I wrote this story, and am delighted by Agro Squerril's amazing narration, and all the comments that this story seems to kick off. Thanks for your great narration, I'm really honoured, and very glad that people seem to have enjoyed this story for a second time!
Fantastic, and funny, story. There's actually something deep in your story concerning the actuality of dying in order to have a reconstruction on the other end. For sure that is a discontinuity in the life of the original. This is an excellent exploration of that theme without being burdened with the formal philosophical issues involved. Would very much like a couple of sequels! Thanks again.
It isn't even philosophical. Unless the teleportation allows for continuous consciousness you are effectively just cut pasting. Creating a perfect clone of yerself and letting the previous you die. There is nothing if or maybe about it. Essentially you shoot yerself in the head and a perfect copy of you pops into existence instead. Some will be fine with that. But plenty of people would think that is hilariously stupid thing to do. One of the reasons why many people would be fine with it is either because they just don't care about their life or don't understand what actually occurs because it feels so vague and loose. But don't misunderstand, unless it is not copy pasting but true transference, you are just creating a perfect clone and killing a different version of yourself every time you jump.
@@soffren well by this time she is already dead, and its only her maybe 300th clone coppy so sure that's not a human anymore, just a meat that can talk.
I like how they throw in the "dont you feel like your forgetting something..." line to make you think their talking about the cloning actually killing them, but its just her forgetting the coupon. Also how do you think they reacted after she 'killed' herself twice to say hi and give a coupon lol
“Humanity, however, put it to uses that, to the galaxy at large, we’re as disturbing as they were and useful...” Let me guess: does it involve unplugging the reintegration circuit and mounting it on a missile? Or do they teleport nukes inside of their enemies’ spaceships? Or did they try to teleport planets into other planets? What variety of horrible war crime is it?
@@Crazylom Maybe they are both right. it kills you but makes someone who thinks they are you, so whats the difference? I think therefore I am, so if I think I am me then I am me. Maybe you are dead for a moment, but why is that a problem if it doesn't last?
@@jamesskelton3488 they would, but my counter to that would be to ask "Prove to me I am not the original." Or to an impartial third party, if that would be more preferable.
The idea of the humans is "if you take all of the information that makes one thing that thing and then reassemble it using all of that information you cannot differentiate the first and second thing
Yeah, we cover this in intro level metaphysics classes. It's a fun thing to consider, just a different application of the "ship of theseus" problem only there generally aren't two of you at any given time to worry about.
If it's a delete then create, it wouldn't be much of a difference if you could duplicate without deleting. If there is no way of making the copy at the other end without removing the original from the first end, then it is indeed teleportation
The Star Trek transporter problem is more of a Cutty Sark than a Ship of Theseus. IE the entire original ship sinks and then a new identical ship is built back in port and given the same name. Same fundamental issue, but the lack of continuity between the two certainly entities makes a lot more folks uncomfortable with claiming the two ships/people are the same and nothing died in the process.
@@badjer4328 The most realistic interpretation of the star trek-style transporter is that the “disassembly” process would charge a giant battery and then the energy would be used with by some sort of nanomachines with a way to synthesize matter from energy to place new matter in the same relative locations using a scan taken just before said disassembly to determine where all the bits should go. The less realistic, but more optimistic version has them literally sending every atom from your body to the location in a near-light-speed particle beam, with an energy beam just to forcibly fire the same neurons that were firing when disassembled. In either case the disassembler part could be turned off if you had a sufficient supply of energy or matter somewhere else, and they’d probably need the capacity to supply extra matter/energy already to deal with any inefficiencies or interference in the system. Which to me says it’s a good cloning machine & replicator with a suicide booth attached, not a method of transportation. So unless there’s accompanying tech that can detect, capture, and transmit an actual soul/ghost along with the other energy & data that recreates the body/shell somehow and that could not be copied the same way, I’d consider it a suicide booth.
@@IONATVS we had an addendum where someone was also picking up all the discarded pieces along the way and rebuilt it later, so there were two of them one that was put together enroute by replacing each piece one at a time and one made up of the pieces that were there when they left port on their trip
Witness me! I live! I die! I live again! Imagine a group of zealots who KNOW go is on their side with no fear of pain or death with a objective and the ability to reconstruct their bodies with this tech . . .
Given that one of the novels Agro has narrated (Pretty Little Deathworlders) involves a human taking incredibly lethal neurotoxins from a sapient plant species and figuring out how to make booze from it? That's been one of our labels for ages.
Man, that ending was hilarious... If not also existentially dreadful and painful for the poor alien's side. This really does just boil down to "Is a copy me, if its perfectly copied, despite the instance of me in this location, now ceasing to exist?" and "Do I care if I cease to exist and a copy who is basically me replacing me?" as the justifications of the situation. Some people just won't register it as not being them, this clone, who is identical to them popping up elsewhere and the current version of them ceasing to exist means to them, its a transition, not a replacement. I've often thought about interestingly similar views on this subject, but I think the most fair assessment starts with: "Is there a soul, if there is, does it get transferred or not to the copy?" - "Also, if there is two identical copies of a person (Say the machine malfunctions on the deconstruction side...) and both remain alive, would they both be the same person in truth, or does an extra soul get created, or does the soul get shared? (Assuming a soul exists.)" But since we do not possess a method to measure the existence, persistence, presence, or value of a soul and can only speculate it exists due to our lack of knowledge of the conscious mind and full nature of the human reality... (Along with religious views, which may or may not be true like any fiction.) It kind of says that it really depends on if you can prove a soul exists and if it doesn't a duplicate of you is technically not you but is also indeed truly you, philosophically. Contradiction like this is some of the fun things about philosophically analyzing this scenario. I can easily understand the different points of view... Personally, since I don't particularly believe in the soul, for me, stepping into one of these machines wouldn't be a problem for two reasons: One, if it does not malfunction, then for all intent I am now in a new location, according to the new me on that side... if it does malfunction, then I am now two people that can work out some interesting details of that experience. ... Honestly I wouldn't mind having a duplicate of me. Though I know that our experience from there would as a result diverge, potentially by a great deal. So eventually either one of us or both of us would have to accept a different name and share our net-worth to balance out the costs of having a duplicated existence. ...For some people this would destroy their understanding or themselves, as they are "THEMSELF" they cannot also be "SOMEONE ELSE" that is virtually identical to them but also not them. I can understand them getting wrapped up in the whole "I AM ME, THEREFORE NO ONE ELSE CAN BE ME!" but since I have bad memory to begin with and my general experience from day to day is that sometimes I wake up and feel like someone else is in charge given how my preferences shift so much that it is almost unfair for me at times, it's not really... that bad to me... to have a clone who could understand me on a fundamental level as well as I can. It might even give me insight into myself that I can't get as of right now. (*rubs his head*) ... Damn I really rambled. (*Shrugs*) Probably no one is gonna read this. Well, whatever. -_I'll Be Listening, Friend._
Thank you for this fascinating insight! Also, fundamentally, I agree with you. If every last bit is copied to the electron movement then essentially a stream of consciousness is uninterrupted. And, if we take that stream as conceptually a “soul” (as often souls are equated to a summation of one’s experiences) then….. I have no clue where I was going with that but I hope it made some semblance of sense
@@alexiusthelion3434 Hehehe. Yeah... I mean, I was a former christian for quite a long time. Whole posit of the soul and all that. When you give up on that, it leaves a gap and you have to rethink a lot of things. Like... "What does death mean to me?" For now, I'm of the opinion that it is one of two things - reincarnation or ceasing to exist. For some people's opinions, it's both. If you don't keep your memories of your previous life, even if your soul moves on to be reincarnated and shoveled into a new body, without the memories, is it really you anymore? Christians would say yes, fundamentally, even though according to their beliefs, evil would be excised from the soul, which is a fundamental aspect of human nature. ...If you do not contain something that makes you fundamentally who you are, are you *you* anymore? So ... Yeah. I decided that I was okay with reincarnation or oblivion. I'd just enjoy my time while I was here, and do well by others because I care about their feelings. If in a future life I am stricken of those feelings, I don't know what that person would be like, but they wouldn't necessarily be any more or less me for lacking something the current me possesses. I mean... I'm always waking up and forgetting small details of my life. What's more if I forget all of it and start a new one? I don't have such a tight hold that I would regret it as much... Not saying that works for everyone - but that is my point of view.
