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Why Teleportation Would Kill You

Why Teleportation Would Kill You on HackerTube: recommended by 2 Hacker News commenters across 2 separate months, 2016–2020.

CGP Grey

explainer · evergreen

Open on YouTube

CGP Grey asks whether Star Trek-style teleportation would kill you and recreate a copy, working through the philosophy of identity and the Ship of Theseus. It is a short animated explainer.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Pointed to in threads about mind uploading and teleportation as a good, accessible look at personal identity.

people recommended it
2
separate months
2
strong recommendations
0
discussed on HN
2016–2020
“CGP Grey has a good look at the question wrt Star Trek teleportation”
— macintux, Mar 2018, in “A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal””

What HN commenters said

6 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.

macintuxMar 2018Recommends

This question descends from an ancient philosophical question; see the Ship of Theseus[0]. CGP Grey has a good look at the question wrt Star Trek teleportation[1]. [0] [link] [1] ▶ this video

in “A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”” · View on HN

rendezvouscpMar 2016Recommends

That’s a great question that’s been pondered by philosophers for a while: [link] Here’s a fun video talking about the same thing: ▶ this video

in “If you're alive in 30 years you might be in 1000 years too” · View on HN

bmn__Apr 2020Cites it

> a YouTube video CGP Grey: The Trouble with Transporters ▶ this video Steve Shives: Is Star Trek's Transporter Actually a Murder Machine? [link] > why wouldn’t they just [link] For purpose of storytelling, these powerful side effects of transporters need to be restricted. Hence, as an in-universe explanation, a pattern buffer ∙ is a physical phenomenon that cannot be (fully) expressed as information ∙ deteriorates over time, so needs to be rematerialised soon. For the exception, see [link]

in “Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming (2018)” · View on HN

martin-adamsApr 2019Cites it

Even if we are just mass and particles, then what happens if you just skip the vaporizing part. ( ▶ this video )

in “Travel through wormholes is possible, but slow” · View on HN

sillysaurus3Mar 2017Cites it

This runs into the question of whether you're a single person. ▶ this video [link] If you transplant half your brain into another body, and both of you wake up, which one is you? If you start swapping your atoms one by one with someone else, and neither of you die, at what point do you become the other person? Unfortunately questions like that are necessary in order to address the idea of a simulation afterlife. If our bodies are literally who we are, and our bodies disperse, it may not make sense to say that we can still be simulated after our bodies disappear.

in “Your yearly dose of is-the-universe-a-simulation” · View on HN

s_kilkSep 2016Cites it

> The original photon was in fact destroyed, and only the information about its state was transmitted. Isn't that how teleportation works in, for example, Star Trek? ▶ this video

in “Researchers quantum teleport particle of light six kilometres” · View on HN

Topics & tags

Philosophy & ethicsConsciousness & cognitionteleportationship of theseusidentitystar trekthought experiment