Is the Transporter still 'killing' people in Discovery?
- Thread starter Sci-fi fan
- Start date
"Consciousness' gets tossed around like "aether." The supposed phenomenon to which it refers is not in evidence.
You must be a robot then. As Descartes concluded, it is really the only thing existence of which we can know for sure.
This is dismissive without being compelling.
Yeah well my car doesn't split me into billions of pieces and then reassemble me elsewhere.
No way I'd ever get into a star trek transporter
(And yes, this should be in General.)
As for transporters, they don't kill people in the Trek universe (except in a case of an accident), even though you think they logically should. Though even if you think that they take apart and reassemble people, I really don't think that the logic arguing that this results a clone is sound. If you think that certain combination of certain particles results a consciousness, there is no reason to think that that same combination of same particles at another moment in time would not result the same the consciousness, regardless of whether there was a moment in between those two moments where that combination of particles did not exist.
Furthermore, I really don't think that transporters even function exactly like that. Even though there are similarities, they're not replicators. They do not and cannot copy people (apart some freak accidents*) This inability to copy the transporter pattern leads me to believe that they operate on quantum level, and would thus be subject to no-cloning theorem. I think it might be best to think transporting as controlled large scale and long distance quantum tunnelling.
(* and perhaps there is some otherwise identical parallel universe, except in that universe William Riker permanently vanished and was presumed to be killed in freak transporter accident.
As for transporters, they don't kill people in the Trek universe (except in a case of an accident), even though you think they logically should. Though even if you think that they take apart and reassemble people, I really don't think that the logic arguing that this results a clone is sound. If you think that certain combination of certain particles results a consciousness, there is no reason to think that that same combination of same particles at another moment in time would not result the same the consciousness, regardless of whether there was a moment in between those two moments where that combination of particles did not exist.
Furthermore, I really don't think that transporters even function exactly like that. Even though there are similarities, they're not replicators. They do not and cannot copy people (apart some freak accidents*) This inability to copy the transporter pattern leads me to believe that they operate on quantum level, and would thus be subject to no-cloning theorem. I think it might be best to think transporting as controlled large scale and long distance quantum tunnelling.
(* and perhaps there is some otherwise identical parallel universe, except in that universe William Riker permanently vanished and was presumed to be killed in freak transporter accident.
Seriously, McCoy should sought medical treatment for his irrational phobia. Transporting (in his time and after) seemed safe as flying.
During ENT we got fed a line about them being very iffy but no accidents occurred that I can recall.
During ENT we got fed a line about them being very iffy but no accidents occurred that I can recall.
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Okay so there is that one.
If consciousness isn't fixed within the body, then why do people die when they're vaporized? 
It is fixed in the body, and if you put the body back together you put the consciousness back together too.If consciousness isn't fixed within the body, then why do people die when they're vaporized?
That's just a myth. No one has ever come back from being vaporized to describe their experience.If consciousness isn't fixed within the body, then why do people die when they're vaporized?
I have no doubt that the transporter physics, as represented in the Star Trek mythos - matter to energy to matter - means death and recreation of a copy, regardless of what the copy thinks upon reassembly. The willingness of the characters to use it implies that's not so, but it's a contradiction in the fiction - not science. The only way that a death would not be involved is a portal technology like the Iconians, but that's not the same technology.
How very nihilistic.
Oh man that's cute!Cats and canon, serious business.
So if I disassemble my bike, put it in a box, and take it into another place and then reassemble the bike, then it is a different bike?
Well, it clearly lost its soul, that's for sure
No, it's the same bike, sans a few atoms that fell off in the process.
