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I was reading this question and it got me thinking. When someone gets transported, the original form is destroyed and either recreated or recycled into a new copy of it upon arrival. However, philosophically speaking, the two copies are so indistinguishable as to be considered the same object/person. And, given the widespread use of transporter technology in Star Trek, it's obviously an argument that has been decided.

I know the subject was touched upon in a few episodes, but I want more. Has any Star Trek material — episode, novel, or even comic — discussed at depth the philosophical ramifications of (or differences between copies produced by) transporter technology?

Note: I already have the comic Star Trek: Forgiveness, which does touch upon the subject somewhat. However, no serious discussion was undertaken in that comic.

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Omegacron
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    Aside from occasional comments from characters (especially in Enterprise), "Second Chances" is the closest thing I can think of, although I'm not sure that's exactly the kind of philosophical ramifications you were thinking of – Jason Baker Mar 19 '15 at 19:24
  • this enterprise episode has some dealings with it, as a crew member hoshi isactually stuck in the transporter buffer for 8 seconds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanishing_Point_%28Star_Trek:_Enterprise%29 Otherwise sporadically enterprise does talk about about your "soul" going through the transporter. – Himarm Mar 19 '15 at 19:27
  • @JasonBaker you're probably right. I've seen everything on-screen, so I'm assuming the accepted answer will be a novel I haven't read. – Omegacron Mar 19 '15 at 19:27
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    Well, there's the entire episode where Riker's original doesn't get destroyed. – Zibbobz Mar 19 '15 at 19:56
  • @Zibbobz - that's where the philosophy part comes in. You could just as easily argue that the "original" Riker on the planet WAS destroyed, and split into two identical copies rather than the usual one copy. – Omegacron Mar 19 '15 at 20:29
  • I've added a post notice as this could too easily devolve into listing episodes where the transporter malfunctions. – AncientSwordRage Mar 19 '15 at 23:04
  • I'm like 100 percent positive that Teleporters have been explicitly stated to not be copy paste delete machines, because otherwise the audience would revolt, and in Gene's ideal future, anyone from the Federation would flip a poo at the idea of such a barbaric device. –  Mar 20 '15 at 01:17
  • Also, destroying the original before the copy arrives confirmed is just plain bad standard operating procedure. –  Mar 20 '15 at 01:17
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    @cde Whether transporters copy or not is not the question being asked here. There are other existing questions for that. – Schwern Mar 20 '15 at 01:59
  • @Schwern this question relies on the (mistaken) belief that the transporters copy/destroy. It's the basic premise that brings up the ethical considerations of the copy/destroy. –  Mar 20 '15 at 02:04
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    See http://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/63351/16696 Canon (if you consider Enterprise canon) shows the in-universe creator of the transporter specifically state that the copy/destroy process is *METAPHYSICAL NONSENSE* –  Mar 20 '15 at 02:16
  • I'm half way tempted to copy paste that answer as an answer here. –  Mar 20 '15 at 02:17
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    @cde If you would post an answer please, then it can be discussed better than this long comment thread on the question. – Schwern Mar 20 '15 at 02:30
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    @cde The Star Trek universe is not entirely consistent on the issue. Also, I don't think that the inventor calling objections "nonsense" is the most reliable evidence in-universe. That's like quoting Philip Morris to say that tobacco is healthy. – KSmarts Mar 20 '15 at 15:11
  • @ksmarts well, the creator was paralleled to the guy that self tested the polio vaccine. And tucker reply leads us to believe that the mainstream consensus is that it is not a copy/destroyer. –  Mar 20 '15 at 15:18
  • @cde I rewatched that episode, and curse you for making me rewatch Enterprise! Emory is not the word of god, he's defending his creation against what he views as unproductive philosophical nonsense. From his character, and the nature of the conversation, he's expressing disdain for the question rather than a definitive answer. He spends most of the episode bullying people into not asking too many pointed questions about his work. He's also wrong about transporter psychosis and copies. – Schwern Mar 20 '15 at 19:33
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    Enterprise is revealed in the final episode to have taken place entirely on the Holodeck, so anything that happens in it is not canon. – Gaius Mar 21 '15 at 07:15
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    @Gaius While I wish that were true, I always interpreted that to only apply to the final episode, and even then it was a recreation based on history. – Schwern Mar 22 '15 at 19:20

4 Answers4

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It's brought up in the novel Federation, when

Zephram Cochrane is beamed aboard the Enterprise after being rescued from his abductors

The man is initially confused how he got onboard the Enterprise, and is frustrated by the crewman who just keeps telling him he was 'transported'. He even guesses that the Enterprise may have used some secret military technology, which explains why the crewman is being so unhelpful in defining how he was transported.

Eventually the crewman realizes why the man is confused, and explains that the transporter is a matter-energy converter. The man reacts with shock, since he believes that he's now just a copy and the original is dead. The crewman uses some technobabble and explains how they tunnel the exact molecules from one place to another, and that they may have reassembled the man, but he's still the same man.

