Question about the transporter beam on Star Trek.

[Deep13]

The idea behind it is that it dematerializes someone on the ship and them puts him or her back together on the planet.

But how do they know that's really what happens? How do they know it doesn't KILL the person on the ship by disintergration (generally thought to be a fatal condition) and then make a new, identical person on the planet? The new person on the planet would be exactly the same as the previous (now dead) person with the exact same memories. That person will believe himself or herself to be the person from the ship because he will "remember" being there. Yet it will be false memories like those in Total Recall or Blade Runner because there are artificially created by the transporter beam making an exact copy of the previous person who is now gone.

[TZ]

1. I believe there was a TNG episode

with kinda that premise...One which William Riker had a transporter duplicate left behind on a planet...

[Deep13]

4. And there was the one with two Captain Kirks. nt

[CGowen]

22. There is a transporter buffer, Scotty survived in one and came back in a TNG episode

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relics_(TNG_episode)
http://tinyurl.com/28wtbp

[laconicsax]

25. And yet another TNG episode

where Picard died and they just made a new copy of him from the transporter buffer.

[Swede]

2. There was a story called Rogue Moon about this subject.

It's not from Star Trek but it't pretty good. Are they being destroyed every time they teleport?

[terrya]

3. I was always skeptical about the feasbility of it.

I've wondered if it was even possible.

[Deep13]

6. I don't see how it can be possible. nt

[Tindalos]

23. It's a clear violation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

Also, you'd have to compensate for the rotation of the planet. They move pretty fast - you DO NOT want to miscalculate that.


Edited for grammar.

[unpossibles]

5. I always thought that's how it would have to work

basically, that it encodes you while it destroys you, sends data/energy to the target, then transforms that energy into matter as a copy.

[Richardo]

7. Unrelated to Star Trek **SPOILER**

That's the nightmare of 'The Prestige' :scared:

[Deep13]

8. Saw it. Yup. nt

[DS1]

9. I'd totally hack it to have Troi beam into my bed naked

[Deep13]

10. Live hawt and prosper. nt

[badgerpup]

11. ...and this AZACKLY why Dr. McCoy didn't like the transporter!

He'd always be grouching off about it malfunctioning and him being reassembled as a different person than the one he was disassmebled from...

Think it was in the ST novel Memory Prime one of the characters points out that he'd never know the difference, since he'd 'know' he'd 'always' been that way and his reaction was along the lines of "You think that makes me feel BETTER?!"

Good ol' Bones...:loveya:

[edbermac]

12. Forget the transporter. Answer me this question.

How come they never had any goddamn BATHROOMS on the ships??

The Borg suddenly attack and Captain Picard comes running out of the head with piece of toilet paper stuck to his boot. When are we gonna see THAT??

[Deep13]

13. They don't use toilets.

Instead a transporter and relicator simply replaces their bowels.

[billyskank]

14. I teleported home one night, with Fred and Sid and Meg.

Fred stole Maggie's heart away
and I got Sidney's leg.

[mzteris]

15. there was a short story about this

- well not this exactly (not in re: star trek) but about "teleportation".

In it you make a copy of the person and *that* is transmitted and the "original" is automatically killed. Except no one knows that but the people who run the service. . .

One day there's a bit of a glitch and the technician gets to know the woman while waiting for the snafu to correct itself after she's been transmitted.

He can't keep her alive, because the other one's already been made, so he has an ethical dilemma: Is it killing her if she's alive somewhere else? Besides, if he kills her - she'll never remember him.

THINK LIKE A DINOSAUR is the name of it . . .


edit: updated info

[billyskank]

16. ....

:loveya:

[mzteris]

17. heya

I updated my original post.

BTW - is the :loveya: for ME, or for the story? ;)


:*

[billyskank]

19. For YOU, silly.

:*

[mzteris]

20. I know . . .

I just wanted to hear you say it. :swoon:


:loveya:

[ZombieNixon]

18. It is just a demonic photocopier.

I kills you and then reassembles a copy at the other end.

[Orrex]

21. How do you know that you're the person you were ten minutes ago?

What does it even mean to be the same person from one minute to the next? And are your memories ever "true," or are they simply passable approximations of past events?

In the absence an original and/or multiple identical copies, then a thing indistiguishable from the original can be called the original.

The atoms in my body are, in large measure, not the same as the ones that were there last Tuesday. Am I now the same person that I was then? What about tomorrow?

The Transporter, by disintegrating and reintegrating a thing, simply highlights the mightily uncomfortable truth that there is no fundamental "self" that endures from one moment to the next.


Now that that's solved, ask me to explain how the biofilters can screen for hostile organisms without filtering out beneficial intestinal bacteria, skin mites, etc.

[redqueen]

26. Ah pishaw...

the "self" is your consciousness, not your cells. So there. :P

So... about those biofilters?

[TommyO]

27. Go for it - philosophy and Star Trek pseudo-science were meant for each other.

[Stuart G]

24. JELLO .NT ................

[EstimatedProphet]

28. There was a Trek fanbook called "Spock Must Die" that goes into this

And really, what is the difference between an original and an exact replica?