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The second Riker came into being because his ship (at the time - before his assignment to Enterprise) was having trouble beaming him up through the heavy interference, so they boosted the annular confinement beam. This strengthened his signal - but the interference also bounced part of the signal back, essentially creating two William Thomas Rikers. If he had a soul (a matter not yet settled in Trek, to the best of my knowledge), it was duplicated in the same way his body was.
As a side note, in Larry Niven's Known Space universe, at one point a puppeteer explains why his race has such legendary caution, bordering on cowardice. It refused to speak for any other species, but its people had found a way to investigate the question scientifically, and found that they had no "undying part" - no souls. If they died, that was it. So each member of the species sought to secure their individual survival for as long as possible (which, since they lived in herds, meant securing the survival of all the others, too).
If I took apart the chair I'm currently sitting on, whether just on a basic component level like the legs, back etc. or on a subatomic level. And then put everything together in the same way. As long as some basic components keep existing, be it the legs and the back or the atoms, then it's still the same chair if you ask me since some of its most fundamental constituents are still the same. As far as it would be possible to keep something the same on the atomic level anyway.
Of course one might argue that humans are more than just a bunch of atoms, but again, that's just speculation. AFAIK, everything can be brought back to atoms and the information how to combine them. There is nothing that could be lost during the process, at least nothing that we know of from Trek canon. Would it be different if you removed an arm and placed it back? Has the person died then? Of course not.
It can be argued that the essence of human beings, at least in Trek, is the bunch of atoms that make up the physical part of us and the information how to store and rebuild it. As long as that doesn't get lost, the essence of the human being remains intact and therefore the person doesn't die.
And even if there was something that might get lost in the process, things and humans get altered all the time. A large part of the human body consists, for example, of bacteria. Which die, get replaced and so on. So if you're going to argue that because some things may be changed during the process of transporting someone, and that this means that the person died, then I guess we're all continuously dying. Which is sort of true in a sense of course, but that's another topic.
Basically, if a person doesn't die because one of his limbs is removed and placed back in exactly the same way, then I don't see why it would be different if all atoms at once were separated and placed back in exactly the same way.
And again, all speculation that something may be lost along the way is just that: speculation.
TNG "Relics" does offer some explanation. It is my understanding that we are essentially digitized and are transformed into a signal, not unlike the signal used by, for example, cell phones.
-AoP- Warrior's Blood (KDF Armada) / -AoP- Qu' raD qulbo'Degh / -AoP- ProjectPhoenix Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
I Suggest people watch the TNG Episode "Realm of Fear"
In it, Barclay is shown to be clearly concious while "in transport" and is even shown to be able to take action while disassembled in the matter stream.
This clearly confirms that the person being transported is still the same individual person and not some clone.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
lol, you just had to bring a classic parady into it
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Every time you go to sleep, you die, and a new you wakes up, and believes despite several hours of time missing that he's still the same person that went to sleep.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I Suggest people watch the TNG Episode "Realm of Fear"
In it, Barclay is shown to be clearly concious while "in transport" and is even shown to be able to take action while disassembled in the matter stream.
This clearly confirms that the person being transported is still the same individual person and not some clone.
It is shown in other episodes that people are conscious during the disintegration and reintegration process, but nothing about the pattern buffer process. Person A has all the memories of being disintegrated, then is destroyed. Person B has all the memories of Person A including their disintegration memories. Person B's mind integrates the disintegration memories with that of the reintegration memories that it is currently going through. So Barclay is experiencing the "in transport" sensation as the disintegration and reintegration process while when he is "in transport" is in a state where consciousness can't exist due to being 1s and 0s.
That entire episode has too many problems with what is known about transporters. Barclay somehow rescues a bunch of people stuck in the Yosemite's pattern buffers while he is being transported. I am more likely to believe that Geordi or Data used some of their engineering skills behind the scenes to rescue the trapped people.
if i recall correctly, gold pressed latinum cannot be replicated, which is why it is a rare currency in the trek universe.
but the question is, can it be transported? if the OPs assertion is correct, then it shouldnt be able to be transported, since the receiving end transporter is essentially just a replicator making a copy of something else.
Latinum can't be replicated, but gold can. Latinum is a silver liquid similar to mercury. It is suspended within gold to produce GPL.
This is actually true, the transporters in star trek kill you and make an identical copy which believes it has been alive for a long time.
