Think about that for a moment. He was often the transporter operator in TOS, but he did occasionally beam down on away teams. Not to mention....RELICS.
Using a transporter- Would you still be "you"?
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Think about that for a moment. He was often the transporter operator in TOS, but he did occasionally beam down on away teams. Not to mention....RELICS.
You first, Bill.
Well said!
I'm just going to say it: While I was one of the ones that usually brought up about the transporter disintegrating a person, therefore killing them, I'm just going to say my new official position is it's no more harmful than an elevator, you get in, it takes you somewhere, you get out. It might tingle or make you a little queasy but a fast elevator could make you stomach upset.
RE: The Enemy Within, that was an extremely unusual case. The TMP accident was also an unusual case, but I think it's analogous to putting two people in an elevator with a frayed cable and no safety devices and someone should have been arrested for negligence.
And any of those 24th century things, just weird stuff. Billions and billions of transports daily are just fine, only unusual stuff is on the tv shows.
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I still think wormhole-based teleportation tech (like Stargate) is probably a safer way to travel AND has the added benefit of not really having a limited range.
I don't. I kinda like that idea that i might be.
The transporter tech makes the question more urgent. While I can't be sure that when I wake up, I'm not simply a copy, the lack of any quantifiable evidence or technology would mean I have no pressing need to ask that question. But if I'm using a device that transports me elsewhere, the possibility that I'm simply a copy when I de-materialise becomes a more tangible concern. The existence of the transporter is the thing that compels you to question your reality whereas there's no reason to question your reality when you wake up each morning (other than exploring the philosophical curiosity of such a thought).
For me, it's like using a plane. I know they're safe but when we start to speed up on the runway, I do start to think bad thoughts. I can totally see why the transporter would cause people anxiety regarding their physical (and philosophical) state.
I still wonder if the person I was talking to continues to exist once they've left the room.
That's the plot, yes, which occurs after the statement of thesis when McCoy explains his reasoning that the transporter kills the original and creates a soulless duplicate.
But, isn't that kind of the same thing? You are broken down into atoms and transmitted to a new location. And they had their own version of short range transporters, the ring system.
And in-universe, this question was undoubtedly already debated and settled a long time ago by eminent scholars, philosophers, etc., since nobody ever brings this up anymore. End of discussion.
Kor
Didn't Ent: Daedalus involve such musings to a degree? Are there other episodes of any series where there was serious discussion by Federation eggheads or at least someone that wasn't simply voicing an innate fearfulness or disdain for the process?
Since it's all kind of theoretical, there's no way to really be sure, but as I understood it, wormhole-based tech is simply a short-cut corridor between two points in space-time, without dematerialization. It's been a long time since I watched Stargate, so I can't really remember the technobabble they used in it, but I always thought Einstein-Rosen bridges worked that way.
Well, the way they depicted it looked like dematerialization to me. If you watch the original Stargate movie. When Daniel goes through, it looks like he is dematerialized and then his molecules are rushing through the wormhole at the speed of light. This scene was somewhat re-created for the Stargate movie The Ark of Truth. Only they were in a ship going through a super-gate.
And there was an episode where Teal'c went through just as a goa'uld ship crashed into the gate and it caused him not to come through at SGC. I believe something was said about him having to rematerialize.
And there was an episode where Teal'c went through just as a goa'uld ship crashed into the gate and it caused him not to come through at SGC. I believe something was said about him having to rematerialize.
Sounds like the Saddle Points from Stephen Baxter's Manifold: Space. Except no one was under the illusion that they weren't being killed in the process. That and they were still bound by the speed of light.
After I made by last post on this, I went on Youtube and looked up the scene from the Stargate movie. When the soldiers go through before Daniel, on a computer screen in the command center there is the following. It shows stick figures (depicting the people going through the gate), which dissolve into pixels, and the words on the screen say "Molecular deconstruction in process".
Edited to add: In the first episode of series, they are talking about how cold you feel when you arrive at the destination gate on the planet you are traveling to. Carter says it's because of the compression your molecules go through before reconstitution.
Edited to add: In the first episode of series, they are talking about how cold you feel when you arrive at the destination gate on the planet you are traveling to. Carter says it's because of the compression your molecules go through before reconstitution.
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Well...I stand corrected, fair 'nuff. 
Not surprising - it's been so long since I watched the show or movie.
It does appear as if they are basically high-powered transporters, but generate small wormholes to transmit the data in the Stargate universe. It's probably a more efficient use of energy to maintain a small stable wormhole between two points to transmit a data stream than the larger size of one required to move an entire non-demolecularized human.