Bob Warwick
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The Voyager episode Tuvix deals with a transporter accident which combines the most annoying parts of Neelix and Tuvok into a single person called Tuvix. It deals with the ethical ramifications of having to kill Tuvix to restore Neelix and Tuvok. For once in Star Trek, there's no neat solution.

I'm going to go beyond the bounds of the question, beyond Star Trek, and reference the cryptically named New Outer Limits episode "Think Like A Dinosaur" which isn't about dinosaurs but the ethics of a matter transporter. Somebody happened to think dinosaur aliens would be cool. It takes a very literal interpretation that transporting is copying. You can watch it, it's not too bad. It's not Star Trek, but it directly tackles the issue.

The interstellar travel machine works by making an exact molecular copy of the travel called "jumper" at the place of destination, however the original human being is eliminated through incineration as to balance the equation. The transportation is aborted and Kamala [the transportee] is brought back to life before being incinerated, with a huge trauma for the pain and experience she went through. Later the Hanen says the molecular copy was succesful and orders Michael [the transporter operator] to balance the equation, which will mean killing Kamala.

Going beyond sci-fi, the ethical thought experiment associated with the transporter is The Swampman.

Suppose Davidson goes hiking in the swamp and is struck and killed by a lightning bolt. At the same time, nearby in the swamp another lightning bolt spontaneously rearranges a bunch of molecules such that, entirely by coincidence, they take on exactly the same form that Davidson's body had at the moment of his untimely death.

This being, whom Davidson terms "Swampman," has, of course, a brain which is structurally identical to that which Davidson had, and will thus, presumably, behave exactly as Davidson would have. He will walk out of the swamp, return to Davidson's office at Berkeley, and write the same essays he would have written; he will interact like an amicable person with all of Davidson's friends and family, and so forth.

Interestingly, this was proposed in 1987. Obviously Davidson was not a Star Trek fan. One camp holds that the creature which comes out of the swamp is not Davidson and has no causal relationship to Davidson, even if it acts indistinguishably from Davidson. It has no history, and is merely a coincidence.

The other camp says of course there's a relationship, the swampman was created based on Davidson's state at the time. If Davidson was different just before he was disintegrated, the swampman would be different. The idea that it's an extraordinarily improbable coincidence makes the thought experiment divorced from any useful reality.

Yet another camp says the whole thing relies on there being a mind/brain duality, the idea that "the mind" is distinct from the physical organ of the brain. They reject this and adhere to mind-brain identity, that you are a bag of chemicals and that's that. If the swampman is physically identical to Davidson, then it is Davidson.

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Schwern
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    See also the Hofstadter/Dennett-edited compilation of philosophy-of-mind articles The Mind's I for interesting further discussion of this topic. My own educated guess based on what I know of Gene Roddenberry is that TOS never addressed the question because he felt there wasn't one. As an avowed Secular Humanist he would have no doubt at all in the "bag of chemicals" explanation. The transporter moves your matter as energy, so it moves all of you; there's no soul to worry about. – dodgethesteamroller Mar 19 '15 at 23:38
  • The swampman passes the Duck Test for Davidson. – Mindwin Remember Monica Mar 20 '15 at 02:30
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    The idea that a transporter could combine two people (of different species no less) into one person with a composite personality... That's soft science fiction even by Star Trek standards-- edging into Doctor Who territory. – Beta Mar 20 '15 at 04:04
  • @Beta It even merged their clothing designs ;p A pretty impressive orchid. – Lightness Races in Orbit Mar 20 '15 at 12:36
  • @Beta How dare you! Doctor Who never merged people in a transmat! – Mr Lister Mar 20 '15 at 19:25
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The philosophy of transportation is discussed at length in the very early (maybe the first?) tie-in novel Spock Must Die by James Blish. The plot revolves around an evil duplicate of Spock created by a transporter experiment.

Unfortunately my copy is 1500 miles away right now or I'd quote some. Here's some synopsis from Wikipedia:

Doctor Leonard McCoy and Engineer Montgomery Scott discuss McCoy's fear of the transporter. McCoy posits that an original person is killed upon dematerialization and a duplicate is created at the destination. Scotty explains that the technology converts matter into energy, transmits it and reassembles it into the same original object, but McCoy is not convinced and he wonders what happens to the soul in a transporter beam.

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Organic Marble
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I cannot comment on Organic Marble's answer (not enough rep), but Spock Must Die! is the first instance I know of in Star Trek where they wonder about that, and indeed mentions the possibility of the soul and what happens to it.

Spock's answer (for what it's worth) is that the motive for the question is its own answer.

In actual canon material, in the episode "Second Chances" Riker ran into himself one day in the form of an unexpected transporter-generated duplicate, and the spare Riker was treated as just as much William Riker as the one whose adventures we'd been following, minus the advancement in rank.

Darth Wedgius
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