So if going through a teleportation device is suicide then did a poltergeist fix their car? And if I died and woke up in another body, did I get to keep my cell phone or do I get magic and a harem.
this form of teleportation is essentially cloning, but it totally does fucking kill you. If you copy your data onto a new phone, its a new phone with all the same data.
@@reecetaylor2626 hey if I have a sore throat when I step through the teleporter and it is gone when I step out then I could care less what happened between then. Makes you think if you need to sleep at all since you are technically getting a new body every time you step through a teleporter.
@@ericzaiz8358 Yes, but this isn't "instant snappy" and your conscious existence isn't ended and then revived, which is what has them lamenting this whole ordeal. But I wonder who that last part would differ from stasis or cryosleep, the same kind of lights out thing, only you body isn't dis- and reasembled, that's more like Theseus thing, I guess? Man getting bored on the job can spawn weird thoughts...
Every living thing is in a constant state of change and motion. Every exchange of matter changes our composition, be it by breathing, eating, excreting, or so on.
I remember playing Soma when this came up. When it was explained I thought 'oh, so it copies you, places that copy in a new body, then pulls the plug on your old body. Neat.' Then when the pc started freaking out I was just confused and wondered why everyone was making a big deal about it.
@Grant Jacobson They said it dematerializes you into energy, transfers the energy to the destination, then reconstitutes you. You could argue it's death if you view the transmogrification as some form of recording that is implanted into a new body at the destination, but personally I can't view it as anything more than transference and reconstitution. Depends how much value you place on life itself, I guess.
@@ornu01 If you are dematerialized into energy you die right at that point then it makes another body with your memories there is no argument to be had here against it killing you in my opinion. But I wouldn't call it murder as she chooses to do it.
@@erikmckoul2478 Then what defines life in the context of sapience? If your mind contains all of your higher functions, and your body is just a vessel, then doesn't this process just transfer you from one vessel to another? I agree that it is destroying your body, but unless the process has a degradation of the mind, memory, experience or any such aspect of being, then I can't view it as death.
@@ornu01 It's a copy of your mind and body the original is dead and has a clone walking around with her memories. Now I don't see the clone as below the original. But if they wanted they could just use other matter and make a ton of exact copies of her if they have her information saved, what then are they all the original. This is all opinions I'm just curious as to what you think about this.
@@erikmckoul2478 I agree with the cloning point, this does appear to clone the body, or at least have the data processing to do that, but the process as described seems to convert the body to some form of energy, transfer it as data faster than light, and reconstitute it at the destination. If they can do that, I don't see why they can't adopt the processing method for cloning, but this is tech that was given to humanity so we might not have extrapolated yet. If they do make a few thousand clones, at the moment the clones are made, they are all the same person, and from then on they count as separate legal entities, but new laws would have to be drafted, because what if someone clones themself, one of them kills someone then themself, and they'd have gotten away with murder if the clone is a separate entity. More to your question, and under the assumption that this is basically cloning and nothing else, a clone and the original would be the same person up to an undefinable point, then be separate entities with their own experiences and views shaped by those experiences. In regards to the teleporter, as was said, the body is transformed into energy, moved, then reconstituted, so it should 'only' be considered matter transference, as the body has a clear 'chain of custody', more or less, I still wouldn't call it death or destruction of the original, but I see why people would. That being said, you could still do so much more with this, the data processing ability to handle a sapient mind alone is mind boggling. Having the ability to copy a mind is just brain uploading, and the state of any copies made from that should be up to the copy itself to decide. A little rambling and repetitive, but I hope this sates your curiosity a bit.
Look as long as my memories and personality are intact, whatever technical lifespan of my current flesh body has is irrelevant. I think, therefore I am.
@@kumiq17 Yes. However, the clone technically becomes a "different person" once they receive any stimuli from their environment, because from then on that clone has a different set of experiences from the original. Ultimately, I honestly wouldn't care if there was one more copy of me or ten. There is nothing of value between us that is worth fighting for.
@@Battleguild I would argue they are different people from creation but are more unique the more they exist. The issue is that your view leads to a totally nihilistic view. Under your view, what would it matter if there was even 1 million "yous". Why does your life hold any value? Why does the life of a new born child who has done nothing, has no memories, etc have any value?
@@kumiq17 The value of life is whatever itself and/or others place upon it. If I myself have any value, then that would be a better question for those around me to answer. I am unable to give a satisfactory answer in regards to the question about the baby. A 'Magic 8 Ball' would lend you a better result.
When I consider their reasoning I can't help but think it could apply to sleep, and generally aging as well, make me wonder if perhaps most aliens don't sleep/regenerat/grow they way humans do, and if that's the cased how'd they respond to finding out about it
@Grant Jacobson then one must ask how does one define homeostasis, and if ships can travel that distance at FTL speed, which is implied by there offer to take her home by ship, why would transmat be any worse then the time travel inherent in FTL(no seriously FTL is effectively a type of time travel as anything that would allow one also allows the other), after all transmat at least keeps your timeline roughly the same as the rest of the universe, while all forms of FTL, save wormholes which are fundamentally identical to transmat, means the travelers become temporarily causally offset from the greater universe
@Grant Jacobson They have stated that matter is new so I don't beliefe that ship of Theseus can be aplied here, this is a completely new copy of the original from new matter.
i love this, the apex predators attack the human and almost ruined her pants with claws and fangs during the attacks. But left after Patricia punted one into a ravine. Clawed fanged attacks and she feels bad about maybe killing one, Patricia is truly an overpowered monster that doesn't realize she is one. The way they consider Transmat travel is such a great concept. And she dies/ is remade again to give them the 10% off voucher.
There's a joke 'religion' call Thursdayism. It revolves around the idea that everything in existence started last Thursday, and reality was made support evidence of a much longer existence.
@@Crazylom as long as I can customize the genitals like Cyberpunk before I can watch someone else make the same mistakes as me, then get the popcorn while we watch this idiot.
This reminds me of an Outer Limits episode. In it humans have teleportation technology to travel across the galaxy. First a human is encased in some shell or something then they are scanned and their mind is transmitted. Then the body is reconstructed on the other side and the original is disintegrated. In the episode a woman is going through it but there is a malfunction and they have to abort disintegrating her body. The woman describes the experience to the head engineer as horrific and painful and she will never do it. She is stuck on the station with the engineer for a while and they fall in love. Then when everything is fixed he gets word that she arrived at her destination and there are two of her. The engineer kills her to "balance the equation" as it is called. The woman returns and has no memory of their time together. So in that they are literally copying people and killing the original as "travel".
So leave one on both spots? Or give the copy a easy way out option when it is done? Let the easy way out also send any info/memories back and be done with it? I’d be ok with that.
