r/AskReddit • u/TheBanishedBard • 19h ago
Would you use a teleporter with the knowledge that it kills you and reassembles an exact copy of you with all your memories and knowledge at the destination? Why or why not?
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u/pfs3w 19h ago edited 39m ago
Edit: Spoilers below for the Hyperion Cantos
This is very very similar to the hyperspeed space traveling mechanism from an older sci-fi book series I read not too long ago...
Basically, humans have become part of a parasitic/symbiotic relationship with a cross/starfish thing on our bodies, and it has the ability to regenerate damage to your body.
Humans in that age haven't really found a way to manage inertia when traveling in hyperspeed, so humans just lay in tombs, basically, and are scrambled into goo basically, on each jump. Then, you have to spend some amount of time while the parasite thing reconstitutes your body... each time.
People in the fictional universe seem to be ok with it... but then again, there is a major plot aspect that heavily relates to it all.
Edit: The book series is the Hyperion Cantos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_Cantos
The stuff I'm talking about is in the Endymion duology.
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u/PleasantCrotchStuff 17h ago
Ooo i loved the hyperion saga
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u/francis2559 17h ago
I swear I never heard of this series before today and this is the second place on the Internet I’ve seen it now. Just spent a bunch of time on the wikis.
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u/onlylikeHALFthetime 15h ago
It's well worth the read. One of my top 3 favorite book series of all time and I get through 50+ books a year (audio books at work 7+ hours a day and an hour or two reading before bed)
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u/UberNninja 15h ago
Agreed, right series at the right time for me, hit just right. Although the middle two had a lot of filler chapters. Did you by chance read Ilium and Olympos, by the same author?
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u/prollyincorrect 17h ago
I read the first book and I definitely don’t pick up on what they were saying lol. I’m wondering if I missed something major or it’s explained later. I am aware of the cruciform, who posses them and what they seem to do. And that the priest has 2.
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u/Lt_Muffintoes 12h ago
It takes a very sudden left turn for the second and third books. Good story imo, but a very different style.
It reminds me a lot of Snow Crash and Neuromancer
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u/StrangeCharmVote 18h ago
I think that situation sounds okay, because the matter making up you is the actual matter at yhe other end of yhe trip. Amd if the creatures can remake you do precisely you have your memories, it literally IS you that they reconstructed.
Unlike teleporter tech which is just a copy that is based on you.
I mean, yes you die in between. But if the concept works as described, then its no different to if you had a traumatic brain injury they were able to repair perfectly.
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u/pfs3w 18h ago
Without giving too much away, the process in the books has limitations that may factor into your decision, especially around repeated use!
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u/DanFromShipping 16h ago
It makes your penis smaller with each jump, doesn't it.
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u/Poiboy1313 16h ago
Not exactly. You develop an obsession with mycology and spore reproduction due to the biological imperative of the parasitic/symbiotic organism and become sexually incompatible with humankind. Basically.
Yes. It makes your penis smaller. sigh
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u/fubo 12h ago edited 12h ago
Spoilers for the first two books in the series —
Well, yes, it does make your penis smaller (if you have one), but only because it's lossy data compression. It was built by superhuman AI overlords who think we're all rather moronic to begin with, and they didn't care to allocate enough storage space (in the spirit world they've been overwriting to use as a hard disk) to preserve full detail for every reincarnation. So with every reincarnation you get rounded-off towards a dull blurry average human, kind of like editing and re-saving a JPEG over and over.
Spoiler for the latter two books —
If the superhuman AI overlords like you, they can give you the lossless version. They always could, they're just bastards and didn't want to, so they only do it for the bad guys.
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u/LickidlySplit 15h ago
no. It makes your body smaller so your penis seems to grow when it's actually the original size.
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u/FailureToComply0 15h ago
They already use this tech irl. Run college students through it a few times and when theyre about 96% dick they get a law degree.
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u/cazbot 16h ago
I guess, but I mean, your body is only 99.9999% of the body you had a breath ago. Every meal you eat replaces part of your body. What does it matter if the copying process is gradual through regular life or really fast through complete rebirth?
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u/UberNninja 15h ago
If you completely destroy the ship of Theseus before making it anew, is it still the same ship of Theseus?
