A moral question about teleportation.

[Break]

Ok so a friend and I were talking and the subject of teleportation rolls around (I'm sure everyone here has nerd moments just like I do and brings up teleportation in daily conversation. )
And we came to a Moral dilemma. You see the idea is when you are deconstructed from where and reconstructed on the other side, is that person still you?
Furthermore are those the same atoms or just copies?
Does that make you a clone?

Then came the topic of if you were to download your memory and personality into a robot (like an HRD lol), is that robot now you as well?

I'd like to hear your opinions as me and my friend both disagreed with each other on the matter.

 

[Aithne Charr]

Furthermore are those the same atoms or just copies? Does that make you a clone?

I dont see how this would make you a clone or why they would be a copy if your atoms. Unless -you- were still around and walking while another version of yourself is off somewhere else.... no, i dont see it being logical to still be walking around with a copy of yourself through the use of Teleportation.

 

[Grrwunhoooll Agaburry]

a teleport is when you instantly appear in a different location

 

[Kitty]

Your brain is what makes up everything that is you. If its data is totally copied into a computer for example then its totally up to the individual weather they would consider it still them though as far as I am concerned I would consider it still them. Same for teleportation. We are still a long ways from any of that though. We still know less about the human brain than the universe and the universe is pretty damn big and complicated. Until we come up with a way to map the brain in an instant on the spot per individual it won't be happening. As for teleportation there is the same issue. So far scientists have only been able to teleport like a single neutron or at least I think it was a neutron might have been something else that tiny. We might very well be seeing warp drives before either of those. So we got a lot time to think about it.

 

[Xilo Gale]

Hmm it seems as you take teleportation as the separation of atoms and the reformation of them in a different area. Which would be a form of teleportation but I think that would mean those atoms would still be your original atoms. But the mental capacity to guide billions of atoms to another position would be unrealistic and illogical. Even in fiction.

Thats why most teleportation is simply explained as opening a gate to a new dimension and travelling through it to the desired location, or folding space between yourself and the desired location so you can instantaneously travel.

So either way it goes yes you'll still be your original self after the teleportation.

 

[Break]

[member="Solan Charr"] [member="Kezeroth the Malevolent"]

I should probably clarify. People have actually teleported an apple. But to do that they had to deconstruct the apple atom by atom and then reconstructed it at the desired location.

Now if you were to do this with a person (which is physically impossible right now) would they be the same person?

 

[Xilo Gale]

Yes they would be the same person. Same atoms, same brain, same consciousness. Yes you'd be the same person.

 

[Kitty]

My answer was yes, but that's just me. And no they aren't' the same they are all technically a cut and pasted version of you. Not copy and pasted cut and pasted.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

I think this is why I like fantasy teleportation more than sci-fi teleportation. Matter transferal is a messy process. None of these pesky questions come up when you're slipping between planes in order to appear at a new location.

 

[Break]

Indeed, I like the idea of portals myself better. I'll have to add that into my notes! Thanks guys!
[member="Fabula Caromed"][member="Kitty"] [member="Xilo Gale"][member="Kezeroth the Malevolent"][member="Solan Charr"]

 

[Torvas]

I see this question come up every once in a while, and I've often wondered if it's at least not due in part to the 1970 James Blish novel entitled Spock Must Die!, in which one of the major plots of the story is whether or not a person looses their soul going through a transporter beam.

That being said [member="Break"] I've never heard that anything larger than a single light photon could be teleported thus far. Did you have a link to news coverage about that apple?

Regardless, I was under the impression that living organisms simply cannot be transported through any form of quantum teleportation. This is due to a result of the uncertainty principle, which was originally laid out by Werner Karl Heisenberg. Every time you attempt to increase the precision with which you try and find a particle the harder it becomes to actually know the momentum of said particle with any sort of precision. The inverse is also true.

 

[Break]

It seems I was wrong the teleportation device is flawed as it so far can only deconstruct the atoms as when trying to piece them together they get....messy
So yes information is the only thing we've teleported.
[member="Janus Viminal"]

 

[Break]

BUT WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!
[member="Janus Viminal"]

 

[Torvas]

Yeah, I was going to say an apple or any sort of organic matter would be really amazing! So far I only ever see things like this:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2458803,00.asp

 

[Aleidis Zrgaat]

If there's one thing I've learned from Star Trek, it's that matter-transferring teleportation creates a handsome, gloriously goatee'd Riker for you to hang out with.

 

[Abigail]

Yes they would be the same person. Same atoms, same brain, same consciousness. Yes you'd be the same person.

^ this

 

[Torvas]

It can also make a darkly handsome controlling bearded Spock [member="Aleidis Ijet"]

 

[Aleidis Zrgaat]

[member="Janus Viminal"]

All Spocks are darkly handsome and controlling. As for the beard?

That 'controlling' part might be my own headcannon, though.

 

[Jaron Lesan]

Depends on if you believe that a person has a soul connected to some kind of spiritual realm... That could not be deconstructed or reconstructed and without which a person cannot live...

Your moral dilemma only considers physical matter, but what about the metaphysical!

 

[Torvas]

[member="Jaron Lesan"] I remember a physicist saying that the metaphysical question was totally beyond them and they had no idea whether what makes a person a person would travel along. They hastily added that they had never been a philosopher, but that they also had no wish to go for a ride in one anyway haha