So the other day I’m sitting around watching a Stargate SG-1 episode, and they’re going through this wormhole. Looks like this:
And I’m thinking: Why does it look like that? Why does it look like anything? The event horizon of the Stargate wormholes is supposed to disintegrate you into your component molecules and transmit them thorugh the wormhole. If you were totally discombobulated, you shouldn’t see anything.
But then we have evidence on the script-level of folks experiencing things in the wormhole, talking about what a "wild ride" they are and such.
So I think: Maybe when the wormhole disintegrates you, it doesn’t totally de-pattern you, it simply restructures your body in such a way that it can travel through the wormhole, but all the while you and your consciousness are still functioning. Your body’s been re-arranged, but it’s all still operational.
So then I thought: Hey, there’s evidence of the same thing on Star Trek. In that there Realm of Fear episode of Next Gen, Lt. BroccoliBarclay has some unusual experiences in the transporter beam (which he’s deathly afraid of [left]).
He even gets into a tussle with some critters that are up to no good in the transporter beam, though they later turn out to be something other than they appear (right).
The thing is: He’s conscious during all of this. So on 
Star Trek, like on Stargate, we have evidence of people remaining conscious and in some sense "together" during a period of de-materialization.
Now that may shed light on a long standing "mystery" in Star Trek: Namely, why you don’t simply die and get cloned each time you enter the transporter.
They recently referred to this problem in the episode of Enterprise where they had the inventor of the transporter guest star. During one scene they referred to all the "metaphysical" worries of folks about whether the transporter killed you and made a copy, at which point Trip looked around the dinner table and noted that, if that were true, "We’re all copies here."
Well, despite the fact I once saw a very neat cartoon on PBS exploring this premise (an animated character made a transporter transmitter and receiver out of two refrigerators then transported herself and pondered the moral implications of having done so, only to discover that despite the fact she died in the transmitter, she is now a "guiltless clone"), it would seem that Trek (and SG-1) ahve both provided evidence that this is not the case.
It seems to me that if your consciousness remains functional through the experience of being de-materialized then that’s at least presumptive evidence that it’s still you on the other end.
So the transporter and the Stargates are not killer+cloner devices.
Of course, since consciousness can exist independently of physical form, this leaves open the question of whether they are killer+resurrecter devices or just "repackaged for easy transport" devices.
You, sir, are a huge geek.
Thank you. 🙂
The episode “Realm of Fear” still freaks me out when I see those wormy-things floating in the buffer. Ick.
In the episode “Unnatural Selection”, Dr. Pulaski rapidly ages, and to undo this she goes through the transporter and they use a sample of her “younger” DNA to screen out the old/mutant DNA.
My question is: why doesn’t everyone do this to stay young forever?! Just have your consciousness put back into a younger pattern of yourself.
Another example is from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country when McCoy & Kirk are unexpectedly beamed off the ice planet (not Hoth)just as the bad guys are about to tell them who was involved in the assassination conspiracy. The transport begins and Kirk is reconstituted on the Enterprise in the middle of some profanities.
This is such a relief!
I always thought the episodes (I believe that there are more examples of this – people ‘moving’ during transport) that had people conscious during transportation were in direct conflict to what people like Scotty and O’Brien said ‘Actually happened’ when Transportation occurred (i.e. your particles are broken down and then reassembled). This would mean that you ‘ARE’ the same person. Also except for these few aberrations you never ‘see’ what is happening during Transportation like you see the Hole in SG-1.
Also the ‘Wild Ride’ that is experienced in SG-1 may simply be the feeling of having your self discombobulated and then reassembled. On the first few episodes they would come through the wormhole with frost on their hair and such. There must be some ‘feeling’ to that. Also – The graphics of the Hole in SG-1 may simply be a representation to the viewers of them crossing the Galaxy, not what they are actually experiencing. I don’t remember anyone on the show actually commenting on the ‘view’. But I could be wrong on that.
Having said that – Generally when I run across things in Sci-Fi shows that directly contradict each other, I do not feel the need to reconcile the differences – I figure if the writers can’t (or are too lazy to) why should I?
This reminded me of a short story Stephen King named The Jaunt.
It takes place in a time when teleportation is common place, rather like air travel is today. I don’t want to give away the whole story, but it basically unfolds as a father explains the history of teleportation to his children. It seems that people must be anaesthetized so that they are unconscious during teleportion. This is due to the fact that while the body can be broken down and teleported, the consciousness cannot. He relates some of the unfortunate events that had occurred before this important little detail was discovered.
I have wondered about this subject in the past also (my inner geek basically runs wild) and wondered about the consequence of any real teleportations.
For example if it was actually possible if the body could be exactly dissasembled on one end and reassembled on the other would God allow the soul to animate the new body?
In some ways I would hope not so as to be some form of proof that the soul is what animates the body. That whether a vegetable, animal, or human body was translated that what was on the other end would be a lifeless match. That we are more than just our chemical composite no matter how intrically arranged.
Anna: I hated that episode for just the reason you gave. No one should be old in the StarTrek universe.
Jeff: Perhaps what you speak of is modeled in the sarcophagus of SG1. It makes people more and more evil the more it is used! (Less soul?)
On further reflection the ability to perceive what’s going on in a transporter and wormhole is that while the soul is moved from one location to another it cannot be disassembled!
If Jimmy is the next Pope perhaps we can request an encyclical on this topic.
Does all this apply to Nightcrawler’s teleportation, too? *BAMF*
The physics of wormhole travel would say that if you hypothetically traveled through a wormhole, it would be like being in a room and simply traveling through a door and immediately arriving in the next door room. The only thing is that the next door room is say really 300 million meters away. Of course this is all theoretical, but that is the science answer for what it would be like to “experience” wormhole travel.
As far as the sci-fi star trek transporter, if you are conscious in a “spatial” or “temporal” sense, you are not dematerialized. Star Trek would say that you are “totally” dematerialized, the total sum of “who you are” is stored in an informational way in a computer, sent as energy to another transporter, this computer then translates this algorithm, and rematerializes you out of atoms there.
Yet both transporters are dealing with “different” atoms, but are using the “information” to orientate the atoms, or whatever, to who you are. So in effect you are not who you once were, even if you think you are the same person. We experience something similar, the total sum of the atoms that make us now will not be us over a period of time, yet we are the “same person” in a continuum. Twenty years from now not a single atom in you now will be in you then. Think about the implications of this.
The transporter would seem to be just an amplification of the speed over time (rate) of this natural process we all go through.
This discussion reminded me of a science fiction short story I read (I believe in one of the year’s best compilations) where a rich man goes to a “spa” to get his body “redone” for the fourth time. Each time he goes there he enters as an overweight soft bodied socialite who has overindulged and ruined his body. He then leaves as a physically fit specimen that looks and feels ten years younger. This time when he is done with the process he is still in the same shape, but he sees through a window a younger. physically fit version of himself walk out, thank the doctors and leave. He then finds out that EVERY time he underwent this process a new, fit clone was produced and the old person was left behind without an identity, who the “spa” people used as a disposable asset (experiments, one way secret missions, etc.) He was in reality the thrid clone who was having happen to him what happened to his original self and the first two clones! It was a great mental exercise stroy.
This discussion reminded me of a science fiction short story I read (I believe in one of the year’s best compilations) where a rich man goes to a “spa” to get his body “redone” for the fourth time. Each time he goes there he enters as an overweight soft bodied socialite who has overindulged and ruined his body. He then leaves as a physically fit specimen that looks and feels ten years younger. This time when he is done with the process he is still in the same shape, but he sees through a window a younger. physically fit version of himself walk out, thank the doctors and leave. He then finds out that EVERY time he underwent this process a new, fit clone was produced and the old person was left behind without an identity, who the “spa” people used as a disposable asset (experiments, one way secret missions, etc.) He was in reality the thrid clone who was having happen to him what happened to his original self and the first two clones! It was a great mental exercise stroy.
*BAMF*
Neal: I seem to recall that there was an episode of the X-Men cartoon wherein they slowed Nightcrawler’s teleportation down and discovered that he actually passed through a different dimension that looked a lot like Hell. Demons included. It’s been a while since I saw it, but it strikes me that one of those demons followed him out and caused trouble in our world. Anyone else remember this?
*BAMF*
Actually, yes, Jared, that sounds familiar.
There’s an old Polish saying contemplating this question:
“This is my grandfather’s axe. My father replaced the blade, and I replaced the handle.”
PVO
In James Blish’s non-canonical novel SPOCK MUST DIE, (1970 or so) Scotty explains that the transporter is actually an energy analyzer. What is does is analyze the energy sate of every particle in your body, then produce a “Dirac jump” to an equivalent energy state elsewhere. I don’t have the book in front of me but I feel certain that’s a pretty accurate recollection.
He goes on to say that no actual conversion of matter to energy is onvolved, of course, because it would blow up the ship.
This lends credence — non-canonical credence, but credence nonetheless — to the notion that the transporter just moves you, the whole you, like an elevator does.