can tell when my best friend is having a shitty day, but trying to hide it, I bet I could pick up on it if he literally lost his 'soul.'

Therefore, the transporter can kill people, beam their constituent parts light years (nuTrek), bring them back to life, 'soul' intact, and the world moves on.

This might be the best argument yet that transporters do in fact kill the user and sustain the soul, if each person feels they have one. Great argument.

However, part of your answer has triggered another question deep in the recesses of my mind. Transwarp beaming allowed Kirk to get back to Enterprise and to board Narada. Said formula was invented by future Scotty as stated by Spock Prime. Yet, we never saw any use of transwarp beaming in TNG-era. The limit for beaming still appeared to be something less that the distance from Eath to the moon.

Does anyone remember one instance of transwarp beaming in TNG? The Schizoid Man does not count. That was a near-warp beam and should not considered as transwarp.

 

[SalvorHardin]

Ah, yes, Trek's favorite answer to anything sticky ... quantum.

If simple tech can possibly strip me of my 'soul,' doesn't sound all that spiritually important to me.

If your 'soul' didn't make the transit with your body, and your 'soul' is so inherently key to you being you, that without it you aren't you at all, then I would think the first person to pass through a transporter would know instantly whether their soul had accompanied them for the ride, as would anyone they knew witnessing the process. If I can tell when my best friend is having a shitty day, but trying to hide it, I bet I could pick up on it if he literally lost his 'soul.'

Therefore, the transporter can kill people, beam their constituent parts light years (nuTrek), bring them back to life, 'soul' intact, and the world moves on.

This might be the best argument yet that transporters do in fact kill the user and sustain the soul, if each person feels they have one. Great argument.

However, part of your answer has triggered another question deep in the recesses of my mind. Transwarp beaming allowed Kirk to get back to Enterprise and to board Narada. Said formula was invented by future Scotty as stated by Spock Prime. Yet, we never saw any use of transwarp beaming in TNG-era. The limit for beaming still appeared to be something less that the distance from Eath to the moon.

Does anyone remember one instance of transwarp beaming in TNG? The Schizoid Man does not count. That was a near-warp beam and should not considered as transwarp.

1. Kirk's beaming to the Narada with Spock was regular beaming, not transwarp I believe.

2.Maybe Scotty developed transwarp beaming long after his rescue from the TNG crew in Relics.

 

[Creedence]

On the other hand, one of the problems I had with that particular scene was that essentially Sulu and Kirk seemed to survive the fall quite easily. I'd have presumed they were at terminal velocity when they were beamed, so shouldn't they have hit the transporter at the same speed?

I noticed that as I watched the film but I was happy to write that off as technology saving the day. In this instance, I believe we can attribute the Heisenberg compensator with the save. As I recall, the Heisenberg is charged with mapping the position and movement of every molecule in the body at the time of transport. It is conceivable that with Chekov's heretofore unseen intelligence and skill, the motion of each transported body was partially negated before materialization.

Is this a case of having my cake and eating it to? I can easily dismiss Kirk and Sulu not hitting the transport pad at 120 mph because the technology works - if only in this fantasy realm we all adore. My position that transporters also kill you in the process is also how the technology works.

 

[Photoman15]

On the other hand, one of the problems I had with that particular scene was that essentially Sulu and Kirk seemed to survive the fall quite easily. I'd have presumed they were at terminal velocity when they were beamed, so shouldn't they have hit the transporter at the same speed?

I noticed that as I watched the film but I was happy to write that off as technology saving the day. In this instance, I believe we can attribute the Heisenberg compensator with the save. As I recall, the Heisenberg is charged with mapping the position and movement of every molecule in the body at the time of transport. It is conceivable that with Chekov's heretofore unseen intelligence and skill, the motion of each transported body was partially negated before materialization.

