A cursory glance at some of the papers this mroning and you will see that a physics breakthrough "brings 'Star Trek' teleport a step closer". However, what has actually been acheived is not new apart from the distance that the test has been performed over. Pphysicists have now successfully "teleported" something from the Canary Island of La Palma to the neighbouring island of Tenerife over 80 miles away. However, what is crucial here is that it is the state of matter that has been transported, not matter itself.
In the world of Star Trek the questions about how the teleporter woprks have raged for some time. IS the so-called "matterstream" a stream of matter itself or is it merely the state of thematter being sent to be reasembled from new matter at the destination?
This poses an interesting ontological question though when we think of the implication for "human teleportation". If teleportation means, as the succesful experiemtn in the Canaries implies, that you deconstruct physical matter in order to establish its state before sending the state, then would a human be the same person after the journey?
Will they retain their memory? Will they retain their, rather than a consciousness? Arguably, if it were ever acheivable to transport a human being it has the potential to settle an philosophical debate that has raged for over a thousand years about the nature of the soul/consicousness/being. The real question is, would you be willing to take the risk and go first?
8 comments:
I might - as long as there are no flies in the vicinity ...
Sounds good to me. Thinking of the value to science, curiosity would sucker me in.
I might suggest testing it on animals first, though I suppose doing so is politically suspect these days.
would you be willing to take the risk and go first?
Yep. But then I'm very much a materialist, since the evidence currently says that the mind is the action of the material brain and nothing else.
Love the way you throw the word "evidence" in when this is theoretical quantum physics we're talking about as opposed to physical biology.
Chris: "mind is the action of the material brain"
A successful human teleportation would not necessarily preclude the existence of a 'soul', since quantum physics is only a model of reality then teleported-human-as-physical-replica is only a valid assumption within the constraints of that model.
Dizzy: "as opposed to physical biology"
But human teleportation would be reconstruction of physical biology at the quantum level.
Agreed, but the physical biology itself would be new matter, at which point, in the limited understanding of how the brain stores memory and things like consciousness, I wouldv'e thought all bet would be off. (or maybe on with crazy high odds?)
Me dear mum asked me one day "you know these fax machines: how do they get the paper down the line?"
At last - a use for Prescott! Now, who's got the fly?
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