There comes a time in every human's life where you have to start thinking of yourself as an immortal continuum of clones or as a pile of rotting meat in a box.
Yeah, it's something that's bothered me about Star Trek's usual teleportation. There are some examples that suggest continuity during the beaming process, but by and large it's basically a sophisticated cousin to the replicator that works over great distances. Matter gets converted into energy and stored in the transporter, the pattern buffer using the blueprint in RAM for reference, energy gets transmitted wirelessly to be reconstituted as matter that identically resembles the original matter inputted. It'd be like taking a plastic figurine, melting it down, then using a 3D printer to make an identical copy of it. Is it the same figurine? The 'Ship of Theseus' philosophical conundrum, but updated to account for modern concepts. Personally, I wouldn't use the usual matter-energy converter type transporters; space folding all the way! I can recall that at least one race in Star Trek has space folding transporters, maybe two? Possibly more.
One of my grandmothers (uncle's wife's mother) died no less than eight times while she was in the palliative phase of her life. But don't tell the xenos that.
The Aliens be right tho. You're essentially deleting the person and then make a perfect copy with memories. To the copy it's no biggie. But the deleted person is dead!
There was a Trek book, based on the original series, wherein McCoy, Spock and Scotty have this exact conversation. McCoy posits that he's died countless times and will continue to die over and over again, via the teleporters. Moreover, we get into the debate about the Ship of Theseus.
In Star Trek they have a teleportation device called the Transporter and both fans and scientists alike often debate if the Transporter is a murder machine or device to create clones. One episode of Star Trek Voyager called "Tuvix" saw a transporter accident merge 2 different people into a single new person.
Star Trek transporter is a murder quantum clone copier. And there is the TNG episode where they find another Riker who then goes by Thomas, once rescued.
there's some kinda philosophical fallacy going on here. for example, in a whiskey distillery, when alcohol evaporates from the mash, the alcohol transforms from a liquid state, then condenses on the condensation coils & transforms back into liquid(this time, unaccompanied by liquids and substances which are NOT alcohol). in this example, the alcohol is "destroyed", if you follow the alien's logic. However, transformation is NOT destruction. the alcohol's existence is continuous throughout this process. and in teleportation, to me, the same outlook applies. matter to energy & back to matter again, is NOT destruction; it is transformation. in fact, if teleportation technology were to really exist, this could possibly be a path to Transcendence for any species that investigates it for that purpose. namely, transforming sentient beings permanently into an interactive energy state. I'm in love with this idea.
My response would be closer to "I'll thank you for keeping your philosophical beliefs to yourself, your manner of tracking a self through time and space fail to capture any part of what that self is without just pointing and saying 'hey, that's the thing that's me' so until you can define me without pointing at me it's no better than 'because the flying spaghetti monster in the sky said it's bad'."
reminds me of how the human teleporting works in journey to the savage planet, where it doesn't teleport you but kills the old you and makes a clone in the spot you want. the alien teleporting is real teleporting in that game.
@@KlavierMenn I don't do anything, I figure the one that didn't end up in the intended location (and since I'm figuring, other's liable to figure the same)... time for that me to get a new name and a new life. Provider's got insurance to cover that, I'm sure. Be one hell of a lawsuit if they didn't.
@@mfree80286 That's just the thing: what if the other you try and get YOU to take a new name and a new life? I mean you two will think the same, and therefore reach same conclusions? If it happened to me, I'd get to meet the other me and we'd decide who gets to go on a 'voyage' with a coin toss (A thing that I do if I am undecided between two decisions: Coin toss, 3 tosses, majority wins )
Yeah, as many have pointed out, this is considered intro to metaphysics stuff, identity over time and through change. The ship of theseus /star trek transporters are suicide booths thing. It either completely breaks your brain or you say, meh, doesn't matter. Continuity of consciousness is usually used as the "yes its still me" answer, but then you can get into the digital mind upload, or, to really screw with you, the original doesn't get deleted, then you have real issues with which one is "real".
I always like that last bit if the initial read doesn't kill you. Then you can print as many new you as you want. You can fix your body any way you want. Upload to a machine, and even have every new memory of every new you uploaded to that machine when they die. The machine is the new you as the original human finally dies. You will always be the same children printed out adding to the final copy. Reproduction removed, and convert transporter into internal replicator and food is no longer needed as well. A machine mind to remember each copy out in the world as it learns from their death. You have finally transcended. Life is but a game played by each avatar controlled by the machine mind.
These aliens must view the body and soul as one. To ease their worries it would be best to explain human life to them as the body being merely a vehicle for the soul.
and like a vehicle, it can be run down and beat up or healthy like a sports car! and when its first manufactured it sadly can have an innate tendency towards one or the other. this is why upgrading to robot is required.
To be fair, that's something that fucks me up too. The idea that transporting matter like that would essentially be a death and recreation rather than proper transportation. I'd have to find a way to host my conciousness on both my brain and a computer at the same time. Then learn to shift from one to the other seamlessly so that I don't suffer a true brain death at least. That way I can zip my body around and just place my mind back in during the end process. Clunky? Yes. But at least I know I'm me or have less of a Ship of Theseus scenario.
It's a scan of your brain on the computer though, not your brain. The blueprint is what they sent to print out when destroying the you in the teleporter. Either way you die at least once and something that thinks it's you is there being you. Most people could accept this until the first hacker hijacks a stream of your info and modifies it. Might be a doctor curing a disease so still willingly until the one time it's without consent. Then people will realize what is exactly going on.
Theres a doctor who companion novel that features a similar idea but went one step further and asked what happens to the soul . Would you have multiple copies waiting when you got to purgatory as using the teleporter would count as self termination .
Not really. "Clean fusion power" is currently used to compare fusion to current methods of energy generation - all of which have some environmentally harmful byproduct or effect (yes, even solar, wind, and hydroelectric). By contrast, fusion power would be relatively clean, producing little in the way of waste. Though it might run into some of the same pitfalls as solar or wind power (or electric vehicles, for that matter), in that the materials necessary to construct a fusion plant might not come from a country that has an Environmental Protection Agency equivalent, and thus would just be shoving the environmental damage somewhere out of sight of those advocating its use.
You know, I have often thought that same thing about transporters. You basically die on one end, and then a copy of you gets made at the other. It's a good copy, perhaps, but it's still a copy!
Ah, the good old Theseus’ Ship or Lincoln’s Axe conundrum (or was it Washington’s axe, since the whole cherry tree thing, regardless). Fun to philosophize and debate! Also, I find it less than pleasing that the provably incorrect mantra of “The customer is always right” still exists post-contact
It makes sense, though. I mean, if we're ignoring the obvious issues with the trans-mat, why wouldn't we ignore the even more blatantly obvious issues with "The customer is always right?" I mean, customer service already kills you inside because of the latter - why not let it actually kill you because of the former?
I guess it proves that there is an afterlife. If the "Soul", whatever that may be, died, the person would be cut off. But nope, out of one lump of clay, right into a new one. It's nice to have somewhere to go, if you have just been dematerialised.
Funny enough a MerryWeather comic did this, and it’s very unnerving, especially cause a friend sees her friend being killed after being “teleported” and then he friend calls her from Japan and is like “yo this place is so nice” it’s very disturbing
i mean if all the cynics of teleporters are to be believed, you would have no afterwards, and a clone of you would be created at the destination saying "oh, well that wasn't so bad, and I'm still me anyways."
