teleportation! lawl.

HOLY SH** LONDONS FINALLY TELEPORTED MATTER!

i always thought japan would be the first ones to do it.

The story was from London, it was those Danes.

Bully for them, I suppose.

yea okay that confused me. I was like.. London? wtf, why havent i heard anything about that already then?
But yea.. because it was in Denmark.

Great, maybe in 50 years they'll get it working so that humans can be teleported. But knowing the way that technology here works, it'll probably be used by the army to send weapons to troops in foreign countries. If some sort of cataclysm doesn't occur in the next 200 years that sets technology back I could see this being used for the average Joe by then.

It'll be misused though. I mean, it's scary, as much as I would like to be lazy and get it one teleporter tube and get out in another country without having to go on a plane or something like that, imagine what could happen if people could teleport easily. Mass teleportation of troops to countries to be mobilized? Hacking the technology to send people places they DON'T want to be…the possibilities for terrible accidents is tremendous.

Why does The Phliadephia Experiment come to mind?

ccs1989
Hacking the technology to send people places they DON'T want to be…the possibilities for terrible accidents is tremendous.

I just had images of people being split in two.. or turned inside out.

…Why am I suddenly reminded of Half-Life and its dimensional rifts?

…I thought teleportation research was banned ages ago o.O

I don't think I would ever trust a teleporter. Sure it'd make for quick travel, but there is so much that could go wrong.

Like when you go through and your ass gets where it is supposed to but the rest of your body ends up in Chicago. You can't even teleport back because people without asses aren't allowed on the teleporter. Then you have to take the bus. I hate when that happens.

LowResAtari
…I thought teleportation research was banned ages ago o.O

Where'd you hear that?

When I was researching crap on the Philadelphia experiment o.o

I'm still convinced we'll never teleport people because it will probably kill them. Prove me wrong, science. I want to teleport.

I edited your post because it was distorting the forums.

Thanks Myxo, i still haven't learned how to do that.

Terminal
Why does The Phliadephia Experiment come to mind?

I was thinking “The Fly”

They might be able to transport objects one day, but I doubt they'll ever be able to transport humans and maintain life. I mean being completely de-atomized and translated into information transporting that information and using it to reconstruct the atoms. That sure sounds like something that'll kill you

Copied from Wikipedia…

Someone
The use of teleportation as a means of transport for humans still has considerable unresolved technical and philosophical issues, such as exactly how to record the human body sufficiently accurately and also be able to reconstruct it, and whether destroying a human in one place and recreating a copy elsewhere would provide a sufficient experience of continuity of existence.

This is what really scares me. The person coming out of the other end of the teleporter may not actually be me, but instead a copy.

Not only that but if you teleport again you are a copy of a copy, teleporting just a few times could lead to serious degredation of your physical self, like bootleg videos (copy of copy of copy of copy etc.) And there's no “tracking button” for people.

I'd rather have those sucky tube things like on Futurama. Those look kosher.

Rich
Copied from Wikipedia…

Someone
The use of teleportation as a means of transport for humans still has considerable unresolved technical and philosophical issues, such as exactly how to record the human body sufficiently accurately and also be able to reconstruct it, and whether destroying a human in one place and recreating a copy elsewhere would provide a sufficient experience of continuity of existence.

This is what really scares me. The person coming out of the other end of the teleporter may not actually be me, but instead a copy.

Amen. Screw teleportation. I'd never do that. Unless you can convince me that the SAME matter has been moved from one spot instantly to another, it's not the same person.

Philosophically this is comparable to the paradox of Theseus.

Attack of the clones….

Wait clones copied from our exact atoms and placed in the same order, OF COURSE! scientists have been going on Cloning all wrong!

About the Paradox of Theseus and the fact that it's different matter, I'm sure something more “Ghost in the Shell” esque would replace humans before teleporters do. As geeky as it sounds, I'm reminded of something Motoko Kusanagi from the Ghost in the Shell movie says; “I sometimes wonder if the real me died a long time ago” because of the fact that people in GiTS live in cybernetic bodies with cyber-brains, digital copies of the information in their real brains.

As cartoonists, we need to wonder how this connects to our own work. Are our comics, when seen digitally on the web or altered with an imaging program, still what we originally put down on paper? Not exactly, but the idea is the same. The idea, or if you're talking about humanity “the soul”, of an individual or a piece of work all must be considered. And do the ideas or souls or another defining aspect of the creation determine the creation (ex. Humans or a work of art) more than the physical matter it is made out of?

As more and more technology takes over, we must consider what is real and what isn't. Materialism will still exist, but with things that aren't actually material. When money started being based only on the idea of value (as well as a lot of mathematical calculations) instead of an actual substance like gold, the world changed. Now as future technologies begin to turn more and more creations into ‘data’, we as humans must wonder what is more important, the idea or the original?

dude a teleporter would be great for ordering pizza

Volte6
Amen. Screw teleportation. I'd never do that. Unless you can convince me that the SAME matter has been moved from one spot instantly to another, it's not the same person.

Would souls get lost? How do you teleport memories or knowledge, even if you could transport the matter?

And imagine if, say… oh, I dunno, a fly got in or something… Hey, that might make a good movie. But not a very good seqel. :(

SpANG
And imagine if, say… oh, I dunno, a fly got in or something… Hey, that might make a good movie. But not a very good seqel. :(

You should pitch that idea to some Hollywood executives.

Actually that was an episode of the Simpsons, probably based on a real (bad) movie.

ccs1989
Actually that was an episode of the Simpsons, probably based on a real (bad) movie.

The Fly was a great movie. The Fly II was not…

SpANG
Would souls get lost? How do you teleport memories or knowledge, even if you could transport the matter?

Well I tihnk it's obvious that our ‘apparent’ soul is always moving along with the matter… are you soul-less when you go to the grocery store or park? Just because matter is moving from A to B in any scenario doesn't mean your ‘soul’ (However you define that) gets left behind ;)

teleporting souls, now that's an idea for a comic