[thechat] Dudes! Star Trek transporters are here

[aardvark]

> From: Martin Burns <martin at easyweb.co.uk>
[...]
> If you were transported, and all of your molecules were annihilated at
> one point and an exact copy recreated in another place, you'd be dead,
> but the entity recreated would think it was you, and would report that
> being teleported is fine and dandy. So on that evidence, I decide to
> teleport over to Oregon for the weekend to suck back some beers with
> Jeffy, Erika, Judah and co, and die in the process, but they'll never
> know.
>
> And there is no evidence possible to find which would tell anyone that
> one consciousness ends and another takes up the thread. So there's
> only a thought experiment to back up a rational argument why not to do
> it...

so, what you're saying is that as long as teleportation is a
destructive process, you're not interested?  i know i'm not... i
mean, it's cool to dupe yourself and all, but i hate dying... and i
know i'd monkey with the device to *not* destroy my original self
(or fourth generation copy, for all i know)...

and then there's the issue of factoring in details like the heisenberg
uncertainty principle, which for all i know, after a number of copies,
could result in an atom on my DNA falling off and taking an entire
telomerase with it, and *poof*, i start growing slime glands...

no, i'm much more interested in the Stargate style transporter,
which ecompasses you like a blender, and then with a careful
application of force, breaks up your physical form (use the pulse
setting on a blender and see) and pipes it up to the mothership in a
matter stream (sort of like pouring a milkshake into a mug, and
refreezing it, only less messy and more precise) and reconstitutes
it...

that would be cool...

i could go for a milkshake...



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