Topic: trouble with teleportation

[markc]

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/trouble-teleportation-it-could-take-quadrillions-years-6C10817487


 I came across this article on my daily reading of the 3 (FOX, CNN, NBC) and I thought it would drive a lively debate.


  Yes a Teleportation topic is here again this time with more physics behind it.


MDC

[GrumpyOldFart]

http://bookre.org/reader?file=264394

http://bookre.org/reader?file=17547

[Cory Magel]

What do you think? Should "Star Trek" screenwriters get rid of the transporter room and pull Spock through a wormhole instead? Rev up your imagination to warp speed, and feel free to speculate in a comment below.

For some reason the question seems silly to me.  Considering the rate at which we improve technology and that Star Trek takes place a little under 150 years from now (roughly, I think) I don't think it's really a stretch of the imagination at all.  You can't even assume that the IDEA of having overcome the physics etc is crazy as a lot of the stuff we now know and do today would have been considered crazy in the 19th century.

[jdale]

Their computation seems to be based on the raw data. That's also too inefficient for storing video, so instead we have compression algorithms which are designed for the nature of the underlying data. In other words, teleportation could be a lossy process where the result is merely "good enough".

[GrumpyOldFart]

In other words, teleportation could be a lossy process where the result is merely "good enough".

"It turned inside out... and exploded." - Tech Sgt. Chen

[arakish]

In other words, teleportation could be a lossy process where the result is merely "good enough".

"It turned inside out... and exploded." - Tech Sgt. Chen

Yep.  And in my opinion, teleportation would be nothing more than scanning the person, destroying them, beaming the scan information to another locale, then reconstructing said person.  In our discussions on this, and the reason why I never allowed teleportation, is the question: "But how can you scan and record the information of a person's knowledge (their mind) and their soul and reconstruct such?"

Then you have to consider the possibility of the corruption of the transmitted scan information, especially if it is transmitted across a void medium like an atmosphere or space.  Ever hear those crackles on the radio during a thunderstorm?

IMHO, if such teleportation happened, then all you would do is reconstruct a mindless, soulless automaton that would at least require re-education from the infant stage.

Now, if you were to have wormholes that could transport (not transmit) matter across a distance, that might work.  But true teleportation, in its truest meaning, I do not think could work.  But that is only my opinion.

rmfr

[GrumpyOldFart]

"But how can you scan and record the information of a person's knowledge (their mind) and their soul and reconstruct such?"

Brings a whole new meaning to "data corruption," doesn't it? 

As a side effect, let's assume for a moment that it succeeds, that there is no data corruption, ever. What is the effect of that? The obvious one is that the only person who can keep a secret is one who never travels anywhere he can't walk to. After all, if the teleporter transmits you, in the process it records everything you know, right? It has to, otherwise you won't know it at the receiving end.

Data is data. What one clever person can digitalize, another clever person can hack.

Note: That could get really ugly in a fantasy setting, too. "Hacking your teleport" doesn't necessarily have to be part of a technological paradigm.

 

[Cory Magel]

The last two comments are part of my point about technology. You're speculating on what we know right now.  150 years ago, the mid-late 1800's, what did we know?  We wouldn't have believed a lot of the things we consider mundane/common knowledge these days.  Consider the rate at which we discover more, it would be mind boggling for for something from the 19th century.  Your current knowledge of science would be VASTLY different 150 years from now.

[arakish]

The last two comments are part of my point about technology. You're speculating on what we know right now.  150 years ago, the mid-late 1800's, what did we know?  We wouldn't have believed a lot of the things we consider mundane/common knowledge these days.  Consider the rate at which we discover more, it would be mind boggling for for something from the 19th century.  Your current knowledge of science would be VASTLY different 150 years from now.

Agree completely.

However, I do not ever see technology being able to scan and record something that is completely non-quantitative such as a person's "soul".  They are currently working on being to record a person's "mind" somewhere in the UK mainland.  However, to so, they currently need/require physical contact to do so.  Does not mean technology will not break the gap of being able to record such across a void medium.

A person's mind does have a quantitative capacity (nuerons and molecules) that MAY be able to be scanned and recorded.  Thus, I can see the capability of recording a person's knowledge (mind).  But I shall never see science/technology ever being able to record something non-quantitative like a "soul".

Thus, in the least, the transmitted person would be a soulless demon, if not also mindless.  Thus, I just will not allow teleportation because I see it more as a transmission thing as compared to portals/wormholes which is more of a transportation thing or perhaps more like a space-folding thing.