Is this a case of having my cake and eating it to? I can easily dismiss Kirk and Sulu not hitting the transport pad at 120 mph because the technology works - if only in this fantasy realm we all adore. My position that transporters also kill you in the process is also how the technology works.

Only Kirk and Sulu were beamed aboard, not the gravity that was pulling them down. Once dematerialized, the transporter just has their patterns. What they were doing is irrelevant.

 

[Photoman15]

Being transported, amongst other consequences, results in brain death - naturally, because it destroys the brain. Of course, physically the new brain and body is identical to any observers, but the stream of consciousness which made up your life has been broken. There are now two streams - one just terminated, and another which has just begun.

The only escape clause would be if we posit the existence of a soul, an incorporeal entity which is the true seat of sentience, which transmigrates to the new body.

The soul is NOT the true seat of sentience. The mind is.

 

[Creedence]

Only Kirk and Sulu were beamed aboard, not the gravity that was pulling them down. Once dematerialized, the transporter just has their patterns. What they were doing is irrelevant.

I thought about that as I thought about my answer but I felt I had to disregard it because many times we see Kirk and crew "finishing" a movement as materialization sequence completes, an apparent contradiction that what they were doing at the time tranport initialization is irrelevent.

And, both the celluloid and written version of Star Trek show Kirk and Sulu hitting the deck with more force than could be achieved from a fall of a few inches. It seems to me that a good deal of their kinetic energy was transported with them, but not all of it because they didn't turn into bits of chunky salsa upon impact.

 

[Photoman15]

Only Kirk and Sulu were beamed aboard, not the gravity that was pulling them down. Once dematerialized, the transporter just has their patterns. What they were doing is irrelevant.

I thought about that as I thought about my answer but I felt I had to disregard it because many times we see Kirk and crew "finishing" a movement as materialization sequence completes, an apparent contradiction that what they were doing at the time tranport initialization is irrelevent.

And, both the celluloid and written version of Star Trek show Kirk and Sulu hitting the deck with more force than could be achieved from a fall of a few inches. It seems to me that a good deal of their kinetic energy was transported with them, but not all of it because they didn't turn into bits of chunky salsa upon impact.

You're right. I may have phrased that wrong. What environment they're in is irrelevant. Finishing a movement would be allowed because that was what the subject (brain and muscles required) were in the process of doing before disassembley. That is transported within the data stream. Some kinetic energy probably is too but not much, or it can be negated by the system on rematerialzation.

 

[CommodoreKong]

Ah, yes, Trek's favorite answer to anything sticky ... quantum.

If simple tech can possibly strip me of my 'soul,' doesn't sound all that spiritually important to me.

If your 'soul' didn't make the transit with your body, and your 'soul' is so inherently key to you being you, that without it you aren't you at all, then I would think the first person to pass through a transporter would know instantly whether their soul had accompanied them for the ride, as would anyone they knew witnessing the process. If I can tell when my best friend is having a shitty day, but trying to hide it, I bet I could pick up on it if he literally lost his 'soul.'

Therefore, the transporter can kill people, beam their constituent parts light years (nuTrek), bring them back to life, 'soul' intact, and the world moves on.

This might be the best argument yet that transporters do in fact kill the user and sustain the soul, if each person feels they have one. Great argument.

However, part of your answer has triggered another question deep in the recesses of my mind. Transwarp beaming allowed Kirk to get back to Enterprise and to board Narada. Said formula was invented by future Scotty as stated by Spock Prime. Yet, we never saw any use of transwarp beaming in TNG-era. The limit for beaming still appeared to be something less that the distance from Eath to the moon.

Does anyone remember one instance of transwarp beaming in TNG? The Schizoid Man does not count. That was a near-warp beam and should not considered as transwarp.

Yeah I always figured that was a plot hole, the Enterprise had to of been in warp for at least an hour or two before Kirk and Scotty beamed aboard and that's not possible even with TNG level transporter technology, much less TOS level technology. I doubt a future formula is going to extend the transporter range that much.

