This question was raised in a Philosophy class that I took. It's an interesting subject, to a point. There are many interesting questions about identity and consciousness that can be raised by it. In fact, I wrote a segment of one of my papers on it. Here it is...
The Transporter
In the TV show Star Trek, transporters make getting around for the main characters much
easier. Fast entrances, fast getaways, terrible malfunctions, out of this world alternate uses,
unexplainable physics – it is the perfect science fiction gadget.
As a child watching Star Trek, I had a problem with this concept. The techno-babble
explanation for this thing is that the subject to be transported is scanned atom by atom by
the machine, converted to pure energy, “beamed” to the destination and physically reassembled,
much like I might do scanning and e-mailing photographs.
When I do this to my photographs, the result is a perfect copy of the original.
The colors are the same, it feels the same, and even the Kodak paper is the same. However,
something very important is different – it is not the original.
My problem with the transporters was what happened to the original subject. This person
was taken apart and destroyed, then reassembled on the other end. However, was it the same person?
If when I scanned a picture the original was destroyed, I’d be upset no matter how good the
copy was. If I stepped on a transporter myself, would I wink out of existence, to be replaced
with a perfect copy of myself with its own sense of self and consciousness, spending my money
and laying claim to my women? Or worse, when I am transported, does the copy have the
original’s incorporeal soul, or did that get left behind in space purgatory to drift into a
black hole, while the soulless Invasion of the Body Snatchers version of myself spends my money
and claims my women?
In a couple of ignorantly creative episodes, transporter malfunctions created
multiple copies of the original, resulting in a very awkward situation – my perceived
alternate self feels entitled to my money and my women, but I’ll be damned if that happens.
It is science fiction, of course, so none of that even matters. By this reasoning, I could
put all of my money and women on the transporter and copy them to my (and my other’s) heart’s
content. I could create a whole army of soulless Cash’s and rule the galaxy with my army of
cloned wives. My thousand wives could nag me into a thousand premature deaths. However,
that aside, the question remains – are transporters a cool method of transportation, or murdering
twin makers?
For the sake of argument, I have to opt for the second explanation. One cannot exist in two
places at the same time. If I did copy myself, a new consciousness would be created, and while
like me in every way, is not me. It is a separate human being, with my exact personality and
all of my memories. Yet, it is not me. Moreover, if when I copied myself I were destroyed,
I would simply cease to exist. The resulting being would be exactly the same as the original,
but only a copy.
I suppose that is why it is called science fiction – thinking about it too hard is pointless,
because it is fiction. Fiction can do anything you want. Why couldn’t transporters bring the
dead back to life, or make everyone young again? Or turn you into a huge, well endowed,
athlete? Or turn my thousand wives into nice and obedient companions? I suppose most people
do not think this hard about something they know is not real. In the end I can only conclude
that the transporter is neither a cool way to get around nor a murdering twin maker.
Rather, it is a fantastic idea built around imaginary principles that facilitates the
telling of a story. Although it does exist in our understanding and imagination, it is
not a coherent idea. Although fun and interesting, it in no way relates to any possibility
or situation in real life, much like witchcraft or online dating. You can attribute any
qualities you want to either, but it doesn’t change what they really are.
However, the bottom line is that it's not possible. We're asking questions about something that one day might or might not be possible. So, I think that the philosophical implications are limited to the imaginative.
Come see the WIP!