It's true though. If there isn't a "soul" that goes from the original body to the new one you'd die for real when you teleport, and then your clone would die teleporting back, and then their clone and so on. Your experience would end at the first teleportation. The safe solution would be to find a way to travel instantly or almost instantly without destroying the original.
If there isn't a soul, then the question is what constitutes "self." Neither our cells or the atoms that comprise them are a constant throughout our lives. There are several examples of this in "Doctor Who." According to the 10th Doctor, each time he regenerates, a new man goes walking away. However, they all have the memories of the previous. The 11th Doctor gets a double-ganger of himself made from "flesh;" and he considers it another him. The 12th Doctor gets disintegrated and "cloned" from a teleporter countless times.
@@AgroSquerril hehe it could be the death sentence. You could even remove the memory of the crime committed from the copy. It's all in the computer memory buffer the entire blueprint of the person. So just print a two new guys, one without the memory to live on and the other to live forever in jail. Depends on how each state would see it.
But we are constantly losing and replacing the matter our bodies are made of so why does it matter if all the matter is replaced all at once or over time
How do you know you really are _you_ still ? or another way to think about it is that _you_ are the brain and neurons dont regenerate so and do not regrow so your body is a sort of armor
@@someone.1184 I don't know if I'm really me moment to moment. But this does bring up some questions could you copy the sign and have multiple copies of the same person existing in multiple places. But then the question really is, is consciousness purely a function of the brain structure or is it something else.
Teleportation technology like this isn't scary to me because I imagine the deconstruction phase to be just like falling asleep. When you fall asleep and wake up the next morning, are you still the same person you were before? Has the entity that controls your body, which we typically only refer to as 'you' been changed or not? It is not possible to know this, at least with our current understanding of things. If sleep and teleportation are identical experiences, then a teleportation in the way outlined by Podge would be like falling asleep and waking up in less than a second. If you die every time you sleep, then you die every time you teleport. Nothing has changed in your life. You are still you, but maybe a different entity dies when you do so. Or maybe it doesn't, and you yourself are a continuous entity. It's fun to think about as long as you don't get overwhelmed by the concept. Hopefully this story, video, or comment hasn't given anyone some kind of existential crisis resulting in them not going to sleep. Remember: If you don't sleep for long enough, you'll die either way!
What I think the aliens miss is that Humans view ourselves as more the products of our actions rather than the materials that make us. In other words, consciousness.
Not the first story I've ever read where the teleportation device "killed" the being in question and reassembled elements into a new copy at the destination. Although the first such story (by Clifford D. Simak "Way Station") I read actually left a physical body for the operator of the device to dispose of. Still, a rather novel use of the device though.
Even without hte transmat our existence are not continuous. the matter in our bodies is continusly being replaced and our neurones die and another ones take their place. She sould have reasured them that we die at every moment so its not murder.
Well it did say they break your matter into energy then send that through to reassemble so it's just using the energy to reconstruct the matter you were
See, that's the thing I think these aliens aren't aware of. It's not that we lack an innate philosophical sense to recognize what the teleportation actually is. It's that we don't CARE about it. We are indeed very much space orks in that regard. If it works, and we live, regardless of such a philosophical conundrum, we will go ahead and use it.
They way I see it, our soul is surely some form of energy. It makes sense that it would be transported with everything else. However, I can see this being a problem for those who don't fully understand the thing. Like how some people thought photographs stole your soul, to make the picture.
I wrote this story, and am delighted by Agro Squerril's amazing narration, and all the comments that this story seems to kick off. Thanks for your great narration, I'm really honoured, and very glad that people seem to have enjoyed this story for a second time!
Thank you for the permission and i am glad you enjoyed it
I loved your ending, that was just fantastic bit of slight misdirection.
Fantastic, and funny, story. There's actually something deep in your story concerning the actuality of dying in order to have a reconstruction on the other end. For sure that is a discontinuity in the life of the original. This is an excellent exploration of that theme without being burdened with the formal philosophical issues involved. Would very much like a couple of sequels! Thanks again.
Those poor aliens... Why do you have to do that?.. they think they committed murder 4times now, they're traumatized...
Bravo on a good story with an excellent punchline.
A little philosofical death never stopped a human before, nor will it ever...
Especially won't stop us from dropping off the coupon!
@@soffren that's what I can agree on
Lets be honest, a lot of death (philosophical or other wise) has never stopped us.
It isn't even philosophical. Unless the teleportation allows for continuous consciousness you are effectively just cut pasting. Creating a perfect clone of yerself and letting the previous you die.
There is nothing if or maybe about it. Essentially you shoot yerself in the head and a perfect copy of you pops into existence instead.
Some will be fine with that. But plenty of people would think that is hilariously stupid thing to do. One of the reasons why many people would be fine with it is either because they just don't care about their life or don't understand what actually occurs because it feels so vague and loose.
But don't misunderstand, unless it is not copy pasting but true transference, you are just creating a perfect clone and killing a different version of yourself every time you jump.
@@soffren well by this time she is already dead, and its only her maybe 300th clone coppy so sure that's not a human anymore, just a meat that can talk.
I like how they throw in the "dont you feel like your forgetting something..." line to make you think their talking about the cloning actually killing them, but its just her forgetting the coupon. Also how do you think they reacted after she 'killed' herself twice to say hi and give a coupon lol
lol
Nice.
Fantastic 😂😂😂❤
Should we tell the aliens we have an open relationship with Death? (Sleeping)
Funny because you usually forget most of your dreams that happened and didn't... funny that.
“Humanity, however, put it to uses that, to the galaxy at large, we’re as disturbing as they were and useful...”
Let me guess: does it involve unplugging the reintegration circuit and mounting it on a missile? Or do they teleport nukes inside of their enemies’ spaceships? Or did they try to teleport planets into other planets? What variety of horrible war crime is it?
Those poor xenos think Teleportation kills you.
How pathetic. You are still *YOU,* just collected in other place again, like LEGO.
@@Crazylom Maybe they are both right. it kills you but makes someone who thinks they are you, so whats the difference? I think therefore I am, so if I think I am me then I am me.
Maybe you are dead for a moment, but why is that a problem if it doesn't last?
@@Crazylom the xenon would say that You only think it is still you when in fact you are simply a duplicate of the destroyed orginal
@@jamesskelton3488 they would, but my counter to that would be to ask "Prove to me I am not the original." Or to an impartial third party, if that would be more preferable.
@@dantreadwell7421 "here is the video of the total atomization of the original. Now prove to me you could possibly be anything but a copy"
Not once or twice, but four whole times, oh the horror that those poor aliens conscious suffered.
And the last two deaths were to deliver a coupon. That had to break their brains.
The idea of the humans is "if you take all of the information that makes one thing that thing and then reassemble it using all of that information you cannot differentiate the first and second thing
It's pretty nihilistic qnd cynical viez of humanity
@@bobydigital2450 how? I mean as I see it, you’re still you, or close enough.
It’s more transferring the matter that makes up your body into energy, then transferring that energy back into matter somewhere else.
As a famous Vulcan once said, "Any difference which makes no difference *is* no difference."
Human philosophers worked out the implications centuries ago: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
Yeah, we cover this in intro level metaphysics classes. It's a fun thing to consider, just a different application of the "ship of theseus" problem only there generally aren't two of you at any given time to worry about.
If it's a delete then create, it wouldn't be much of a difference if you could duplicate without deleting. If there is no way of making the copy at the other end without removing the original from the first end, then it is indeed teleportation
@@MagicalMaster The real answer is deleted and copies tho.