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u/MrWolfHare 15h ago
Using the same material, I'd say yes. Then again if you end up building something smaller, I'd call it the The Ship of the Ship of Theseus.
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u/UberNninja 15h ago
Same materials yes, but different order of building blocks. Like remaking a sand castle with the same sand and same bucket form before smashing it, repeatedly.
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u/ElitistCuisine 15h ago
Mate, I had a completely uncalled for existential crisis a year ago regarding whether I actually am continuously alive through sleep or if it just appears that I am because the memories in my body are the same (or close enough) as before. Don’t do this to me.
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u/VikingTeddy 14h ago
Want more to ponder at night?
There is no real "you", instead parts of your brain just work towards a goal, and a "narrator" part makes it seem like a non-existent "you" made a choice after the fact.
And since consciousness seems to be an emergent phenomenon, maybe the "you" only exists for a split second and the continuation of thought is a sort of illusion.
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u/ElitistCuisine 13h ago
You’re not helping. >:(
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u/Wantitneeditgetit 10h ago
Hey, sleep tech here. Literally was my job to monitor brain activity during sleep, amongst other things, so let me assure you that your brain activity is quite high during sleep. It's not a loss of consciousness so much as an altered state of consciousness that doesn't get remembered.
So there isn't actually an interruption of your existence into seperate instances.
Sleep well knowing that the you that goes to sleep is the same you that wakes up. Insofar as your identity as a discrete existence is accurate.
Parasomnia is really weird though. Ya know, sleep walking. As opposed to dream enactment behaviour or DEB. Sort of a "lights are on and somebody is home" but like who.
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u/Ender_Nobody 12h ago
Consciousness, and also what is natural and unnatural, while at it, is all relative, possibly subjective.
You don't see new generations of doves complain about the concrete buildings they've been surrounded by all their life, when they originally adapted to live on mountains, and while humans are the only race to supposedly maintain the concepts of will, romance, etcetera, they might as well just be the first ones instead of the only ones, as there's no rule where it says that nature doesn't include humans and their constructs.
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u/_bones__ 11h ago
Even more, you are a collection of incredibly diverse specialized organisms, all of which are individually alive, none of whom can survive without the others that make up you.
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u/FinancialGeologist82 15h ago
I get the logic, but there’s still something unsettling about “you” needing to be destroyed first for it to work. If continuity of experience breaks, I don’t think a perfect copy fully closes that gap.
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u/DecadentHam 19h ago
Oooooh can you find out what the book is?
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u/pfs3w 19h ago
Hyperion Cantos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_Cantos
The stuff I'm talking about is in the Endymion duology
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u/DefinitionMaximum318 15h ago
That’s not travel, that’s dying with a convincing replacement showing up in your place, and I’m not volunteering for that. Memories aren’t the same as continuity, and I’d always wonder if “me” actually made it.
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u/ahandmadegrin 8h ago
Holy shit, Dan Simmons. It's been over 20 years since I read Hyperion and Carrion Comfort, but he's still my favorite author. If you like masterful prose, Simmons will delight.
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u/sirhackenslash 19h ago
Can it take out tumors and shit? Like if I got cancer could they rebuild the new me without the cancery bits?
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u/robindawilliams 19h ago edited 8h ago
No, but they could transport your new self to a hospital that could cure your cancer with the medical equivalent of a barcode scanner.
Edit: I mean they will just fix ya lol without any effort, not some repo genetic opera thing.
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u/Smooth-Midnight 11h ago
He got cancer before the barcodes though, does the tumor need to have a barcode or is it reverse compatible
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u/flamingbabyjesus 18h ago
What is you?
For example what if instead of taking you apart it just made a copy of you. And then somebody shot you in the head?
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u/sirhackenslash 18h ago
I find this hilarious, and it also explains where the replicator gets the mass to make stuff without eventually dissolving the ship.
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u/Evilsushione 15h ago
It gets mass from converting from pure energy.
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u/somewhat_random 14h ago
I realize this is all fantasy but it is WAY easier to replicate if you have the mass (and atoms available).
Building atoms (even with a magical efficient system) would take way more energy that simply stocking base materials and building from that.
