The Trouble with Transporters

captain james tiberous kirk

Ariana

Make sure your pledge is high enough!

Harry Johnson

Nice :D

Sergei Balan

I agree. I'm a patreon supporter and I can't figure out how to get the wallpapers!

CodeBleu

There is something wrong with the wallpaper link. All I get is a title "Star Trek Wallpapers (and all others)", but no link to dropbox. Its weird, because the link worked a week ago.

B Winky

My wife is re watching Voyager right now, NG last month. We've had this conversation for laughs a few times recently. Great clip

Salgood Sam

Lots of videos! :D

Ky

To tell the truth this is really interesting. It is said that in a about 5 to 10 years a human has completely change all of his cells. So if this is true we are a new persona every now an then with little to no connection to that of what we were outside of our memories. <a href="https://youtu.be/BhtgINeaJWg" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/BhtgINeaJWg</a>

Cesar Feliz

Damm you! I wont be able to sleep anymore

Cesar Feliz

Remember talking about this in philosophy at sixth form (going back a bit!) Also reminded me of the film the 6th day. Great video.

Dan Jenkins

I burned the "who is 'you'" / "what is identity" question for 30 years before settling on an answer that appears to survive all possible philosophical jostling. "You" are "what you want". The sum total of your goals and desires and dreams and passions: what changes you would make to the otherwise undisturbed flow of the universe around you should the opportunity arise. That is the beginning and the ending of the definition of you. Not your physical body or your appearance, not your memories (both Dark City and 50 first dates being an interesting illustration herein) but your goals. To a lesser degree, even your unconscious ones, such as habits and quirks and speech patterns. And how do you identify other things? Through ordinary means of identification. A thing is a thing or a person is a person for at least as long as it can fool you into believing that, and if you're ever really not sure then put the thing's measurable qualities (especially it's most important or functional ones: this key, will it really open this lock?) or person's goals to the test. Impersonation can never wholly contravene the goals of the person impersonated. Upon sufficient inspection they either wind up outing themselves through insufficient fidelity or they create a persona so powerful the persona itself would fight back against it's host impersonator. So what comes out of a transporter? It has every characteristic of you (easily identified as you by others) as well as not only every memory (though if it lost some, it would be "you with amnesia" instead of "an impostor") but your goals and desires (EG, if it looked like you and had your memories but tried to hurt people you cared about, then "that's not the woman I know" and we start thinking of it as an evil clone or imposter or "posessed" or some other alarming outcome where we begin searching for the "real you", hoping against hope that that is at all recoverable). So what if the transporter scans Thomas and re-assembles William on board the ship, leaving Thomas stranded for 8 years? (William Thomas Riker and his transporter clone, after discovering one another, chose their names thusly to distinguish one another..) Then, for a short period after transport at least, BOTH of these people are you. Sure, you each have your own "unique stream of consciousness", but have a talk with anybody with a severed or malfunctioning corpus callosum or alien hand syndrome about that: one person CAN have more than one stream of consciousness, each unaware of the contents of the other, and still work out a functional and productive life. Or, have a talk with a pair of identical twins who have chosen to remain as synchronized as possible and not to seek out differentiation even in the smallest matters. Again, "The Prestige" offers a close approximation in Borden's character. Two people can effectively be one person so long as every single one of your motives remain as closely aligned as possible.. and when they don't (say, the woman each man falls in love with) that is where the illusion begins to come apart. Were it me, I would choose to share a group identity with my transporter clone (that we would have to frequently discuss in order to maintain well), and each of us would additionally cultivate our own personal identities.. for a grand total of three identities branching and evolving out of who I am today. Should I have a lot of clones, that group identity could begin to be classified as an "army", and the world at large would feel the much greater weight of my amplified influence upon it.. mwu ha ha. xD

Jesse Thompson

Isn't the question uniqueness, a uniquely modern human concern about being identical to someone else? Animals don't care, e.g., Dolly wasn't disturb by her clone. I am guess pre-homo sapiens didn't either. BTW, awesome as always.

DixonLu

Best. Ending. Ever!

James Sutherland

The outro about staying awake is really excellent! This is absolutely going to be in my mind for the next few nights when I get in bed...

This is stellar, top-notch. Great topic, too (although I am a little biased).

Trekspertise

+1 for the animation at 0:22 -- dramatic reveal!

Jonathan Overholt

Good stuff! At least one of the early novels had some similar speculation in it, by way of Dr. McCoy.

Michael Little

First there was darkness, then came the strangers.

Gustaf Hallberg