 

[Talosian]

Being transported, amongst other consequences, results in brain death - naturally, because it destroys the brain. Of course, physically the new brain and body is identical to any observers, but the stream of consciousness which made up your life has been broken. There are now two streams - one just terminated, and another which has just begun.

The only escape clause would be if we posit the existence of a soul, an incorporeal entity which is the true seat of sentience, which transmigrates to the new body.

The soul is NOT the true seat of sentience. The mind is.

Again, I refer you to the first paragraph of what I wrote. The mind is *destroyed* during transport. That a simulacrum of it is created elsewhere is useful from the point of view of society at large, but of utterly no comfort for the original person who experienced a cessation of existence.

If your mind is instantly vaporized, copied into a data stream to provide a template for a duplicate, which is concocted in Reykjavik, Iceland or Olympus Mons on Mars, your original self would have experienced a termination of being.

The new self, would have no knowledge of the distinction, and would go on living as if it no death ever took place. But, this is proof of nothing. After all, this would still be the case if the transporter, instead of creating one duplicate, created x duplicates. A hundred versions of you could be transported here and there, and would all believe themselves to be the original, so long as all the information about their molecular makeup and energy state is initially recorded.

Once we're dealing with the substance of our brains being converted into data streams and atoms, we're coming face to face with death. In the same sense, if we converted our thoughts and personality into a computer software program, that program could well exist in perpetuity, but we would still experience a separate existence and death. Now imagine if in the process of creating that software version of you, it was necessary for some technical reason to simultaneously erase your mind's contents. That would be, from a moral point of view, equivalent to a transport.

 

[Photoman15]

Being transported, amongst other consequences, results in brain death - naturally, because it destroys the brain. Of course, physically the new brain and body is identical to any observers, but the stream of consciousness which made up your life has been broken. There are now two streams - one just terminated, and another which has just begun.

The only escape clause would be if we posit the existence of a soul, an incorporeal entity which is the true seat of sentience, which transmigrates to the new body.

The soul is NOT the true seat of sentience. The mind is.

Again, I refer you to the first paragraph of what I wrote. The mind is *destroyed* during transport. That a simulacrum of it is created elsewhere is useful from the point of view of society at large, but of utterly no comfort for the original person who experienced a cessation of existence.

If your mind is instantly vaporized, copied into a data stream to provide a template for a duplicate, which is concocted in Reykjavik, Iceland or Olympus Mons on Mars, your original self would have experienced a termination of being.

The new self, would have no knowledge of the distinction, and would go on living as if it no death ever took place. But, this is proof of nothing. After all, this would still be the case if the transporter, instead of creating one duplicate, created x duplicates. A hundred versions of you could be transported here and there, and would all believe themselves to be the original, so long as all the information about their molecular makeup and energy state is initially recorded.

Once we're dealing with the substance of our brains being converted into data streams and atoms, we're coming face to face with death. In the same sense, if we converted our thoughts and personality into a computer software program, that program could well exist in perpetuity, but we would still experience a separate existence and death. Now imagine if in the process of creating that software version of you, it was necessary for some technical reason to simultaneously erase your mind's contents. That would be, from a moral point of view, equivalent to a transport.

You would have not experienced ANYTHING. You don't feel the breaking up of the molecular bonds. At first you MAY feel a tingle, but that's it.

The computer dump is a completely different animal and is not any type of comparison for transporter events

 

[Photoman15]

Ah, yes, Trek's favorite answer to anything sticky ... quantum.

If simple tech can possibly strip me of my 'soul,' doesn't sound all that spiritually important to me.

If your 'soul' didn't make the transit with your body, and your 'soul' is so inherently key to you being you, that without it you aren't you at all, then I would think the first person to pass through a transporter would know instantly whether their soul had accompanied them for the ride, as would anyone they knew witnessing the process. If I can tell when my best friend is having a shitty day, but trying to hide it, I bet I could pick up on it if he literally lost his 'soul.'

