When a person is beamed up it's not the same person

T'Girl

Your theory about Sisko&co's energy being in the 'computers' makes no sense.
It directly contradicts the transporter's description throughout all of star trek:

"Your notion that the energy that made Sisko&co is somehow in the computer memory is even falsified by the constant description of the transporter system - the Sisko&co energy degrades while it is transported (meaning it's NOT in the pattern buffer who stays in the transporter room) and then it needs information (and this is what is to be found in the pattern buffer) to be 'refreshed'. It was this information that was stored on DS9's hard-drives.
And let's consider just how much energy would make 4 persons - we're talking the equivalent of hundreds of megatonnes. That's an energy intensive PC all right."

As for the rest of your post (that non-sensical technobabble-wanna-be) - you only evidenced you have no ideea how a computer works or what properties plasma has.
For example - It doesn't matter whether a computer is binary, trinary, etc, etc - it's still information requiring the same type of hardware - that's as elementary as it gets, T'Girl.

And what do we have at the end of the post? A condescending remark? Considering what came before it, it's rather amusing, T'Girl.

 

Though this is old, I must throw in on this. Not only is cloning the wrong phrase but it is NOT being nitpicky to say so.

You are in a discussion about how fiction science would work as real science. Incorrectly using science terminology as slang for "Copying" in your average conversation = OK, in a quasi scientific discussion is it out of place and should not have been used.

 

More an observation. Posts have consistently insisted that obsolete technology is still employed in the 24th century, I merely pointed it out, the same with the use of "0s and 1s."

The pattern buffer is used to temporarily store the matter stream, very specifically the matter stream, not information.

But this is the same amount of energy that would have to be sent down to the surface of a planet in order to create copies of the same number of persons. Yes?

A 180 pound man alone would be 34,290 megatonnes (the explosive yield of one pound of antimatter is 19.5 megatonnes)

You've stated that the copy isn't created on the ship and then conveyed to the destination, but rather somehow created on site. It's a bit fuzzy how a copy of a Human Being is created in the middle of a field at the end of a long energy beam.

And this isn't solely a discussion of 24th century technology, there is also the matter of the philosophical survival of the self.

Lastly. ProtoAvatar, will you please learn to use the quote feature correctly. It isn't that hard. Before the desired quote put

[QU OTE=ProtoAvatar;4113750] followed by your selected quote, and ending with [/QU OTE]

in both cases the word QUOTE should not contain a space. And you can insert any ones name and while we're all given a unique number, any 7 digit number will work.

 

Well, I did some looking at Memory Alpha some more on the transporter and the different forms of Technology within Star Trek. I also discovered that the Isolinear based tech that was used on most starships and space stations (like Deep Space Nine) was connected by fiber optic cables known as ODN conduits (or an Optical Data Network).

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Optical_data_network

Also, Isolinear rods were not used in the Federation. They were a Cardassian / Bajoran used technology. Which suggests that the computers on Deep Space Nine were Isolinear based systems similar but different to the Federation.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Isolinear_rod

Furthermore, after more examination of other episodes and of DS9's "Our Man Bashir": I have come to a new conclusion that the patterns of Sisko and the others was indeed stored as data. Yes you heard me right. This would suggest that I am now leaning towards the kill and be copied camp a bit.

So whether the crew's pattern's were stored as data on DRAM memory (i.e. multiple microchips that contained the information as long as there was power running thru the computer) or highly advanced versions of hard disc drives is unknown. But it had to have been some type of standard data storage that is similar to what we know. Sure, isolinear chips can store data on a three dimensional level (according to the TNG Relic's Novel Adaptation). But data is still stored on a basic binary (trinary) code (Even within the 24th Century Trek-verse).

In other words: Whether that data (of 1s and 0s) is stored in a trinary matter within bio neural gel packs or in isolinar based computer drives or chips. It doesn't matter. The patterns were still read as data by the computers (in a basic binary code).

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Binary_code

In addition: DS9's "Our Man Bashir" confirms that their patterns where in fact stored as data, too...

_______________________________________________________

EDDINGTON
I don't think we have any choice.
Computer: I need to store all
data currently in the transporter
pattern buffer. Where can I save it?