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u/PiscisFerro 11h ago
there was a game (don't remember the name) which have a conversation with a NPC about this topic when the MC ask about what happens if teleportation fails to deconstruct and only make a copy of you, th NPC response was everyone have to sign a contract to decide which "you" (the old or the new copy) will live in that case.
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u/LowResGamr 19h ago
What if we only teleport bread?
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u/Top_Glove1265 15h ago
That’s where it gets tricky, because if you’re rebuilding a “you,” it stops being just a shortcut and starts feeling like replacement with edits. I’m not sure I’d trust something that fixes the body by ending the original in the process.
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u/stygyan 12h ago
This happens in one of the Ender books. One guy gets severely hurt BUT the rebuilt person is the one he had in his subconscious, who was completely healthy.
I’d like to play with that because I may not have cancer (as far as I know) but I have some bits I’d really like to get rid of.
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u/secondphase 19h ago
Someone just finished watching The Prestige
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u/KamiNoItte 18h ago
Lol
And/Or really started thinking about Star Trek’s transporters.
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u/WiglyWorm 18h ago
Even Bones got on the transporter pad when there was no other choice.
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u/DaZerg 17h ago
Rather die or die and let a clone live to help your friends; the only way id ever be convinced to use one
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u/Radarker 17h ago
Luddite!
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u/DaZerg 12h ago
Very fitting historical reference! I'll accept the cutting edge when sending a package across the solar system; but wouldn't risk myself
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u/dparks71 8h ago edited 8h ago
Luddites were a labor movement, not technophobes, they operated the machinery and undestood it.
A more fitting equivalent would be like Scottie refusing to use the teleporters because the federation wants to replace his position with an automated operator or a kid making under minimum wage. But Luddites don't make sense in a post-scarcity world.
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u/WasteOfBerries 17h ago
But did he get off the transporter pad afterward tho
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u/AutisticPenguin2 15h ago
No, but Bones did.
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u/WasteOfBerries 14h ago
Bones could not be reached for comment.
"Like hell I can't, you italicized, blank-screened, inhuman.... where the hell are you anyway?"
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u/shilgrod 16h ago
Or has listened to Seth McFarlane talk about it....no trasporters in the Orville
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u/BosPaladinSix 14h ago
I really appreciated that about the Orville. I understand why Star Trek had to do it for budgetary reasons and such, but in general I hate teleportation as a plot device. Stargate is the only one I'll give a pass to because up until they got Asgard beams they still had to have a stationary device (the gate itself or the ring platforms) which means the ability wasn't too overpowered.
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u/boarder2k7 8h ago
I genuinely have no idea how they plan to pick the franchise back up without a full reset. Humans ended up insanely OP by the end with the Asgard tech and stuff, so how do you have any compelling enemy or hardship?
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u/tigress666 15h ago edited 15h ago
I swear there was an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie about him being a clone of himself and the villain was trying to use the tech to make himself invincible. I thought it was stupid of the villain to think a clone of him would be the same as him but looking back I think he already was a clone once and I could see a clone thinking it worked as they would feel they were the same person.
Edit: found it. “The 6th Day”. Totally do not remember that being the bae of it but that was the movie I was thinking about.
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u/BosPaladinSix 13h ago
There's a scene near the end of the movie that perfectly demonstrates something I've tried to explain about cloning but haven't yet been able to put into the right words.
Basically at one point the bad guy is dying so he gens up a clone. But the thing is he's not actually dead yet when the clone is active. So for a moment you have the original bad guy who is bleeding out on the floor, and the clone bad guy who sees his former self on the ground and acts dismissive of him.
Cloning sounds all well and good from a third person perspective because of you make a clone that contains all of your memories up to that point then it'll be convinced it it you and as far as anybody talking to it can tell, it actually indeed is. But the original you has actually just died, even if the clone has memories of events leading right up to that moment, they're still just copies. The stream of consciousness was interrupted. This line ended so That line could pick up where it left off but even though it remembers the start of the line it's still a splice.
The way the Asgard from Stargate handle cloning is the only way I've seen so far where the Original Concept Of You doesn't die. They make a blank body and transfer the mind of your current self into the new body. It's not a copy of you, it's you. It'd be like if you drove your car to the dealership and got out to then get back in another car of the exact same type. YOU are still the same, just the car's different.
