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Would you use teleportation?

The Sum of Awe

Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
Staff member
Premium Member
Pretend that teleportation were invented and it worked by splitting you into atoms and rebuilding you with them at point B.

Wouldn't you technically die every time you teleport? Is it really 'you' that comes out on the other end? Or is some other consciousness that believes it's the same one?

If that were the case, would you use teleportation? Would you be willing to accept that something that believes it's you and carries all of your memories. will come out on the other end and use teleportation in times of need?

Or would you view teleportation the same way you view death and not use it?
 

VioletVortex

Well-Known Member
The concept of teleportation is actually just destruction and replication. There's no way a machine, no matter how advanced, could replicate the complex spiritual information held within the brain, so there's no way I'dever teleport.
 

Jedster

Flying through space
Pretend that teleportation were invented and it worked by splitting you into atoms and rebuilding you with them at point B.

Wouldn't you technically die every time you teleport? Is it really 'you' that comes out on the other end? Or is some other consciousness that believes it's the same one?

If that were the case, would you use teleportation? Would you be willing to accept that something that believes it's you and carries all of your memories. will come out on the other end and use teleportation in times of need?

Or would you view teleportation the same way you view death and not use it?


No way, not after I saw "The Fly"
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Pretend that teleportation were invented and it worked by splitting you into atoms and rebuilding you with them at point B.

Wouldn't you technically die every time you teleport? Is it really 'you' that comes out on the other end? Or is some other consciousness that believes it's the same one?

If that were the case, would you use teleportation? Would you be willing to accept that something that believes it's you and carries all of your memories. will come out on the other end and use teleportation in times of need?

Or would you view teleportation the same way you view death and not use it?
Reminds me of SOMA. Great video game.
Anyway, assuming the machine is capable of putting you back together exactly as you were, than the only real dilemma is the interruption of consciousness. And that happens every time you go to sleep. Perhaps the 'you' that wakes up in the morning is not the same 'you,' that went to bed, but am entirely new conscious entity that has the memories of the previous entities. Mull that over a bit tonight.
 

Deathbydefault

Apistevist Asexual Atheist
Pretend that teleportation were invented and it worked by splitting you into atoms and rebuilding you with them at point B.

Wouldn't you technically die every time you teleport? Is it really 'you' that comes out on the other end? Or is some other consciousness that believes it's the same one?

If that were the case, would you use teleportation? Would you be willing to accept that something that believes it's you and carries all of your memories. will come out on the other end and use teleportation in times of need?

Or would you view teleportation the same way you view death and not use it?

I don't think such a form of teleportation would be possible, but this is a hypothetical question anyways.

I would use it without hesitation.
The possibility of this version of me dying in the creation of a perfectly identical version does not faze me.

To put it very simply, I don't care about the potential side-effects since being able to teleport is cool enough to be worth the risk.
 

jcforever

Member
Pretend that teleportation were invented and it worked by splitting you into atoms and rebuilding you with them at point B.

Wouldn't you technically die every time you teleport? Is it really 'you' that comes out on the other end? Or is some other consciousness that believes it's the same one?

If that were the case, would you use teleportation? Would you be willing to accept that something that believes it's you and carries all of your memories. will come out on the other end and use teleportation in times of need?

Or would you view teleportation the same way you view death and not use it?

Our Creator mastered teleportation long before he spoke us all into existence from his thoughts.

Psalm 33
8: Let all the earth fear the LORD, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!
9: For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood forth.
 

Kapalika

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I view teleportation as an amazing track.


My love for Goa/Psy aside, I wanna point out that even if you did die when you were teleported, I don't think anyone could really know. Well, you A would know, but B you might not be any the wiser.

Some people argue that since we can't know and you B would be identical to you A that you don't die. But I find that ontological argument flawed because it isn't necessarily true that the stream of consciousness moves from you A to you B. I think people make this argument because they know that over time our bodies are replaced and even moment to moment we have something similar that happens in our minds. To them, the idea that they are literally not the same ontological ego as that which they identify with their entire lives is kind of freaky and so to maintain that connection/belief also must extend it to any kind of hypothetical teleportation as to stay consistent in their reasoning. I'm more of the thought that we literally die very often and that eventually our bodies get very bad at recreating itself. It's the ego that wants to maintain the illusion of continuity to identity.

I personally think that the mind being all in one place at one time and the constitutions of a person only being replaced very slowly is key to a stream of consciousness surviving (this being separate from the ego). If you were to destroy and then rebuild it, even if 100% exactly in the smallest amount of time physically possible, it might keep the same stream of consciousness, but I would think anything longer than that would sever the link. I also don't think that there could ever be any reliable way to reconfigure the information in neurons when teleporting someone and so the person on the other end might not be the same personality even.
 
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Curious George

Veteran Member
Pretend that teleportation were invented and it worked by splitting you into atoms and rebuilding you with them at point B.

Wouldn't you technically die every time you teleport? Is it really 'you' that comes out on the other end? Or is some other consciousness that believes it's the same one?

If that were the case, would you use teleportation? Would you be willing to accept that something that believes it's you and carries all of your memories. will come out on the other end and use teleportation in times of need?

Or would you view teleportation the same way you view death and not use it?
Yes
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
I view teleportation as an amazing track.


My love for Goa/Psy aside, I wanna point out that even if you did die when you were teleported, I don't think anyone could really know. Well, you A would know, but B you might not be any the wiser.