To heavily oversimplify, it sounds like it's the difference between compressed digital signal vs. uncompressed analog signal, using both matter/energy manipulation and Einstein/Rosen theory as a travel medium. Definitely better than Trek transporters in the matter of ability and efficiency, but reopens the debate over what happens to the consciousness after the containing body has been torn apart at the molecular level.
I wonder if it would hurt in real life...
Not surprising - it's been so long since I watched the show or movie. It does appear as if they are basically high-powered transporters, but generate small wormholes to transmit the data in the Stargate universe. It's probably a more efficient use of energy to maintain a small stable wormhole between two points to transmit a data stream than the larger size of one required to move an entire non-demolecularized human.
To heavily oversimplify, it sounds like it's the difference between compressed digital signal vs. uncompressed analog signal, using both matter/energy manipulation and Einstein/Rosen theory as a travel medium. Definitely better than Trek transporters in the matter of ability and efficiency, but reopens the debate over what happens to the consciousness after the containing body has been torn apart at the molecular level.
I wonder if it would hurt in real life...
When I used to watch first run TNG, transporter travel was a given. I didn't think too much about it, until ENT. In "Broken Bow", Mayweather tells Reed that the platform was approved for "bio-transport" and that it was deemed "safe", presumably by Starfleet. Reed expresses his apprehension about it.
In "Vanishing Point", Hoshi was highly anxious about transport as well. In fact , most of the episode was about what thoughts she was having while "in the buffer" for a little more than 8 seconds. Apparently, even in the buffer, she had consciousness.
And then there is "Daedalus" , where we meet the developer of the transporter and we learn of all the accidents, injuries and deaths that occurred while developing the technology.
Even through the assumed risk, I believe Archer decides it can be used in emergency situations (particularly during the Xindi arc)
If you add in the non-canon ENT books, you can see the results of repeated exposure to the transporter in that at least 2 major characters suffer life long adverse affects from the technology.
So from all this, I think we can assume, that at least in the 22nd century, the technology was not quite reliable and there was considerable risk. I wonder how the technology was improved in the 23rd-24th centuries?
At any rate, I'm like the OP - I'll stick to the shuttle!
In "Vanishing Point", Hoshi was highly anxious about transport as well. In fact , most of the episode was about what thoughts she was having while "in the buffer" for a little more than 8 seconds. Apparently, even in the buffer, she had consciousness.
And then there is "Daedalus" , where we meet the developer of the transporter and we learn of all the accidents, injuries and deaths that occurred while developing the technology.
Even through the assumed risk, I believe Archer decides it can be used in emergency situations (particularly during the Xindi arc)
If you add in the non-canon ENT books, you can see the results of repeated exposure to the transporter in that at least 2 major characters suffer life long adverse affects from the technology.
So from all this, I think we can assume, that at least in the 22nd century, the technology was not quite reliable and there was considerable risk. I wonder how the technology was improved in the 23rd-24th centuries?
At any rate, I'm like the OP - I'll stick to the shuttle!
In the early episodes of Enterprise, wasn't there something about Archer not trusting the transporter with his beagle?
In the early episodes of Enterprise, wasn't there something about Archer not trusting the transporter with his beagle?
Yes , indeed! In fact this is the conversation from "Broken Bow" that I was referring to:
TRAVIS: I heard this platform's been approved for bio-transport.
REED: I presume you mean fruits and vegetables.
TRAVIS: I mean Armoury Officers and Helmsmen.
REED: I don't think I'm quite ready to have my molecules compressed into a data stream.
TRAVIS: They claim it's safe.
REED: Do they indeed. Well, I certainly hope the Captain doesn't plan on making us use it.
TRAVIS: Don't worry, from what I'm told, he wouldn't even put his dog through this thing.
I'm not sure the writers and producers ever really had an 'intent' with the transporter. It was just a device to move people around.
Yes - to save time and money with weekly shuttle launch scenes and so on.
They clearly did not see it (as no-one had thought of the idea yet) as a quantum teleporter of the kind that are theoretically possible and which really would create a duplicate and destroy the original.
That said, I'm guessing these real-world versions of the trek transporter are what has sparked the OPs question, essentially saying the Trek transporters are quantum teleport devices.
In-show, they explain the as matter-energy-matter transporters, which if written with more modern science would say matter-information-matter I suppose, but it is difficult sometimes to come up with a scientifically plausible explanation for convenient TV tech!
I was addressing the OP's question.
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