Is easy to see when you realise that you could send a copy while staying put
The Star Trek transporter problem is more of a Cutty Sark than a Ship of Theseus. IE the entire original ship sinks and then a new identical ship is built back in port and given the same name. Same fundamental issue, but the lack of continuity between the two certainly entities makes a lot more folks uncomfortable with claiming the two ships/people are the same and nothing died in the process.
@@badjer4328 The most realistic interpretation of the star trek-style transporter is that the “disassembly” process would charge a giant battery and then the energy would be used with by some sort of nanomachines with a way to synthesize matter from energy to place new matter in the same relative locations using a scan taken just before said disassembly to determine where all the bits should go. The less realistic, but more optimistic version has them literally sending every atom from your body to the location in a near-light-speed particle beam, with an energy beam just to forcibly fire the same neurons that were firing when disassembled. In either case the disassembler part could be turned off if you had a sufficient supply of energy or matter somewhere else, and they’d probably need the capacity to supply extra matter/energy already to deal with any inefficiencies or interference in the system. Which to me says it’s a good cloning machine & replicator with a suicide booth attached, not a method of transportation.
So unless there’s accompanying tech that can detect, capture, and transmit an actual soul/ghost along with the other energy & data that recreates the body/shell somehow and that could not be copied the same way, I’d consider it a suicide booth.
@@IONATVS we had an addendum where someone was also picking up all the discarded pieces along the way and rebuilt it later, so there were two of them one that was put together enroute by replacing each piece one at a time and one made up of the pieces that were there when they left port on their trip
I guess we can add suicidal space monkeys to the roster.
i think thats been on the list from the beggening
Witness me! I live! I die! I live again! Imagine a group of zealots who KNOW go is on their side with no fear of pain or death with a objective and the ability to reconstruct their bodies with this tech . . .
Given that one of the novels Agro has narrated (Pretty Little Deathworlders) involves a human taking incredibly lethal neurotoxins from a sapient plant species and figuring out how to make booze from it? That's been one of our labels for ages.
Man, that ending was hilarious... If not also existentially dreadful and painful for the poor alien's side. This really does just boil down to "Is a copy me, if its perfectly copied, despite the instance of me in this location, now ceasing to exist?" and "Do I care if I cease to exist and a copy who is basically me replacing me?" as the justifications of the situation. Some people just won't register it as not being them, this clone, who is identical to them popping up elsewhere and the current version of them ceasing to exist means to them, its a transition, not a replacement.
I've often thought about interestingly similar views on this subject, but I think the most fair assessment starts with: "Is there a soul, if there is, does it get transferred or not to the copy?" - "Also, if there is two identical copies of a person (Say the machine malfunctions on the deconstruction side...) and both remain alive, would they both be the same person in truth, or does an extra soul get created, or does the soul get shared? (Assuming a soul exists.)" But since we do not possess a method to measure the existence, persistence, presence, or value of a soul and can only speculate it exists due to our lack of knowledge of the conscious mind and full nature of the human reality... (Along with religious views, which may or may not be true like any fiction.)
It kind of says that it really depends on if you can prove a soul exists and if it doesn't a duplicate of you is technically not you but is also indeed truly you, philosophically. Contradiction like this is some of the fun things about philosophically analyzing this scenario. I can easily understand the different points of view... Personally, since I don't particularly believe in the soul, for me, stepping into one of these machines wouldn't be a problem for two reasons: One, if it does not malfunction, then for all intent I am now in a new location, according to the new me on that side... if it does malfunction, then I am now two people that can work out some interesting details of that experience. ... Honestly I wouldn't mind having a duplicate of me. Though I know that our experience from there would as a result diverge, potentially by a great deal. So eventually either one of us or both of us would have to accept a different name and share our net-worth to balance out the costs of having a duplicated existence.
...For some people this would destroy their understanding or themselves, as they are "THEMSELF" they cannot also be "SOMEONE ELSE" that is virtually identical to them but also not them. I can understand them getting wrapped up in the whole "I AM ME, THEREFORE NO ONE ELSE CAN BE ME!" but since I have bad memory to begin with and my general experience from day to day is that sometimes I wake up and feel like someone else is in charge given how my preferences shift so much that it is almost unfair for me at times, it's not really... that bad to me... to have a clone who could understand me on a fundamental level as well as I can. It might even give me insight into myself that I can't get as of right now. (*rubs his head*)
... Damn I really rambled. (*Shrugs*) Probably no one is gonna read this. Well, whatever.
-_I'll Be Listening, Friend._
Thank you for this fascinating insight! Also, fundamentally, I agree with you. If every last bit is copied to the electron movement then essentially a stream of consciousness is uninterrupted. And, if we take that stream as conceptually a “soul” (as often souls are equated to a summation of one’s experiences) then…..
I have no clue where I was going with that but I hope it made some semblance of sense
To quote the Primarch, Rogal Dorn, "I AM ME"
@@alexiusthelion3434 Hehehe. Yeah... I mean, I was a former christian for quite a long time. Whole posit of the soul and all that. When you give up on that, it leaves a gap and you have to rethink a lot of things. Like... "What does death mean to me?" For now, I'm of the opinion that it is one of two things - reincarnation or ceasing to exist. For some people's opinions, it's both.
If you don't keep your memories of your previous life, even if your soul moves on to be reincarnated and shoveled into a new body, without the memories, is it really you anymore? Christians would say yes, fundamentally, even though according to their beliefs, evil would be excised from the soul, which is a fundamental aspect of human nature.
...If you do not contain something that makes you fundamentally who you are, are you *you* anymore? So ... Yeah.
I decided that I was okay with reincarnation or oblivion. I'd just enjoy my time while I was here, and do well by others because I care about their feelings. If in a future life I am stricken of those feelings, I don't know what that person would be like, but they wouldn't necessarily be any more or less me for lacking something the current me possesses.
I mean... I'm always waking up and forgetting small details of my life. What's more if I forget all of it and start a new one? I don't have such a tight hold that I would regret it as much... Not saying that works for everyone - but that is my point of view.
I read it, it was very thoughtful.
@@Podgeabrillion Thank you. I don't often get a lot of people reading my longer comments on UA-cam. So it's somewhat surprising... xP
So if going through a teleportation device is suicide then did a poltergeist fix their car? And if I died and woke up in another body, did I get to keep my cell phone or do I get magic and a harem.
It's more of a clone thing or rick project phenix thing
How do you know you are the you of now and not just the memory of an older you in the future?
You get a magic harem but they're all tsunderes XD
this form of teleportation is essentially cloning, but it totally does fucking kill you. If you copy your data onto a new phone, its a new phone with all the same data.
@@reecetaylor2626 hey if I have a sore throat when I step through the teleporter and it is gone when I step out then I could care less what happened between then. Makes you think if you need to sleep at all since you are technically getting a new body every time you step through a teleporter.
Just imagine how they would react to the ship of Theseus, I mean it’s not really that different, except you are alive and not a ship.
Well you do not have the same body that you had seven years ago. Everything been replace, even the bone...
Seven years is about how long that takes.
@@ericzaiz8358 Yes, but this isn't "instant snappy" and your conscious existence isn't ended and then revived, which is what has them lamenting this whole ordeal. But I wonder who that last part would differ from stasis or cryosleep, the same kind of lights out thing, only you body isn't dis- and reasembled, that's more like Theseus thing, I guess?
Man getting bored on the job can spawn weird thoughts...
Every living thing is in a constant state of change and motion.
Every exchange of matter changes our composition, be it by breathing, eating, excreting, or so on.
