wmartin@BRL-TGR.ARPA (07/31/84)
From: Will Martin <wmartin@BRL-TGR.ARPA> We had a long discussion involving matter tranmission a few years back on the SF-Lovers Digest, inspired mainly by a posting I made about possible forms of transportation in future societies. Not to rehash that, but because I happened to be thinking a bit more on the subject, I thought I'd send in this submission for what it is worth... I think that few SF authors who happen to use matter transmission as an ingredient or background in their work recognize all the implications of the technology. I speak here of electro-mechanical methods, not of psi powers like teleportation. I contend that, if you have matter transmission, you also have matter duplication. People offer arguments against that, speculating that it might be impossible to store the information necessary to reconstruct complex things like living organisms or the like, but it seems doubtful that such restrictions would last long if they existed at all. Matter duplication has profound implications for every aspect of life and social structure. The idea that you feed dirt, garbage, radioactive waste, or whatever in one end of the device, and at the other end take out diamonds, steak dinners, the Mona Lisa, more matter duplicators, pets, or people destroys all concepts of "wealth", "status", or "value", and not only grants immortality but also simultaneously makes life, human or otherwise, value-less. (What difference does it make if you kill somebody if he can be re-created from the last recorded pattern? You maybe made him lose an hour or a day of time; nothing more.) It grants immortality by "editing in the mix", as it were -- when you pass through the matter transmitter to go out for dinner, at the same time as it zips you to the restaurant on Tahiti or on Cygnus 4, it recreates you without crud in your arteries, stones in your kidneys, excess fat cells, cancer cells, dirt on your skin, or waste in your intestines or bladder; it can even bring you out with your hair combed (and more or less of it, as you wish!) and dressed in a tuxedo. We have just eliminated the need for clothes closets and bathrooms, among other facilities, like hospitals. Would you like to make a ringworld or a Dyson sphere? Just feed in dust, plasma, or gas giants into one end of a BIG matter duplicator, and get out a stream of ringworld material at the other end. Or get out Earth-like planets in an endless row -- could our orbit hold a few hundred Earths, equidistantly spaced far enough to minimze excess tides on each? Churn out as many as you want -- you could create them with the proper motion necessary to slip right into orbit as desired. Is your universe dying down? Feed in old, feeble stars and put out bright young main-sequence stars, chock-full of unburned hydrogen, complete with fresh planetary systems. To hell with entropy! Talk about science indistinguishable from magic! Anyway, what I am getting at, besides all the purple prose (*), is that a writer who throws in matter transport but leaves the rest of the fictional society exactly like ours, or medieval Europe, or whatever, is being inconsistent. Anyone like to nominate writers and works where the implications of the technology are taken to the fullest (at least as far as a book or series can go)? Will (*) If you poured a bottle of Burgundy over several members of the SFWA, would they be "purple pro's"? [Evil chuckle....]
perl@rdin.UUCP (Robert Perlberg) (08/02/84)
<> I disagree that authors who use matter transmission should adjust their worlds to take all of the implications into account. Most science fiction stories are meant to make you think about current day issues. Matter transmission is used only as a way of speeding up the story so the author can get to the point without boring you with 200 pages of the characters sitting on an intergalactic bus. As far as the matter duplication/modification issue, I don't think the problems of wealth/poverty are problems at all. The fact that we do have poverty at this time is a problem. If matter duplication/modification could solve this problem, what's wrong with that? As for death becoming meaningless, there are two possibilities: 1) The current concept of life and death is based on the fact that, at this time, death is a permanant condition. If the future brought about a change in that fact, people's attitudes about it would change too. In ancient times, having appendicitus could have been fatal. Now, people don't even worry about it. 2) Producing a duplicate of oneself whenever one dies is not really immortality any more than having a child. While the duplicate would be the same in every external respect, would it really have the same "being"? Consider that, if the duplicate were to exist at the same time you did, would you experience the same things it did? If not, then once you die, you can no longer experience anything, but your duplicate would, as a separate being. It would also take a very, very long time before the kinds of capabilities you suggested would be in wide enough use to phase the philosophers. What I'm talking about is good old fasioned bugs. You know as well as I do how unreliable hi-tech can be. Would you risk you life on the reliability record of any computer around today, running anybody's software? While it's true that the basic technology of matter transmission would open the door for matter modification, each type of modification would require a separate program, each program having to go through a debugging phase before most people would risk their lives, for example, to take a 2 second haircut. All of the talk about changing the shape of the world reminded me of an issue that was dealt with on "I Dream of Jeannie" (I know, but please keep reading). Tony wanted to use Jeannie's powers to do great things, like stop wars and hunger. Jeannie told him that this was too tricky, because, for example, creating rain in one place could cause a drought somewhere else. Are you sure that changing the shape of the Earth and installing new planets into orbit around the sun would not cause this kind of side-effect? Robert Perlberg Resource Dynamics Inc. New York philabs!rdin!perl
spert@dragon.DEC (08/03/84)
George O. Smith's later Venus Equilateral stories dealt with the economic consequences of matter duplication. As I recall, "goods" weren't worth anything and "services" were highly valued. Also interesting was the idea of "uniques". These were items like heirlooms that were certified to have never been duplicated. (I don't remember how this was guaranteed or if there was a way.) Smith had some things to say about how one pays for services when money is as easy to duplicate as anything else. A particular wacky incident involved using matter duplication to win a snowball fight (in a space station!!). How does the duplicator violate entropy? Presumably, the duplication machines require energy to operate. I imagine that there'd be a net increase in entropy. John Spert UUCP: ...decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-dragon!spert ARPA: spert%dragon.DEC@decwrl.ARPA "Any sufficiently complex program is indistinguishable from magic."
