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From: KFL@MIT-MC.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Matter Transmission
Message-ID: <3543@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Thu, 5-Sep-85 21:52:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.3543
Posted: Thu Sep  5 21:52:29 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Sep-85 06:13:16 EDT
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Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: Keith F. Lynch <KFL@MIT-MC.ARPA>

    From: graffiti!peter@topaz.rutgers.edu (Peter da Silva)
    Subject: Matter Transmission
    Date: 31 Aug 85 16:17:55 GMT

    ... What would this do to manufacturing processes?

  I imagine we would have the same sort of confusion and piracy that
now exists in the software field, where transmission and duplication
are already commonplace.
  In George Smith's _Venus Equilateral_ (1942) the main problem caused
by the invention of a matter transmitter and duplicator is what to use
for money.  The solution in the book was to invent a material that
could not be duplicated or transmitted.  I think a more likely solution
would be to go to a pure credit economy.  We are fairly close to one
already.
  Note that in a pure service economy, matter duplication does not
really change much!  If such a thing were invented today, it would
change civilization much less than if it were invented 40 years ago.
The main effects would be a rapid colonization of space and an end
to poverty.

    ... Friends of the Earth or the Audubon Society (don't worry
    about the whooping cranes, they're all on file).

  Not so far fetched.  A creature is completely specified by its
genetic code.  Several years ago I saw the complete genetic code
for some virus printed in a magazine.  As long as a copy of that
magazine exists, that virus will never really become extinct.
  I hope that as soon as someone completely analyzes the smallpox
virus (which now exists only in a few labs) that all smallpox
viruses will be destroyed.
  A person's genetic code would fit on one or two RA81 disks.
James Hogan's idea (in _Voyage from Yesteryear_ (1982)) that
unborn people may travel to the stars in the form of data on
a computer may be workable.
  An equally fascinating idea is that it may be possible to
recover enough fragments of DNA from fossils to reconstruct
extinct creatures, such as dinosaurs (see _Re-entry_ by Paul
Preuss (1981)).

    Postultimate thought: if you put yourself on file could you ever
    truly die?

  Sure.  If all the copies get wiped out.  Just as books, music, and
computer data can become irretrievably lost.  The more copies, and in
the more places, the better.  Keep one in another solar system (it's
called supernova insurance).
  And whatever else happens, if it is true that the universe will
ultimately contract to a single ultra-dense ultra-hot point, it
seems very unlikely that any information could survive, even if there
is an 'after'.  Other cosmologists believe that the universe will
continue to expand forever, and ultimately the total amount of
free energy available will drop too low for any kind of life.  This
may take as long as 10 to the 100th power years, which is an
incomprehensibly long time, at least for me.  (See _The Future of
the Universe_ in the March 1983 issue of Scientific American, and
_Star Maker_ by Olaf Stapledon (1937)).
								...Keith