MovieChat Forums > The 6th Day (2000) Discussion > Similar to Teleportation?

Similar to Teleportation?

posted 11 years ago by creatorof2002
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A big concern about teleportation (which became famous in Star Trek "beam me up") is that the person being "beamed" actually DIES is DESTROYED then replaced by an exact copy, the copy has all of his memories and has no way of knowing that he is only a few seconds old while the earlier version is dead. I had this discussion with a friend once and he insisted that if a copy is exactly the same then its "you" in every sense of the word that matters.

Well is the cloning like that too? I mean whats the point of cloning yourself (unless you just want to leave a legacy) if the clone just replaces you but you are still dead? Maybe its more of a philosophical question than a scientific one?

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] liverpool26 11 years ago

Cloning in real life would be a lot different for one the clone would be a baby and the clone wouldn't have any of your memories it wouldn't even have the same personality.

It would be genetically identical but have a different personality, different level of intelligence etc as stuff like that you pick up over your life it has nothing to do with DNA

[–] jconn426 11 years ago

Teleportation means you are converted to energy, projected to another place, and then converted back into matter. You are YOU because nothing has been lost. Your matter = Your energy = Your matter again.

Star Trek got away from theory with "The Enemy Within" when Kirk was split into Jekyll-and-Hyde versions of himself. Now it became evident that whatever appears at the other end of a transport is a copy, since multiple copies are now possible. The original matter/energy is not preserved and transmitted whole, but dissected, analyzed, and converted into set of instructions. The transporter uses these instructions to create copies by converting new energy into whatever atoms/molecules are needed. Star Trek TNG stated this was the theory behind replicator technology. When it came to humans, though, it was treated as a mistake.

The Prestige explored this in greater detail, when Hugh Jackman killed his "original" when Tesla's remote duplication machine created the "copy" several yards/meters away. The first copy was quicker to act than the original (REAL) Jackman and killed him, and then the copies that sprang from the copy each carried this on, performance after performance, until the cellar of the theater was filled with dead Jackman copies. Yikes!

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And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written:KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

[–] luxerus 10 years ago

If we had some sort of 3d photocopy machine that could copy you at the submolecular level, then there's no reason to believe the copy isn't "you". However, that is not "cloning" as we know it.

If we do have a soul, then perhaps that copy wouldn't have a soul, perhaps the soul would be duplicated, or perhaps the soul would stay with the original no matter where they are. If we do have a soul, we'll probably find out that we can't copy ourselves the same way we would copy a piece of furniture. However, did the wood come from a tree with a soul? Etc. etc. Then we could only copy metal!