Friday A/V Club: Fun with Teleportation Machines

Beam me into oblivion, Scotty.

If you want a detailed account of the philosophical issues raised by the Star Trek teleporter, you should check out CGP Grey's The Trouble with Transporters, a YouTube video that came out earlier this month and has been zipping around the Internet since then. It's smart, it's fun, it's short; you should watch it.

But my favorite film about these issues is a lot older than Grey's video. It's a cartoon John Weldon made in 1990, called To Be:

For yet another video on the subject—this time from a physics angle—go here. For a novel that touches on the topic (and later was made into a movie that I'm told is good but I haven't seen), go here. For past installments of the Friday A/V Club, go here.

Comments

[WTF]

It's quite obvious that the transporter destroys you and creates an exact copy elsewhere. Nobody in their right mind would ever use one except to move goods and machinery.

[WTF]

And you wouldn't even need it for that, as you can just use the same technology to create what you want wherever you want it.

[Lee G]

Are you saying that Star Trek is full of shit? That's unpossible.

[AlmightyJB]

You'd constently be replacing your carbon cartridge.

[Lee G]

But think of the residuals!

[some guy]

Nah. Every time you transport someone out, you collect their molecules/atoms to use when the next person transports in.

[AlmightyJB]

I want fresh carbon. I don't want my molecules mixed up with some other dudes. That's gay.

[some guy]

Too bad. Every time you breath you're inhaling a bunch of other dudes' carbon. I guess you're gay.

[Free Society]

It's not even an exact copy. Exact copies are impossible because the laws of nature forbid us from measuring both the velocity and the position of individual particles at the same. So on the quantum level of the copy, the computer would have to make trillions of guesses. The copies might be indistinguishable on the classical scale, but still different fundamentally distinct.

[Free Society]

different and*

[Lee G]

You've been Heisenberg'ed

[WTF]

Good point.

[Hugh Akston]

That's why they have the Heisenberg Compensator as an integral part of the device.

[Lee G]

Ha! I remember that now.

[WTF]

Also known as "magic".

[Heroic Mulatto]

So on the quantum level of the copy, the computer would have to make trillions of guesses.

Leaving aside the Heisenberg Compensator, according to the U.S.S. Enterprise Technical Manual, the technology of the era allows creating a warp field around computer cores, allowing for Star Trek computers to perform supertasks. As such, from our point of view outside the warp field, the computers can perform an infinite number of computations.

[WTF]

Which would take an infinite amount of time?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Which would take an infinite amount of time?

A supertask is defined as an infinite amount of operations in a finite amount of time. Basically a variation on Zeno's paradox. The famous example is a lamp; let's say it starts on, after 1 min, it turns off. Then 30 seconds later, it turns on, then 15 seconds later, it turns off, then 7.5 seconds later it turns on, etc. etc.. The question being, what state will the lamp be at the 2 minute mark? In the fictional Star Trek universe, a warp field allows a starship or a computer to cheat by allowing it to travel through space faster than Planck time, at least from the perspective of an observer outside of the field. Though never made explicit in anything I've ever encountered set in the Star Trek milieu, the stories seem to accept a discrete model of time. As such, from the perspective of the computer operator outside of the field, the computer leaps to the end of the time interval, having done the infinite calculations between chronons, which doesn't violate the classical laws of physics as happening faster than Planck time, the universe 'doesn't see it'.

Of course it's all hand-waving, but it's neat to think about.

[0x90]

The problem with zeno is not that the race never ends, but that if we so choose, we never have to stop counting the steps it takes to do so. As such, it does not imply that it is possible to accomplish an infinite number of discrete tasks in finite time, but rather that, conceptually, any finite task may be divided into an arbitrary number of sub-tasks.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Sure, that's a real world understanding of the paradox; but it does nothing to explain its computational variant Thompson's Lamp, which involves being able to calculate whether or not the lamp will be lit at the 2 minute mark.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Again, it's worth noting that Thompson intended his example as evidence for why supertasks are impossible.