"A difference which makes no difference, is no difference." - William James
If the person stepping out of the transporter looks like me, acts like me, and has continuity of experience with me, then he is me.
It actually makes a difference if assuming there is an afterlife, we reach the afterlife after our first transportation or encounter a bunch of copies due to transportation cloning our souls as well as bodies. No way to prove it one way or another, but religion has always been great with creating explanations about unprovable concepts.
This is actually true, the transporters in star trek kill you and make an identical copy which believes it has been alive for a long time.
"A difference which makes no difference, is no difference." - William James
If the person stepping out of the transporter looks like me, acts like me, and has continuity of experience with me, then he is me.
From every perspective except, maybe my own, which is the only perspective I care about as far as this is concerned.
Basically, if I'm going to cease to exist (maybe I'm a puppeteer in disguise... ) and get replaced by a seemingly identical duplicate, it had better be for a very good reason.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
So what is the right question here? What are we or who are we?
OP is right in my view. Being transported means you are destroyed on one place and rebuild at another one. Now what exactly is transported? Energy, so we are energy and as long as there is energy and we have the data which is our person, we can can rebuild ourself as we like.
So you don't like to go to work, make a replicate of yourself send it to work, while you take leisure. Want to to visit some friends far away? Send your person data over, so they can replicate you and have fun. As Spock would have said, fascinating.
LAFORGE: Apparently there was a massive energy surge in the distortion field around the planet just at the moment you tried to beam out. The Transporter Chief tried to compensate by initiating a second containment beam. DATA: An interesting approach. He must have been planning to reintegrate the two patterns in the transport buffer. LAFORGE: Actually, it wasn't really necessary. Commander Riker's pattern maintained its integrity with just the one containment beam. He made it back to the ship just fine. CRUSHER: What happened to the second beam? LAFORGE: The Transporter Chief shut it down, but somehow it was reflected back to the surface. PICARD: And another William Riker materialised there. RIKER: How was the second pattern able to maintained its integrity? LAFORGE: The containment beam must have had the exact same phase differential as the distortion field. RIKER: Which one of them is real? LAFORGE: That's the thing. Both. You were both materialised from a complete pattern. CRUSHER: Up until that moment, you were the same person.
MinutePhysics [. . .] explain that scientists began looking at a thing called quantum teleportation in the nineties. This is the process whereby quantum information – such as the state of an atom–- could be transmitted. However, a major clause in this theory is the “no cloning theorem.” Essentially, to create a replica of a quantum state, the original must be destroyed in order to obtain all the information.
Science is still pretty shady on what exactly constitutes consciousness and what makes you “you,” so it's still hard to say. However, if it was something to do with the quantum state of certain electrons and atoms in our brain, then it doesn’t look too hopeful that “you” would survive the journey.
I feel that metaphysics will need to come into play, here. ~braces herself for any heavy objects about to be thrown at her~
And as I said, that Barkley episode with the transporter phobia shown he was just fine, transporting seemed more like just being in an intergalactic tanning booth.
Who cares... if nothing of the other remains, then who cares if it's a copy or not...
Are you suicidal?
No... I mean I don't actively seek death but when my time comes, then my time comes.
But I really don't see the issue... If something is a perfect copy, there would be no issue, and I really would not care... After all, if its a PERFECT copy, it might as well be me, so there is no difference.
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
Who cares... if nothing of the other remains, then who cares if it's a copy or not...
Are you suicidal?
No... I mean I don't actively seek death but when my time comes, then my time comes.
But I really don't see the issue... If something is a perfect copy, there would be no issue, and I really would not care... After all, if its a PERFECT copy, it might as well be me, so there is no difference.
Well, I would care about the potential termination of what I perceive as 'my' consciousness. Sure, the duplicate wouldn't know the difference, but I would and I wouldn't be too happy about being consigned to oblivion in favor of a replica. (On the flip side, as I think I said before, I'd be too dead to know something was wrong.)
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Comments
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
As a side note, in Larry Niven's Known Space universe, at one point a puppeteer explains why his race has such legendary caution, bordering on cowardice. It refused to speak for any other species, but its people had found a way to investigate the question scientifically, and found that they had no "undying part" - no souls. If they died, that was it. So each member of the species sought to secure their individual survival for as long as possible (which, since they lived in herds, meant securing the survival of all the others, too).
