Teleportation

[Timsup2nothin]

I don't even know what you're saying. You don't have a mechanism by which the neuron is influenced in its firing to distinguish the neuron from a thermostat.

Well, actually it appears that the process of firing neurons relies on quantum tunneling, which is far less understood than the thermodynamic principles in a thermostat. A charge exists on one side of a barrier, and conditions on the other side of that barrier are such that the charge can exist there, but conditions within the barrier preclude the existence of the charge. The charge, in some set of cases represented by a probability, will transit the barrier without pathing through it, while in the countering set of cases it will not. The cases are identical, in regards to objective reality, and yet outcomes are different. The "answer" which some people demand is 'random chances.' There is no evidence in objective reality to dispute that answer...but there is no evidence to support it either.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

If it exists outside our reality, it's functionally meaningless to postulate over.

If it cannot be demonstrated to exist within the boundaries of objective reality, yet is universally acknowledged as existing, then what else would be more meaningful to contemplate?

 

[timtofly]

But why assume that teleporting causes reincarnation? If it would, yes, it would be you. Not seing why it would though.

Teleportation as it currently stands is not the same physically you, because it breaks down the physical you and changes it to energy and back to another (copy) physical representation. If it did not brake down the physical you and turn you into energy, then yes the result would not be another you, but the same you. Reincarnation is the same you, different physical body.

The point is: does the copy of you retain the same exact memory pattern? I do not see that one state necessarily transfers to another state in the same way. You can have the same two physical structures, but you have to move the states in a different process, than just by making the exact same physical copy. That is even if the neuron network in the brain even operates the same as two sets of physical memory devices.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Teleportation as it currently stands...

This opening makes the entire statement remind me of long arguments over whether the damage stats of longbows are realistic in a game where the longbows are being used by elves to shoot at goblins.

Teleportation as it currently stands is non-existent.

 

[Synobun]

If it cannot be demonstrated to exist within the boundaries of objective reality, yet is universally acknowledged as existing, then what else would be more meaningful to contemplate?

What to have for dinner.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

What to have for dinner.

I don't contemplate things like that, I just make dinner.

 

[ulyssesSgrant]

Yes, you are in my opinion. However, I also consider you dead when you're frozen. But because it's the same grey matter coming back after revival, it's still you. Copying breaks both temporal and physical continuity. Freezing breaks temporal continuity, integrating with a computer network breaks neither.

What if while frozen your brain is disassembled, each atom placed in a different place. So at a certain time you are, completed separated and spread out across the universe. Basically no different from being dead and your atoms scattered throughout the earth. But then reassembled the exact same way, and brought back to life, would that matter? Is that different than a teleporter disassembles you, shoots your atoms to a new planet, and then reassembles you?

I have a bunch of conflicting intuitions about this. Like, it shouldn't matter if it was the same atoms or different atoms. An atom is an atom. It also shouldn't matter if you disable someone who is completely frozen, but that also changes my intuitions. So, clearly my intuitions cannot be trusted. Consciousness must not actually work how it seems to.

 

[Blue Emu]

Makes watching Star Trek more interesting realizing that every time they teleport they are killing themselves. Anyways this all depends on what "you" are and how you feel about that.

I teleported home last night
With Tom and Sid and Meg.
Tom stole Maggie's heart away,
And I got Sidney's leg.

 

[timtofly]

This opening makes the entire statement remind me of long arguments over whether the damage stats of longbows are realistic in a game where the longbows are being used by elves to shoot at goblins.

Teleportation as it currently stands is non-existent.

Do you know something the rest of us do not?

It more than likely exist, but there may never be any technology that can implement it. Not that there are those who probably invest in attempting to figure it out. We already are pretty sure objects can on some level move in and out of physical reality existence through space and time. Else there would be nothing on the topic to mention. It is theoretical, and fictional in application in our current understanding. Saying it is non-existent is a pretty bold statement, or was that a temporary thought that came and left?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Do you know something the rest of us do not?

It more than likely exist, but there may never be any technology that can implement it. Not that there are those who probably invest in attempting to figure it out. We already are pretty sure objects can on some level move in and out of physical reality existence through space and time. Else there would be nothing on the topic to mention. It is theoretical, and fictional in application in our current understanding. Saying it is non-existent is a pretty bold statement, or was that a temporary thought that came and left?