[0x90]

I had not come across that before, but if I haven't missed the point, I don't think it contradicts my statement. I would say the reason for the indeterminacy of the lamp's end state is that the specified sequence of operations, being infinite, does not tend toward leaving it in one state or the other. Another way would be to say it seems more or less to be a physical representation of Grandi's series; and perhaps interestingly, where it is possible to say that Grandi's series is equal to 1/2, I think it is also intuitively apparent that were it possible for a real lamp to be cycled in such a way, the observed effect would for it appear to be half-lit.

[Lee G]

Soooooo.... magic

[WTF]

Hey, it's no more magical than the flux capacitor! It could work!

[Irish ?s Lauren Southern]

"Leaving aside the Heisenberg Compensator, according to the U.S.S. Enterprise Technical Manual"

NEEEEEEEEEEERDS

[WTF]

I did realize we were descending into Sheldon Cooper territory here.

[Heroic Mulatto]

bItuHlaHbe'chugh bIquvlaHbe'.

[Los Doyers]

Get a load of Betty Buzzkill over here.

[AlmightyJB]

Why would you make copy of yourself when you could make a copy of Mila Kunis. Brings up the question: Would a copy of Mila Kunis still not sleep with you?

[WTF]

Dude, that's what the holodeck is for, you can program her to act however you want!

[AlmightyJB]

Beam me to the future!

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Shut up, Koothrappali.

[Mainer2]

Why would you make a copy of Mila Kunis when you could make a copy of Salma Hayek ?

[WTF]

Why limit yourself? Copy up a goddam harem!

[some guy]

Nobody in their right mind would ever use one except to move goods and machinery.

Why not? If it's an "exact" copy then it is effective transportation. As others have mentioned, you have no need to use transporters on goods and machinery since you can just use a replicator to create goods and machinery at the endpoint. Literally the only reason to use a transporter would be for moving yourself quickly to a new location without leaving a copy behind.

[WTF]

Except you're not acually moving yourself, you are being killed then a copy of you is made elsewhere.

[some guy]

But you wouldn't know the difference and neither would anyone else. If the two are indistinguishable and the process is safer than alternative methods then what's the problem (other than some superstitious concerns about souls and whatnot?)

[Terc]

Algis Budrys' Rogue Moon [1960] is about this as well.

Gene Wolfe says: "Budrys tells us that if you destroyed a man here and reconstituted him somewhere else, you're fooling yourself if you think that the reconstituted man is the same as the original man. The man who goes into the matter transmitter is going to go dark; he's going to die. You can create a new man with the memories of the dead man; but that doesn't mean that the dead man is still alive. The dead man is dead."

[Jesse Walker]

That book has been on my to-read list for years. You recommend it?

[Citizen X]

Check out Charles Stross's Glasshouse as well.

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

Don't read anything by Charles Stross.

[Terc]

It's on my list as well. I only recalled Gene Wolfe's comment. But if Wolfe likes it...

[some guy]

As both the dead man and the new man, I would be okay with this.

[Adans smith]

I like the Asgard better.The Federation were a bunch of socialist. Oh,and the Wraith are cool villains.

[Lee G]

But what about the prequels? I thought Lucas did a great job with Ripley.

[Irish ?s Lauren Southern]

Shots fired in Belgian raid on an apartment in Molenbeek which is supposedly related to the Paris shootings.

[WTF]

No reason to be concerned about a large influx of Muslim "refugees", none at all!

[Los Doyers]

Is it just me or has there been many more stories about police raids in Belgium than in France following the Paris attacks? The terrorists must love them some pommes frites.

[Los Doyers]

Blargh my English. Have* been

[WTF]

I thought it was the waffles they were after.

[Los Doyers]

In that case I don't blame them.

[Lord Humungus]

too many carbs!

[Irish ?s Lauren Southern]

Several of the people involved were originally Belgian citizens who moved to France. The guy they're after now was from Molenbeek and several of the raids have been them trying to track him down by going after his associates.

