Destruction is just a matter of perspective While the guy in front of you might have given you a big scare the whole experience will not be any different for you. This technology hast been in normal use for a decade without any problems. To be used in mass transportation for that long it must be almost idiot-proof (obviously no problems with insects in the telepod at an inconvinient moment). So the guy in front of you just used some drastic words for something that is absolutely safe. In a way you always knews what he just told you: This machine worked for a decade in a way that dissolves the body at the source location which can be described as "wiping it out of existance" and recreates it at the target location in the same moment. As long as nobody can tell the difference between the person that enterd the source location and the person that left the target location at the verry same moment there is no need to worry.

Why not?
Come on, there's no real reason to be afraid to get in! What counts is not the number of deaths, but the number of times you die minus the number of times you get rebuilt/recreated. As long as this number is (less than or) equal to zero, there is not need to be upset.

I would probably be a little apprehensive but would get in the telepod. I exist beyond the physical manifestation that I am in this world. My true essence continuing on even after physical death, therefore the "real" me would not be affected by the destruction and reproduction of my physical self.

I would go in... if it destroys me and forms me again just like I was, I can't say it's more dangerous than travelling by car (I mean, how big are the chances of staying destroyed in the process, near zero? I would do this better than driving...)

On the other hand, if the TechnoCore is using it, I could have my doubts... (I suppose this is Dan Simmons-inspired, isn't it?)

If the transportation happens instantaneously then the universe hasn't changed because it is still composed of the same constituent parts, and if the universe hasn't changed then it can't be said that anyone being transported has died.

As my math teacher would say: You're mixing up two frames of reference. In macro physics, you can work with partial objects. In quantum physics, objects exist only once. So if you're using a quantum physics effect, either the teleport will fail which means you'll stay where you are and the destruction won't happen or it will work and you will end up at the destination (and the old "original" will have been destroyed).

What could happen is that you end up at a different destination, though, so bring your universal translator along! ;-)

See this blog entry [darkviews.blogspot.com] for the full argument.

The life of a person is best imagined as a waveform or pattern that is subtly but constantly transforming. The physical constituents and location in space-time are already changing all the time anyway. The person you were 10 years ago no longer exists (has "died"?). The person you will be in ten years time does not yet (may never!) exist, and the same can be said of the you in Tau Ceti after the teleport.

As long as there is a continuity of experience, I get in.

I would never step into the telepod. Why? Because in an important sense it will kill me to do so.

To change this argument slightly, we can reimagine the scenario.

You plan to travel to the faraway planet by teleporting. Laws enacted when the teleporter was created do not allow you to be alive in two places at once. You step into the cloning machine, and a white coated tech hands you a gun. `When the light turns green, the process is complete and you have to shoot yourself in the head, so we can recycle your body into component elements'. Would you pull the trigger? Why not? The clone is at the other end, safe and sound, just the same as if you had been recycled by the machine.

I would no more use a "Telepod of Doom" for transportation than I would a "Bus of Pain", a "Rickshaw of Destruction" or a "Personal Time Capsule of Discomfort".

Perhaps if the marketing guys got their acts together...

There is a SciFi book with the same instant transmition scheme but the killing of the transportee goes wrong leaving two copies of him. one at the source and one at the destination.

No way!

- Paddy.

We can only assume that a machine can reconstruct experience, consciousness and the human soul. Both hypothetically and realistically, we would have to accept that technology could flawlessly reproduce that which only exists as fleeting bursts of electric memory between synapses. Get in the machine and there will be something resembling the dearly departed you in Tau Calamari or wherever.

All mechanical processes of duplication are subject to small, incremental degradations: (the photocopy of a photocopy.... of a photocopy is significantly and noticably degraded from the original). The mechanical re-creation of the physical body would, likely, be subject to a similar degradation. Regardless of the implications this process might or might not hold for one's 'soul' (whatever that may be), you are said to travel with you family, which implies 'children'. Should this travel be a life/death situation, a different assessment would need to be applied. However, it would be immoral to subject one's children, whose future developement could be significantly altered by even small degradations in their physical bodies, to this mechanical re-constitution process for the frivolous purpose of a holiday. It would be foolish to get into the 'pods' - there is no 'undo' button.

I teleported home one night with Will and Sue and Ed.
Will stole Suzies heart away, and I got Edwards leg.

I would not enter the telepod. I would consider it if it used a two-phase-commit [wikipedia.com] protocol.

[ Added a wiki link - admin ]