A new forum, for just this sort of thing. New inventions and old.

And I just had to share this news:

link

Beam me up Scotty!!

Hmmm... I think I would relate more to "President Scroob" from "Spaceballs" when it comes to the concept of being "beamed" anywhere.

No matter how complex science gets, no matter how deep.. I don't believe in the ability to transfer someone's soul. You might "teleport" the body off somewhere else, but I think said body would end up getting there devoid of life. Even if they -*test*-('") it on, say, a sheep first... we'd still have no knowledge (truly) of how it affects their mind (provided it lived through the ordeal), and human minds are much more complex than that of, say, a sheep.

Maybe it would be a nice method of transporting luggage or moving to a new place on the other side of the country or world or something... but me... I think I'll just drive. Or take a plane. Or walk. I don't overly like the idea of having my atoms scattered all over the place.


Gandalf

I believe that would take things to the level of "do we have a soul, or is the human body one thing?" I think that issue has been brought up already in one of the other forums.

Interesting viewpoint though, does the soul then stay behind or not. Or is (if we go by the assumption that we HAVE a soul for a sec here) that soul capable of finding its own host instantly if it isn't transported along?

Various records of people having "out of body" experiences would seem to relate to the question of whether we have a soul or not. Call it a "life force" if you will. There is something that gives us each our own unique perceptions of what we claim to be Real.

Every single human brain is built in the same fashion. Genetic structures don't define "personality". It may determine that I have brown hair or blonde hair, or brown eyes or blue eyes... but the genetics aren't what make "me" who I am. That is tailored through my own life experiences, which is stored as "data" within my mind.

That said.. I do believe that we have a "soul" (for want of a better word) that defines our personality, and makes us who we are. It's not just the simple (sic) construction of the human body or brain that makes each person what they are. Ergo, I don't believe it is scientifically possible to transport that essence, as it is not "matter", nor is it "energy".. it transcends those simple concepts That also having been said, I stand by my acclamation that I wouldn't be one to take the risk of proving myself right.


Gandalf

I don't believe in soul separated from body and even if I did this might not be different than moving somebody, I mean when the bus moves me from one place to anther my soul doesn't remain in the bus station (or so I hope).

Physically getting onto a bus and moving is a lot different than having your body torn apart atom by atom and "teleported" across some measure of space to be reconstructed at the other side.

One would ask, if we do not have a soul, then what is it that gives us our individual perceptions, thoughts, our differing opinions, and our concepts of what is right and wrong, moral and immoral? My thoughts and perceptions differ from Eadwine's. Hers differ from Pentamoon's. Pentamoon's differ from Adrian's.

While we may agree on certain concepts, there are, inevitably, things that I would proclaim to be truth that millions of other people would label as "blasphemy". Even though our bodies have the same construction (medical science would be in a lot of trouble if they weren't), we still differ.. and I can tell you that I didn't get passed my manner of thinking as a genetic side-effect. I am the strongest thinker in my entire family (and I can say this with no vanity or ego).

That said.. even if you don't want to call it a soul, there is a force at work within each individual that make the person. I don't believe that is just "energy" or "matter". It's that whole collection of life experiences, translated and interpreted, molded and combined, that create a person. It is that essence that I believe cannot be transported in the manner that they are trying to transport things.

Ergo, I believe that anyone that tries to teleport themselves through these means would end up as a body devoid of that which we call "life".


Gandalf

This one is to Gandalf, btw. Sorry for the confusion. I need to learn to use the quote button



Lemme think this over for a sec. You say a human has a soul. You weren't clear on the animal having one as you say it might live through the ordeal. However you do agree that every living being has "something".

Now.. we take an animal and it lives through the ordeal. It has the "something", otherwise it would be dead. Plain and simple. I don't think the "somethings" of one are more or less developed than the "somethings" of the other. In the end we are all just a bunch of molecules mixed together, and one molecule is no better than the other.

So.. my conclusion is simple: if atoms live through the ordeal, and then at some point animals do too, then why should we not? We are, as I said, made of the same stuff.

I think you misunderstood me regarding the soul issue, I said: "I don't believe in soul separated from body" I didn't say that I don't believe in soul, that's would be like saying that I don't believe in software, however the point is that you can't run the software without the computer, you can't have a soul without the body (actually the analogy is not perfect because you can have a printout for the software and you can figure what it does, while you can't have that with the soul).

As for "cutting" being different from moving I think that simplifies the issue too much, quantum physics is strange and interesting and you can't simplify it this way. The idea that everything would be moved (or teleported) including electrons and all their characteristics, the only thing different would be the place. The word "cut" would be devoid of meaning in this context.

Now that's probably impossible because of the complexity but since we talk theoretically let's assume it is. My question to you is: where is the seat of the "soul" if not in the physical world: molecules, atoms, electrons?

Let me clarify..

Yes, I believe that animals, trees, birds, etc... all have souls. They are alive, and anything that lives has an essence that makes them alive, rather than the concept of life being pinned to a simple brain function.

However comma!, if this experiment were to be -*test*-('")ed on a sheep, even if it lived and we could determine that the "soul" of the sheep was successfully transported.. the sheep cannot give us any form of verbal signs of other side-effects that we could not discover by mere sight alone.

