this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Depends on the technology employed.
Quantum entanglement? Sure. All day, every day.
That annihilation shit that Star Trek does? Hell no.
Star Trek Transporters don't annihilate you. According to all the stuff from Star Trek it literally disassembles you, moves your particles through space in a matter stream held in a containment field, and reassembles you at the new location.
So the Ship of Theseus question doesn't actually apply, your physical material is the same before and after. The question is if disassembly constitutes dying, and if the reassembled you at the new location is a resurrected you, or if disassembly isn't dying, then it is in fact just a form of transport.
How do you account for the duplicate Riker in TNG? Who's the real one and where did the extra matter come from then to assemble William vs Tom?
(It's been a long time since I've seen that episode so I don't remember if they covered that but on-screen)
A similar question could be raised for the Rascals episode...
To quote MST3k, "It's just a show, you should really just relax."
Non-seriously, though, in Trek lore, energy and mass are still interchangeable via e=mc^2 -- the weird conditions on the planet caused the matter stream to be mirrored and the extra energy came from the ship adding More Power to the transport process.
It probably means that the real, original Riker, made up of atoms that were built from energy from the original Riker is the one that ended up on the planet.
Fair enough. Sometimes you can't help but go down these rabbit holes though.
Whenever you're tempted, remember this is the same show where Dr. Crusher nearly fucked a candle ghost.
Tell that to the second Riker.
Off topic, but I read a book or short story once that was similar to your edit.
It followed a character who lived on a planet with a toxic atmosphere. At the end of every day, everyone would get into a personal chamber that took a complete copy of them, destroyed their body, then rebuilt it and added the memories back the next morning.
I can't remember if it was specified or implied, but the gist of it was that the machine ripped the body apart to the molecular level while the person was conscious, but the snapshot was taken before that, so no one remembered the pain.
Quantum entanglement would mean that while it reads your initial state and encodes the new state there are two copies of you in existence, that is cloning, then the initial state dies. Unless the process of reading that state is destructive, then you just die and are cloned.
The method between the two you suggested also means you die momentarily and then are recreated. For the period of time it takes to encode your atoms into a method of transport and then reassemble them at your destination, you no longer exist in complete form.
The cute thing about quantum entanglement is that it provably CANNOT create a clone of you. It is conveniently called no-cloning theorem. It can either move your exact quantum state from a collection of particles in one place onto a collection in another, or it can create imperfect clones of you, but in no situation can it create an exact quantum clone of you in addition to the original.
But I still exist and am not quantumly annihilated.
Exactly, if you are not annihilated then that means two identical versions of an entity that thinks it's you exist simultaneously, and now one of them has to be killed to maintain the illusion of this being transport rather than cloning.
Yeah but the quantum entanglement ensures the new copy is like you down to every last detail. Atomic resolution digitizes you and probably loses information.
Thatβs not what quantum entanglement means, but either way, you die when you step into the teleporter. Some clone that thinks itβs you on the other side lives out the rest of your days. There arenβt two ways about this.
If they could make a portal that bent space time so that proton and destination were βnext toβ each other, Iβd consider it.
Anything that has to take me apart and put me back together is just creating a copy of me, my consciousness would not be continuous no matter what illusion we put the clone under.
So no, fuck teleportation.
If you actually lose consciousness during the process, there might be an argument, but if I can walk onto a platform while having a conversation with someone and continue that conversation seamlessly with no gaps in my short term memory then I did not die and there was no destruction, merely the encoding and decoding of myself into my equivalent in energy in a process that might as well be instantaneous.
We can re-attach limbs, imagine if it were possible to be completely disassembled, shipped first class mail around the world, and then re-assembled. Wouldn't we be the same person?
I've seen the 6th Day. I think I can manage π€
Those old Arnie moves have some deep philosophical quandaries huh. 6th day, Terminator, Total Recall, Last Action Hero, Running Man, Junior.