rcc@imsvax.UUCP (08/03/84)
>I think that few SF authors who happen to use matter transmission as >an ingredient or background in their work recognize all the implications >of the technology. I speak here of electro-mechanical methods, not of >psi powers like teleportation. I contend that, if you have matter >transmission, you also have matter duplication. People offer arguments >against that, speculating that it might be impossible to store the >information necessary to reconstruct complex things like living >organisms or the like, but it seems doubtful that such restrictions >would last long if they existed at all. Even if you can't store the information needed to duplicate an item, if you can transmit the information, there's no reason why you couldn't transmit n copies of the information instead of just 1. This would require that an actual sample of the item being duplicated be on hand every time the item is duplicated (as opposed to having the molecular pattern recorded on some sort of long-lasting memory device), but this would still lead to a different society than one with only matter transmission. Getting on the topic of SF writers who recognized the matter transmission/ duplication linkage, George O. Smith has a few stories about this in VENUS EQUILATERAL (a set of short stories). In the final story, "Identity" (I think, my memory's a little hazy), set 300 years after the invention of the matter duplicator, societal attitudes have changed so that to prize "uniqueness". Thus, the most prized things are things that have not or can not be duplicated, and also (a major part of the story, by the way), being an identical twin is a not a fun thing. -- The preceding message was brought to you by -- Ray Chen UUCP: {umcp-cs!eneevax || seismo!rlgvax!elsie}!imsvax!rcc
davidk@dartvax.UUCP (David C. Kovar) (08/04/84)
Actually, in Venus Equilateral, the matter duplicator LOST the fight.
It tossed very large snowballs with a catapult. They opposition
noticed the regularity of the pattern, dodged it, and buried the
operator under his own snowballs.
All in all it is an amusing book.
--
David C. Kovar
USNET: {linus|decvax|cornell|astrovax}!dartvax!davidk
ARPA: davidk%dartmouth@csnet-relay
CSNET: davidk@dartmouth
"The difficult we did yesterday, the impossible we are doing now."smb@ulysses.UUCP (Steven Bellovin) (08/05/84)
Don't forget about Larry Niven's essay "Exercise in Speculation: The Theory and Practice of Teleportation", plus a whole set of short stories exploring some of the social effects.
david@bragvax.UUCP (David DiGiacomo) (08/07/84)
I don't think the economic effect of technological (non-magical) matter transmitters/duplicators would be very dramatic (especially when compared to the other effects). Energy would still be a useful/logical currency, and the economic situation would not be all that different. For example, only the wealthiest organizations would possess the (energy) capital to synthesize a new matter transmitter. It would take a great deal of wealth to even rent one. (Can you afford to rent an oil refinery for one day, much less construct one?) Of course, I may be wrong. I'm assuming that the efficiency of a generalized matter transmuter would be very low. -- Do I smell home cooking? It's only the river.
