First successfull teleportation done!

[Kassiopeia]

Well it depends on the sort of coma, I guess. If you can see vivid dreams, like during an REM phase, you don't. But if it's just like regular, non-dream sleeping for several years... who knows? Besides, since when was coma a part of the topic, which was about teleportation?

[Az]

It's the same I guess. You lack any sort of brain activity , right?

[Kassiopeia]

If you have visions whilst in coma, it's hard for me to believe that there's no brain activity. Or did you just insult me?

[Caesar the Great]

perhaps the more important question is what defines consciousness...

if a brain (cerebrum) was grown from stem cells, no kind of sensory input, no means of learning... can we even imagine what it would be thinking about? would it be thinking about anything? would there even be any brain activity, or is that just a response to external stimuli? and if it did think, how could we possibly interpret what it was thinking?

as humans we generally define consciousness as being able to see, hear, touch etc the things around us and to respond to those stimuli based on previous experiences and other variables... without anything stimulating the neurons would it be just like a computer with a blank hard drive?

[Kassiopeia]

And, do the traces of that stimulii, i.e. our personality, exist as electric impulses? Can it be transferred from place to place?

[Sava]

I think consciousness can be transfered. When we die, I'm sure the physical energy gets released somehow. I don't believe that death is just nothing. Maybe what will happen is that our consciousness will travel between bodies. I mean, if your body is broken down into particles and transported somewhere, it would be easy enough to change the way it's put back together. Maybe cosmetic surgery, fat loss, hair removal type procedures will be replaced with some sort of transportation/replication technology.

[Thorgal]

Consider how much energy it takes to send a fax. Paper in, paper out, not transfer of matter. Your analysis using E=mc2 is incorrectly being applied, just as it would be incorrect to apply it to the analysis of how much energy is required to send an e-mail, fax or other information.

I understand you. So, we are not speaking about a teleportation in the style of Stark Trek, but a tele-cloning. But in case of the fax you have paper and ink as a raw material, What raw material would you need to reproduce a person?. I cannot imagine the process

[Kassiopeia]

What would be cool was what was mentioned in the Cyborg thread; downloading your personality into a computer. But... if you copy your mind and memories down there, would you die happily knowing that you would still live on inside the computer? Or would you remain sceptic of it? Or would you be destroyed in the process?

[Caesar the Great]

well chances are in order to copy the electrical signals etc the process would be very invasive and you wouldn't survive... but i don't see why one couldn't download themselves onto a computer...

IRRC teleportation in star trek is roughly the same idea... transmitting information about a person's atomic etc arrangement to a new location... then again i think i've seen episodes where they've transported stuff into the middle of space.... anyway... how would it be possible to find enough atoms, enough of the right atoms in a certain place to construct an entire person?

[FrostyBoy]

Originally posted by Solver
But, at a small moment, there will be no Stefu - he's disassembled, and in a few nanoseconds, assembled again. I wouldn't like to travel with being killed 10 times a day.

You make it sound bad, but I wouldn't be surprised considerng what humans do; that it will become a normality.

[Caesar the Great]

i do believe quantum teleportation is instantanious... well certainly FTL

[Juggernaut]

This made me think about something a friend said the other day:
Since eternity exists, after you die your exact combination of atoms will at some point be re-assembled - but would that be you?

[Lorizael]

If consciousness is just all of your sensory input, then we need to find a way to have complete and total sensory deprivation, no touch, no sound, taste, smell, hearing, sight, none of it (or sense of balance and kinesithics (sp?)). And then, awhile later, give the senses back to the person. See if they thought about anything. But I could just be speakng complete and utter nonsense.

[Sirotnikov]

the problem is this.

the transport process is not instant but rather takes a really really short while.

therefore, if our conciousness is transferred - it has a gap.

Therefore, it is no longer "us" but rather a copy of our conciousness with all our older memories and new ones too.

Same problem with downloading myself to a disk.

I'm downloading a copy - not "me".

[chrono353]

They have at my hospital, installed signs on the cielings reading upwards as an experiment to see if Near death expierences have some truth to them. Since most report hovering above there body before the tunnel, they couldnt miss the sign. The Signs has a random message every 3 seconds. So far in the last 4 years, 72 people have died and came back. Almost all reported near death expierences, however. Only 9 people saw the sign and were able to recite the messages. Those nine had been dead for 5+ minutes. The others, said they had near death expierences who were only gone 30 seconds or so. none reported seeing the sign.

I know, unrelated. Just wanted to share it . Saw it on the news a week ago. The signs had been secret until now. So maybe theres some truth to the existence of the soul. Doesnt matter much for me anyway cause I dont believe in god.