[Los Doyers]

Sounds like Trump really needs to be hollering about a wall surrounding Belgium, then.

[WTF]

Or maybe just leave it to the Flemings and Walloons to decide what to do about their problems. No real point, I just wanted to type "Flemings" and "Walloons".

[Los Doyers]

Everyone wants a unit or two of Walloon Guards in their army.

/Napoleon Total War

[Jerry on the rocks]

They have captured Salah Abdeslam!

[The Last American Hero]

Which one are we more likely to see in our lifetime - a Star Trek-style transporter system or the Libertarian Moment?

[Lee G]

The transporter sans the reconstitution part (for libertarians)

[Hugh Akston]

I would settle for a H&Rumpler; with an original comment.

[Millennial Hipster Vanguard]

Who's stopping you?
*waits for original comment*

[AlmightyJB]

Get off Hugh's lawn!

[WTF]

And quit making fun of the onion tied to his belt, that was the fashion back in his day!

[Mainer2]

The onion cost a quarter, or 5 bees.

[Millennial Hipster Vanguard]

*chuckle*

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Think of Hugh as something we aspire to. In reality, it can't be achieved (like true enlightenment or self-actualization) but a goal we spend our lives pondering and working towards. Essentially, we're all trying to be closer to Hugh.

[some guy]

Trick question. The Libertarian Moment already happened and it lasted exactly a moment.

[Heroic Mulatto]

If you want a detailed account of the philosophical issues raised by the Star Trek teleporter, you should check out CGP Grey's The Trouble with Transporters

Or you could read James Patrick Kelly's Think Like a Dinosaur and avoid giving the execrable CGP Grey Youtube revenue money.

[Irish ?s Lauren Southern]

I don't know anything about this guy, so what's so bad about him?

[Lee G]

He's execrable, duh

[Heroic Mulatto]

Other than being that obnoxious expat whose entire shtick is Progsplaning "misconceptions"?

[Heroic Mulatto]

And please use Adblock when clicking those links.

[Lee G]

Yeah, you're right, he's execrable

[Irish ?s Lauren Southern]

He seems like the Vox of Youtube.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

Can't believe I'm the first to link to this. Best scene in Breaking Bad history.

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

The reason you never see people using a toilet in Star Trek is because the waste gets removed in the beaming process. Unfortunately, all that waste gets beamed into the replicator.

[WTF]

Come to think of it, I've never seen any evidence of the existence of toilets in Star Trek.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Trekkies out there explain to me the part at 3:14. If atoms are turned into energy and energy back into atoms (as the video earlier notes) then how can you have a non-working transporter that successfully makes the copy of you but didn't disassemble you? Doesn't that suggest the transporter made something from nothing?

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

And neither of those questions addressed the fundamental difference between beaming a body to a place and beaming a body from a place.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Oh surgery analysis with 'breaks in consciousness' is a shit analogy. I'm not convinced that "going to sleep" whether or not its drug-induced is a break in consciousness.

[WTF]

Since your brain continues to function even when unconscious, I would tend to agree.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

BTW: I don't like how the Weldon video treats the subject. It starts with a premise I don't necessarily accept.

[notJoe]

"The Man Who Folded Himself" -- David Gerrold.

Not fully on-topic, but anytime a "mulitiple copies of yourself" storyline comes up it brings that book to mind.

Quite a freaky story.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Yeah, because I'm a feckless reader, I'm about 1/4 into that book... I need to finish it. Strangely, I stopped right when it was getting interesting.

[notJoe]

Oh, then you missed the sex scene. Definitely pick it up again 😉

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Right, that's the one where he has sexy time with his female self?

[creech]

Won't someone please think of the taxi drivers, train engineers, airline pilots, and travel agents put out of work by this dangerous, untested, and probably god-less technology?

[Mainer2]

It's Unregulated !

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

All this Star Trek nonsense should be ignored anyway. The Stars My Destination did it better.

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