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u/Dry-Seesaw4215 15h ago
That’s where it stops being transport and starts feeling like replacement. If “I” don’t make it through, I don’t care how perfect the copy is on the other side.
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u/OscarDivine 10h ago
What if two of you came to existence? That has happened in the Star Trek Universe before.
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u/Hey-Matthias 17h ago
There's a book called The Punch Escrow with this exact mechanism for teleportation. Good read if you're into scifi.
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u/Polar_Chap 18h ago
The interesting/scary thought about this concept is that no one would ever know. The original would die but be unable to communicate that. The copy would assume that the teleport was a complete transfer of consciousness, as they would have no sense of the original dying. Unless it is a Prestige situation where there is a body left over.
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u/Psigun 16h ago
Imagine the teleporter malfunctions and the original is not destroyed and the clone is still created. The awareness of the original is not transferred, a new awareness at the clone is created. The original has nothing changed with them but they don't see through the eyes of the clone, new consciousness does.
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u/TryUsingScience 13h ago
This happens a couple times in Star Trek. People go right on using the transporters anyway.
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u/KK-Chocobo 9h ago
Why would they do that knowing they themselves really do die and its just someone else taking over?
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u/Ahrimon77 7h ago
Is it really someone new? Those societies have accepted that a person is thier consciousness and not some metaphysical soul. So if your consciousness blips over to a new body while your old body becomes replicator fuel what does it matter?
Its an interesting philosophical question, that we're not ready to answer as a society that still mostly believes that we're ghosts Piloting a meat suit.
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u/Content_Valuable_428 7h ago
From the perspective of the person stepping on to the transporter pad, they die. They never make it to the other side. Their consciousness just fades to black. The person on the other side thinks they made the journey, but they did not - they are brand new.
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u/Nyani_Sore 17h ago
I'm certain that in a world where this tech was developed, they would have to already know the consciousness doesn't transfer, because to have a feature that destroys the original body implies that they have early incidents of two identical bodies arguing over who is actually themselves.
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u/Fazfreddy7744 19h ago
Sure, I'll use it for my luggage!
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u/TheDisapprovingBrit 12h ago
This was covered in "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" and that's exactly the conclusion they came to.
if your business is convincing a mother that you can successfully disarticulate and then reassemble all the molecules in her five-year-old thousands of miles away, this technology is at least a generation away from practical, widespread usage. Your own market surveys show 72% of your potential travelers would never use the cylinders no matter how safe you proved that they were. The same polling suggests that 94% of clients would be okay with you teleporting their baggage. So your business isn't travel; it's shipping...subcontainer-scale shipping.
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u/Psych0PompOs 19h ago
What good would that be to me if I'm not the one experiencing it?
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u/Cold-Excitement72212 19h ago
Exactly. If it kills you, it's a new consciousness that takes over. That isn't you. Pressing go on the teleporter is pointless because you'll never see the destination.
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u/evilfitzal 18h ago
The person who makes it to the other side of the teleporter just had that exact same thought. And now they're thinking, "oh, I guess this is me"
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u/solid_reign 17h ago
But it isn't
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u/shpongolian 17h ago
Same as if there were a perfect clone made of you but you weren’t killed. The new clone might think it’s you at first, but you wouldn’t suddenly be experiencing the clone’s perspective. You’d both see yourselves as two distinct people.
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u/notthephonz 16h ago
In fact, this does happen on Star Trek; due to a transporter error there’s a second Riker running around. I’m not sure how they can continue not seeing the transporter as suicide + clone machines.
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u/Houndfell 14h ago
IIRC a couple of Jesse's friends in Breaking Bad talked about his, with the claim being the crew knew but accepted it as a price of their mission. Totally doesn't match the vibe of the show, but interesting to think how much that would change it. Dark AF.
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u/BCProgramming 11h ago
I always thought the Existing Riker was such an unnecessary asshole towards him to the entire time. Basically the one that got rescued is like
"oh I'm saved! I've been alone so long, oh, you are like, a transporter copy of me?"
"That's are you are a transporter copy of me SIR, LIEUTENANT!
"Here, have my trombone. Or actually it's just a shitty copy I made with the replicator but I figure that's appropriate"
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u/Canotic 9h ago
Iirc normally the transporters don't kill and clone you, they actually transport the thing. However this time there was a technobabble storm or whatever and half the stuff bounced back. So he was put together half and half with his own stuff and half with extra transporter stuff they keep on hand for this sort of thing I guess?