I remember playing Soma when this came up. When it was explained I thought 'oh, so it copies you, places that copy in a new body, then pulls the plug on your old body. Neat.'
Then when the pc started freaking out I was just confused and wondered why everyone was making a big deal about it.
@Grant Jacobson They said it dematerializes you into energy, transfers the energy to the destination, then reconstitutes you. You could argue it's death if you view the transmogrification as some form of recording that is implanted into a new body at the destination, but personally I can't view it as anything more than transference and reconstitution. Depends how much value you place on life itself, I guess.
@@ornu01 If you are dematerialized into energy you die right at that point then it makes another body with your memories there is no argument to be had here against it killing you in my opinion. But I wouldn't call it murder as she chooses to do it.
@@erikmckoul2478 Then what defines life in the context of sapience? If your mind contains all of your higher functions, and your body is just a vessel, then doesn't this process just transfer you from one vessel to another? I agree that it is destroying your body, but unless the process has a degradation of the mind, memory, experience or any such aspect of being, then I can't view it as death.
@@ornu01 It's a copy of your mind and body the original is dead and has a clone walking around with her memories. Now I don't see the clone as below the original. But if they wanted they could just use other matter and make a ton of exact copies of her if they have her information saved, what then are they all the original. This is all opinions I'm just curious as to what you think about this.
@@erikmckoul2478 I agree with the cloning point, this does appear to clone the body, or at least have the data processing to do that, but the process as described seems to convert the body to some form of energy, transfer it as data faster than light, and reconstitute it at the destination. If they can do that, I don't see why they can't adopt the processing method for cloning, but this is tech that was given to humanity so we might not have extrapolated yet. If they do make a few thousand clones, at the moment the clones are made, they are all the same person, and from then on they count as separate legal entities, but new laws would have to be drafted, because what if someone clones themself, one of them kills someone then themself, and they'd have gotten away with murder if the clone is a separate entity.
More to your question, and under the assumption that this is basically cloning and nothing else, a clone and the original would be the same person up to an undefinable point, then be separate entities with their own experiences and views shaped by those experiences. In regards to the teleporter, as was said, the body is transformed into energy, moved, then reconstituted, so it should 'only' be considered matter transference, as the body has a clear 'chain of custody', more or less, I still wouldn't call it death or destruction of the original, but I see why people would. That being said, you could still do so much more with this, the data processing ability to handle a sapient mind alone is mind boggling. Having the ability to copy a mind is just brain uploading, and the state of any copies made from that should be up to the copy itself to decide.
A little rambling and repetitive, but I hope this sates your curiosity a bit.
Disassemble me here to my basic atoms and reassemble me there? There is something fundamentally wrong with that Jim!
Classical terran space adventure-horror show: Star Trek.
Look as long as my memories and personality are intact, whatever technical lifespan of my current flesh body has is irrelevant.
I think, therefore I am.
How do you know that ALL of your memories are still in tact?
I mean if all of that was true, then answer me this.
If I just made a exact clone of you would that be you?
@@kumiq17
Yes.
However, the clone technically becomes a "different person" once they receive any stimuli from their environment, because from then on that clone has a different set of experiences from the original.
Ultimately, I honestly wouldn't care if there was one more copy of me or ten. There is nothing of value between us that is worth fighting for.
@@Battleguild I would argue they are different people from creation but are more unique the more they exist.
The issue is that your view leads to a totally nihilistic view. Under your view, what would it matter if there was even 1 million "yous". Why does your life hold any value?
Why does the life of a new born child who has done nothing, has no memories, etc have any value?
@@kumiq17
The value of life is whatever itself and/or others place upon it. If I myself have any value, then that would be a better question for those around me to answer.
I am unable to give a satisfactory answer in regards to the question about the baby. A 'Magic 8 Ball' would lend you a better result.
Well, as far as I'm concerned, teleportation essentially kills you, but if the alternative is walking to the shop, you bet I'll take the teleporter
200 light years is one hell of a long walk
Personally, I think I'd just find a job that didn't involve cloning my body to a distant location and then killing me.
a soul is not material. neither is consciousness.
Its the prestige. The aliens believe that the humans are prestiging themselves.
When I consider their reasoning I can't help but think it could apply to sleep, and generally aging as well, make me wonder if perhaps most aliens don't sleep/regenerat/grow they way humans do, and if that's the cased how'd they respond to finding out about it
here's a hfy video similar to what you mentioned about sleep
Dancing with death - Humans are space orcs: ua-cam.com/video/SvpCMW4v4rU/v-deo.html
I love diamond willows if she updated more she would be my favorite hfy narrator
The teleportation device does kill you and then creates a copy, in theory it can just create a copy without killing you.
@Grant Jacobson then one must ask how does one define homeostasis, and if ships can travel that distance at FTL speed, which is implied by there offer to take her home by ship, why would transmat be any worse then the time travel inherent in FTL(no seriously FTL is effectively a type of time travel as anything that would allow one also allows the other), after all transmat at least keeps your timeline roughly the same as the rest of the universe, while all forms of FTL, save wormholes which are fundamentally identical to transmat, means the travelers become temporarily causally offset from the greater universe
@Grant Jacobson They have stated that matter is new so I don't beliefe that ship of Theseus can be aplied here, this is a completely new copy of the original from new matter.
i love this, the apex predators attack the human and almost ruined her pants with claws and fangs during the attacks.
But left after Patricia punted one into a ravine.
Clawed fanged attacks and she feels bad about maybe killing one, Patricia is truly an overpowered monster that doesn't realize she is one.
The way they consider Transmat travel is such a great concept.
And she dies/ is remade again to give them the 10% off voucher.
Makes you wonder, actually: What if YOU actually stop existing? Become non-existent, as if u were detached from body?
There's a joke 'religion' call Thursdayism. It revolves around the idea that everything in existence started last Thursday, and reality was made support evidence of a much longer existence.
Non-existent, but conscient of your own non-existance? Either one becomes insane or get a god-complex
@@KlavierMenn Like If u forced to disconnect from server in a game, and you have to either make peace with it, or spectate new *you*
@@Crazylom as long as I can customize the genitals like Cyberpunk before I can watch someone else make the same mistakes as me, then get the popcorn while we watch this idiot.
That is evil of Patricia coming back to just present the 10% voucher to the aliens that are grieving her death’.
lol yup
For the algorithm.
Sort of guessed the reason, but I definitely hadn't guessed the very end.
coupons are important you know
If a momentary discontinuation and conscious experience is death then so is sleeping
This reminds me of an Outer Limits episode. In it humans have teleportation technology to travel across the galaxy. First a human is encased in some shell or something then they are scanned and their mind is transmitted. Then the body is reconstructed on the other side and the original is disintegrated. In the episode a woman is going through it but there is a malfunction and they have to abort disintegrating her body. The woman describes the experience to the head engineer as horrific and painful and she will never do it. She is stuck on the station with the engineer for a while and they fall in love. Then when everything is fixed he gets word that she arrived at her destination and there are two of her. The engineer kills her to "balance the equation" as it is called. The woman returns and has no memory of their time together. So in that they are literally copying people and killing the original as "travel".
So leave one on both spots? Or give the copy a easy way out option when it is done? Let the easy way out also send any info/memories back and be done with it? I’d be ok with that.
So it's basically a Star Trek transporter with unlimited range. That'd be fun actually.
Yeah I pretty much learned this at around what 10 years old while watching Star Trek episode
For the Author(s), for the narrator Agro Squirrel, for the algorithm !!!