If the person stepping out of the transporter looks like me, acts like me, and has continuity of experience with me, then he is me.
If I took apart the chair I'm currently sitting on, whether just on a basic component level like the legs, back etc. or on a subatomic level. And then put everything together in the same way. As long as some basic components keep existing, be it the legs and the back or the atoms, then it's still the same chair if you ask me since some of its most fundamental constituents are still the same. As far as it would be possible to keep something the same on the atomic level anyway.
Of course one might argue that humans are more than just a bunch of atoms, but again, that's just speculation. AFAIK, everything can be brought back to atoms and the information how to combine them. There is nothing that could be lost during the process, at least nothing that we know of from Trek canon. Would it be different if you removed an arm and placed it back? Has the person died then? Of course not.
It can be argued that the essence of human beings, at least in Trek, is the bunch of atoms that make up the physical part of us and the information how to store and rebuild it. As long as that doesn't get lost, the essence of the human being remains intact and therefore the person doesn't die.
And even if there was something that might get lost in the process, things and humans get altered all the time. A large part of the human body consists, for example, of bacteria. Which die, get replaced and so on. So if you're going to argue that because some things may be changed during the process of transporting someone, and that this means that the person died, then I guess we're all continuously dying. Which is sort of true in a sense of course, but that's another topic.
Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
And again, all speculation that something may be lost along the way is just that: speculation.
Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
http://www.sciencealert.com/a-new-quantum-teleportation-distance-record-has-been-set
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_teleportation
In it, Barclay is shown to be clearly concious while "in transport" and is even shown to be able to take action while disassembled in the matter stream.
This clearly confirms that the person being transported is still the same individual person and not some clone.
lol, you just had to bring a classic parady into it
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
It is shown in other episodes that people are conscious during the disintegration and reintegration process, but nothing about the pattern buffer process. Person A has all the memories of being disintegrated, then is destroyed. Person B has all the memories of Person A including their disintegration memories. Person B's mind integrates the disintegration memories with that of the reintegration memories that it is currently going through. So Barclay is experiencing the "in transport" sensation as the disintegration and reintegration process while when he is "in transport" is in a state where consciousness can't exist due to being 1s and 0s.
That entire episode has too many problems with what is known about transporters. Barclay somehow rescues a bunch of people stuck in the Yosemite's pattern buffers while he is being transported. I am more likely to believe that Geordi or Data used some of their engineering skills behind the scenes to rescue the trapped people.
Latinum can't be replicated, but gold can. Latinum is a silver liquid similar to mercury. It is suspended within gold to produce GPL.
It actually makes a difference if assuming there is an afterlife, we reach the afterlife after our first transportation or encounter a bunch of copies due to transportation cloning our souls as well as bodies. No way to prove it one way or another, but religion has always been great with creating explanations about unprovable concepts.
From every perspective except, maybe my own, which is the only perspective I care about as far as this is concerned.
Basically, if I'm going to cease to exist (maybe I'm a puppeteer in disguise...
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
And being one who believe in the immortal soul, I feel the transporters won't kill you, or even copy you.
OP is right in my view. Being transported means you are destroyed on one place and rebuild at another one. Now what exactly is transported? Energy, so we are energy and as long as there is energy and we have the data which is our person, we can can rebuild ourself as we like.
So you don't like to go to work, make a replicate of yourself send it to work, while you take leisure. Want to to visit some friends far away? Send your person data over, so they can replicate you and have fun. As Spock would have said, fascinating.
I feel that metaphysics will need to come into play, here. ~braces herself for any heavy objects about to be thrown at her~
And as I said, that Barkley episode with the transporter phobia shown he was just fine, transporting seemed more like just being in an intergalactic tanning booth.
No... I mean I don't actively seek death but when my time comes, then my time comes.
But I really don't see the issue... If something is a perfect copy, there would be no issue, and I really would not care... After all, if its a PERFECT copy, it might as well be me, so there is no difference.
Well, I would care about the potential termination of what I perceive as 'my' consciousness. Sure, the duplicate wouldn't know the difference, but I would and I wouldn't be too happy about being consigned to oblivion in favor of a replica. (On the flip side, as I think I said before, I'd be too dead to know something was wrong.)
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
That a newly fabricated person believes itself to have continuity may have little bearing on the original's abrupt termination of existence.