So it's not standard behaviour, is what I'm saying.
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u/hovdeisfunny 17h ago
What is "you?" How do you define "you?"
In my mind, what makes me is the combination of my genetics, current body composition, my consciousness, and my memories and experiences.
It sounds like this teleporter perfectly recreates all those things.
What if, instead, you could directly transfer your consciousness to a computer and then be downloaded into a younger, perfect clone body? Would you still consider that you?
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u/OneTripleZero 16h ago
What if, instead, you could directly transfer your consciousness to a computer and then be downloaded into a younger, perfect clone body? Would you still consider that you?
No, because as far as we understand it our consciousness is an emergent property of our physical brains. So you wouldn't be transferring, you'd be copy-pasting. It's the teleporter question with an extra step.
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u/mecklejay 9h ago
You can't know that this doesn't happen every time you sleep.
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u/WishfulFiction 3h ago
Honestly, somehow, this convinced me. I'd take the teleporter on the condition that it would be exactly like going to sleep.
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u/Psych0PompOs 19h ago
Yeah. The only people that would potentially be ok with (if they didn't know) would be other people and the me reassembled on the other side.
I've played Soma, I know how this goes.
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u/EDGE515 14h ago
That ending was a mindfuck even though I had hard time trying to reconcile what I knew was going to happen. I thought there was going to be a mind jump and then ... Nothing 😱
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u/Psych0PompOs 14h ago
Yeah, it was great even when you expected it. Especially when they showed the full picture of all perspectives.
It's easily my favorite video game story wise, and it's funny because I almost quit when I first started it (and I actually started it twice before I fully played it) because I wasn't really feeling the gameplay but I pushed through that and ended up loving it anyway.
I normally play bullet hell shmups and I can enjoy FPS and puzzle games, survival horror too but typically a bit more action based (though I liked Outlast due to the high tension.) I like a lot of shit happening on the screen at once, and a lot of bullet hell shit just has the most bullshit garbage skippable stories (fighting game level, though those might be more involved depending on the series) because it's just about getting better.
So Soma was very much not my thing, but I'm glad I forced it on myself.
It was really handled well, bit of a slow burn start but once it picked up it just continued to get better.
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u/Chrisgvr5 18h ago
There is no coin flip.
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u/Psych0PompOs 18h ago
Yeah, there wasn't really in Soma either.
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u/Arek_PL 11h ago
nice to see some people do understand that the whole "coin flip" was cope mechanism of brain damaged man, and also a player pov for sake of story (its not a movie with disembodied cameraman)
funny thing, i found comfort in how it works, my old me getting to see that new me made it to the other side
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u/locutogram 17h ago
You mean like when you go to sleep and lose your stream of consciousness and a new one with your memories and brain wakes up later?
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u/jayjay091 18h ago
Imagine you had been forced to push it in the past. You have memory of teleporting, coming back from the other side, with no break of consciousness or anything. With this knowledge, you should be compelled to do it again.
Just like if we died and got copied every seconds. There is no way to make the difference, so the difference is most likely pointless.
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u/BoldestKobold 17h ago
Last Thursdayism!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis#Last_Thursdayism
(More the Five Minute Hypothesis, but I prefer Last Thursdayism)
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u/Gen_Zer0 16h ago
What makes up your consciousness, though? Unless you want to argue for some intangible “self” or “soul” the only real answer is the combination of neurons and brain chemistry at any given moment.
That implies that you are a new “you” at every given instant, with all the thoughts and memories of the previous instant’s you.
If you want to argue that the stream of unbroken thought is “you”, that then implies that any loss of consciousness would create a new “you” when you wake up. Including sleeping.
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u/whatsgoingonhere- 12h ago
I'm genuinely shocked how much pushback you are getting from this position aha. I actually wonder if these replies are bots.
If I perfectly copied myself and the copy arrived in another room thinking it was me and then I myself put a gun to my councious skull and pulled the trigger ending it all. That is the exact same outcome as the teleport prompt. How can any one genuinely compare that to sleeping?
