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Edited by halo: 1/17/2013 11:49:16 PM
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Ethics of Teleportation

I started thinking about how teleportation could possibly work. I could not fathom being able to teleport a whole human body through time and space, but I could fathom the idea of single atoms/particles. So basically what the machine would do is desintegrate your body, and then reconstruct it somewhere else. So if it's pretty much breaking down your body, would that kill you? Would you be dead? Would the "person" teleported just be someone else living with the other person's body parts? This is a statement I found in another forum after researching this after I thought about it. "You could claim that you are essentially vapourising someone and then recreating an exact clone of them a few seconds later in a different place." Here are some outcomes I figure would result from teleportation - teleported body would be dead - the body would be teleported so fast that your body is still living, but you would lose memory - your brain/thoughts/memories would be restarted and your brain would be in an infant stage where you would need around 18 years to mature and learn to an adult level -your "duplicate" thinks it's you and everybody else would think it's you but little do they know you're actually dead So speaking of ethics, would this be ethical? Would creating a new body from the exact make-up of another human down to the very particles be ethical? I imagine this is in the same caliber of creating Frankenstein's monster where it's a living being living through other humans body parts. So would the new constructed body have a soul? This is blowing my mind. [b]Also, ignore the caption "Why teleportation is Evil" in the picture, that does not reflect my opinion of it, I just found that picture after researching what I had just thought about and it pretty much sums up what I was thinking.[/b]

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  • That's prettysp00ky

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  • There would be no need to "disintegrate" your body. The machine would simply scan your physical and mental structure, and transmit it using quantum engagement to a new location where a replica of would be constructed. Your old self would then be destroy to a vapid complication.

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    • #Portals.

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    • And this is why slipspace and wormhole travel is so much better.

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    • What took so long!

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    • By the model of "teleportation" in the OPs image the duplicate stepping out of the teleporter would be a brand new entity that consciously cannot distinguish himself from the original. The duplicate might understand that he is a duplicate but from a pure sense point of view, from his memories and the way his body behaves and how he sees the world.... he would feel like he is the original. He's not the original. The original is dead. Physical continuity is broken when the original is destroyed. Therefore that person is dead. The type of teleportation is what makes the difference. There could be two types of "teleporter"; 1. Original steps into teleporter. Body is destroyed and analysed. Information is sent to destination, essentially a blueprint, and a new body is built and steps out of the other end. Duplicate is identical to original in every way. 2. Original steps into teleporter. Body is deconstructed and analysed. Information and deconstructed atoms are sent to destination and the original body is reconstructed using exactly the same atoms in the exact same configuration as before. Original steps out of the other end, literally the same body as it is still the original. Teleporter style 1 means death for the original and a fake copy that feels that he is the original. Teleporter style 2 means the original is literally teleported to the destination and reconstructed. Teleporter style 1 isn't really a teleporter at all. Just in the same way that if I reverse-engineer a device and then send that information to someone in France and they make an exact copy using that information isn't teleportation either. Teleporter style 1, the teleporter from the OP, is really just an information [i]transmitter[/i].

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      • If memories are simply links in the brain, then why would they get lost during teleportation. The new 'clone' would be exactly the same, and that would include all of the neural links in the brain, therefore they would have exactly the same memories and their thought would seem to flow uninterrupted from the old original person. Essentially, what you're asking is do people have souls, that is, a non-physical part that would not get reconstructed after the teleportation. If people do have non-physical souls then the teleportaion would not work as the soul would not get copied. If people don't have souls then the teleportation should work fine. Judging by your last comment, you believe people have souls. In this case, if it is a supernatural aspect of the person then I can see no reason why it would be copied during the teleportation and so the new clone would not be 'you'.

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      • Edited by Phister T: 1/18/2013 10:14:48 PM
        That one movie where the magician clones himself and the clones drops into a water tank and die every time. I think tesla said in the movie that some ideas have to be in the right time otherwise people lose their minds basically.

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      • As of right now, teleportation in such a manner would require energy on an equivalent star energy scale, making it about as much of a practical ethical issue as the idea of whether or not using a clone as a foot stool is proper.

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        • Hmmm ok.....

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        • I don't know anything about the brain but if it was reconstructed exactly how it was before being teleported, wouldn't it possess the same memories, knowledge and thoughts..?

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          • I love threads like these. So much use of words like "fathom" and "ponder."

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            • Imagine all the people Scotty killed...

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            • That's what they do in I believe Frank Beddoer's The Looking Glass Wars. The teleporters are mirrors, and the body becomes particles during transportation.

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            • The first time I heard of this was on the Big Bang Theory.

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            • Edited by ash: 1/18/2013 3:04:00 PM
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              [quote]Here are some outcomes I figure would result from teleportation - teleported body would be dead - the body would be teleported so fast that your body is still living, but you would lose memory - your brain/thoughts/memories would be restarted and your brain would be in an infant stage where you would need around 18 years to mature and learn to an adult level -your "duplicate" thinks it's you and everybody else would think it's you but little do they know you're actually dead[/quote] I don't think you understand teleportation. The last bulletpoint is the most accurate one but the word "dead" becomes a little ambiguous when talking about atomically exact clones. The copy would be exact. No memory loss. The copy would feel like they've been alive for years. Imagine teleporting a computer atom by atom. Would you expect all your files to be deleted? No. The same would be true of the human brain.

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              • Does it matter, to be honest?

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              • It's not like you would have the thoughts of being a different person. You would be the exact same person, not some evil clone that has been hiding inside you your entire life waiting to get out. Your memories and thoughts would be the same. Like say you have an epiphany for whatever reason and become a new person, (which is actually changing stuff), you are still that same person from before, just different. Here, you are still the same person, not even different.

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                • I'm inclined to think that if you are able to reconstruct someone perfectly, right down to the most fundamental constituents of the universe, then that reconstruction IS you. After all, what could be missing that makes you, "you"?

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                  • Where's would the dead me go? Would my body just never regenerate?

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                    • Edited by Spooter: 1/18/2013 5:46:07 AM
                      I always think of The Prestige when the subject of teleportation comes up.

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                    • THE EQUATION MUST BE BALANCED. Yes, I believe that digitizing your human form and then replicating it elsewhere after transmitting the data is fairly unethical. It is in every way you, except that it isn't you. Also, people talking about your cells being replaced... that may be true for your body, but your mind has essentially one contiguous experience.

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                      • A person is not their body.

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                        • Edited by BerzerkCommando: 1/18/2013 3:09:16 AM
                          You blinded me with science.

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                        • Here OP watch this! I don't live in the US so I can't watch it but I remember watching it almost a decade ago so I don't think I need to watch it again.

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                        • For those people claiming that every cell in your body is replaced every 7 years or so - I'm pretty sure that neurogenesis in the adult brain doesn't occur at the rate required to replace neurons and glial cells entirely in that timeframe.

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