As long as we aren't trying to fuck with the transporter technology that kills you and makes another you somewhere else, I'm fine.
this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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But if the another you is undistinguishable at the quantum level... then it's still you (as seen by external observers, and honestly, I could use a break).
I suggest to you https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0667991
There's also a Family Guy episode that touches on this issue... but it's less philosophical since neither version realizes the other exists. That and some doubles/originals die in convenient ways.
I believe I have read that it's literally impossible to copy an object's quantum state without destroying it, so in a real sense a transporter that's indistinguishable at a quantum level would be moving you rather than creating a copy and killing the original.
Both are true. Copying a quantum state means moving it from one object to another, which turns the target into the source, and the source into... something else. If we managed to do that at a full body scale, a "you" would appear at a target location, while a bunch of "something else" would be left at the source location.
An external observer would say "you moved", turning a pile of target "something else" into you, and leaving a pile of "something else" at the source. You yourself... well, as long as you don't worry too much, you would also perceive having just moved from source to target.
Still, there remains that pile of "something else" that used to be you at the source location... but as long as everyone, including you, don't decide to call it "a corpse" or "your previous you's remains", everything would be fine.
To my surprise and delight, the article itself confirms Betteridge's Law of Headlines by starting off with:
A provisional answer is “no.”
Personally, I've never really seen the need for such a thing. There's no great rush to jump dozens of light years away when we have hundreds of planets and moons and other large bodies we've barely even taken a glimpse at right here in our own back yards. We can go right up to a Kardashev II civilization without having to travel more than a few light hours away.
Don't need to go light years, it's the speed that's important.
If you can hop to Mars in 8 seconds instead of 8 months we can explore our backyard a lot better.
There's no great rush to jump dozens of light years away when we have hundreds of planets and moons and other large bodies we've barely even taken a glimpse at right here in our own back yards
None of those are habitable
It's not particularly likely that any of the planets or moons around other stars are habitable either. At least not "step out of the ship and take a nice deep breath of the fresh air, picking an apple off of a nearby tree and making some kind of comment about how it's like Eden" habitable like is so common on TV. It's likely that if there's a native biosphere then that planet is going to be incredibly hostile to alien life like us.
Build habitats. If you've got the tech to build a starship then you've got the tech to build a habitat, it's way easier. Habitats will give you exactly the environment you want, not whatever you happen to find.
As long as the atmosphere is roughly similar, the native biosphere would have very little defense against us. Sure, some of the defenses that local plants and animals developed against each other might cause issues, or they might not.
We would be an invasive species on the grandest scale. A completely foreign biology would maybe have useful nutrients, or maybe not. That would be the key, but the periodic table will be the same everywhere, and chemistry being what it is, we'd probably see similar molecules, at least the simple stuff. Basic hydrocarbons and such.
The complex biochemistry would be vastly different. That could trip up human explorers.
the native biosphere would have very little defense against us.
Why is it that way around, instead of "we would have very little defense against the native biosphere?" Especially considering the native biosphere has the home court advantage, it's already well adapted to the environment it's in and has a planet's worth of diversity to draw on when dealing with new competitors.
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Technology to make a planet habitable is far more likely and within our grasp, than to travel faster than light. To add to that, you'll likely experience time-dilation with most methods of FTL travel. It's also doubtful that warp technology is possible to compress space without any ill effects with the space being compressed. Subspace doesn't exist.
Yeah, that's a pretty strong statement. I'm sure if we had the technology it would see a ton of use. Could we survive without it? Sure, but that goes for most useful technologies.
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With something like an Alcubierre drive you can still travel between planets fairly fast. (Though this concept needs basically dark matter or some type of negative energy)
Even missions to Jupiter and Saturn take 5+ years in travel time one way with normal Hohman transfers and gravity assists that still allow for orbaital capture.
Even if you could simply find some type of fuel that would allow something like the Epstein drive (from the Expanse) where you can accelerate at 1g for 1/2 the trip and decel at 1g for the second half that would cut the travel time down to something on the order of like 9 days to Saturn or so.
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because, much like the show the warp drive is from, it's not about colonization or exploiting resources, but meeting new people and going new places
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Tl;dr: we dunno. 🤷♂️
If there is a way to make it happen, it'll be interesting to find out how the universe resolves the resulting causal paradoxes. What happens if the cause of an event is able to observe the event before causing it? What happens if the cause of the event responds by not causing the event?
I think the best we can hope for if we get very very lucky with future laws of physics is a cheap way to travel near but slightly below lightspeed. Maybe some sort of way to lower the rest mass of matter.
It's much more likely there will be no immediate application of whatever the full laws are, because new physics only appears in very extreme circumstances we can't easily replicate.
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No, but on the brightside you got a much better chance of it having a 10 Forward.
Yes, you can try to change time-space before and after the space aircraft. Basically manipulating space around you. So instead you moving through space.. You move the space around you. Allowing you to accelerate at to speeds within seconds without causing harm to yourself.
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