Alfke.PASA@XEROX.ARPA (08/07/84)
Some flames regarding Will Martins discussion of matter transmission/duplication: Matter transmission would not inevitably lead to duplication. It would (eventually) if methods of the form "record-everything-about-the-object- then-transmit-this-to-the-receiver-which-then-rebuilds-it" were used (although you could set your story in the intervening time (centuries?) before it is discovered how to record such an insanely high-bandwidth signal. However, it seems quite possible that teleportation devices might use quantum-mechanical means, in which the object's probability waveform is distorted so as to reach maximum in some distant location. (How this could be done while still maintaining the proper constraints on the waveform's shape is beyond me; let some real scientist figure that one out.) Additionally, even having the ability to record the signal describing an object does not automatically grant the ability to change it in subtle ways (removal of aging effects, combing/uncombing of hair, and more were mentioned). Maybe it would eventually be perfected, but give it a few centuries after the invention of the duplicator (remember, we need computers that can comprehend the entire enormous signal...) Other restrictions: Can the duplicator transmute elements, or do you have to dump in sufficient amounts of the proper elements to create something? (Bit of a problem for rejuvenating stars.) Even if it can, can it transmute subatomic particles? Even given all this stuff, I still refuse to believe that it automatically grants you entropy reversal. Entropy is such a fundamental mathematical consequence of physical law, it will find some method of increasing itself. To build brand-new stars from the ruins of old ones would probably require several stars-worth of energy to be dumped in . . . (Any society which used duplicators heavily would thus still require some fairly hefty source of power to run them, and you can't cheat and allow the duplicators to provide the energy. Solar seems like the best bet. Maybe the Dyson sphere will become a necessity, just to trap all the sunlight?) Boy! Isn't science *fun* ???? ~~Some further reading~~ ***Sender closed connection*** === Network Mail from host [10.1.0.89] on Tue Aug 7 20:42:58 ===
Alfke.PASA@XEROX.ARPA (08/07/84)
Some flames regarding Will Martins discussion of matter transmission/duplication: Matter transmission would not inevitably lead to duplication. It would (eventually) if&methods of the form "record-everything-about-the-object- then-transmit-this-to-the-receiver-which-then-rebuilds-it" were used (although you could set your story in the intervening time (centuries?) before it is discovered how to record such an insanely high-bandwidth signal. However, it seems quite possible that teleportation devices might use quantum-mechanical means, in which the object's probability waveform is distorted so as to reach maximum in some distant location. (How this could be done while still maintaining the proper constraints on the waveform's shape is beyond me; let some real scientist figure that one out.) Additionally, even having the ability to record the signal describing an object does not automatically grant the ability to change it in subtle ways (removal of aging effects, combing/uncombing of hair, and more were mentioned). Maybe it would eventually be perfected, but give it a few centuries after the invention of the duplicator (remember, we need computers that can comprehend the entire enormous signal...) Other restrictions: Can the duplicator transmute elements, or do you have to dump in sufficient amounts of the proper elements to create something? (Bit of a problem for rejuvenating stars.) Even if it can, can it transmute subatomic particles? Even given all this stuff, I still refuse to believe that it automatically grants you entropy reversal. Entropy is such a fundamental mathematical consequence of physical law, it will find some method of increasing itself. To build brand-new stars from the ruins of old ones would probably require several stars-worth of energy to be dumped in . . . (Any society which used duplicators heavily would thus still require some fairly hefty source of power to run them, and you can't cheat and allow the duplicators to provide the energy. Solar seems like the best bet. Maybe the Dyson sphere will become a necessity, just to trap all the sunlight?) Boy! Isn't science *fun* ???? ~~Some further reading~~ Larry Niven, "The Theory and Practice of Teleportation" (Essay from All the Myriad Ways (Ballantine) ) A nice essay, mostly summarizing methods from other books, but also offering a few ideas of its own. George O. Smith, The Complete Venus Equilateral (Ballantine) A terrific series of stories from the 30's and 40's; a matter duplicator is eventually developed and nearly destroys "civilization as we know it". --Peter Alfke "I teleported home one day with Ron and Sid and Meg; Ron stole Maggie's heart away And I got Sidney's leg . . ."
Garnaat.henr@XEROX.ARPA (08/09/84)
The recent discussions re. matter transmission reminded me of a book I recently read. In "The Unteleported Man" by Phillip K. Dick, future Earth (i.e. post World War III) perfects a technique of matter transmission and uses it to shuttle colonists to an Earth-like planet some 18 lightyears away. Unfortunately the teleportation mechanism is under the control of a huge corporation whose motives, as discovered by the protaganist of the story, are evil and mercenary. Although I wouldn't say this is an example of a work "where the implications of the technology are taken to the fullest" as Mr. Martin was interested in, it does have an example of the kind of matter modification mentioned in the original message. In this case, the operators of the teleportation equipment are able to juxtapose the psyche of the teleported individual by overlaying thier mind with false definition of reality, referred to as a "paraworld" by Dick. This notion of "paraworlds" and false realities provides a perfect backdrop for the kind of explorations of schizophrenia common in many of Dick's books. I found the book interesting and well worth reading, although the ending seemed a bit of a cop out. While on the subject of the ending, I would like to pose a question to anyone familiar with Dick's work. The book I have is a re-release (since his death, many of his novels have been re-released) and claims to have the "original, uncensored" ending which was supposedly left out of the original release for "commercial" reasons. My disapointment with the ending got me wondering about the original book. How does the ending differ? Or, better yet, any ideas on where I could find a copy of the original release? Mitch
eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder) (08/09/84)
[9 August 1984]
How about pursuing the idea that matter transmission/duplication is
possible, but very energy intensive. An obvious figure is the energy
content of the mass sent/copied, i.e. E=mc^2. The US electrical generating
capacity is something like 6 grams/second. What cargo/product would
justify that? This works out to roughly $14,000 a gram. A five carat
(one gram) diamond just about is worth that much. Not much else is.
Certain rare postage stamps, a few radioactive isotopes.
Anyone have ideas on the consequences of this?
Dani Eder / Boeing Aerospace Company / ssc-vax!ederdemillo@uwmacc.UUCP (08/11/84)
Commenting (again) on the concept of putting a ham sandwich
in one end of a transporter and pulling out gold bullion:
The first thing that comes to mind is that it would be far "easier"
to use a matter transporter for moving matter from point A to
point B then it would be to use it for manipulating matter.
