It’s a question that physicists, philosophers, and science fiction writers have pondered for decades: how to travel from one place to another without travelling through the space in between.

Now a Kremlin-backed research program is seeking to make the teleportation technology behind Captain Kirk’s transporter a reality.

A proposed multi-trillion pound strategic development program drawn up for Vladimir Putin would seek to develop teleportation by 2035.

"It sounds fantastical today, but there have been successful experiments at Stanford at the molecular level," Alexander Galitsky, a prominent investor in the country's technology sector, told Russia's Kommersant daily on Wednesday. "Much of the tech we have today was drawn from science fiction films 20 years ago."

CdesignProponentsist wrote:It is literally creating a copy of you and destroying the original. I like my original.

TopCat wrote:

CdesignProponentsist wrote:It is literally creating a copy of you and destroying the original. I like my original.

If it worked and the copy is faithful, how is that different from being the original and moving instantaneously from A to B?

It's rational to doubt that it will work. It's not rational to dislike the notion of the copy and delete unless the copy has some conscious existence before the original is deleted.

After all, that's exactly what happens when you 'move' a file from one HDD to another.

Weaver wrote:Meh - big fucking deal. I used to teleport all the time when I was younger.

[Reveal] Spoiler:

I seem to have lost the knack of it, but I used to be able to teleport in my sleep - I could go to sleep on the couch or on the floor then wake up in my bed. It was really amazing - wish I could remember how I did it.

CdesignProponentsist wrote:

TopCat wrote:

CdesignProponentsist wrote:It is literally creating a copy of you and destroying the original. I like my original.

If it worked and the copy is faithful, how is that different from being the original and moving instantaneously from A to B?

I don't know, do you want to find out?

It's rational to doubt that it will work. It's not rational to dislike the notion of the copy and delete unless the copy has some conscious existence before the original is deleted.

After all, that's exactly what happens when you 'move' a file from one HDD to another.

I don't dislike the notion of a copy. I dislike the notion of being vaporized.

CdesignProponentsist wrote:There is one way to tell.

1: Make the copy but keep the original.
2: Stomp on the toe of the copy.
3: If the original doesn't scream, don't destroy it.

Everything I know about physics tells me that the original is completely oblivious to the consciousness of the copy. Death for the original is true death. The copy is merely a copy with it's own consciousness and with only an illusion of having a past.

CdesignProponentsist wrote:There is one way to tell.

1: Make the copy but keep the original.
2: Stomp on the toe of the copy.
3: If the original doesn't scream, don't destroy it.

Everything I know about physics tells me that the original is completely oblivious to the consciousness of the copy. Death for the original is true death. The copy is merely a copy with it's own consciousness and with only an illusion of having a past.

SafeAsMilk wrote:

CdesignProponentsist wrote:There is one way to tell.

1: Make the copy but keep the original.
2: Stomp on the toe of the copy.
3: If the original doesn't scream, don't destroy it.

Everything I know about physics tells me that the original is completely oblivious to the consciousness of the copy. Death for the original is true death. The copy is merely a copy with it's own consciousness and with only an illusion of having a past.

This is what I suspect as well, though I don't think making a copy really shows anything. If our experience is our continuous physical existence, why couldn't the reforming of the exact same material not continue that experience? There is of course nothing inherently different about the material that makes us, but what if you were able take our bodies and make all perception and experience stop for just a moment, then bring it back. Would that be the same kind of death?

It makes me think that our continuous experience is an illusion, that we are experiencing "true death" all the time but are completely unaware of it.

igorfrankensteen wrote:

CdesignProponentsist wrote:There is one way to tell.

1: Make the copy but keep the original.
2: Stomp on the toe of the copy.
3: If the original doesn't scream, don't destroy it.

Everything I know about physics tells me that the original is completely oblivious to the consciousness of the copy. Death for the original is true death. The copy is merely a copy with it's own consciousness and with only an illusion of having a past.

Well, yeah, but then the ORIGINAL is just an entity with an illusion of having a past, too.

And as for your toe stomping test? That would, I believe, require a quantum-entangled foot. And that isn't part of the described parameters.

jaydot wrote:what a wonderful way to waste a lot of money. like time travel, teleportation is a lovely notion and that is all it is.