In my old multiverse of Udava, the form of teleportation (for lack of a better "single" word) they used was a form of technology that actually "swapped" volumes of space.  In swapping those volumes of space, everything within them was also swapped.  This form was also called spatial-folding by some of my players.  The exact working of this technology was never truly understood, but it worked.  Of course the Terrans were still studying the technology, but they never truly understood it.  They could duplicate it and use it, but that was the current limit of their knowledge except for knowing that it "literally swapped two spaces of the same exact volume."  This took planetary based systems, but the Terrans could transport bulk cargo from one planet to another.  Because they did not completely understand the technology, it was forbidden to use it on living material.

Of course, "the never truly understood" thing was because none of us were theoretical physics persons.

rmfr

[GrumpyOldFart]

You're speculating on what we know right now.

I think it's more accurate to say I'm speculating based on the same learning process humans have observably always had. Simply put, 1) there is nothing that can be engineered by one human that can't be reverse engineered by another human, and 2) there is nothing engineered by humans that doesn't end up being modified for uses the original designer neither intended nor wanted.

If you do the equivalent of putting your soul on the internet, your soul and/or some caricature of it will end up on WikiLeaks. It's digital security 101: "Online security" is an oxymoron, for the same reason prison guards don't want a smartphone app that controls the cell doors.

[Cory Magel]

You're both assuming what makes you 'you' is not simply a function of physics, chemistry, etc.  Again, you're limiting your expectations based on what you think you know right now.  History shows again and again that we often have it wrong.  (While I do not want to get into a theological discussion, the above does not necessarily rule out the possibility of a 'higher power').

[jdale]

For a non-magical setting I would assume souls are irrelevant. That still leaves lots of problems with the copy-destroy-and-recreate version of teleportation. For example, I don't see any reason why you couldn't end up with multiple copies of you. Even if the data is sufficiently complex that no one can read it directly, they should be able to make a new copy of you, interrogate it, and then disintegrate it, which basically amounts to the same thing. On the plus side, copies of the PCs might make great antagonists for a somewhat surreal game. Also, the PCs could make backups of themselves, so if they die they just lose a few days worth of memories and any recent XP.

Still, wormholes or extreme forms of quantum tunneling or bending space seem like better explanations with fewer issues.

For a magical setting, where souls are relevant, I would just handle teleportation magically, assume the actual you was actually transported, and not worry about the other details of the mechanism.

[Cory Magel]

Aye, with a Fantasy or Magical setting the answer is simple: It's magic.

I actually have an adventure in rough draft right now where the players will effectively be 'copied' and the copies will be used (via divination spells) to scout an area which they will surely die in.  I don't want to explain the whole thing (especially if one of them sees it here), but it makes for a fun scenario where they can just go all-out no-holds-barred and not worry about the consequences (well... mostly).

[markc]

  Reading this I got the idea for a setting or short story in which a criminal was subject to the "teleportation" device in hopes of changing their basic nature "soul" for rehabilitation. Sort of a new take on Dr Jeckel and Mr Hide.
 You could have a number of different story options such as it has always worked, until now on this group; or people who are treated are just waiting to rise up against the populace; for some reason it did not change convict X and many more.


 Science is almost always good for some RP ideas.   


MDC

[GrumpyOldFart]

You're both assuming what makes you 'you' is not simply a function of physics, chemistry, etc.

Actually I'm not assuming anything of the sort. I'm only assuming that, given teleportation, whatever is that makes you 'you' has turned out to be something that can be recorded and copied. If it is, it suffers exactly the same risks in transmission as some stupid picture a 15 year old girl made when she was drunk and posted it on the internet somewhere. Granted, hopefully the teleport company knows a lot more about transmission security than a drunk 15 year old girl with a camera (I was a Navy computer tech working closely with 'tactical data link' techs, I could tell you stories... except that it's probably still classified). Okay, so they're only really at risk from a much better class of hacker.

Nonetheless, the basic equation doesn't change: What one smart cobber can think up, another smart cobber can outwit. The only assumption I have to make is that 'teleportation' is something one smart cobber thought up.

[arakish]

Aye, with a Fantasy or Magical setting the answer is simple: It's magic.

This I completely agree with and do not question.  In a completely fantasy setting, teleportation is simply "magic".

You're both assuming what makes you 'you' is not simply a function of physics, chemistry, etc.

Actually I'm not assuming anything of the sort. I'm only assuming that, given teleportation, whatever is that makes you 'you' has turned out to be something that can be recorded and copied. If it is, it suffers exactly the same risks in transmission as some stupid picture a 15 year old girl made when she was drunk and posted it on the internet somewhere. Granted, hopefully the teleport company knows a lot more about transmission security than a drunk 15 year old girl with a camera (I was a Navy computer tech working closely with 'tactical data link' techs, I could tell you stories... except that it's probably still classified). Okay, so they're only really at risk from a much better class of hacker.

Nonetheless, the basic equation doesn't change: What one smart cobber can think up, another smart cobber can outwit. The only assumption I have to make is that 'teleportation' is something one smart cobber thought up.

I am with GOF.  I never assumed anything.  I was simply stating fact, and hypothesizing.  As I said and using your words, what makes you "you", is something I completely believe CANNOT be recorded and copied.  I NEVER said it could not happen, technologically.  I just said that I believe it cannot happen technologically.  And yes, I do know the famous Clarke quote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology will appear to be magic."  Or something close to that.  I do believe that quote, but I also have certain limits to what I am willing to believe can be accomplished technologically.  I am with all other Star Trek fans.  I love the Transporters.  It does not mean I have to believe that they are technologically possible.  The only true reason the Transporters were ever conceived in the first place is because they did not have the money to shoot the SFX of shuttle transportation every episode.  I much prefer Star Wars thinking in this matter.  Use a shuttle or stay on your ship in orbit.  Even in my Sci-Fi campaign, they have what are called MEDTRS, Matter-Energy Data Transmission Rectification Systems.  Basically the same as Star Trek Replicators.  It is just that they are illegal under penalty of death to use them on living materials.  They can be used to transmit dead meat as bulk cargo, but never to transmit living cows.

If I were to believe in anything "magic", then I would have to say it is a person's "mind" and "soul".  I will never believe these can be recorded technologically until I actually see it done.  Until then, I will be a Missourin, and say, "Impossible."

GOF's example is great.  And as he said, anything that can be created, can also be hacked and perverted.

In summation, I do not believe the "scan-record-destroy-transmit-recreate" form of teleportation will ever work.  Not for sapient beings anyway.  It could work for bulk cargo.  However, once scanned and transmitted, it never need be transmitted again.  You could simply scan in lumps of silicon and use the machine to reconstruct it as a foot-long hoagie.  A la replicators from Star Trek.

Still, wormholes or extreme forms of quantum tunneling or bending space seem like better explanations with fewer issues.

This, I agree with, utterly.

rmfr

[Cory Magel]

We're talking Sci-Fi, so to some extent the 'rules' don't fully apply.  Sci-Fi assumes we've overcome technological obstacles we might consider impossible today.  However, you could explain the impossibility of having a 'copy' of a cow in a transporter that simply copies and transmits the being as data cannot overcome the idea that you can't create something out of nothing and you must have the original 'sent' and reformed in order for it to work.  Technically you don't even really need to justify that idea... it's Sci-Fi.  Now, yes, you could imply that you could take a bunch of random materials and use that to form the copy, but again, it's perfectly reasonable to just say "something is lost in translation - doesn't work".

Now, transporters could simply be explained as bending space, etc.  Although, again technology could potentially overcome it and there are those who (we think) know far more about it than I, I tend to think opening a wormhole from your 'transporter room' to another location and not impacting anything around it is actually less believable in a certain sense.  Firstly in safety: Imagine if someone sabotaged or something simply went terribly wrong with a wormhole transporter inside a ship (anyone seen the Stargate episode where the world is being threatened with being sucked through the Stategate?).

Back to the idea of transporters 'copying' you and transmitting you... is opens up a wonderful opportunity for plot hooks if you ask me.  It's effectively a short cut to cloning.  If you have something even remotely like conscious transfer or mental programming possible it opens up a very tempting can of worms.

[GrumpyOldFart]

I think we're all trying to say the same thing here: The wormhole idea works better because there are no issues with whether the cow that arrives is the same as the one that left, or whether the intervening data stream with the 'cow' filetag can be hacked. The cow can't be hacked because it's never a data stream, it's all the same cow.

...unless you're in it for the story hooks and the fun of watching your players' brains explode, in which case by all means go with streaming data. You're missing out if you don't.

 

Those two links I posted up top are two Larry Niven short stories, one of which started as a discussion on "the theory and practice of teleportation" and the other which explores the social ramifications of "flash mobs," when both communication and transportation are universal and in real time. Both of them cover a lot of ground.

[Cory Magel]

Think of it this way:

In some Sci-Fi games you can essentially "back up" yourself by creating a clone and having your consciousness downloaded into it.  It's the high end expensive healer behind the curtain.

There's also tech that allows someone to mentally program an individual with a new identity and personality.

How different are those really?

Both these things imply that teleportation via a data steam is not only entirely reasonable, but possibly even more commonplace.  Can it therefore be hacked?  You betcha.  And I LIKE the thought of that in terms of possible game material!

You guys have actually convinced me this would be more fun than it would be unbelievable (which is pretty darned relative in a Sci-Fi setting).

[GrumpyOldFart]

And if data stream teleportation becomes possible more easily than wormhole transportation, people will still keep looking for ways to use wormholes, in hopes of avoiding all the problems inherent in a data stream.

That way if somebody wants to hack the cow, they'll have to do it old school and use an axe like everybody else.