There comes a time in every human's life where you have to start thinking of yourself as an immortal continuum of clones or as a pile of rotting meat in a box.
Dying twice on the way sounds like what my Pa says how he used to go to school every day.
Yeah, it's something that's bothered me about Star Trek's usual teleportation. There are some examples that suggest continuity during the beaming process, but by and large it's basically a sophisticated cousin to the replicator that works over great distances. Matter gets converted into energy and stored in the transporter, the pattern buffer using the blueprint in RAM for reference, energy gets transmitted wirelessly to be reconstituted as matter that identically resembles the original matter inputted. It'd be like taking a plastic figurine, melting it down, then using a 3D printer to make an identical copy of it. Is it the same figurine? The 'Ship of Theseus' philosophical conundrum, but updated to account for modern concepts.
Personally, I wouldn't use the usual matter-energy converter type transporters; space folding all the way! I can recall that at least one race in Star Trek has space folding transporters, maybe two? Possibly more.
If you really want to mess with the aliens tell them that their body is entirely replaced every several years.
One of my grandmothers (uncle's wife's mother) died no less than eight times while she was in the palliative phase of her life.
But don't tell the xenos that.
Sid Meyer's Alpha Centauri has a great scene about this too.
The Aliens be right tho. You're essentially deleting the person and then make a perfect copy with memories. To the copy it's no biggie. But the deleted person is dead!
There was a Trek book, based on the original series, wherein McCoy, Spock and Scotty have this exact conversation.
McCoy posits that he's died countless times and will continue to die over and over again, via the teleporters.
Moreover, we get into the debate about the Ship of Theseus.
cool
In Star Trek they have a teleportation device called the Transporter and both fans and scientists alike often debate if the Transporter is a murder machine or device to create clones.
One episode of Star Trek Voyager called "Tuvix" saw a transporter accident merge 2 different people into a single new person.
Star Trek transporter is a murder quantum clone copier. And there is the TNG episode where they find another Riker who then goes by Thomas, once rescued.
And then there was the TOS episode where Kirks personality was split in two seperate bodies via transporter.
there's some kinda philosophical fallacy going on here. for example, in a whiskey distillery, when alcohol evaporates from the mash, the alcohol transforms from a liquid state, then condenses on the condensation coils & transforms back into liquid(this time, unaccompanied by liquids and substances which are NOT alcohol). in this example, the alcohol is "destroyed", if you follow the alien's logic.
However, transformation is NOT destruction. the alcohol's existence is continuous throughout this process. and in teleportation, to me, the same outlook applies. matter to energy & back to matter again, is NOT destruction; it is transformation. in fact, if teleportation technology were to really exist, this could possibly be a path to Transcendence for any species that investigates it for that purpose. namely, transforming sentient beings permanently into an interactive energy state. I'm in love with this idea.
but it could be the kind of teleportation that only transfers your "mind" in a new body on destination and destoys the old in the process
Funny as hell... especially the part about kicking the little creatures.
with teeth and claws and teeth!
"Cogito, ergo sum" -Rene Descartes
14:57 Yeah, there's also one each night you go to sleep! or if you get anasthesia for surgery.
Sounds like the entire galaxy has been talking to Dr. McCoy!
My response would be closer to "I'll thank you for keeping your philosophical beliefs to yourself, your manner of tracking a self through time and space fail to capture any part of what that self is without just pointing and saying 'hey, that's the thing that's me' so until you can define me without pointing at me it's no better than 'because the flying spaghetti monster in the sky said it's bad'."
reminds me of how the human teleporting works in journey to the savage planet, where it doesn't teleport you but kills the old you and makes a clone in the spot you want.
the alien teleporting is real teleporting in that game.
That game is hilarious!
Exact is exact. So long as there's only one me out there, I'd be fine with it.
I heard that forking may happen if the system glitch bad enough, so if, say you get forked (heh), what you do with the 'extra' you?
@@KlavierMenn I don't do anything, I figure the one that didn't end up in the intended location (and since I'm figuring, other's liable to figure the same)... time for that me to get a new name and a new life.
Provider's got insurance to cover that, I'm sure. Be one hell of a lawsuit if they didn't.
@@mfree80286 That's just the thing: what if the other you try and get YOU to take a new name and a new life? I mean you two will think the same, and therefore reach same conclusions? If it happened to me, I'd get to meet the other me and we'd decide who gets to go on a 'voyage' with a coin toss (A thing that I do if I am undecided between two decisions: Coin toss, 3 tosses, majority wins )
@@KlavierMenn I've already considered it, since I wrote it here. I've already decided who goes on and who's SOL.
Yeah, as many have pointed out, this is considered intro to metaphysics stuff, identity over time and through change. The ship of theseus /star trek transporters are suicide booths thing. It either completely breaks your brain or you say, meh, doesn't matter. Continuity of consciousness is usually used as the "yes its still me" answer, but then you can get into the digital mind upload, or, to really screw with you, the original doesn't get deleted, then you have real issues with which one is "real".
I always like that last bit if the initial read doesn't kill you. Then you can print as many new you as you want. You can fix your body any way you want. Upload to a machine, and even have every new memory of every new you uploaded to that machine when they die. The machine is the new you as the original human finally dies. You will always be the same children printed out adding to the final copy. Reproduction removed, and convert transporter into internal replicator and food is no longer needed as well. A machine mind to remember each copy out in the world as it learns from their death. You have finally transcended. Life is but a game played by each avatar controlled by the machine mind.
These aliens must view the body and soul as one. To ease their worries it would be best to explain human life to them as the body being merely a vehicle for the soul.
and like a vehicle, it can be run down and beat up or healthy like a sports car! and when its first manufactured it sadly can have an innate tendency towards one or the other. this is why upgrading to robot is required.
Or maybe they don't believe in fairies
@LTNetjak No soul doesnt mean no morals.
@LTNetjak If you have only one shot at life it does tend to matter. Or at least it probably should.
@@zeehero7280 na humans will make bio machines that make metal robots bodies seem like using a hammer instead of a saw to cut wood.
At the end of the day we're all just particles of the universe experiencing itself
To be fair, that's something that fucks me up too. The idea that transporting matter like that would essentially be a death and recreation rather than proper transportation.
I'd have to find a way to host my conciousness on both my brain and a computer at the same time. Then learn to shift from one to the other seamlessly so that I don't suffer a true brain death at least. That way I can zip my body around and just place my mind back in during the end process.
Clunky? Yes. But at least I know I'm me or have less of a Ship of Theseus scenario.
It's a scan of your brain on the computer though, not your brain. The blueprint is what they sent to print out when destroying the you in the teleporter. Either way you die at least once and something that thinks it's you is there being you. Most people could accept this until the first hacker hijacks a stream of your info and modifies it. Might be a doctor curing a disease so still willingly until the one time it's without consent. Then people will realize what is exactly going on.
This is my favorite story so far!
imagine getting to the afterlife and meeting all of your old save files.
Theres a doctor who companion novel that features a similar idea but went one step further and asked what happens to the soul . Would you have multiple copies waiting when you got to purgatory as using the teleporter would count as self termination .
“Clean fusion power” means that there was dirty fusion before, just like fission used to be dirty. Clever wording.
Not really. "Clean fusion power" is currently used to compare fusion to current methods of energy generation - all of which have some environmentally harmful byproduct or effect (yes, even solar, wind, and hydroelectric). By contrast, fusion power would be relatively clean, producing little in the way of waste. Though it might run into some of the same pitfalls as solar or wind power (or electric vehicles, for that matter), in that the materials necessary to construct a fusion plant might not come from a country that has an Environmental Protection Agency equivalent, and thus would just be shoving the environmental damage somewhere out of sight of those advocating its use.
