JAF%MIT-SPEECH@MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP (07/18/83)
From: Joseph A. Frisbie <JAF at MIT-SPEECH at MIT-MC> Maybe the transporter process is not discrete (you always have to push levers) and can't be stored on any recording device. Also the bandwidth required to store the states of all the particles in your might not be feasible. Joe -------
kane@MIT-BORAX.MIT.EDU (09/14/85)
From: kane@MIT-BORAX.MIT.EDU (Mark K. Culotta)
Some thoughts inspired by the messages on transporters:
In ancient Egypt, it was believed that one did not truly die
until all occurences of his name were erased or otherwise
destroyed, which is why there are all those huge funerary
monuments and buildings. ( I guess that instead of tombstomes
in the future one would use a high-density disk drive to mark
his/her grave :-)
Mark Culotta
(kane@borax.mit.edu)msp@ukc.UUCP (M.S.Parsons) (09/16/85)
>From: kane@MIT-BORAX.MIT.EDU (Mark K. Culotta) >In ancient Egypt, it was believed that one did not truly die >until all occurences of his name were erased or otherwise >destroyed ... >... A thought - Maybe you don't really die until all the people who knew you also die? You live on in memories..... (A person's internal model of you is still active; If you were close, the internal model will be quite detailed, he/she would have understood something of how your mind worked.)
Lubkin@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (09/21/85)
From: "Lubkin David"@LLL-MFE.ARPA
The unofficial official explanation for how the Enterprise's transporters
work is that they convert matter to energy, zap the energy somewhere, and
then convert the energy back to matter, *not* by scanning your body for
information content, blasting you, and then making a new one at the other
end, as Blish unfortunately explained in _Spock Must Diet_.
Given this, is it still the same you after beaming down?mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (09/24/85)
In article <3709@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> Lubkin@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU writes: >The unofficial official explanation for how the Enterprise's transporters >work is that they convert matter to energy, zap the energy somewhere, and >then convert the energy back to matter, *not* by scanning your body for >information content, blasting you, and then making a new one at the other >end, as Blish unfortunately explained in _Spock Must Die_. The two explanations are the same. Otherwise, if you just dumped the energy somewhere else without imposing the information content of the second explanation, the Second Law of Thermodynamics takes over and you just get an undifferentiated cloud of particles at high energy. Charley Wingate
ix469@sdcc6.UUCP (david smith) (10/04/85)
Here's a thought: If you zapped someone's matter into energy, would
each atom zapped give off a different frequency? If so, and if you
could keep the beam intact, converting back with the same process of
frequency to atom conversion, you'd never really have to deal with
that massive amount of information. matter=energy*(speed of light)^2,
so given you've got the same energy you started with, you're still
you. If we have the exsistance of a soul, would it just take off if
the body was no longer intact, or would it stick with what should be
the body?
Note that since the information is not really processed
anywhere (we'll assume that zapping matter to energy can be reversed
with atom x=frequency x=atom x again) it would not be readily
possible to make "clones". A question. Since you weren't killed,
but merely transformed, are you dead?
(This discussion is what we all get for taking Gene Rodenberry too
seriously:-)
==================
David L. Smith
UC Sandy Eggo
{ucbvax, ihnp4}!sdcsvax!sdcc6!ix469
All opinions expressed herein are strictly the products of my
automated posting facility and have no affiliation with myself, my
employers or my cat.jjs@cbdkc1.UUCP ( Jeff Sager x5265 JSL ) (10/11/85)
>From: ix469@sdcc6.UUCP (david smith) >Message-ID: <2227@sdcc6.UUCP> > ... >... matter=energy*(speed of light)^2, s/\*/\// Einstein just turned over. :-) jjs