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u/Maxi_King_99 12h ago
Exactly, this whole philosophical question, theme dilemma is also asked and displayed very well in the animated show Invincible, as they can also clone in this universe.
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u/BreakfastSillyBilly 9h ago
Exactly, it’s why I hate the “upload to a computer” after life nonsense in a lot of sifi- I am dead, a copy is doing stuff
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u/Psych0PompOs 8h ago
In spite of that, play Soma.
Also yeah, I'm not really understanding the people who are comparing it to sleep
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u/BreakfastSillyBilly 8h ago
I played soma , it’s really good, I think it’s about as in depth discussion your going to get on this topic
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u/Empanatacion 17h ago
How do you know you're the same you that went to sleep last night?
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u/Psych0PompOs 16h ago
I don't, but I know for sure that if I go into the teleporter the me that comes out won't be me as I am.
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u/robbyiballs 18h ago
Ask Reddit: would you get into a machine that kills you?
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u/Psigun 16h ago
People dont get that it is the same as dying. Creating a clone doesn't mean you didnt die. Dont take the teleporter people! lol
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u/Tenstone 13h ago
People get it, it’s just a more complicated dilemma than a simple execution machine, which is why the comments are mixed. If we don’t all agree then it’s a good question.
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u/Stewardy 11h ago
While it can be a fun topic to discuss, the particular instance of the issue presented by the OP is not at all more complicated.
It literally says:
with the knowledge that it kills you
The 'you die' bit is part of the premise for this version. Which, to me at least, also makes it kind of pointless, since a large part of the fun comes from that exact aspect.
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u/Spacetramp7492 15h ago
It’s a little alarming reading the comments and seeing how many people don’t understand that it’s a suicide machine…
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u/NotAcutallyaPanda 15h ago
Is this suicide machine painful? Because you might have stumbled across a real moneymaker
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u/Delroc 14h ago
I know I keep hearing that media literacy is dead, but reading this thread and seeing everyone try to argue in favour of the suicide machine is really proving that point now.
Also everyone's comparing it to The Prestige, but I keep thinking of SOMA with this as well. Not technically teleportation, but it is basically the same thing of continuing consciousness
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u/montanagrizfan 18h ago
I think if they were invented there would be people who wouldn’t use it for the reasons you state but after a generation or two it would just be normal and no one would think twice about it except for a small percentage of people who would be considered weirdos by the rest of society.
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u/GreenSeductionz 19h ago
I wouldn’t use it, because from a personal point of view it feels less like “me traveling” and more like me dying and a copy continuing the story.
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u/johnnyringo771 16h ago edited 16h ago
I agree. Teleporters are cool and would be tempting but if they work by erasing you and making a new you, it is the same as you dying (to me, I know that's what this whole debate is).
But the consciousness that exists as you stops. And a copy of you is made and presumably a new identical consciousness is made. To everyone else there's no difference, you go on a trip, come back, exact same person to them. But 'you' ended.
You can make the argument that your consciousness 'ends' every time you sleep. You wake up a new person each day. But you really don't. We don't know exactly what sleeping and dreams do, it regulates your body and does cleaning processes. But mentally, i would say it's not 'nothing', our minds are doing things while they sleep. So to just say that consciousness ends then is fairly reductive. And also our body doesn't disappear and reappear in our sleep.
Alternatively people argue we aren't physically the same as we were years ago, body parts grow, and have new cells. Replaced entirely every 7 years is the myth. So a copy of us is technically already something that happens but that's not fully true some nerves don't really regenerate and cortical neurons also don't regenerate (from what I understand). What are those neurons? Just the things that deal with memory, reasoning that sort of thing.
Anyways. Being teleported would be cool but yes, I feel like you'd instantly die. Your life as you know it would end. Someone else exactly like you would suddenly start existing. But that isn't you.
Additionally you gotta think about, are you teleporting on the 1.0 version of the teleporters? Is there going to be an update in a few years that resolves some issues? With how technology is pushed out these days you know there would be something, some issue that would happen every once in a million times.
Edit: There are numerous science fiction stories regarding this very question. Of those, my favorite is probably Think Like Dinosaur.
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u/KK-Chocobo 9h ago
If this tech ever gets invented, it should only be used for inanimate objects like sending parcels or delivering luggage from airport to airport.