It came, it saw, it conquered. This was made easier for it because it contained "as it currently stands." As it currently stands, yes, it is the stuff of fiction; thus non-existent.

This entire thread has been speculative, including your post that I commented on, and I'm certainly fine with that. It just struck me funny the way you prefaced it.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

What if while frozen your brain is disassembled, each atom placed in a different place. So at a certain time you are, completed separated and spread out across the universe. Basically no different from being dead and your atoms scattered throughout the earth. But then reassembled the exact same way, and brought back to life, would that matter? Is that different than a teleporter disassembles you, shoots your atoms to a new planet, and then reassembles you?

I have a bunch of conflicting intuitions about this. Like, it shouldn't matter if it was the same atoms or different atoms. An atom is an atom. It also shouldn't matter if you disable someone who is completely frozen, but that also changes my intuitions. So, clearly my intuitions cannot be trusted. Consciousness must not actually work how it seems to.

I think according to what @uppi posted, disassembling something to get the information to be able to reassembly it destroys it in the process. So this is the same as teleporting essentially and I think that represents a separate copy of the original person.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Could the copy be held liable for a crime the original had committed, then?

Or will teleportation effectively be a "get out of jail free" card?

 

[Blue Emu]

Suppose an improvement in technology meant that we didn't have to destroy the original in order to create the copy at a different location. Shouldn't we destroy them anyway? Otherwise they haven't GONE anywhere...

 

[Kyriakos]

@uppi thanks for the corrections ^_^

 

[Estebonrober]

I once heard an interview with Richard Feynman and he was talking about perceptions of reality. One of the striking things he finally put into my head that clears some things up for me is the idea of atoms being wrong. There isn’t anything such as the classical atom down at the atomic level. It’s basically just a bunch of force fields interacting and (at the time) acquiring mass somehow. That literally sitting on your sofa is you sitting on a electromagnetic, strong, and weak force field. QCD

In that since we are all energy anyways and shipping us around on beams of energy maybe shouldn’t be considered death.

 

[timtofly]

I once heard an interview with Richard Feynman and he was talking about perceptions of reality. One of the striking things he finally put into my head that clears some things up for me is the idea of atoms being wrong. There isn’t anything such as the classical atom down at the atomic level. It’s basically just a bunch of force fields interacting and (at the time) acquiring mass somehow. That literally sitting on your sofa is you sitting on a electromagnetic, strong, and weak force field. QCD

In that since we are all energy anyways and shipping us around on beams of energy maybe shouldn’t be considered death.

It is only death, if something goes wrong and you do not come out the other side. The point that is trying to be made is how much of you is maintained in the process. If you are only connected to the physical in the mind, do you even have to be there for the transport, or can you just wait till your body comes back "online"?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Why would you want tunneling to be quantum ?
If tunneling were to be applied to human transportation, surely it wouldn't be quantum.

Near as I can make out quantum tunneling has absolutely nothing to do with hypothetical teleportation, but as a not completely understood phenomenon it tends to get thrown in as the goto mechanism that will make the currently impossible suddenly possible.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

That i find terrifying about teleportation is nobody would notice you are dead, not even your teleportedyou.

Otoh in quantum field theory, particles are nothing but energy peaks of the quantum field, so there are like 20 quantum fields forming the universe, a field for each fundamental particle included force particles. That is all. What we know like matter and forces are perturbations, excited states of the quantum field. The funfamental thing is the field, particles are only phenomenologic manifestations of the field we can measure and interact with. Consequently we are only perturbations of the quantum fields underlying the particles our bodies are made of.

So copying a particle and pasting an exact copy somewhere else means we are destroying anything? Or we are only moving a perturbation from a point to other inside a quantum field? Can we say two particles with the same characteristics are really different particles? So, do particles have "personality"? Are quantum field "real" things or mathematical entities? What we are? Do we really exist? Did i eat too much tuna before going to bed and now i cant sleep?

 

[Kyriakos]

If the set has consciousness, then it is different from a copy of it. Cause in this way the set [1,2,3] isnt the same as the copy i now make: [1,2,3]. To an observer outside of the set they can only be differentiated if ordered; eg the second was a copy. But the consciousness of the first is not in the second.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

But you are considering consciousness as something separated of the set of particles. As a spiritual thing existing in an esoteric plane. What if it is part of the set of particles? can a consciousness exist at two different places at the same time?