Using a transporter- Would you still be "you"?

[AdmiralBruno]

If transporting makes a copy of you.... is that still you? We've seen cases where duplicates have been made before, like with Riker.

I'd be scared to use one because I'd be afraid it wouldn't really be me that was materialized on the other end.

Also, how does that work if you believe humans have a soul?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I've always looked at it this way: Transporters don't create a copy of you. They convert your molecules to energy, and transport those molecules to the destination, at which point you are reassembled. (The thing with the duplicate Riker? I chalk that up to sloppy writing, nothing more.)

So your actual, original body is moved to a new location, and not copied. Thus I view it as entirely compatible with my belief in a 'soul'.

(And besides, we've seen instances where people can have conversations while being transported (ST II) and we've also seen the transport process continue, uninterrupted, from the POV of the person BEING transported (Barclay in "Realm of Fear"), so this seems to lend credence to the theory that you are still "you" afterward.)

 

[Kilana2]

there have been stories where transporter duplicates turned out to be murders and the original was blamed

In Riker's case: they were like twin brothers. One of them, Thomas, didn't have the chance to rise in ranks the way Will did. They didn't grow up together....

I would fear that my transporter double would come after me, trying to kill me in the process. Heck, it doesn't matter. I can be recloned.....

 

[hux]

If it makes a copy then the copy will believe it's the real thing and go about its business while YOU will have been deposited into oblivion.

So it won't matter.

As long as some handsome devil is out there doing all the naughty things that I would be, that's all that counts.

 

[Relayer1]

I've always looked at it this way: Transporters don't create a copy of you. They convert your molecules to energy, and transport those molecules to the destination, at which point you are reassembled. (The thing with the duplicate Riker? I chalk that up to sloppy writing, nothing more.)

So your actual, original body is moved to a new location, and not copied. Thus I view it as entirely compatible with my belief in a 'soul'.

(And besides, we've seen instances where people can have conversations while being transported (ST II) and we've also seen the transport process continue, uninterrupted, from the POV of the person BEING transported (Barclay in "Realm of Fear"), so this seems to lend credence to the theory that you are still "you" afterward.)

It doesn't matter if you are rebuilt from your original matter or not. There's physically no difference. Your before and after atoms are identical.

In the ame way, it may kill you and make a erfect copy. Unless you believe in the soul, that also doesn't matter.

 

[T'Girl]

Except your personal consciousness ceases to exist.

 

[Greg Cox]

I remember my college roommates and I staying up late one night debating this. And, yeah, you can make a case that even if the new "you" is identical to the one that got disintegrated, you're dead.

From everyone else's POV, it doesn't make any difference. But if there's a discontinuity in the consciousness . . . you don't even need to believe in "souls" to think that "your" life ends when you get taken apart, even if the new "you" has all your memories.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Our bodies are continually taken apart and rebuilt every second of every day. We age; we shed skin cells and grow new ones. So why is THAT not killing us, but the transporter is? Think about it.

 

[BillJ]

I'll answer the question, the next time I go through a transporter.

 

[T'Girl]

Our bodies are continually taken apart and rebuilt every second of every day. We age; we shed skin cells and grow new ones. So why is THAT not killing us, but the transporter is? Think about it.

Okay I'll take a stab.

If the transporter scanned you without destruction, and created a duplicate, would you still feel that he was you.

If all those new cells were being assembled right beside you (and not inside you), and resulted in a complete duplicate you in every way, and the two of you stood next to each other.

That's the difference.

Because no matter how exact the duplicate is, physically and mentally, he still isn't you.

 

[Zonker]

I think that there's a huge difference between the two ways a transporter could work. In Trek they convert your body into energy and then move that energy to a new spot for re-assemblage. The other way would be to scan your pattern, disintegrate you, send the information to a new point and create you out of different atoms there. The first method I'm perfectly comfortable with (or I would be if they didn't malfunction every third episode). The second method on the other hand makes me think that you had essentially been cloned and killed. If there was a delay in the disintegration process it would become very obvious. If it scanned you and then sent the information elsewhere for re-assembly but didn't disintegrate you until after you were cloned, I think most people would consider this highly immoral. I really don't see a difference (other than the mess) at that point between disintegrating the original and killing them by other means.

 

[BillJ]

I think that there's a huge difference between the two ways a transporter could work. In Trek they convert your body into energy and then move that energy to a new spot for re-assemblage. The other way would be to scan your pattern, disintegrate you, send the information to a new point and create you out of different atoms there.

I'm not sure what the difference here is? You would still be getting taken apart at the molecular level.

 

[Push The Button]

For an interesting 19th century take on this subject, read The Prestige, or see the 2006 film.

 

[at Quark's]

Well, the characters certainly don't seem to have any quibbles about it (save a few), and as depicted in the Trek universe, transporters usually (I'd say in about 70% of all beaming operations or so) neither create a second 'you' nor exhibit some weird (e.g opening a port to an alternate reality) or perhaps fatal flaw. I'd say that's good enough to believe that all technical, philosophical, and moral issues regarding the use of the transporter are thoroughly understood in the trek universe

 

[T'Girl]

I'm not sure what the difference here is? You would still be getting taken apart at the molecular level.

The difference is that one method converts you into energy (or a temporary energy state) so you can be moved a long distance and doesn't actually "take you apart."

There is no destruction of the self, Barclay during an unusually long transporter cycle remained fully conscious the entire time. The person who goes in ... is the person who emerges, no copying, no duplication.

************

With the other method, you are scanned, the information is send to the destination, and a duplicate is constructed there.

Why exactly the original you would be destroyed under this method is a mystery, the Trek universe routinely has people being scanned, and they don't die as a result, why would the transporter scanner kill you when other scanning don't?


T

 

[eyeresist]

I would say that if a body is deconstructed and turned into an energy stream, then the person has technically died - unless the individual consciousness is somehow retained and maintained through the entire process.

 

[22 Stars]

Isn't this debate at the center of the earliest novel "Spock Must Die!"?

 

[Sector 7]

I've always looked at it this way: Transporters don't create a copy of you. They convert your molecules to energy, and transport those molecules to the destination, at which point you are reassembled. (The thing with the duplicate Riker? I chalk that up to sloppy writing, nothing more.)

So your actual, original body is moved to a new location, and not copied. Thus I view it as entirely compatible with my belief in a 'soul'.

(And besides, we've seen instances where people can have conversations while being transported (ST II) and we've also seen the transport process continue, uninterrupted, from the POV of the person BEING transported (Barclay in "Realm of Fear"), so this seems to lend credence to the theory that you are still "you" afterward.)

I agree completely. I do not believe the original is destroyed either, merely transported.

 

[AdmiralBruno]

So would you people agree to take part in it after the technology was "perfected"?

 

[BillJ]

So would you people agree to take part in it after the technology was "perfected"?

Why not? Nothing in life is 100% guaranteed.