Some people argue that since we can't know and you B would be identical to you A that you don't die. But I find that ontological argument flawed because it isn't necessarily true that the stream of consciousness moves from you A to you B. I think people make this argument because they know that over time our bodies are replaced and even moment to moment we have something similar that happens in our minds. To them, the idea that they are literally not the same ontological consciousness as that which they identify with their entire lives is kind of freaky and so to maintain that connection/belief also must extend it to any kind of hypothetical teleportation as to stay consistent in their reasoning. I'm more of the thought that we literally die very often and that eventually our bodies get very bad at recreating itself. It's the ego that wants to maintain the illusion of continuity to identity.

I personally think that the mind being all in one place at one time and the constitutions of a person only being replaced very slowly is key to a stream of consciousness surviving (this being separate from the ego). If you were to destroy and then rebuild it, even if 100% exactly in the smallest amount of time physically possible, it might keep the same stream of consciousness, but I would think anything longer than that would sever the link. I also don't think that there could ever be any reliable way to reconfigure the information in neurons when teleporting someone and so the person on the other end might not be the same personality even.
An interesting point. If we viewed moments in time as a configuration of molecules like still shots that when put together make a movie, then the consciousness is something that occurs only a series of these moments, since you cannot have consciousness without a series of these moments. Now, either you believe consciousness arises as an emergent property of the particles in a series that make you, you believe consciousness arises as an emergent property of the particles in a series that make everything, or that consciousness originates from another source and manifests in you. In any of these cases I do not see an argument to say that consciousness couldn't carry over. Either you are taking a series of still shots that are all the same from the movie, or you are not taking out still shots at all.

In order to view it as disconnecting you would have view consciousness as originating from a source and bind that source to our temporality.
 

confused453

Active Member
Wouldn't that basically tear a person apart subatom by subatom? Also can you imagine a mentally unstable person getting control of a teleporter and start to teleporter random people randomly? Scary stuff!
 

Kapalika

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
An interesting point. If we viewed moments in time as a configuration of molecules like still shots that when put together make a movie, then the consciousness is something that occurs only a series of these moments, since you cannot have consciousness without a series of these moments. Now, either you believe consciousness arises as an emergent property of the particles in a series that make you, you believe consciousness arises as an emergent property of the particles in a series that make everything, or that consciousness originates from another source and manifests in you. In any of these cases I do not see an argument to say that consciousness couldn't carry over. Either you are taking a series of still shots that are all the same from the movie, or you are not taking out still shots at all.

In order to view it as disconnecting you would have view consciousness as originating from a source and bind that source to our temporality.

I just realized I made a very serious error and fixed it. "To them, the idea that they are literally not the same ontological consciousness as that which they identify with their entire lives"

Should of been: "To them, the idea that they are literally not the same ontological ego as that which they identify with their entire lives"

But anyways I think that it is like a series of "frames", but it's not consciousness that is generated by the motion of these frames, it's the ego. Consciousness is usually experienced as a motion of those frames, but that isn't the only way to experience consciousness. I can't comment on what consciousness really is, no one really knows but I'm not convinced that it's physical nor that it exists without something physical to support it. I think that you could die, but be revived and come back with a different stream of consciousness. I think that is why many people come back from clinical death changed. It's a new consciousness but the old ego. Where the old one goes I don't know, but speaking from my own beliefs I think that the "parts" get recycled into the environment until they are used for the generation of new consciousness. In this sense parts of you could be reincarnated even though you are not dead anymore. Actually, it's likely given my current understanding of my model that a lot or most of the consciousness would seep back into the same brain in the case of clinical death. I'd have to look into how much people changed after clinical death and see if there is a correlation to how long they were dead.
 

Terrywoodenpic

Oldest Heretic
Some form of teleportation might one day prove to be possible. If it were I would have no problem with using it. When you consider that most of everything is empty space anyway. The part of anything that needs to be moved is microscopic on the atomic scale of things.
 

Kapalika

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Some form of teleportation might one day prove to be possible. If it were I would have no problem with using it. When you consider that most of everything is empty space anyway. The part of anything that needs to be moved is microscopic on the atomic scale of things.

I should note, since I just recalled it from mentioning a book on the subject of quantum entanglement [/url="The God Effect], this book to be specific[/url]" in this post on RFin this post on RFDon't mind the bad reviews it's mostly people butthurt over the title. Though I'll note it helps to have a prior understanding of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics before hand to which I can also recommend some books I've read if anyone wants.

Okay, but basically... we already can teleport stuff. I don't recall what chapter it was in and I don't feel like getting up to look but we can teleport certain sized molecules or sub atomic particles or whatever in a way that's been verified as faster than light. It's just... kind of useless to do so at this stage other than for research purposes.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Transporting/teleportation a la Star Trek methods is something I'd do without hesitation.
 

LuisDantas

Aura of atheification
Premium Member
I guess I would not want to be the first living human to test the idea.

Other than that, sure, why not? I "use" sleep all the time...
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Teleporters already exist, & they're pretty cheap.

But there's always the risk of rematerializing with fly
parts where you once had substandard human parts.
 

Kuzcotopia

If you can read this, you are as lucky as I am.
Pretend that teleportation were invented and it worked by splitting you into atoms and rebuilding you with them at point B.

Wouldn't you technically die every time you teleport? Is it really 'you' that comes out on the other end? Or is some other consciousness that believes it's the same one?

If that were the case, would you use teleportation? Would you be willing to accept that something that believes it's you and carries all of your memories. will come out on the other end and use teleportation in times of need?

Or would you view teleportation the same way you view death and not use it?

If this were possible it would pretty much prove materialism. If you're not a materialist, you would have to claim this is impossible.

Unless I'm missing something.
 
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