COMPUTER VOICE
Deep Space Nine has insufficient
computer memory to save that
quantity of data.

​

_______________________________________________________

This suggests that Sisko and his crew could in fact been declared dead during the time when they remained as transporter data within the Station.

However, I believe that during the normal operation of the transporter when a person is beamed... that the time between a person being de-materialized and then re-materialized is almost instantaneous or it allows for the person to be phased between half matter and half energy like we seen with the almost lost transporter patterns that where trapped within Realm of Fear. Which could mean, that a person never really dies because it is a near seamless transition from point A to point B. Also, I believe the phasing part of the transporter is an important key to the transporter, too. It is the only logical explanation to explain the mystery behind retaining a person's kinetic energy. Because scientifically speaking. It just doesn't seem possible to freeze someone's kinetic energy, then record it, and then let it continue on after re-materialization. The best you can do is phase an object and it's kinetic energy into another dimension or quantum flux. But that's it.

I mean, I guess that is why the transporter is a flawed piece of technology. There just doesn't seem to be a way to record kinetic energy as actual readable data. It just doesn't seem possible. But on the show we see that kinetic energy is transported. So we must accept that there is some explanation behind the transporter that we just don't understand in this regard.

So do people die and get copied during transport? It depends. I guess you could say a person is dead if they are in a coma with no visible brain activity. But if they come back from being brain dead. I guess that would be nothing short of miracle then. I guess the same could be said for the transporter then, too.



Anyways, here is a complete listing of all of the transporter's technology listed at Memory Alpha if anyone is interested.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Category:Transporter_technology

 

If the total time between the start of dematerialization and the conclusion of rematerialzation is two and a half seconds, then the time period you spend solely as energy might be effectively zero (or just a touch more).
Planck time maybe.

 

TG:

Yes. I like that.

Oh, and by the way. Good word.
And for those of you out there who are unfamiliar with Planck time, it is not to be confused in any way with Plankton.




Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_time
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankton

 

I think pattern buffers are a red herring. You can't use them when beaming up from a planet for example. They make transporting safer but are not needed to complete the process.

Dimensional phasing under the guise of molecular deconstruction is the only way a person would not be 'killed'. It also allows the team to remain 'alive' in Our Man Bashir, if their energy is only partly re-phased but linked to the data markers in the system rather than being stored in full as data. It has to be said that isn't how the episode describes their situation though.

 

"Our Man Bashir" is just an excuse to have a James Bond romp with the DS9 cast. I wouldn't give the transporter talk in that episode too much weight. I know that it's all part of the canon, but the Warp 10 developments in "Threshold" are ignored by all, so I have no problem with dismissing one episode's tech interpretation if it doesn't fit well with the rest of the franchise's take on that device.

 

SPOILERS: Leonard McCoy: Frontier Doctor 2

"when the transporter breaks down a man into his most basic parts and then puts him back together, somehow the... life force also safely makes the trip."

It doesn't add much to the debate as it is neither canon nor particularly scientific. However the story confirms that Trek lore considers the reintegration of artificially copied and stored memory patterns into a transported body IS considered to be the same person, which impliedly favours the kill and copy but consider the copy to be the original because it looks, thinks, and remembers just like the original explanation. The issue also confirms that re-setting your pattern to an earlier saved state DOES reset your memory unless steps are taken to copy the more recent memory patterns separately AND it leads to eventual, inexplicable cell death as some of the cells lose their living cohesion (yet without being damaged or degraded in any scientific sense).

Sadly, this latter point implies some kind of wibbly wobbly timey wimey 'life-force/soul' argument that I really don't favour, although if the person is also partly phased as has been suggested, resetting the pattern to an earlier state could 'break' some of the matter stream links to the phased energy template leading to this 'dead cell' result. As such if we take into account that McCoy is not an engineer, the hybrid explanation of transporting survives this plot fairly well.

 

Well now there's a fish joke that I can no longer use.

 

Dr. McCoy would look at the transporter process from the perspective of a doctor/chemist/biologist, rather than as a engineer/physicist.