Transportation would require a "simple" (hehe) scan of the
subatomic structure of the thing being transported, and then
based on this information, reconstruct the object from the
energy wavefront. In order to create a "new" object from
the "old" would require that you already had a subatomic "blueprint"
to use. Also, matter can neither be created nor distroyed. Therefore,
a ham sandwich would make a very small peice of gold bullion since
it's desity and atomic weight are less.
Ah, but I'm full of spurious comments tonite...
--- Rob DeMillo
MACC
"...I know engineers, they LOVE to change things!"kiessig@idi.UUCP (Rick Kiessig) (08/14/84)
There are other implications of matter transmitters:
1. The 'original' matter must somehow be 'destroyed'.
2. Because of the large amount of energy present
in matter (e=mc^2), it seems likely that matter
transmitters do NOT in fact imply matter duplication,
except perhaps at extremely high cost. In the
normal case, it seems more likely that the energy
obtained by 'disintegrating' the original matter
would have to be used to recreate the object at
its new location. I suppose it might be possible
to use some other matter as an energy source,
but only if the encoding and disintegration processes
were seperable, which doesn't seem obvious to me.
3. Because of this, a more likely technology would
not involve 'storage' of a 'pattern', but rather
disintegration combined with simultaneous recreation
at the receiving end. It seems unlikely that sufficient
energy could be stored remotely to create any
substantial amount of matter - the required energy
would more likely be transmitted, along with pattern
information.
4. I do think that a pre-cursor of a matter transmitter
would have to involve controlled (i.e. non-radioactive)
disintegration of matter - into some form of energy
capable of holding information. I'm not sure which
energy form is capable of passing the required amount
of energy most efficiently. Lasers? Microwaves?
5. Another pre-cursor would have to be the creation
of matter from energy. Has any theoretical work
yet been done on that? The obvious problem is
how to 'tell' the energy to condense into some
particular molecular form, including specific
bonding information. Sounds like a real messy problem.
6. Receiving stations would likely be accompanied by
large power plants, because of energy transmission
losses that would have to be made up if the original
matter were to be exactly recreated.
--
Rick Kiessig
{decvax, ucbvax}!sun!idi!kiessig
{akgua, allegra, amd, burl, cbosgd, decwrl, dual, ihnp4}!idi!kiessig
Phone: 408-996-2399lewis%spider.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (08/14/84)
From: lewis%spider.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (Suford Lewis)
It seems to me that transmission of one's SELF becomes simplified if one
has a soul. The physical part gets destroyed in one place and created in
another. The "soul", being immaterial, is not bound by any laws to "be"
anywhere in particular and simply IS in the new place after the transmiaaion.
Mind you, I say this who once used to worry if I was the same "me" when I
woke up in the morning as I had been when I went to sleep. I knew I had the
same memories, but that didn't mean I was the SAME. It is the identical
problem as with matter transmission, depending on what you think "consciousness"
means, depending on what you think continuity of existance consists of. By the
way, I never could decide whether I was the same "me" or whether I died every
night when I went to sleep and a "new" m
me with the identical memories lived through each day. It is undecideable,
so I decided to stop worrying about it. I gradually did. I think I was 8 when
this problem occurred to me. It took me a couple of years to stop worrying
about it.
Varley has an interesting description of recording/duplication of people in
Ophiuchi Hotline. People have themselves (whatever that is) recorded every
so often. When they die (presumably by accident) they get "restarted" from a
clone fed their most recent copy. In the story, the bad guys need more than
one copy of our protagonist, so they make more. Each "reawakened" person
tries to figure out what happened to their previous version so they canavoid
similar problems. At the denoument, all the parts achieve a psychic union
and have a perception of themself as a fourdimensional treelike structure.
Nice idea. I'ld like to believe it. Is there a level of complexity that leads
to the "program" continuing to exist after the machine breaks down totally?
(I don't fancy the idea of God with piles and piles of old listings of every
program He ever wrote... and what good would that be to me anyway? The
listings aren't alive, the programs have to be running - consciousness as I
know it requires the passage of time, the possibility of change, the flow of
thought.)
Well, it's all still undecideable, so we can amuse ourselves speculating to
our hearts' content...