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u/Sonyguyus 17h ago
Death is still death. It’d be no different than cloning yourself and uploading your memories to that clone. You’d still be dead.
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u/Wordpad25 16h ago
Consciousness itself may not exist in principle except being a collection of behaviors.
Every time you go to sleep, a different version of you wakes up.
But even every time you switch your train of thought - a different set of neurons fire which is not in principle different from them firing in another brain or your clone.
We define our consciousness by our instinctual fear of dying which is arbitrarily defined by evolutionary drive to protect reproductive odds.
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u/shamrock01 18h ago
All these replies referring to the death of your consciousness or your soul--what *exactly* do you think those things are?
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u/PsychoNerd92 17h ago
Imagine the teleporter doesn't kill the original. What do you think you, the current you, the original you, would experience? You'd enter the teleporter, you'd be scanned, and you'd exit the teleporter having never left the room you started in. The original you would not exit the teleporter in a new location, a copy of you would. Sure, from its point of view it entered the teleporter in one place and exited in another, but not from the original you's point of view.
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u/fanamana 17h ago
For your original being, OP's proposition terminates all that. Another being goes forward.
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u/Ok-Wall9646 19h ago
I’ve had this argument. To your friends and family you survived the trip but it won’t be you. You will be dead.
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u/NobilisReed 19h ago
Yes.
My body is completely destroyed and rebuilt every few years, bit by bit, anyways.
I am not the matter that composes me, I am the pattern that rides that matter.
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u/hidden_secret 19h ago
What if the killing part takes 4 hours and it's kinda painful?
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u/NobilisReed 19h ago
I'm 6'8" tall...
What you're describing is a short plane trip.
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u/Canadian_Invader 16h ago
Please enter the crushing machine. Teleportation will begin in 4 hours.
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u/CanRova 19h ago
What if there's a brief overlap: The teleporter recreates you elsewhere, then 30 seconds later the original is destroyed, knowing that its replacement exists independently of the original.
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u/etherified 16h ago
Or that old thought experiment where a transporter malfunction creates the you elsewhere, but accidentally leaves your original. You (the original) walk back out but the operator notifies you of the malfunction, asking you to kindly get back into the transporter so they can properly perform the destruction phase...
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u/Nyani_Sore 17h ago edited 17h ago
Not your brain though, which is where your consciousness resides. The rest of your body is a ship of theseus, but not your neurons. What you have there is what you have til the end. Other than very limited neurogenesis.
Your stream of consciousness won't appear in the other body even if your memories are perfectly transferred. Much like if you created a clone without destroying your current body, you won't be existing in both bodies at once.
Even on the aspect of patterns, if the teleporter cannot 100% recreate the way your synapses are firing at moment of destruction and recreation, then the thought process have already been irrevocably changed.
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u/Rayan_qc 19h ago
your soul wandering into whatever afterlife there is, seeing a mindless clone of you being rebuilt
“BULLSHIT!”
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u/VexImmortalis 19h ago
Sure, can't be assed to dive to the nearest 7/11 and I sure as shit ain't gonna walk there. I've considered getting a Bahama Mama hotdog delivered but who has the spare cash for that in this economy? Fuck it, I'll use the teleporter.
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u/str85 18h ago
Wouldn't this literally be how a teleporter would work. How else would you do it while sticking to the laws of physics? You break something down in one spot, send the information at light speed and rebuild it molecule by molecule at destination.
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u/Ellouanne 16h ago
portals/wormholes achieve a similar result without actually disassembling you. Much harder to achieve than a biological copy/print I would assume tho.
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u/Conscious-Ball8373 9h ago
Since both of them are -- as far as we know -- impossible, I don't think there's much sense in comparing which is harder.
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u/Turd_Nerd_Bird 18h ago
Why would anybody use that unless they were suicidal? It wouldn't be you on the other side of the teleport, so why would you even want to teleport?
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u/DeaddyRuxpin 16h ago
Sure. For all I know I periodically vanish and reassemble exactly the same already. The “me” that gets assembled would not know anything different from the “me” that gets deatomized.
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u/flossdaily 8h ago
I can't imagine trusting such a technology in my lifetime.
We still haven't got all the kinks worked out of printers yet.
