My guess would be never, since there's no known physical principal which would allow it.

I suppose digital beings could do something similar by emailing themselves around.

Like with a bus pass, maybe similar to in Ringworld? Possibly never. We haven't discovered how to transfer mass that way.

[removed]

Eh. There's a giant thought experiment whereas teleportation breaks the fundamental laws of physics, and thus we don't know if the person who comes out of the other end would be "you" or a "copy of you with your memories"

[removed]

My guess would be greater than 300 years but probably less than 2K years.

Human development is not linear nor always escalating though. We have some hurdles to clear to make it past 500 years from now and with development and population being inverse to each other, it may not be possible at all.

[removed]

Never. If it’s possible at all it’s probably either be monetarily or ethically unviable I’m guessing.

[removed]

[removed]

After we're visited by advanced aliens? I don't think we have the slightest clue right now how to even begin researching teleportation.

I’ll never trust a teleporter. I think our original form will die, and then be recreated elsewhere, but our string of consciousness will not continue, even if our copy says it does

Considering the complications of teleportation with memories/conciousness I reckon if we're going to get teleportation it's biggest benefit will be in the freight sector- with raw materials, need iron ore moved? Don't ship it, teleport it! - need raw supplies on the moon for the permanent moon base etc etc.

Nope unless we're in some type of Nier-esque global apocolypse where humanity is digitally uploaded into a super computer

When our consciousness can be removed from one vessel and placed into another

Ditto on never ever. It is as fictional as Star Trek's replicator.

[removed]

[removed]

There’s the moral dilemma’s too. If you have cancer and walk into a teleporter…should it put the cancer back when you’re reconstructed?

Once the magnetism/mathematics it requires to make it becomes commercial, probably a few hundred years away.

This what I have always talked about. What if a teleporter just disintegrates you and creates an exact copy on the other side. The second you would have all the memories you had right up till walking into the teleporter and so would believe it worked perfectly. While the original you would be dead.

[removed]

Never. We might get fully immersive remote operation of a cyborg or something similar eventually, but not for many decades at least. Assuming civilization doesn’t collapse or stagnate first of course

I recommend Nolan’s The Prestige!

Even if we can make a teleporter it wouldn’t be put into use because the gov would stop it to not hurt the fossil fuel industry

this and easily cloned bodies makes the most entry level of teleportation but likely. best option seems to be wormhole manipulation because you can choose a physical space as an exit. born too soon =(. prolly wont have consciousness removal easily/safely/cheaply done in the next 50 years. would so love to be wrong tho.....

Killing your old self to transfer your consciousness to an essentially 3D printed copy? Yeah, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle would seem to suggest it’s a hard no. It would be well cool though.

I don't think we'll ever have teleportation, but I do think we'll have wormhole gates. My guess would be within 200 years, assuming scientific development isn't hindered.

[removed]

Temporary plastic email clones?!

i like this

edit: my guess is 15-20 years for that kinda tech

Fantastic movie

What about reconstructing a 14”

Mini wormhole gates. No construction or teleportation needed.

If you die and instantly reappear somewhere else with all of your memories and everything about you is the same, what's the difference?

[removed]

Isn't that broken when you sleep, or when you get knocked out? I'm not sure that's the biggest issue with teleportation

Our AI Overlords will be transferring (teleporting) themselves around and into local assets through system-wide high speed wireless systems while we hang out in our protected reservations that maintain a 2030's or so tech level.

It’ll be another you, not you. To your friends and family, nothing has changed, but you don’t get to see what happens

[removed]

[removed]

But how would a biological copy be recreated, that too, at an instant? Like, even now, it takes a lot of effort to even recreate an exact cell.

Not to mention the fact that if used on anything other than living beings, the "transport" part is pointless, only the "print" part matters.

Let's say you successfully teleport an orange once, disintegrating it in one side and rebuilding it on the other side. Since you already have the blueprint of an orange, why would you teleport any other orange? Just print again the orange you already teleported. As long as you have the required elements, you can always do that.

Yeah yeah. Which government?

You don't think China wants a tech that makes them a superpower over the USA?

You see how quickly that thought breaks down when you....think about it?

Kinda strange to think about… this seems to me to break the fundamentals of religious beliefs. If when I die, I go to heaven or hell…. What about my clone? If I murdered someone and end up going to hell, does my clone face the same judgement?

Is that really a dilemma though? Probably an extra cost.

What's the difference?

You go in, you are then destroyed and cloned with all memories. It could happen

I’ll only trust a wormhole, if I can see the other end and also if I put body part in and out and don’t feel like something is cut off ;)

[removed]

Good thing those are not real concerns because once we start playing god there’s not much use for ancient gods

[removed]

And I'm asking what's the difference? You would wake up feeling exactly as you do now. Would you also not want your consciousness uploaded into a computer if it meant you kept existing?

Oof, imagine if when death comes, its literally just eternal dark and nothingness with an endless feeling of consciousness.

Teleporting results in this, but noones knows till it happens, but you will never be able to warn people.

Fun thoughts

Just remember that humans burn gasoline to turn a shaft to do work.

