Does the transporter kill you?

[Tiberius]

Remember that episode of Enterprise where the creator of the transporter mentions the philosophical dilemma of whether the person that comes out of the transporter is the same person who went in?

Scientists have developed a method for "beaming" subatomic particles, but their research indicates that what comes out is a duplicate, not the original. After all, if the matter is converted to energy and then back to matter, is it the same matter?

So, when Picard goes through the transporter, does the original Picard comes out? or is it a replica of Picard? If so, what happens to the original?

[JudgeKing]

Techically, yes it is the same person.

[Monroe]

Since the Federation by the time 24th century seems to have really downplayed religion I don't think anyone would think they aren't the same person. But if it kills you or not is probably a debate for religions. My personal theory is that it depends on how it works. If it picks you up in energy and drops you off again then you're the same person.

Would be interesting to see major relations denounce transporter technology.

[Tiberius]

But still, the person who comes out is made of completely different atoms than the person who went in. if the person is made of completely different material, how can it be the same person?

[Sionnach Glic]

I would say that yes, it does. From all evidence it seems the 'You' that comes out is really a clone. While you may still retain your consciosness, its another body. Its simply a perfect copy.
Personally I wouldn't mind going through it.

[Captain Seafort]

Yes. A cessation of conciousness for the duration of the Transport (ref: "Relics), combined with the fact that you're split into millions or trillons of pieces strongly implies that you're dead for the duration of transport, and then cloned. This is best demonstrated by "Rascals", where they lost 40% of their mass mid transport, and then regained it later (presumambly from a stock of spare matter), and "Second Chances", where Riker's original mass was reflected back to the planet's surface and a clone was created aboard the Potemkin from reserve stock.

[Teaos]

This all depends on what you class as you. If you are a phyical body then no you aren't the same person. But if you are the memories and personality than yes you are.

Sine I think a person is their mind and memories than I think it doesnt kill you since they are the same.

[Captain Seafort]

It also depends on how to define death.

Your heart and lungs can't work if they're in a trillion pieces, and consciousness definitely ceases, so the transporter certainly causes clinical death.

Beyond that, malfunctions aside, everyone seems to to operate just as well, with the same personality and memories as before, so there can't be long term brain damage (at least, no more than before transport). My personal theory is that the transporter works by killing the individual and transferring their consciousness into a clone body, similar to the way in which Roger Korby transferred his consciousness into an android body ("What Are Little Girls Made Of?").

[Mikey]

For some real meaty reading on this topic, check our Derek Parfit's epistemological text, Reasons and Persons. I personally have written papers demonstrating that the continuity of the individual is based more on the consciousness than on physical continuity - so, to my mind, no; the transporter doesn't kill you.

[Sionnach Glic]

But consciosness ceases once you use a transporter. And how do you know that your consciousness continues after you get cloned? Maybe what steps out of the transporter isn't you, but is instead something else with your body, memories and experiences. Such a being would have exactly the same mind so to the observer, it would seem as though you were cloned, but in actual fact it is just that, a clone. There would be no reason for it to act any different from you and it would think it were you, but how do you know that you don't die and get replaced when you step in one.
My theory is that the transporter disintigrates you, and then clones you at your destination. How could your consciousness be transmitted? If it was an exact clone, no one could tell the difference.

My head hurts.
That all made sense when I was thinking it, hopefully it stayed coherent.

[Captain Seafort]

But consciosness ceases once you use a transporter. And how do you know that your consciousness continues after you get cloned? Maybe what steps out of the transporter isn't you, but is instead something else with your body, memories and experiences. Such a being would have exactly the same mind so to the observer, it would seem as though you were cloned, but in actual fact it is just that, a clone. There would be no reason for it to act any different from you and it would think it were you, but how do you know that you don't die and get replaced when you step in one.
My theory is that the transporter disintigrates you, and then clones you at your destination. How could your consciousness be transmitted? If it was an exact clone, no one could tell the difference.

My head hurts.
That all made sense when I was thinking it, hopefully it stayed coherent.