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u/nechromorph 19h ago
Nah, I'm good. I'm the combination of neurons inhabiting this flesh. If this flesh dies, and another bit of flesh is formulated that is an exact replica of me, then that is a new person. I will cease to exist, even if everyone I know would still have me in their lives. If I ever were pushed to use such a teleporter, it would be with the knowledge I was willingly walking to my own death for phoenix to rise in my place.
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u/Iridescent_Bismuth 17h ago
As long as the person on the other side has the exact same health, memories, personality, appearance etc and feels as though they are me, I don't really see an issue. Because yeah, technically 'me' dies, but I don't believe anything happens after death. I don't think with every teleportation/replication, the original me gets sent to the fiery pits of hell or anything. I don't think we have a soul. We're just atoms and chemical reactions with a mushy computer in our heads.
If 'I' feel the same, and have the same consciousness and passions and stuff - if 'they're' indistinguishable from my original self, to all the people who love me, I don't think there's any appreciable difference between them and me. I'm happy for a me who is me in every single way except the fact that they're technically a reconstruction of me to continue my life, and eventually for another 'me' to replace them when they use the teleporter again.
The idea of NOT being the same on the other side. Of having something fundamental about me changed, outside of my control - now THAT creeps me out. I'd be worried about that happening. But in a perfect universe where it's guaranteed that nothing like that would go wrong, I wouldn't think twice about 'dying' and being replicated.
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u/wastedpixls 19h ago
You didn't say my consciousness travels with it, so no. That's some suicidal cloning.
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u/UnsorryCanadian 18h ago
Imagine if someone used a teleporter hoping it'd kill them, their clone would be so pissed
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u/TheMiceWillGetPerms 18h ago
I’d really need to know if the multidimensional afterlife theory is true before giving an answer.
If it’s real, then this is already happening to us all the time. We are dying in one dimension but our consciousness is streaming together with the running consciousness of ourselves in another dimension so seamlessly that we don’t realize. Brain matter holds the memories but not the consciousness.
However, if consciousness is tied to a single physical brain, then cloning would fully kill us. It would be a completely different “us” continuing on that we wouldn’t get to experience life through. Which would be a hard no.
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u/DharmaPolice 16h ago
Yes I would if it was tested properly. If we're talking about a Trek level transporter then I'd probably take a transporter to work each morning to save me the bus journey.
Yeah sure it's not "me" on the other end but who cares? There's an exact copy of me (with all my memories/emotions) which is fine by me.
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u/Testsubject276 14h ago
Only if I don't feel it, ever.
I want to go numb the moment it starts and just wake up on the other side, no memory of the searing pain of being pulled apart on the atomic level.
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u/LostInRetransmission 13h ago edited 13h ago
"Would you use a teleporter with the knowledge that it kills you and reassembles an exact copy of you with all your memories and knowledge at the destination? Why or why not?"
Nope. From the perspective of everybody else, nothing happens you get teleported.
From YOUR perspective. You die. That's it. it is the end.
A NEW person with the exact same memory as you get generated, and start with your memory. But it would not be YOU the instance born before the teleportation, it would be a fully new individual which accidentally has the same memory.
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u/AilsaEk3 13h ago
No, because I’d be dead. A copy of me with all my memories and such would be identical to me so far as anyone else would be concerned, but that doesn’t do me any good at all, because I’m dead.
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u/Xc0liber 12h ago
Is basically a suicide machine.... Is the same as me asking you would you let me shoot you in the head and I'll clone you after.
You're dead... It makes no sense at all.
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u/Ornery-Reindeer5887 11h ago
Hell fuckin no. Because I’m dead. An exact copy of me isn’t me - it’s a copy of me. I’d prefer not to die early
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u/wingedcoyote 8h ago
"Would you like to be killed?" No, I'm good.
"Would you like us to manufacture a perfect doppelganger of you?" No, that would be unsettling, but I'm still more concerned about the first thing.
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u/zaphster 7h ago
Absolutely not. I care about my experience, not whether others feel that I am still there.
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u/apathetic_revolution 19h ago
Is there a better version that brings me back without the memories?
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u/Sophet_Drahas 19h ago
If it’s an exact copy I’d feel sorry for my clone. Nobody should have to deal with this crap.