Therefore, the transporter can kill people, beam their constituent parts light years (nuTrek), bring them back to life, 'soul' intact, and the world moves on.

This might be the best argument yet that transporters do in fact kill the user and sustain the soul, if each person feels they have one. Great argument.

However, part of your answer has triggered another question deep in the recesses of my mind. Transwarp beaming allowed Kirk to get back to Enterprise and to board Narada. Said formula was invented by future Scotty as stated by Spock Prime. Yet, we never saw any use of transwarp beaming in TNG-era. The limit for beaming still appeared to be something less that the distance from Eath to the moon.

Does anyone remember one instance of transwarp beaming in TNG? The Schizoid Man does not count. That was a near-warp beam and should not considered as transwarp.

Yeah I always figured that was a plot hole, the Enterprise had to of been in warp for at least an hour or two before Kirk and Scotty beamed aboard and that's not possible even with TNG level transporter technology, much less TOS level technology. I doubt a future formula is going to extend the transporter range that much.

The range of the transporter is now transcended. Once you take into account it's space that's moving, distance is irrelevant.

 

[Creedence]

The range of the transporter is now transcended. Once you take into account it's space that's moving, distance is irrelevant.

To preserve the Enterprise Factor, I hope Scotty forgets that formula. Having transporters send people light years at a time really changes the landscape, travelogically speaking.

 

[SHCone]

You know, that a transporter maps every molecule and stores the pattern in its memory makes me wonder why Starfleet can't replicate Data. All the information about what makes him work is right there anytime he beams somewhere, and the transporter effortlessly reassembles him perfectly.

The transporter should be a much more valuable tool for reverse-engineering things than its ever used as.

 

[Creedence]

You know, that a transporter maps every molecule and stores the pattern in its memory makes me wonder why Starfleet can't replicate Data. All the information about what makes him work is right there anytime he beams somewhere, and the transporter effortlessly reassembles him perfectly.

The transporter should be a much more valuable tool for reverse-engineering things than its ever used as.

It was used to restore Pulaski to her spry 50-year-old self. It was used to return Picard and others to their full size after it screwed up. That accident that made Picard young (and smaller) done away with the excess matter and created it anew to make them whole again.

If people agree that the technology can be used that way to re-create Data, then they must also admit that it is a matter duplicator, which it is.

 

[SHCone]

I don't necessarily disagree, except for the Barclay thing. Though if one accepts the duplication approach, then Barclay may raise the notion that what we witnessed was Barclay's soul, or consciousness, or general metaphysical being, moving through the transporter system, aware, waiting for a new body to be created.

That's the only way I can figure putting the two bits together.

 

[Jeri]

I don't necessarily disagree, except for the Barclay thing. Though if one accepts the duplication approach, then Barclay may raise the notion that what we witnessed was Barclay's soul, or consciousness, or general metaphysical being, moving through the transporter system, aware, waiting for a new body to be created.

That's the only way I can figure putting the two bits together.

At least you're trying to explain it. Thanks.

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? ...

I don't have a horse in the live/die race. What I said is this:

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!"

 

[Talosian]

You know, that a transporter maps every molecule and stores the pattern in its memory makes me wonder why Starfleet can't replicate Data. All the information about what makes him work is right there anytime he beams somewhere, and the transporter effortlessly reassembles him perfectly.

The transporter should be a much more valuable tool for reverse-engineering things than its ever used as.

It was used to restore Pulaski to her spry 50-year-old self. It was used to return Picard and others to their full size after it screwed up. That accident that made Picard young (and smaller) done away with the excess matter and created it anew to make them whole again.

If people agree that the technology can be used that way to re-create Data, then they must also admit that it is a matter duplicator, which it is.

Precisely. And a matter duplicator makes a call to be beamed up tantamount to committing suicide, knowingly or not.