Are his memories intact? Has his perceptions changed? That sheep's entire life and world, the very way he looks at things and defines his existence within the universe, could have changed dramatically... and how would he tell us this? How would we know that? The only thing we would proclaim is that we had a successful teleportation of a sheep from Point A to Point B... while the sheep's entire mind has been jumbled, mixed, flipped around, and inverted.

He might "live", but we could not determine whether he were the same or not. The very "essence" that defined that sheep among his fellow sheep as a different member of the flock could have been irreplacably erased.


Gandalf

Addendum: I say "he" as a point of reference, and not as a slant on gender superiority. That is all.

Very simple. Use a dog. We can be pretty sure that it can convey its memories, they are easy to read. Simply put, if he recognizes his owner before the transport and he bites him afterwards, we can safely assume something went wrong. The other way around, if a person who used to beat the dog before is suddenly loved... see what I mean?

Of course the animal will never be able to convey everything, but heck, I haven't met a person yet who remembers EVERYTHING about his/her life.

I don't believe that the spirit of a person can be related to simple "matter" or "energy". To term: I do believe in a Higher Power or a "creative force". I also believe in evolution. Simply put, I believe in cause and effect, and something must exist as a singularity that is cause and not effect, and that that singular entity cannot be the universe or the world at large since that would be many rather than one.

Ergo, we are here because something caused us to be here. The Big Bang happened because something caused it, and as it is (theoretically) the beginning of everything, I would take, under my own personal beliefs, that something had to have existed at that point to cause it.. and that that one thing is the Law from which all other Laws proceed.

We have the gift of Life. That "Life" that is given to us by our "Spirit" is a transfer of part of that Creative being. It is not "matter" or "energy", nor anything else that can be defined by mankind, as mankind can never hope to define the nature of the Entity that created it. Ergo, I can't tell you where this "soul" would exist. It is beyond my understanding.

However, I do not believe in science having the ability to "dematerialize" someone, and then recreate them exactly as they were before, because no method of science can transcend that boundary between what is knowable (matter and energy) and what must remain forever unknowable (Spirit).

I can see what you mean, however... there are finer intricacies that go into making a person. Part of it is the person's "spirit". The other part is "memories". Even if a subject has the most base of memories transferred successfully, the finer details, some of which could very well be the most profound, could be lost. As a result, the dog would remember its owner, but its sense of self would have changed.

In that case, the dog is no longer who he was, and, in essence, has been destroyed and replaced by something new. The dog that was will never "be" again.


Gandalf

Edit: Adjusted my stresses to use italics and underscores, rather than caps. Apologies for "shouting".

See, here's the difference between us, I don't belive in such kind of spirit. What I find interesting though is that although you say "it is beyond my understanding" you also claim that science would never be able to touch it -- how do you know if it's beyond your understanding? Also it's puzzling for me that you know stuff about soul... that somebody gave it to you although you don't know who that entity is and how it's like and you know that's not matter or energy...

@gandalf:

The concept of the single egg twin (what on earth is that called in English?) does support your theory; that where an exact copy of one, or in this case recreation of one, does not mean they are the same.


Did that make sense?

No that's not correct, there's nothing like perfect duplicate in this word, monozygotic twins are not such things. Besides, this is about identity at quantic level not just about DNA similarity.

It's also a matter of identity "what somethign is", you can differentiate twins exactly because they are different and they live different lives and they have different experience. It's more like that saying if for all intents and purposes "it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck then it's a duck" The point with teleporting electron is that the teleported electron for all intents and purposes is the same electron, only in other place. Now, if we are a sum of molecules and the cloud of electrons and their spins then moving that stuff in other place would not change the esence of the person (taking a bus actually changes you more than that, even passing of a second changes you more than that process would -- however in my view that kind of teleportation is not possible because of the complexity and because of the time and energy needed for the process, what scientists did now is like moving a tennis ball from one place to another, that doesn't mean that they will be able to move Earth from here to another Galaxy)

I believe in "Spirit" as I have defined it because I refuse to think of the complexity of life as being a simple brain function, or a random occurence.

Now, as for knowing that something is unknowable... it's the concept of being able to count to infinity. Do we "know" that we cannot count to infinity? Well... not under technical terms, no... no one has tried it. However, we "know" it is not possible because the nature of "infinity" is not defined. It is a number that goes beyond the scope of numbers, and no matter how much we keep counting, there is always one more number. Even if you start at the largest point on the known scale, there is still another number that we can't define because we haven't defined it lingering in wait. So, even if I start counting at 999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999... I'm still going to have to go to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

And after that, I have to count all the way back up again just to make the first "1" in the series a "2", and then a "3". So, counting to infinity is, by definition, impossible.

The same thing applies here. We don't "know" that Spirit is unknowable by technicality. We know it is unknowable because its nature is not defined. It's the question: "Why are we here?" No one can answer that question, because no one truly has a confirmed, defined, true report of the real resaon that we exist and contemplate matters such as these.

Did we evolve from an amoeba? Maybe. Did some All-Powerful Force just say "I'm Rick James! Let there be Life!" Maybe. I can't tell you one way or the other. No one can.

Until we can define the very reason for our being, until we can determine what exactly put us here... the concept of "Life" and "Spirit" will forever be unknowable to us mere mortals. That is just the Truth.


Gandalf