That's where we're at so just marginally ahead of a monkey with a bone.

Elon has a team working on it. We’ll be transporting to mars in 3-5 years. Unless the libs ruin it. /s

Probably not for many years. I seen a quantum experiment that they will able to kind of do it. Then again quantum physics just confuse me so idk

Now if we could do that why not put all those memories into a synthetic body and have a robot running around thinking it was us for the next 3 or 4 hundred years.

Told my wife about this the other day...blew her mind...made her angry...apparently I've ruined star trek for her.

Someone else would be waking up feeling exactly as I do now. Not me.

I thought about that not too long ago. So my theory is that it will just be a new expensive method of travel.

Hypothetycally speaking, if we could teleport it would take a while until it became secure enough to qualified people to use and then we would need more time to make it secure for non qualified people. Take a car for example, even thought "everyone can drive a car" you still need to learn about it and new laws, rules and spaces where invented for cars to move.

Also everything would be expensive and not everyone would be able to afford it. Planes were invented 100 years ago and not everyone can afford to fly once a year, let alone when they want. And of course you need qualified people to fly the plane.

That's my take at least. Teleportation if it was invented today, and viable, not killing you during the process of teleport would take at least 100 years to be a commercial way of travel, and it would still be an expensive one.

I must not be being clear. You wouldn’t wake up. It’s like suddenly generating a twin with all your memories and feelings. You suddenly don’t take over the body of your twin. You die, your twin lives on, your consciousness and existence is over, but your twin takes your place

That's disintegration teleportation, but wormhole teleportation doesn't create clones. It's always you stepping through the wormhole.

I feel like you’re probably very aware of the philosophical thought problem that is inherent to this idea.

[deleted]

So just like being uploaded into a computer?

Hi, Practical_Put_3892. Thanks for contributing. However, your submission was removed from /r/Futurology.

> > Thoughts on teleportation as a means of travel?

All posts must have an initial comment - a Submission Statement, that suggests a line of future-focused discussion for the topic posted.

We want this submission statement to elaborate on the topic being posted and suggest how it might be discussed in relation to the future.

Refer to the subreddit rules, the transparency wiki, or the domain blacklist for more information.

[Message the Mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/Futurology&subject=Question regarding the removal of this submission by /u/Practical_Put_3892&message=I have a question regarding the removal of this submission if you feel this was in error.

Well my 7 year old son says that he wants to be the one who invents it, so id say we're at least 20 years out.

Imagine play a VR game, but instead you control a robot on Mars.

Uhh if we had such technology something tells me the only people who had cancer where the ones who didn't want it removed.

>digital beings

In any case, your consciousness ceases under general anesthesia and people still do that.

[removed]

This is not a moral dilemma, in my opinion. Because the answer is obviously yes, since trying to modify the teleported being during the teleport risks causing more issues beyond the cancer.

On the other hand, if the medical knowledge evolves enough to make such "fix" possible, then it would probably be available in another way. Or at least, the healing teleport would be offered as a specialized kind of surgery, only applied in hospitals (if they still exist).

You are your consciousness. If someone killed you in your sleep and uploaded an exact copy of your consciousness into an exact copy of your body, would you know when you woke up or would you just be you? Also please address the question of whether or not you would want your consciousness uploaded into a computer to prevent death.

Yeah which is another thing I wouldn’t do.

Well to answer the computer thing, yeah I’d wanna be uploaded, although that was never part of the original discussion. I’m not gonna upload my consciousness every time I teleport. And my point is that I don’t believe our consciousness will transfer over, which is why I don’t trust teleporters.

I specifically stated in the question that the premise is that your consciousness is transferred. You can't ignore the premise if you are trying to answer the question in good faith. So if your consciousness is perfectly replicated, would you be willing to teleport? If you still say no, how is that any different from the computer upload?

So you would take death and nothingness over continued consciousness?

Hey, if they can 100% without a doubt prove that they can transfer my consciousness over when teleporting with no issues, then hell yeah, why not. I just don’t believe it will be possible

If I upload my consciousness to a computer I will be able to interact with it because it will be a separate entity. Not me.All that would do is create two of me.

Definitely agree that it is far fetched and definitely will be long after our lifetimes if it ever does become possible. Just a fun question since the ethics of science are so important to debate before the product becomes a reality since things get so much more complicated once we have access to the immense power that science can bring us.

How do you know that doesn't happen every morning?

I’m sure 100 years ago, the idea of someone walking on the moon was just as crazy, so who knows what the future will bring

Seems like using something like neural link to tap into a bot through which you can experience the world without moving your actual body would be just about as good for most purposes.

I don’t think there’s a way to do the real thing, but who knows what we’ll learn over thousands of more years civilizing

It doesn't break any law of physics and that's not what's claimed in the video. The thought experiment is simply to demonstrate paradoxes in the classical notion of identity. The solution to this supposed conundrum is actually pretty simple; there isn't any essential "you" who has experiences. There's only experience itself, i.e. experience is the net result of being, not a thing that beings do. At the moment that two exact copies emerge from the transporter they cease to be exact copies, simply by virtue of the fact that they no longer occupy the same space. They're both equally "you" inasfar as a "you" exists, which is to say that it really doesn't, at least not in the sense of an essential being. The continual chain of cause and effect that thinks of itself as you is multiplied and split so that each chain is now separate, operating from two different perspectives at once. That situation is not essentially different than the situation of your experience existing alongside the experience of a person who's been separate from you their entire life, i.e. just another person.