Don't worry - it made better sense than my waffling about consciousness transferral. I'm hardly an expert on the subject, but if it's a combination of DNA + life experience, and that life experience is stored by the specific arrangement atoms in the brain , then a perfect replica would act as through it were the original individual, without being that individual.

[Mikey]

"Consciousness" was perhaps a poor choice of word. In my writing, I had defined the continuity of the individual as the continuity of the "personality" - the sum of tendencies, experiences, environmental and genetic predispositions, and all that; which will cause any given individual to react in a very certain way to a specific cause out of all the infinite possible reactions. In other words, out of the nearly infinite set of possible reactions to specific stimuli, each individual at a given point in their life will react in a set way based on their "personality," as defined above.

I'm older now than when I wrote that, so I guess in retrospect it seems like a bit of a pragmatic point of view - if the person in question has all the same physical, cognitive, emotional, and mental attributes, then it makes no sense BUT to consider them the same person.

To anticipate: but what about Will and Thomas Riker? Isn't it wrong, or at least wierd, to have them both around if they are the same person by my definition? Well, Will and Thomas experienced a quite different existence by the time Thomas was found - an existence which changed Thomas' outlook and therefore his operational set of responses - which by my definition would make them two distinct individuals.

[Monroe]

Yes. A cessation of conciousness for the duration of the Transport (ref: "Relics), combined with the fact that you're split into millions or trillons of pieces strongly implies that you're dead for the duration of transport, and then cloned. This is best demonstrated by "Rascals", where they lost 40% of their mass mid transport, and then regained it later (presumambly from a stock of spare matter), and "Second Chances", where Riker's original mass was reflected back to the planet's surface and a clone was created aboard the Potemkin from reserve stock.

oh then yeah it would kill the physical body. I wasn't sure how it worked. I do think the person would still be the same since they can feel both places at once it sounds like the concious doesn't stop then start again so its the same person just different body imo.

[Captain Seafort]

"Consciousness" was perhaps a poor choice of word. In my writing, I had defined the continuity of the individual as the continuity of the "personality" - the sum of tendencies, experiences, environmental and genetic predispositions, and all that; which will cause any given individual to react in a very certain way to a specific cause out of all the infinite possible reactions. In other words, out of the nearly infinite set of possible reactions to specific stimuli, each individual at a given point in their life will react in a set way based on their "personality," as defined above.

I'm older now than when I wrote that, so I guess in retrospect it seems like a bit of a pragmatic point of view - if the person in question has all the same physical, cognitive, emotional, and mental attributes, then it makes no sense BUT to consider them the same person.

But would you consider, for example, two screws that came off the production line one after the other, even if they were identical down to the last atom, to be the same screw? If I took one of these hypothetical screws from you and gave you the other would you say that you had the same screw as you started off with?

To anticipate: but what about Will and Thomas Riker? Isn't it wrong, or at least wierd, to have them both around if they are the same person by my definition? Well, Will and Thomas experienced a quite different existence by the time Thomas was found - an existence which changed Thomas' outlook and therefore his operational set of responses - which by my definition would make them two distinct individuals.

The question isn't one of whether Will and Tom were diferent people WRT each other, the question is whether they were different people, at the moment they regained consciousness when the transporter beam realesed them, before Will realised he was safe aboard the Potemkin and Tom that was trapped on the surface, from the original individual that stood on the planet's surface in the instant he lost consciousness.

[Mikey]

But would you consider, for example, two screws that came off the production line one after the other, even if they were identical down to the last atom, to be the same screw? If I took one of these hypothetical screws from you and gave you the other would you say that you had the same screw as you started off with?

Kind of a moot point, because epistemological questions don't apply to inanimate objects. But yes, I would think I had the same screw if I didn't know you swiched them.

the question is whether they were different people, at the moment they regained consciousness when the transporter beam realesed them,

Yes, they were differnet people. Although my private little hypothesis doesn't use physical identification, physical differences will effect a change in the "personality" which I described. Additionally, the moment he/they regained consciousness in the transporter beam, their experiences diverged and thus created differneces in their "personalities."