To what extent can technology break down the human mind? Can the brain be dissolved to more than atoms, but into the psychological model (which I’ll refer to as "psyche")? In its basic existence, is the brain akin to computer memory and consist of ones and zeros (ons and offs)? Or akin to the next generation of computing, quantum mechanics, to consist of energy which can be in one or multiple states of existence at any given time? Can its state be measured and duplicated as I transferring computer memory from one memory unit to another? The tacit foundation of teleportation relies, to the detriment of its own existence, of the latter, that every minutiae of the human psyche can be read, recorded, saved, duplicated, and written back to organic matter.
I find the most juvenile arguments against teleportation are those that center on future technology’s ability to destroy and recreate molecules – not what makes us human and not only what makes organic tissue but what makes our chemical compounds. I would have scoffed at this assumption anyways, but the University of Illinois has created a machine that can synthesize small molecules. Where the juveniles’ will focus their argument now is the ability to combine molecules onto organic matter, such as a mitochondria. As technological advances are made and the possibilities of grand-scale molecular synthesis becomes more and more possible, the juvenile’s current position is crumbling. For the purposes of advance this writer’s position, large-scale biological molecular synthesis is assumed to be not just a valid hypothesis but is inevitable.
The complexity is now not how to rebuild molecules, but reassembling them. In Star Trek the molecules are reformed thousands of miles away, with no physical device at the rematerialization point. Let’s humor the juveniles and posit that, at least during the birth of teleportation, a device is positioned at the rematerialization point.
Teleportation (ala Star Trek) requires the dematerialization of matter, a medium to transfer energy without traversing the physical space between them, and the rematerialization of matter. The mechanism is in place to reconstruct the human however, now presenting itself, is the need for a mechanism to de- and re- materialize what makes us human (psyche) – what makes me me and you you. If the teleportation of organic, living matter is ever to be realized, then the teleportation mechanism must be able to tell the mouse it’s a mouse and this is what a mouse does; to tell the John this is what a John is and what a John does.
Teleportation will prove that the psyche resides in one of two (places):
1. A memory chip with stored information is broken down to its primary elements (silicon, copper, etc.), teleported, then reconstructed. What was stored on this memory chip is lost. If successful, Teleportation will prove the human psyche resides outside the brain, in another plane of existence by simply recreating the tissue the psyche rematerializes. (If this is true, how does the psyche find its former vessel? Why does it even return? If our psyche resides in a higher plane of existence, will we realize this existence when we die? Will we remember our former “selves”? Will we choose to return or choose another physical existence somewhere else in the universe?”)
2. Once the singularity is actualized - when the human psyche and artificial intelligence converge - the psyche can to be read and stored in such a way that it can be used to write to a new organic medium. The record of the psyche must include memories, how the individual perceived past experiences and relates to them, how he feels about things, his emotions, and so on. If the human mind can be read in such a way and rewritten, a debate to the ethics of such is destined to take place for, if the psyche can be rewritten once, what is to prevent it from being rewritten multiple times to multiple organic vessels (or even inorganic). (I think this would be the ideal as an individual can live multiple lives having unique experiences, then each’s experiences can be converged into one, into the original, so that the original will know the experiences had they been his own – as they were. The risks involved is the possibility of duplicating mass murderers (or worse yet, lawyers), of being hacked, even of a duplicate turning against the original.)
I'm not knowledgeable enough about the psyche and, regretfully, cannot expand on why I'm certain that the psyche is lost when the brain is dematerialized, but that is my position, so option number three is the only viable means of "teleportation" though it has nothing to do with the de- and re- materialization of matter:
3. The more likely possibility of transporting the human from one place to another is the man-made wormhole. The wormhole will be a similar entity to the black hole - a Black Pipe if you will. The teleportation mechanism will establish this Black Pipe. It’s said that the human body, if sucked into a black hole, is distorted, stretched, etc and due to the immense pressure, the molecules that make up the physical body disassociate to individual atoms. The Black Pipe must remedy this problem so that the “pressure” and level of distortion is held constant and safe, like when water is put under so much pressure that it will not form into steam no matter how hot it is heated.
I've neither proven to the reader that the psyche resides in another plane of existence, nor have I proven that it can be read and re-written to organic matter, hopefully sparked the conversation as to whether the psyche can be replicated. What I have done is proven to myself that matter can be “reconstructed”, but the psyche can not. Thus a different method of teleportation must be used, one that does not follow the preconceptions adopted from Star Trek. A system that borrows the lessons taught by black holes must be adopted in such a way that an entry point and exit point can be established in fixed time and space. It must also not crush nor rarefy the “payload”, the speed at which the cargo is transported must be brief as it is likely the cargo will still experience pain if the environment is inside the Black Pipe is not held constant.
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