It boils down to: How can you be sure that its you? If i teleport, but I'm dead, and another me is alive with my memories, that is a very significant difference. The difference is that everyone else thinks you are you but for the real you, you are dead, you don't wake back up. But there is another you that thinks they teleported and woke back up.

But "perfectly replicated" is a weird way to word it. If you truly mean replicated, that means copied. The real us would be dead, gone, never to awake as us again. If you mean "if your consciousness could be maintained and transfered as is without the originals death" then...

If that fear could be put aside and we could be sure that it is indeed us, and not just a clone with our atoms reconstructed, then it would be fine for most people probably.

You are your consciousness sitting in a sack of meat that takes a while to spoil. If you would rather die in that meat than be inside a computer or in another body, that's your prerogative. I would however point out that you just said that it would make two of you.

If your consciousness is moved vs copied what's the difference? Would you ever know the difference?

Fingers crossed

you get death and nothingness either way. it would be a copy of you that continues on. seems like you’re misunderstanding

Moved = you are aware that youre still alive. Copied = you are dead, heaven, hell, eternal nothingness, etc.

Your copied clone wouldnt know the difference.

I unserstand your argument. But the copy isnt the same you. Its another person with your memories. You do not get to see through the copies eyes or control the copies body. You ceased to exist.

So to answer your question, no, we wouldnt know. Because we would simply die, and another version of us, which is not us, would live on in our place, thinking that it truly is us.

That's a fundamental difference.

Your question is basically: If you jumped off a bridge and died, but a demon got to walk around in your meat suit afterwards, looking like you, talking like you, acted like you... would you know?

You are your consciousness. As long as that continues, you are alive. An exact copy of you is still you. Do you feel that a person in a coma with no conscious thought wakes up and is now a different person?

What if you were moved while in a coma? If your consciousness was copied, how would you know. You would never experience nothingness, you would just wake up in a new place, so back to one of the old questions, what's the difference if you can't tell that anything has changed. Your consciousness is you. If your consciousness is in a copy of your body how is that not you? I'm getting the feeling that I'm having a discussion with someone who thinks that there is some component of this that involves a "soul" which is what makes them who they are as opposed to their consciousness.

I don't think you comprehend the argument. The argument is that even though everything else may appear to be the same, and for all intents and purposes to everyone else obersving you it would be....

But the argument people are giving you is that what if YOU are completetly DEAD. Teleporting was just an incinerator that killed you, and something exactly like you was in your place on the other side.

The argument is whether or not you would wake up or not and still get to live your life. If i am dead and dont wake up, but something else gets to live as me, that kind of makes my life moot.

If a clone of me wakes up, but the real me is instead experiencing darkness forever because of death.... thats a big difference.

Your argument is simply "but if you wake up how would you know" the point everyone else is making to you is: what if you don't wake up, and something else is now living your life instead of you?

Do you underatand that last part? That youre dead? Something else gets to live your life, while the real you never got to experience it?

Youre stuck on: yeah but its your atoms. Everyone else is stuck on: Do I, my current stream of consciousness get to continue to exist or am i basically dead and a clone of me gets to live instead?

Those are two different things. And teleportation could be either one. We don't know. People will all accept doing it if there's a way to ensure you don't just simply die and have something else live on as you.

"experiencing darkness forever" so it is an afterlife issue for you. I'm not talking about atoms being copied, I specified consciousness. An exact copy of your consciousness is you.

Nothing to do with afterlife. Its to emphasize that whatever is after death is likely what youll experience. You are arguing what many scientists consider wrong/impossible. That even though "you" reformed might be all the same atoms, which poses its own problems in transporting just the atoms alone, but many scientists believe the person that gets reformed isnt actually you. You would not be the teleported person. Itd be a new you. Pre-teleport you, dead. In the grand scheme, assuming you don't mind being dead, then you are right, it wouldn't matter and your clones wouldn't know the difference. I guess it just matters if you mind dying and letting a copy live in your place.

Why are you going on about the possibility of this happening in a question that is based on the premise of this being a reality? We are supposing that you can be copied, and that you are your consciousness. The transportation of matter isn't even important to this question so stop talking about atoms. You can experience nothing so that isn't a concern either. It all boils down to, are you your consciousness and if that consciousness is moved or copied, are you still you.

The guy you originally responded to said he would never trust a teleporter because it wouldnt be him. You're the only one going on about the possibility of your consciousness being copied as still being you. As if you can't understand what a copy means. Last response from me. Have a good one.

and I asked him about an exact copy of his consciousness. You lose continuity with reality every single day but I assume you don't have any issues with that or believing that you are still you despite you being a little different each and every time you regain consciousness. If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, are you still you.

Keep spares in the tank. Rusty called them slugs.