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In Star Trek, the transporter moves you from one spot to another, saving on shuttle fuel (and special effects budgets).
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In-universe, it's 'the safest way to travel'.
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Yes, *sometimes*, two guys die horrible, mutilated deaths under rare circumstances...
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...but trillions of individuals transport to work every morning without a hiccup.
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But, what if the transporter isn't as safe as claimed...
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...what if the death rate isn't point almost nothing percent, but one-hundred percent...
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...because the transporter is a suicide box.
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First, how does the transporter work?
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There are technical manuals, with pages and pages of hilariously over-specific details...
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that yet say *so little*.
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Star Trek is nothing if not consistently inconsistent, but, taking the most common elements:
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First, the transporter scans you down to the quark, takes apart your atoms and sends the pieces of you to the destination for reassembly.
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But, is it *you* on the other end? Or a copy that thinks it's you?
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Well, who *is* you?
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That's a hell of a big question, but let's try to be good scientists about it:
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...we don't assume there's a magic part of you that can't be measured.
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After all, if it can't be measured, that means by definition it can't affect anything.
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So Occam's Razor it away and we take you as you seem to be: a collection of atoms arranged to think they're you.
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And because the arrangement of atoms in post-transport you is exactly the same as pre-transport...
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...you must be you. Case closed.
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But… You might still have this nagging feeling that your experience of stepping into the transporter will be...
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...a funny sound, a bright light -- then nothingness eternal..
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...while down on the planet, a brand-new life, complete with all your memories up to the moment before your death
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...popped into existence and assumed it's you...
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*How could it otherwise?*
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It lives a life as short as the mission...
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...and a new creature with the memories of you both makes it back to the ship.
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If true, multiply this by all the life forms in all the ships in all the star systems...
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...and this transport technology is a silent holocaust...
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...which makes an average episode of 'Trek rather grim watching.
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And it's a small mercy when a crew member takes the turbolift rather than site-to-site transport.
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But again, the measurements check out so perhaps we're being paranoid and we're already late for our holiday on Risa so just step inside already.
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But atom reassembly is the optimistic version and can't be how the transporter really works...
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...because sometimes accidents combine two crew into one - or split one into two.
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There aren't enough atoms in you to make a second you, so the transporter has to be turning atoms into energy and energy into atoms.
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You are destroyed, used to charge a battery, then recreated anew.
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This really seems like death.
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But the philosophy majors in the room are *dying* to bring up "The Ship of Theseus" now -- so fine.
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You take this ship on an adventure. As parts get worn, you replace each until eventually no piece is original.
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When you return is the "Ship of Theseus" still the same "Ship of Theseus" you left on?
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Seems so - and this is what your body does daily via eating (bringing in new atoms) and excreting (losing atoms).
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Compare to the "The Cutty Sark", a colonial tea ship burned down and restored with new parts.
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Is it still the same "Cutty Sark"?
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The result is the same: all new parts - only the time it took is different.
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If you're happy "Ship of Theseus"-ing through life (as you already do), ...
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...then getting "Cutty Sark"-ed by transport shouldn't matter. Right...?
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However... step into a working transporter with a broken disassembler - and death is revealed:
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...pre-transport and post-transport you can disagree on who is you.
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And when Scotty tells pre-transport you "Sorry, the disassembler is broken, give us a minute to fix it", you aren't going to wait around.
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That a copy of you made it to the destination is no consolation.
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The transporter has to be a suicide box.
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OK, so why worry about the metaphysical implications of fictional technology?
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Because the transporter points us to the problem of consciousness.
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We were quick to cut out the idea of the unmeasurable before -- because everything we can measure about the copy is identical...
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...but there is something unmeasurably different.
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The transporter forces confrontation with the possibility that there's something about being a conscious creature that isn't measurable from the outside.
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Did we not contain conscious brains ourselves, how would we know that other brains are conscious?
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Truth be told, you can really only know that *you* are conscious...
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-- and it seems polite to give other people the benefit of the doubt.
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But were a computer to claim that it was conscious, how would you know?
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Your continuous stream of consciousness is your life.
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And you are the only one who can experience it, who can know if it *exists* and if it is continuous.
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And transporters are scary because they cause breaks in that consciousness.
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Making a copy that lives the life that you have left, with no one the wiser.
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With no one able to be wiser.
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And while transporters aren't real, breaks in consciousness are.
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If you go for surgery, when they put you under, you can't be sure if it's you that woke up.
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For that matter, your bed might be a suicide machine.
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Every night's slip into unconsciousness, the warm embrace of the reaper...
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...and every morning the first and only day of a new creature's conscious life.
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It's impossible to know.
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Sleep well tonight.
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[Music]
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So click here to get access to the Star Trek wallpapers...
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...and thank you for supporting the channel to help get this kind of custom artwork made.
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[Music]
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Still here?
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You can't stay awake forever.