- SUforddonn%utah-cs@sri-unix.UUCP (08/14/84)
From: donn@utah-cs (Donn Seeley) From Garnaat.henr@Xerox.ARPA: While on the subject of the ending [of THE UNTELEPORTED MAN], I would like to pose a question to anyone familiar with Dick's work. The book I have is a re-release (since his death, many of his novels have been re-released) and claims to have the "original, uncensored" ending which was supposedly left out of the original release for "commercial" reasons. My disapointment with the ending got me wondering about the original book. How does the ending differ? Or, better yet, any ideas on where I could find a copy of the original release? Mitch Coincidentally, the August LOCUS (#283) has a review of yet another version of THE UNTELEPORTED MAN, this one titled LIES, INC. and published by Gollancz in the UK. Here is what Dan Chow has to say (yes, copied without permission, etc.): There is something appropriately Dickian about the publishing history of LIES, INC. Originally published in 1966 as THE UNTELEPORTED MAN in an Ace Double format, it was a digest-magazine novella expanded into a novel but then cut to about half the length Dick intended. In 1983 the full version was published by Berkley under the same title, but by then Dick had died and four pages had been lost from the manuscript. This time, the novel seemed untouched even by the editorial hands who would have corrected spelling and grammar as the author might have wished. While the Gollancz edition, retitled LIES, INC., was being arranged, a revised and retitled typescript was discovered. Here the full version of THE UNTELEPORTED MAN had been reorganized, and the roughness had been smoothed out to some extent, but there still remained two gaps. These have been filled in by John Sladek for the Gollancz edition. (p. 15) Sounds like Gollancz did it right. I wonder if this edition will ever appear in paperback on this side of the pond? Coincidentally again, the same issue of LOCUS has a letter from Tessa B. Dick complaining about the editorial practices of Berkley in putting together their edition of THE UNTELEPORTED MAN... Finally got around to A MAZE OF DEATH, starting soon on DR. FUTURITY, Donn Seeley University of Utah CS Dept donn@utah-cs.arpa
bsa@ncoast.UUCP (The WITNESS) (08/15/84)
> How about pursuing the idea that matter transmission/duplication is > possible, but very energy intensive. An obvious figure is the energy > content of the mass sent/copied, i.e. E=mc^2. The US electrical generating Actually, it would be even worse; I suspect E=mc^2 would be the IDEAL energy for it; production versions would be inefficient, perhaps greatly so. I would guess at 5%-20% efficiency in the very first one built. At E=mc^2 it would be excusable if we found the technique but lacked the energy to make it work... ["Beam me up, Scotty" -- "Aye, but ye've gained weight, we dinna come with the power to beam ye aboard, Captain"] --bsa -- Brandon Allbery: decvax!cwruecmp{!atvax}!bsa: R0176@CSUOHIO.BITNET ^ Note name change! 6504 Chestnut Road, Independence, OH 44131 <> (216) 524-1416 "The more they overthink the plumbin', the easier 'tis tae stop up the drain."
mwm@ea.UUCP (08/15/84)
#R:sri-arpa:-1223900:ea:11700022:000:623 ea!mwm Aug 14 21:29:00 1984 /***** ea:net.sf-lovers / sri-arpa!SASW@MIT-MC / 3:50 am Aug 11, 1984 */ From: Steven A. Swernofsky <SASW @ MIT-MC> I am rather surprised that no one has mentioned Ray Brown's ''Reformed Sufi'' universe, which relates the ''Transmat'' matter transmission device and the religion(!) which develops due to it. Recent stories have developed an interesting twist to the store-and-forward method of matter transmission -- matter simulation! (Is this the real world, or just a simulation?) -- Steve /* ---------- */ Of course it's a simulation. Meet you in the heap after the BIG garbage collection in the sky. :-) <mike
SASW%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP (08/15/84)
From: Steven A. Swernofsky <SASW @ MIT-MC> I am rather surprised that no one has mentioned Ray Brown's ''Reformed Sufi'' universe, which relates the ''Transmat'' matter transmission device and the religion(!) which develops due to it. Recent stories have developed an interesting twist to the store-and-forward method of matter transmission -- matter simulation! Rather than storing the pattern to real-world objects and duplicating them in the real-world, why not just place the ''object'' in a pattern for a small part of the universe (a pocket universe) and simulate its activity? After all, if you can store all that data you should also be able to process it! This leads to some interesting results. For example, the simulated world can run at normal speed, or faster or slower. Or backwards. Or with different ''physical laws.'' Or ... well, see the stories. (Is this the real world, or just a simulation?) -- Steve
BALZAC%YKTVMZ.BITNET%Berkeley@sri-unix.UUCP (08/15/84)
From: Stephen R. Balzac <BALZAC%YKTVMZ.BITNET@Berkeley> Another story dealing with Matter Transmission is Players of Null-A and World of Null-A by Van Vogt. His matter transmitters do not create duplicates, or disassemble the subject, but rather work on a the principle of similarity: if you make the starting point A similiar enough to the destination point B, then an object at A will move to B, the amount of time involved depending on how close the similarity is. While the principle is not the most accurate, it does enable a society to exist without having any of the cultural problems involved in matter transmission. A comment from ST: In the novelization of ST III, there is a line to the effect that only groups such as StarFleet can make use of a transporter. It's far too expensive for commercial use.
