Teleporters that don't replicate matter?

Not as mind-screwy as the other possibilities opened up by meddling with quantum mechanics. Like any applied usage of the "seamless whole" theory.

edited 9th Sep '11 3:06:18 PM by JHM

The thing I never understood about teleportation technology is the existence of the did the original die question.

In my opinion if a society can figure out how to rearrange matter light years away but can't figure out how conciousness works something is wrong. Basically I think a society that can invent teleportation would probably have figured out the conciousness issue.

I figure that if teleportation was ever invented and it followed the whole vaporise, send information, and recontruct method it would not get used if continuity of conciousness wasn't verifiable except in absolute emergencies or by idiots. In short it would etiher be a heroic sacrifice or a tragic accident.

If I was designing a sci-fi setting that used teleportation that was bassed on zap, transfer, and reconstruct instead of portals or hyperspace and conciousness was completely matter based. Heres what I would do if it was used by a relatively human civilization that have a concept of individual rights and isn't well "evil". In short it would be used by a species that cares about the whole death issue and isn't the evil empire. An alien species that finds the death issue irrelivent or the evil empire might use standard disintigrate and rebuild if it works in which case it would either be a sign of them following blue and orange morality or considered a moral attrocity.

I'd make teleporters cyborgs that remote control the duplicates through a neural implant that sents thoughts over a secured network in the form of a signal. The bodies sent over world be a mindless shells that only function because of the implant sending the signals it recieves to the brain. Other then the computer parts it would in most cases simply be to quote Doctor Who 'a short lived biological photocopy"

Meanwhile explaining away the clone issue by making it that unless someone hacks into the network or is given the "password" the "original" would have to focus on however many bodies are active. Multitasking between two bodies one of which is probable sleeping is hard enough but more would be impracticle. In short any character that can pull this off without loaning bodies to another person(or having them stolen) would be the settings badass.

Permanent memory transfer into a new brain would either be impossible(can't be done), impracticle(can be done but either takes too much effort or doesn't transfer accurately resulting in inanity), or illegal unless stated in the originals will (or with the originals permission if cloning is an accepted form of reproduction). Simalarly stealing or viewing or copying a persons memories without permission(which would be necessary to do this) would be a capital punishment.

If the clone is already born before this happens and doesn't commit any willing crimes it would be given the name and legal property of the deceased parent (a.k.a. the one that stole the memories) with the option of joining the "teleportation corps" if the other parent is well useful enough. Basically if the ace gets cloned they would give a job offer if its the screw up then no job offer. The original would then be asked if they wish to recognise the copy as an heir. If the copy willingly aided the memory theif it would be executed as an accomplice. Otherwise the clone would also be considered a victim of memory theft

If its portal based they would be like doors. Walk in walk out, run in run out, look through see whats on the other side, and the third would be the only protection against accidently running into someone. Of course there would be a risk of accidently crossing over if your on the recieving end if these can be opened anywhere.

If conciousness was not quite matter based a.k.a. continuity of conciousness existed a.k.a. the setting is leaning away from hard science or into science fantasy. I'd make up some bullshit about how a persons mind exists in a persons body. Thus if you transfer the mind while the "soul" is still alive it would rearrange the surrounding material into its body. The original body is either destroyed to provied the energy to transfer it, or turns into a lifeless mess, or gets tramsmutated into whatever matter is rearranged.

Creating a copy would result in a mindless meat puppet as society hasn't figured out how to artificially replicate conciousness in organic beings. Animating it by sacrificing another being with a soul would work but after a short period of time the soul would transfrom the body into its original or die from Organ rejection. Oh and the body would have the souls memories.

I think I just proved why giving normal mortals teleportaion is tricky. I'll probably stick to magic or siginficantly advanced wahtever if i ever use it.

I would normally delete this for being too long but I'll leave it incase anyone wants to take the ideas.

Folks seem skiddish about physics here, but physics has an answer here. Quantum teleportation allows for objects to be teleported, provided that the origin and destination have an entangled pair of matter already. The original object is unavoidably destroyed, and there is no way to save the information to teleport again.

Can't we just have teleporters without having to elaborate on anything? :/

Not if you're writing a hard SF.

Entangling a huge, warm, wet thing like a human brain, nevermind the whole body, would probably involve a Heisenburg compensator though.

edited 10th Sep '11 2:37:29 PM by Yej

Well OP it look like you have you your answer, just use that.

suhh..

edited 10th Sep '11 4:10:15 PM by joeyjojo

Or if there is one. Abridged version:

edited 10th Sep '11 3:13:52 PM by ManInGray

Simply put if you suddenly transmuted into nothingness while at the same time somewhere an exact duplication of you before you disappear, right down second every single atom magically came into existence, from the point of view of that entity he teleported from one place to the other.

The human soul may of been lost, copied, gone to its new physical host, or simply never existed in the first place. We don't know. But for all intents and purposes you would still be you.