• Tofu_Lewis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Okaaaay, just because you’ve brought it up…

    Transporters in Star Trek are shown to definitely not be duplication machines. “Our Man Bashir” (DS9) is probably the most definitive proof of that.

    Personally, I think transporter technology explains the staunch atheist (but still open-minded and sometimes spiritualist) Federation mindset: they know that their entire being can be reduced to a matter/energy stream. The transporter makes a devastating philosophical challenge to the idea of a “soul.” Which is, ironically, why so many Federation officers refuse to accept anything that challenges that assumption (VOY “Sacred Ground”).

    • InputZero
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      1 year ago

      Adding to your examples in the cannon of Star Trek the teleporter is not a murder machine, except for all those transporter accidents. In “Daedalus” (ENT) the creator of the teleporter somehow proved it, even if not every officer believes that yet.

      Real life though, I’d never set foot in a transporter. A real life, Star Trek like transporter would definitely be a murder machine though.

      • John :mastodon:@twit.social
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        1 year ago

        @InputZero I avoid sleep for the same reasons everyone avoids transporters. We don’t know what consciousness is and if the soul or consciousness is even real.

        Who’s to say I don’t die when I go to sleep and some other mook doesn’t wake up with all my memories?