DonProvan%CMU-CS-A@sri-unix.UUCP (08/17/84)
no! if you copy all the contents and spins and states from one place to another, you do NOT have the same object: you have a perfect COPY of the object. the "me" here, my consciousness, will NOT be transmitted, it will be DUPLICATED. even though no one will be able to tell the difference, thus making it a "transmission" to the scientist, *I*'ll be dead, dead, dead. i'm glad this isn't going to come up in the near future, 'cuz i'm sure i'd be ridiculed just like people who didn't think Man should fly, but it seems obvious to me that getting in a matter transmitter would be fatal. it really makes me understand how those people feel who refuse to fly even though all there friends keep saying "look at me: i flew and it hasn't hurt me a bit." so enough of this line. if you want matter transmission, you have to do it using space/time warps. obviously with a space/time warp, you don't get playback. so matter transmission does not imply infinite duplication anymore than FTL does. now if you ask me again tomorrow morning....
Isdale.es@XEROX.ARPA (08/17/84)
From: Jerry <Isdale.es@XEROX.ARPA>
1) if E=mcc, the energy is a wavefront (vs particles), and somehow gravity ties
to the mass/energy (large concentrations of energy affect matter),
what happens as you transmit this gravity thru space/earth?
i wouldnt want to get in the way of the beam sending a heavy wavefront.
Has any SF author given this treatment to this problem?
2) If the transciever requires LOTS of Quarks/Energy, Perhaps the limiting
factor may be a quark enriched fuel, rare and expensive.
Brother could you spare a crystal to get me home?
3) The question of transmission of body/mind/soul might find some leads in old
mythologies of ghosts and possessions. According to some, when the body
dies suddenly (read disintegrates), the soul/ghost remains to haunt the
area (perhaps because the body/home isnt reconstructed where it can be
found). Or the tales of astral projection where somebody else takes over
your body while your away (with or without leave to do so). Suppose there
is a mixup in transmission and you wind up echoing around while someone
else uses your body. (wire taps?)
There some good ideas in there somewhere for a paratechnomagickal story.
>From the magic desk of
Jerry Isdale
arpa: isdale.es@Xerox.arpamabarnstijn@watrose.UUCP (Michael A. Barnstijn) (08/18/84)
<protect me from sites with the BUG! 5 articles trashed just this week>
A quick note: if all you wish to do is "transmit" mass Z from point A to
point B in 3-space, why not use the "old" idea:
Cause a fold through higer dimensions which then "aligns" A and B,
and then push Z through a "hole" created in some way.
I thought for sure that someone would eventually mention this, but unless
I missed it, no one did. Thought I'd rake this oldie up.
However, its being old doesn't mean it ain't possible. The advantages are:
no scanning for information content, no transmission of more bits than you
can shake a logic probe at, and no reconstitution through matter transmutation
at the other end.
Just step through and hot-foot it to the next booth before those cops figure
out what number you dialed!...
Michael A. Barnstijn
UUCP: {decvax clyde allegra}!watmath!watrose!mabarnstijn
CSNET: mabarnstijn%watrose%waterloo.CSNET
ARPA: mabarnstijn%watrose%waterloo.CSNET@csnet-relay.CSNET
other: Dept. Of C.S., University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, CanadaLeban%hp-labs.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa (08/24/84)
From: Bruce <Leban%hp-labs.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
Matter transmission can quite possibly be accomplished without technology
remotely resembling that required for replication. Aside from the psi-based
(i.e., magic) teleportation of Null-A, there is a possible quantum mechanical
explanation. As Scotty (aka James Blish) explains in /Spock Must Die!/:
"What the transporter does is analyze the energy /state/ of each
particle in the body and then produce a Dirac jump to an equivalent
state somewhere else. No conversion is involved -- if there were,
we'd blow up the ship." (p. 3)
An alternative explanation relies on the same principle whereby black holes
can be used to create TV sets. What you think is your body is only a
collection of probabilities. We simply (!) build a machine that makes it much
more probable that your body is someplace else and presto! you're there. The
Infinite Improbability Drive in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is in all
"probability" based on exactly this principle.
There is also the question of whether it's really "you" when you get to the
other end. Well, if you look at it the right way, you're really staying still
while the rest of the universe has been moved. (Einstein said we could look
at it this way.) So you really are still "you". As for the rest of the
universe...
--------------
P.S. Is there any basis to the rumor that ST IV will be called
STAR TREK IV: The Wrath of Spock ??
-------
-------peter@graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (08/31/85)
> Interesting question! I have a little thought experiment which > might amuse anyone who's interested in the answer to it. Let's pretend > that someone has invented a "matter transmitter", a device whereby a > person can step in a transmitter in, say San Francisco, and step out > of a receiver in London a fraction of a second later, having been transmitted > from one to the other. However, it's not *really* a matter transmitter; > physically sending the atoms that make up your body half-way round the > world would not be economical. Instead, it simply sends all the *information* > required to duplicate your body at the other end, using materials closer > to hand. The result, nevertheless, is an exact duplicate down to the > molecular level, with both the "mind" and the body not detectably altered. [followed by some discussion about whether it's really the same person, and describing a couple of possible accidents that could lead to duplicates] This has been bandied about by SF writers for years, with various variants. But let me throw in a couple more... The machine knocks you out & chops you up like a side of beef at a butcher's shop. At the other end an autodoc (ala niven) puts you back together. Would you travel this way? Comment: It's probably a lot more reliable than the matter transmitter described above. The machine breaks you down to individual cells and proceeds as above. The machine takes a brain recording and a cell sample & plays you back into a clone. The machine takes a scan but doesn't destroy the original. My own conclusion: I'd want to be damn certain that the process would be reliable before trusting my information to it. Last thought: What would this do to manufacturing processes? To farming? To Friends of the Earth or the Audubon Society (don't worry about the whooping cranes, they're all on file). Postultimate thought: if you put yourself on file could you ever truly die?
