Would you use a teleporter?
Poll: Would you use a teleporter?
Total Members Polled: 89
Discussion
Skeptisk said:
A great idea for SF allowing people to travel instantaneously.
Slight problem in that to be transported you get killed and then an exact replica is created elsewhere with your memories. But is it you? Personally I think not and I would never get into a teleporter.
Totally agree. From an external view, nothing would change, I wouldn't be any different, but the unique consciousness that I call "me" would experience death and the one that took over on the other side of the teleporter would, as far as the unique consciousness is concerned, be an interloper. Slight problem in that to be transported you get killed and then an exact replica is created elsewhere with your memories. But is it you? Personally I think not and I would never get into a teleporter.
It depends - is this the type which dismantles, transmits, and reassembles the same matter somewhere else (i.e. sending Lego in the post), or the type which scans, transmits, prints and terminates, (like a secure fax/shredder combo)?
I think a 'teleport lite' solution could be workable in the very near future. User wears a VR headset and haptic suit, which communicates with a host 'robot' elsewhere, allowing the user to simulate being somewhere else. This could be on Mars or the Moon, or the bottom of the ocean. It could be an unmanned drilling drilling platform or research station in Antarctica for example, and a single remote operator could service each of their respective sites without the inconvenience of having to repeatedly travel back a and forwards. It could also offer tourist experiences in sensitive or inaccessible places. Like Google Earth VR, on steroids.
I think a 'teleport lite' solution could be workable in the very near future. User wears a VR headset and haptic suit, which communicates with a host 'robot' elsewhere, allowing the user to simulate being somewhere else. This could be on Mars or the Moon, or the bottom of the ocean. It could be an unmanned drilling drilling platform or research station in Antarctica for example, and a single remote operator could service each of their respective sites without the inconvenience of having to repeatedly travel back a and forwards. It could also offer tourist experiences in sensitive or inaccessible places. Like Google Earth VR, on steroids.
So here's another, yet related question.
You are involved in a car accident. You lose both your legs. Medical science has advanced to the point where they can grow you new legs, indistinguishable from the old ones. Do you accept them?
A few years on, your body is still in perfect working order (due to the above advances in medical science) and there is no reason, physically, why you can't carry on for another 100 years. But you are diagnosed with Alzheimers and are doomed to a slow and unpleasant decline. Medical science comes up trumps again and is able to construct a replacement brain, identical in every conceivable way to the one you have now except that it is immune to the effects of Alzheimers. Do you accept it? If you do, and you didn't want to use the teleporter, what is different?
You are involved in a car accident. You lose both your legs. Medical science has advanced to the point where they can grow you new legs, indistinguishable from the old ones. Do you accept them?
A few years on, your body is still in perfect working order (due to the above advances in medical science) and there is no reason, physically, why you can't carry on for another 100 years. But you are diagnosed with Alzheimers and are doomed to a slow and unpleasant decline. Medical science comes up trumps again and is able to construct a replacement brain, identical in every conceivable way to the one you have now except that it is immune to the effects of Alzheimers. Do you accept it? If you do, and you didn't want to use the teleporter, what is different?
welshjon81 said:
No. As you say it would kill you. You may have a clone of yourself the other side but you "as you know/feel it" would be gone forever.
Its a bit like making a clone of yourself, and then committing suicide.
I guess this relates to some sort of spirituality?Its a bit like making a clone of yourself, and then committing suicide.
imo if we had some sort of lossless copying (which would be a basic requirement for this type of tech for me) then you're the same coming out as going in.
ZedLeg said:
I guess this relates to some sort of spirituality?
imo if we had some sort of lossless copying (which would be a basic requirement for this type of tech for me) then you're the same coming out as going in.
It's more a question of consciousness than spirituality. Unless you believe your consciousness is a physical attribute which can be remanufactured at will, it leads to the inevitable conclusion that its kind of a one time experience and that any subsequent playthroughs on the same hardware would only look the same from the point of the observer rather than the "program". imo if we had some sort of lossless copying (which would be a basic requirement for this type of tech for me) then you're the same coming out as going in.
deckster said:
So here's another, yet related question.
You are involved in a car accident. You lose both your legs. Medical science has advanced to the point where they can grow you new legs, indistinguishable from the old ones. Do you accept them?
A few years on, your body is still in perfect working order (due to the above advances in medical science) and there is no reason, physically, why you can't carry on for another 100 years. But you are diagnosed with Alzheimers and are doomed to a slow and unpleasant decline. Medical science comes up trumps again and is able to construct a replacement brain, identical in every conceivable way to the one you have now except that it is immune to the effects of Alzheimers. Do you accept it? If you do, and you didn't want to use the teleporter, what is different?
It's a completely different question. In the teleporter scenario you are healthy & there is no valid reason to kill your old brain. In the Alzheimer's scenario there's a very clear benefit to doing so.You are involved in a car accident. You lose both your legs. Medical science has advanced to the point where they can grow you new legs, indistinguishable from the old ones. Do you accept them?
A few years on, your body is still in perfect working order (due to the above advances in medical science) and there is no reason, physically, why you can't carry on for another 100 years. But you are diagnosed with Alzheimers and are doomed to a slow and unpleasant decline. Medical science comes up trumps again and is able to construct a replacement brain, identical in every conceivable way to the one you have now except that it is immune to the effects of Alzheimers. Do you accept it? If you do, and you didn't want to use the teleporter, what is different?
Mr Pointy said:
deckster said:
So here's another, yet related question.
You are involved in a car accident. You lose both your legs. Medical science has advanced to the point where they can grow you new legs, indistinguishable from the old ones. Do you accept them?
A few years on, your body is still in perfect working order (due to the above advances in medical science) and there is no reason, physically, why you can't carry on for another 100 years. But you are diagnosed with Alzheimers and are doomed to a slow and unpleasant decline. Medical science comes up trumps again and is able to construct a replacement brain, identical in every conceivable way to the one you have now except that it is immune to the effects of Alzheimers. Do you accept it? If you do, and you didn't want to use the teleporter, what is different?
It's a completely different question. In the teleporter scenario you are healthy & there is no valid reason to kill your old brain. In the Alzheimer's scenario there's a very clear benefit to doing so.You are involved in a car accident. You lose both your legs. Medical science has advanced to the point where they can grow you new legs, indistinguishable from the old ones. Do you accept them?
A few years on, your body is still in perfect working order (due to the above advances in medical science) and there is no reason, physically, why you can't carry on for another 100 years. But you are diagnosed with Alzheimers and are doomed to a slow and unpleasant decline. Medical science comes up trumps again and is able to construct a replacement brain, identical in every conceivable way to the one you have now except that it is immune to the effects of Alzheimers. Do you accept it? If you do, and you didn't want to use the teleporter, what is different?
It's the same question.
Silvanus said:
Someone's been watching/reading The Prestige
Actually it is from a Sci Fi novel I read 40 years ago but can’t remember the name now. The premise is that they use it to send an astronaut. He gets into teleporter on earth and two copies are made - himself on earth and one on the planet he is sent to. He questions whether he is really himself even though “he” goes into the teleporter and comes back out every day thinking he is the same person.Gassing Station | Science! | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff