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From: rob@osiris.UUCP (Robert St. Amant)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Transporters
Message-ID: <311@osiris.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 6-May-85 21:53:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: osiris.311
Posted: Mon May  6 21:53:41 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 10-May-85 07:59:26 EDT
Organization: Johns Hopkins Hospital
Lines: 22

References:

There is a philosophical question about transporters.  It first came up
in a discussion about immortality in the way of Zelazny's Lord of Light,
and Niven's Rammer stuff.  The deal is (as I'm sure you all know) that
the electrical and chemical patterns of an old body and mind are
transferred to a young, virile, etc. body.  The sensation is that of
going to sleep and waking up in a new body, or at least leaving
consciousness in one place and regaining it in another.

Now, to the transporter.

Objectively, you have a body broken down into energy, beamed somewhere,
and reconstructed (right.)  Is it the same person?  It can't be the
same as falling asleep and waking up.  We can say this because a
recording can be made.  If two copies are made, do they share the same
consciousness?  No, at least according to some episode the name of which
I forget.  So, anyway, is the id transferred as well as the body?  Is the
Kirk that beams down the same Kirk that beams up?  Does anyone care?

				Rob St. Amant

ps.	May the wrath of the Great Bird of the Galaxy fall upon anyone
	who responds to this posting with a simple "no."