June 17, 2004

• Where was this technology eight months ago when I lived 14 hours away from my love? ;) Seriously, very cool.
• how come it seems like they come out with some big "breakthrough" like this every six months or so, but we're still not able to be teleported, goddamn it!
• I don't want teleportation to ever happen. There'll be no excuse for being late to work, then.
• Well, they're not teleporting matter, they're teleporting information. Still pretty cool, and reiterates the mystery of quantum "entanglement": how can information travel across great distances faster than the speed of light?
• See also this MSNBC article from 1997. "Scientists have pulled off a startling trick that looks like the 'Beam-me-up-Scotty' technology of science fiction. In an Austrian laboratory, scientists destroyed bits of light in one place and made perfect replicas appear about 3 feet away. "They did that by transferring information about a crucial physical characteristic of the original light bits, called photons. The information was picked up by other photons, which took on that characteristic and so became replicas of the originals."
• Surprising news, and I'm impressed, even if it has a way to go in development yet.
• The NIST press release. I think the quote from Einstein clarifies the whole thing admirably.
• See, all of this teleportation nonsense so far looks like destroying something in one place and creating a replica in another. Bagsy not trying that one out when it reaches the market. How, exactly, do they tell that they've created a beam of light's exact replica in another place, anyway? Do they have name-tags on?
• Could someone post a link to the math involved? I'm fairly certain I'd understand it.
• That's precisely what they're doing, BBF; teleportation is going to always be about information, and not particular bits of matter. But that's ok, as STUFF isn't so much about specific particles, but about the information they carry. Like when you duplicate a file on a computer, it doesn't really matter which one is the original because they're both exactly the same. And in this type of entanglement, the original is by necessity destroyed, so copying vs. transporting becomes a purely philosophical discussion. Each photon is identified, and can only be identified by it's quantum state.
• I've never understood why people would be willing to undergo a procedure that destroys them in order to create a perfect replica at a distance. For your friends and family, it's fine -- the new creation is "you." But for you, it sucks, because you're dead. No thanks. (Like BBF said.)
• Well, I would argue the opposite. Suppose someone erased all of your memories, and you woke up a blank slate. Are you still you? The matter is there, but the information is gone. There are people who die, for minutes, and come back. Are they not the same? And every moment we die, yes? There's some oft-quoted statistic about how our entire bodies get replaced several times over in the course of our lives. I think our selves are not contained in our bodies, but arise from the information contained therein. But... I am also sentimental about my corporeal existence. I too like my body, assembled...
• Here's the site about it at the University of Innsbruck.
• My only question is what happens when they put a fly in the chamber...
• Problem is, they'd have no way of telling. This replica of this guy that gets teleported would be an exact clone of the person that was teleported, with memories up to the exact moment when he got vapourised. It would be impossible to tell if his "essence", or whatever, got copied over.
• Teleportation dramatises the philosophical question of personal identity which has been chewed over since Locke (and before). Brute physical continuity, memory, information, and functional views all have their supporters. I used to believe we were analogous to a particular run of a particular program, but these days I lean more and more to the BBF/languagehat view. Must... must not.. self-post But actually, I think what we're talking about here is quite different to the Enterprise transporter. As I understand it, that sent information about Kirk, or Spock, or whoever, through a fairly normal kind of light-speed signal. What we're dealing with here, I believe, is instantaneous transmission through the use of quantum entanglement.
• It would be impossible to tell if his "essence", or whatever, got copied over. This presupposes the existence of an "essence".
• Precisely. But even if there was an "essence," to fear that it does not get moved over is to presume that it is seated in the physical body, but not arising from it. If so, where IS it? In one way, this "spirit" is tied to the physical functions of your body--if your body dies, your spirit departs... to somewhere; but not SO tied that copying every atom wouldn't reproduce it? This is what leads me to believe that if there is an essence, a soul, it arises from the operations of the machine. Copy the machine perfectly, and your soul will follow...
• Cut and Paste Eternal Life
• Blaise - this seems to be like a brain in a bucket conundrum. If it's enough like me that no-one, me included, can tell the difference, who cares? Note, though, the article mentions it's only 75% accurate at the moment. Now, if that 25% was losing unsightly weight, fine, but I wouldn't take the risk.
• Will I be able to use it to create a massive army of me?
• Wait a minute... pete_best, do you know something about this?
• Wow. Site's reverted to an earlier version of the page.
• This site, I mean. In earlier news, Jeff Goldblum is watching you teleport.
• Yes, there was more here a while ago, Wolof. Whatever happened seems to have occurred between 3 and 8:30Am according to the monkeyfilter UTC counter. Comments have been subtracted from several threads.
• Are the comments back yet?
• Looks like they're back,dng, but Nostrildamus seems to think his FPP is missing still.
• Hmm. Crazyness. Experiment 7a limited success. Still don't hold patent on time machine. Clearly more work is needed.
• Ought to ask Wolof if this site's restored yet, because I only skimmed the page earlier.
• dng now they're not back in the innie-outie thread. That or I made a mistake thinking they were restored just now. *rubs eyes, blinks furiously*
• Experiment 7a limited success. Still don't hold patent on time machine. Clearly more work is needed. Are you the Pez who's Pez, or the Pez who's not Pez? Or maybe the Pez who is going to be Pez? *staggers off to bed*
• I love that this *very* old thought experiment might be borne out in reality. Most interesting to me is the question of what happens if somehow the original is not destroyed, but the copy is created.
• MidCT: Easy, this is what happens. The really interesting question is, is it narcissism, incest, or just mastrubation?
• Do you think people (me) have trouble spelling masturbation because growing up we weren't supposed to talk about it?
• na, just makes sense that you want to put the "rub" in mastrubation, Daniel
• Teleportation Milestone Achieved