KFL@MIT-MC.ARPA (09/06/85)
From: Keith F. Lynch <KFL@MIT-MC.ARPA>
From: graffiti!peter@topaz.rutgers.edu (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Matter Transmission
Date: 31 Aug 85 16:17:55 GMT
... What would this do to manufacturing processes?
I imagine we would have the same sort of confusion and piracy that
now exists in the software field, where transmission and duplication
are already commonplace.
In George Smith's _Venus Equilateral_ (1942) the main problem caused
by the invention of a matter transmitter and duplicator is what to use
for money. The solution in the book was to invent a material that
could not be duplicated or transmitted. I think a more likely solution
would be to go to a pure credit economy. We are fairly close to one
already.
Note that in a pure service economy, matter duplication does not
really change much! If such a thing were invented today, it would
change civilization much less than if it were invented 40 years ago.
The main effects would be a rapid colonization of space and an end
to poverty.
... Friends of the Earth or the Audubon Society (don't worry
about the whooping cranes, they're all on file).
Not so far fetched. A creature is completely specified by its
genetic code. Several years ago I saw the complete genetic code
for some virus printed in a magazine. As long as a copy of that
magazine exists, that virus will never really become extinct.
I hope that as soon as someone completely analyzes the smallpox
virus (which now exists only in a few labs) that all smallpox
viruses will be destroyed.
A person's genetic code would fit on one or two RA81 disks.
James Hogan's idea (in _Voyage from Yesteryear_ (1982)) that
unborn people may travel to the stars in the form of data on
a computer may be workable.
An equally fascinating idea is that it may be possible to
recover enough fragments of DNA from fossils to reconstruct
extinct creatures, such as dinosaurs (see _Re-entry_ by Paul
Preuss (1981)).
Postultimate thought: if you put yourself on file could you ever
truly die?
Sure. If all the copies get wiped out. Just as books, music, and
computer data can become irretrievably lost. The more copies, and in
the more places, the better. Keep one in another solar system (it's
called supernova insurance).
And whatever else happens, if it is true that the universe will
ultimately contract to a single ultra-dense ultra-hot point, it
seems very unlikely that any information could survive, even if there
is an 'after'. Other cosmologists believe that the universe will
continue to expand forever, and ultimately the total amount of
free energy available will drop too low for any kind of life. This
may take as long as 10 to the 100th power years, which is an
incomprehensibly long time, at least for me. (See _The Future of
the Universe_ in the March 1983 issue of Scientific American, and
_Star Maker_ by Olaf Stapledon (1937)).
...Keithleeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (09/08/85)
>From: Keith F. Lynch <KFL@MIT-MC.ARPA> > >[Once your genetic code is on disk...] > > Postultimate thought: if you put yourself on file could > you ever truly die? > > Sure. If all the copies get wiped out. Just as books, >music, and computer data can become irretrievably lost. The >more copies, and in the more places, the better. Keep one >in another solar system (it's called supernova insurance). I think that there is a misconception here. Your species remains reconstructable while your genetic code is on file, but you do not. Genetic code only allows somebody to make something that looks sort of like you, not to remake you. Suppose you are an identical twin. That means your genetic code is not just preserved, it is up and walking around. Now you are killed by a rabid wombat. Are you not truly dead just because you have an identical twin walking around. About the best you can do with the genetic code is create a baby that will grow into something that will look no more like you looked than your identical twin did. Parents usually can tell the difference between identical twins due to environmental (vrs. hereditary) differences. Sorry to tell you this, but when you die, you die. It doesn't matter if you have your entire genetic code on file with the National Bureau of Standards. There is no coming back. Mark Leeper ...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper
robert@smcvax.UUCP (09/11/85)
> A person's genetic code would fit on one or two RA81 disks. >James Hogan's idea (in _Voyage from Yesteryear_ (1982)) that >unborn people may travel to the stars in the form of data on >a computer may be workable. > [paragraph deleted] > Postultimate thought: if you put yourself on file could you ever > truly die? Along these lines, read _The_Hot_Sleep_ by Orson Scott Card Robert Wallace ctvax!smcvax!robert
DP0N@A.CS.CMU.EDU (09/21/85)
From: Don.Provan@A.CS.CMU.EDU you're damned right i wouldn't go to sleep. all these arguments could apply equally well if this wasn't a duplicate of me, but just a simulation. someone kills me and puts in my place a robot that acts exactly like me that they've created by observing me. noone can distinguish the robot from me. it's identical, to external observation, to the previous me. it can even have been programmed to think it's always been me and has all my memories. (Perhaps they got them out of my dead brain.) now your claim is that since this robot is indistinguishable from me, i should volunteer for the procedure. what's the difference between this simulation and a copy made on a molecule by molecule basis? again, i'm not arguing over whether anyone, including me, would be able to distinguish between the original and the copy. i just claim that the original has past into a state that can only be described as complete, irreversible death. let me say it one more way. imagine that we can make the copy without damaging the original at all. according to the arguments i'm hearing, if you shoot the original through the head, it will not experience death now, since there is a copy of it. this is plainly ridiculous. look, i'm sorry i'm shooting down this neat, often used plot device, but it's simply absurd. i'll believe matter transmission is possible. and i'll believe matter duplication is possible. but you can't convince me that matter transmission via duplication is possible.
franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) (09/24/85)
In article <3725@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> DP0N@A.CS.CMU.EDU writes: >let me say it one more way. imagine that we can make the copy >without damaging the original at all. according to the arguments i'm >hearing, if you shoot the original through the head, it will not experience >death now, since there is a copy of it. this is plainly ridiculous. No, in order for the original not to be dead, you would have to make the copy *after* it was shot. After the copy, there are two people, who each have the same identity as the person before the copy, but they do *not* have the same identity as each other. "Having the same identity" is not an equivalence relation. Frank Adams ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka Multimate International 52 Oakland Ave North E. Hartford, CT 06108
KFL@MIT-MC.ARPA (10/07/85)
From: Keith F. Lynch <KFL@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Date: 2 Oct 85 15:33:51 EDT
From: Don.Provan@A.CS.CMU.EDU
... my impression increasingly is
that the other side of the argument is imaging that my soul will
magically fly to the duplicate and make that hunk of matter "me"
rather than a mere copy, however identical.
My opinion is that the 'soul' is simply an emergent phenomenon, arising
from the structure of the matter inside a person. Duplicate the matter
and you duplicate the 'soul'.
I do not think that the existing soul will go into the copy, but that a
copy of it will, and this copy will be just as real as the original, i.e.
both copies will think they are you, and both will be right.
The real question is what makes you you. It can't be being the precise
same matter as you are right now, as that does get replaced with time. It
can't be being in the same place you are now, since you move around. It
can't be there being only one of you, because you object to matter
transmission as well as duplication. All I can figure is that it is non-
continuity of position, i.e. if you move from one place to another you must
exist as you in all intermediate points. Is this your position? If not,
please tell me what is. If it is, please tell me how you justify it.
...KeithAI.MAYANK@MCC.ARPA (10/10/85)
From: Mayank Prakash <AI.Mayank@MCC.ARPA> > >i think a recent post (which, i believe, was arguing against me) >said it best: "'Having the same indentity' is not an equivalence >relation." exactly my point. just because it looks like me, talks >like me, smells like me, acts like me, and thinks it is me doesn't >make it me. Then why don't you tell us what makes you "you", instead of raving about what doesn't? -mayank. -------
AI.MAYANK@MCC.ARPA (10/11/85)
From: Mayank Prakash <AI.Mayank@MCC.ARPA> >no. you're the one trying to get me into a disintigrator. you'll >have to explain to me how the copy of me you're going to make is >going to have my consciousness in it. not a copy of my consciousness, >but *my* consciousness. so far all you've said is "it looks like >a cow. it acts like a cow. it must be a cow." all i've >been saying is "it might be a cow, but it isn't the same cow." > >my point is simple. for my money, from the point of view of the No, your point is not simple. What *is* your consciousness, and how is it to be distinguished from a copy of it? Before I can explain to you how a copy of you may have your consciousness, in fact before we can communicate with each other at all, we must come to an agreement as to the meaning of terms that we use. I find your interpretation of the word *consciousness* very vague and meaningless (and perhaps, a little romantic), and therefore I want to understand more clearly what is it that you mean by it. >original, the experience will be the same regardless of whether >or not the recording device is connected: he will walk into >a disintigrator and die. all you guys are claiming that if >the recorder is disconnected, he'll die, but if it is connected >he won't die. sounds implausible to me. You are getting confused because there are two things involved here - a transportation mechanism, and a life support system. If the first fails, you don't go anywhere, if the second fails, you die. The only difference is that they are both well integrated with each other in this case, so failure of one is also failure of the other. To consider an analogy, you walk into a spaceship, and make a trip to, say, the moon. If the transportation mechanism (the rockets, the navigation equipment etc.) breaks down, you end up in some SF location. If the life support system fails, you die. If both are run by the same computer, then your dead body reaches some unknown realms of space. The transporter is not much different. (Witness Captain Kirk and his crew that has survived numerous such trips). -mayank. -------