If you're teleported, do you die?

If you were in a teleporter, and you were teleported. Did you just die? and make a clone of yourself?

If so, will there be a day when people voluntarily (and ignorantly) destroy themselves, ceasing to be, and creating clones to live out their existence?

A creepy prospect, but then wouldn't the clones contain the same essence as the original 'you', thoughts and chemical reactions and therefore just another you?

I think what you may be wondering is if it's really 'you' experiencing and being the new 'you' or it a different beholder?

i've wondered that myself. it seems to me that there would be no transferrence of consciousness. whatever came out on the other end would just believe that it was continuing it's previous life. but that makes you question the whole "soul" issue.

interesting to ponder but it's one of those things that makes you think in circles a little.

reply to post by an0maly33


Indeed, it makes my forehead bleed and I go cross eyed.

I still believe cloning is an attack against nature.

I've often wondered about this too. Only last night actually, whilst I watched SG-Atlantis.

i suppose it depends on the method used. If it was some form of sub-space displacement, as in SG, and you where sent "as a whole", I would think you'd still be you.

If it was some form of matter transporter, like in Star Trek, the way I understand it is that it breaks down you molecules into a data stream, transports you through sub-space and re-materializes you at the other end. This method sounds like it might kill you.

It depends, really, on what "consciousness" is. If it is just a result of chemical process, I would assume you would still be "you", not "you 2". If you do indeed have a consciousness that is seperate from the body, you might find you'll have a body materialise at the other end, but would it have brought the "soul" with it...

Very puzzling thoughts... Like I said, it would depend, i suppose on whether "you" are a result of plain old chemistry or something else.....

If you build a computer and use it for a year, then build an identical computer and clone its harddrive, it is not the same computer.... just a clone. Everything is still exactly the same... but physically different.

A transporter would need to open a wormhole that physical matter could be moved through to the destination. Anything else is physical death.

We'd really have to understand the nature of consciousness to answer that question with any certainty. At this point we can only speculate.

If consciousness is created by the body, then yes in a sense you'd die via teleportation. Then a new consciousness is formed on the other side with the same memories.

There's another possibility, which is that consciousness is the basis of reality. That opens up a new can of worms though.

I dont' think for a second consciousness is created from the body... more the opposite, the consciousness is pulled around via the body or the anchor/vessel

Otherwise we'd die when experiencing out of body experiences.

I'm quite sure out of body experiences are simply your minds way of re-constructing it's environment for you to see based on sensory data your subconscious is still receiving.


Outside of that, yes, unless you create a hole with which to pass whole objects through without dismantling them atom by atom, you do get killed on one end and re-built on the other.

Whats scary to me is that people wouldn't necessarily realize this is happening. And if they died, they wouldn't know.

Its sortof like in ghost in the shell. They transfer their memories to a cyber brain. But its not really them, is it? Its just the memories living on.

Originally posted by Holygamer
Its sortof like in ghost in the shell. They transfer their memories to a cyber brain. But its not really them, is it? Its just the memories living on.

If the sum of your experiences is "who you are" then I guess it doesn't matter. Only the container changes.

reply to post by Kruel


Well I think you are the container.

So all your doing is copying the memories to another container. But YOU actually are the original container.

After all,when you get brain damage, YOU are still you, even though your memories may be altered, or gone. Reason being? your the container, not the memories.

Good question, something that intrigued me way back when saw my first Star Trek episodes. If the teleportation involved the holographic assignment of molecular structure, and then it's total destruction / reconstruction, then I would guess the body would die. How the soul / consciousness finds the new body would pose the problem If it involves some sort of temporal quantum displacement and the body is not reconstructed reconstructed I would guess not. I think death involves the destruction (permanent loss) of the physical as well as the consciousness. interesting thought

There are various ways that teleportation could occur. Going off of the star trek version, matter is converted to energy, along with the energy that already exist in the body, i.e. the soul, and then transported and then converted back to matter. Following this concept, the soul would remain with the body.

Ok, I follow that. maybe I need a better understanding of how we are defining death here. I guess we we are saying death occurs when body and soul/spirit both cease to exist then nothing dies during teleportation. Heck if that is how we are defining it, death would never occur, as the spirit and body would always continue as some form of energy. So maybe what we are really defining death as here is the totality of a being with a sustained connective energy between physical and soul/consciousness/ spirit (however you choose to define it).

reply to post by andolin


I'm glad you brought this up. That is how I was thinking of it. As plain as it was it never occurred to me to think of it as simple replication of matter. Still, following my original post, the matter that is you would still be the same after conversion from energy. Therefore, it would not be a clone.

Thanks andolin

If you ride into the sunset ,will you fall off the edge of the world? Good question for that day and age too.

Since man and his environment are not separate, then no, you could be teleported and have no adverse affects. You would not come out the other side as a clone of your previous self.

As I said above, it all depends on exactly how the teleporter gets you from A to B.

To me, being turned into energy, then reconstituted at the other end(a la Star Trek) spells death for the original "you".

The one at the other end would be rebuilt exactly as you were when you were dematerialised, but it is just a copy generated from how your molecules where before the process.

Who says it would even be alive? It might be a perfect "you" at the other end, but would it actually be "you", or just a molecularly perfect copy?

To put it another way, the food replicators on start trek work on the same technology. It reconstitutes matter into whatever is desired. Now, that steak you ordered might look like one and taste like one, but it was never alive nor part of a cow.

If you replicated a cow, would it be alive, or would you just end up with a dead cow upon creation?

What is life?

De-constructing matter and re-constructing it at the other end is all well and good for inanimate objects, but would "life" be reconstituted at the other end also?

To me, the only method of teleportation that would be safe is one that transports you (and your immediate "space-time" through subspace, whilst keeping you intact.

Ripping your molecules apart and sticking them back together again sounds deadly. You wouldn't expect to be able to live again if someone cut you up and stuck you back together, would you? It's akin to being vaporised.

teleportation...

i see this happening only if there are portals that bend space time so you can reach the other end without having to make a copy of yourself. kind of like going through a black hole.

but according to the theory that involves making a copy of yourself somewhere else, i don't see how that would work at all. would be easier to focus the studies on bringing loved ones back from the dead first. which in my opinion would be a much more practical use for this technology.

but there's way more to life than the eyes can see, which is why i don't think that would work either.

reply to post by stumason


Continuing with the Star Trek concept of transportation, molecules are not 'ripped apart' but converted. It may be hard to comprehend the idea of the energy of the whole of an individual is the same as when in matter form.

Replicator technology (based off of transporter tech) cannot replicate the energy of life.

But again, we are talking about a science fiction show. If they had all the bugs worked out of the concept, we would be using it all now.