"He remembered the teeth, and the claws, but also the teeth" that got me giggling, right proper.
rawr
You know, I have often thought that same thing about transporters. You basically die on one end, and then a copy of you gets made at the other. It's a good copy, perhaps, but it's still a copy!
and this is why I will never use teleportation; I wait until we have gates that link point "A" to point "B" through folding space.
I can already see another human hacking the trans-mat to duplicate anything...oh god.
or anyone
I bet the first thing people did with it is make cat girls real.
if they want to clone hearts to stick to the doctors then they have a volunteer right here.
Having designed a few different systems of like consequence am somewhat empathic to the stranded ones .
This reminds me of a book by Marshak and Culbreath - The Price of the Phoenix. A difference (in the copy) that makes no difference is no difference.
Evergreen Clasic to hear again and again and again :)
The customer is always right... in matters of taste.
Yes, the star trek teleportation dilemma
Ah, the good old Theseus’ Ship or Lincoln’s Axe conundrum (or was it Washington’s axe, since the whole cherry tree thing, regardless). Fun to philosophize and debate!
Also, I find it less than pleasing that the provably incorrect mantra of “The customer is always right” still exists post-contact
It makes sense, though. I mean, if we're ignoring the obvious issues with the trans-mat, why wouldn't we ignore the even more blatantly obvious issues with "The customer is always right?" I mean, customer service already kills you inside because of the latter - why not let it actually kill you because of the former?
LOL, SHE KILLED HERSELF 2 MORE TIMES TO GIVE THEM A VOUCHER
Human in posh english: Hello, I'm your dispatch from Meazeak inc. What is the help that you need?
LOL at the ending, those poor traumatized tentacle monsters!
Japan would ruin them even more
I guess it proves that there is an afterlife. If the "Soul", whatever that may be, died, the person would be cut off. But nope, out of one lump of clay, right into a new one.
It's nice to have somewhere to go, if you have just been dematerialised.
It would be an amusing change for the us to have regular visitors.
So stupid and glorious. I love it
:)
Funny enough a MerryWeather comic did this, and it’s very unnerving, especially cause a friend sees her friend being killed after being “teleported” and then he friend calls her from Japan and is like “yo this place is so nice” it’s very disturbing
Lol that ending. I kinfa wish patricia said our bodies already do that with cellular reproduction.
Concept is explored in soma and I like it, if you know soma you know why the aliens are so distraught.
This guy is an awesome narrator
ngl, I think I would have major hang ups prior to the first time I did it but if there was no difference in experience afterwards I would be fine.
i mean if all the cynics of teleporters are to be believed, you would have no afterwards, and a clone of you would be created at the destination saying "oh, well that wasn't so bad, and I'm still me anyways."
@@thatguydownthestreat well, that's the point, right. you would never know.
@@gary0044187 True, even the most cynical view of teleporters, souls, and consciousness, at least it wouldn't be your problem anymore :P
It's true though. If there isn't a "soul" that goes from the original body to the new one you'd die for real when you teleport, and then your clone would die teleporting back, and then their clone and so on. Your experience would end at the first teleportation. The safe solution would be to find a way to travel instantly or almost instantly without destroying the original.
If there isn't a soul, then the question is what constitutes "self." Neither our cells or the atoms that comprise them are a constant throughout our lives.
There are several examples of this in "Doctor Who." According to the 10th Doctor, each time he regenerates, a new man goes walking away. However, they all have the memories of the previous. The 11th Doctor gets a double-ganger of himself made from "flesh;" and he considers it another him. The 12th Doctor gets disintegrated and "cloned" from a teleporter countless times.
I imagine a criminal teleporting to escape prison and claiming it's a different being
would it negate the death sentence ?
@@AgroSquerril hehe it could be the death sentence. You could even remove the memory of the crime committed from the copy. It's all in the computer memory buffer the entire blueprint of the person. So just print a two new guys, one without the memory to live on and the other to live forever in jail. Depends on how each state would see it.
Bless the Author
Reminds me of the fact that Dr. Bones from Star Trek didn’t like using teleporters because of this same logic
But we are constantly losing and replacing the matter our bodies are made of so why does it matter if all the matter is replaced all at once or over time
How do you know you really are _you_ still ? or another way to think about it is that _you_ are the brain and neurons dont regenerate so and do not regrow so your body is a sort of armor
@@someone.1184 I don't know if I'm really me moment to moment. But this does bring up some questions could you copy the sign and have multiple copies of the same person existing in multiple places. But then the question really is, is consciousness purely a function of the brain structure or is it something else.
I agree with the aliens that’s not the same pat, same body but well…the older one dies every time
Same blueprint and enough made the same to maybe think the same? You'd never know as you only got copies to work with.
Like a good neighbor Statefarm is there
the ship of Theseus would like to know your location.
That was awesome I can't believe I almost forgot the Voucher lol
:)
If you want to know my thoughts on transporters, let me tell you while I take a seat next to Dr. McCoy.
Great story great narration
Teleportation technology like this isn't scary to me because I imagine the deconstruction phase to be just like falling asleep. When you fall asleep and wake up the next morning, are you still the same person you were before? Has the entity that controls your body, which we typically only refer to as 'you' been changed or not?
It is not possible to know this, at least with our current understanding of things. If sleep and teleportation are identical experiences, then a teleportation in the way outlined by Podge would be like falling asleep and waking up in less than a second.
If you die every time you sleep, then you die every time you teleport. Nothing has changed in your life. You are still you, but maybe a different entity dies when you do so. Or maybe it doesn't, and you yourself are a continuous entity. It's fun to think about as long as you don't get overwhelmed by the concept.
Hopefully this story, video, or comment hasn't given anyone some kind of existential crisis resulting in them not going to sleep. Remember: If you don't sleep for long enough, you'll die either way!
God i would install that teleport thing from my house to office just to skip the traffic
lol
What I think the aliens miss is that Humans view ourselves as more the products of our actions rather than the materials that make us. In other words, consciousness.
It would be funny if the information being transmitted between two points is your soul. so in a way you have a new body. but the same soul.
Not the first story I've ever read where the teleportation device "killed" the being in question and reassembled elements into a new copy at the destination. Although the first such story (by Clifford D. Simak "Way Station") I read actually left a physical body for the operator of the device to dispose of. Still, a rather novel use of the device though.
Even without hte transmat our existence are not continuous. the matter in our bodies is continusly being replaced and our neurones die and another ones take their place. She sould have reasured them that we die at every moment so its not murder.
Well it did say they break your matter into energy then send that through to reassemble so it's just using the energy to reconstruct the matter you were
See, that's the thing I think these aliens aren't aware of. It's not that we lack an innate philosophical sense to recognize what the teleportation actually is. It's that we don't CARE about it. We are indeed very much space orks in that regard. If it works, and we live, regardless of such a philosophical conundrum, we will go ahead and use it.
That ending was Priceless 🥲
:)
I have thought about this concept. Interesting horror story.
Thanks for the story.
a pleasure
the body is temporary, the soul is eternal and immutable
StarTrek style transportation. Fun. Lol.
Ah yes, this old philosophical conundrum.
They way I see it, our soul is surely some form of energy. It makes sense that it would be transported with everything else.
However, I can see this being a problem for those who don't fully understand the thing. Like how some people thought photographs stole your soul, to make the picture.
Souls don't exist.