/sci/ - Science & Math

Alright /sci/,

Just got in an argument with a buddy of mine because I said that I would never use "transport" technology if it were to become available.

In Star Trek, the transporter is backed by a powerful computer that maps the locations of all the particles that constitute your body. That matter is then (somehow) converted to energy (light/photons) and then transmitted to a location where the object/person being transported would recompile that person based on the pattern data from when the person was "mapped".

There are a couple of other hypothetical technologies that could "transport" physical objects. One such theoretical machine would (just like the star trek transporter) map you particle for particle, transmit that data to the transport location, and reconstitute you by using raw materials on the other end. It's just a very fancy way of copying something. For it to be "transported" all you would need to do is destroy the original on the broadcast/transmission end.

My argument is that once you've been disassembled on the subatomic level, you cease to exist (if you, like me, believe that your consciousness is a byproduct of electro-chemistry). All that is happening is a very fancy copy is being made. This copy would have all of your memories (assuming that memories too are byproducts of electro-chemistry) and would be unaware that it's a copy of a person who was just de-atomized; there is no way to know for sure what happened to the original... unless you are the original. That's just a risk I would not be willing to take.

Would your consciousness cease to be? Would you just wake up at the destination? Would a copy of the original wake up at the destination and would that copy think it's the original that survived the journey?

Seriously, would you use this kind of technology? Because my answer is a huge FUCK NO. I'll take a shuttlecraft, tyvm.

discuss