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I asked a minister once (one of the few that I really respect), "If you die on the operating table, why are they able to bring you back if at the moment of death your soul departs for heaven?"

He asked me "Who ever said your soul goes right away?"

That right there solved the transporter equation for me. Yes, your body may TECHNICALLY physically die for a few seconds, but people are restored to full life after MINUTES apparently with souls in tact.

So, I hypothesize that the soul simply re-merges with the body when it's reassembled. No death, and no further unnecessary complications.

That's a good explaination from a religious standpoint, but what about those who don't believe in a soul? How does electrical activity in your brain continue on into a different body?

Rochey wrote:That's a good explaination from a religious standpoint, but what about those who don't believe in a soul? How does electrical activity in your brain continue on into a different body?

Well, if the transporter can and does manage to take every particle in your body and preserve all the information about it you could consider that the transporter doesn't kill you so much as puts you in momentary suspended animation.

For another wrench in the works, anyone remember Barclay's trip into the transporter to hug the flying turds? Mid transport and he seems to still be in complete possession of his faculties.

Tyyr wrote:For another wrench in the works, anyone remember Barclay's trip into the transporter to hug the flying turds? Mid transport and he seems to still be in complete possession of his faculties.

That doesn't make sense unless his brain was in one piece, or the impulses could travel really far, or of course, if all of it was in the 'shape' of his body, just energy instead of matter, maybe?

I think it's evidence that brain activity doesn't cease during transport however.

Mark wrote:I asked a minister once (one of the few that I really respect), "If you die on the operating table, why are they able to bring you back if at the moment of death your soul departs for heaven?"

He asked me "Who ever said your soul goes right away?"

That right there solved the transporter equation for me. Yes, your body may TECHNICALLY physically die for a few seconds, but people are restored to full life after MINUTES apparently with souls in tact.

So, I hypothesize that the soul simply re-merges with the body when it's reassembled. No death, and no further unnecessary complications.

For reasons of mystical numerology, the Catholics (for example) believe that the soul remains near the body for three days.

Rochey wrote:That's a good explaination from a religious standpoint, but what about those who don't believe in a soul? How does electrical activity in your brain continue on into a different body?

Again it's a question of which criteria you use for "identity." If you believe primarily in qualitative identity, they don't need to be the same bioelectric impulses - they just need to be identical.

Nickswitz wrote:

Tyyr wrote:For another wrench in the works, anyone remember Barclay's trip into the transporter to hug the flying turds? Mid transport and he seems to still be in complete possession of his faculties.

That doesn't make sense unless his brain was in one piece, or the impulses could travel really far, or of course, if all of it was in the 'shape' of his body, just energy instead of matter, maybe?

Or, as the episode directly stated, they weren't conducting a proper transport - they paused the process at the point immediately before Barclay would have disintegrated. How exactly the other crewmembers were removed as well is unclear, but was is clear is that Barclay never dematerialised.

I try REALLY hard to ignore that episode. I could never understand how, if your broken down at the moleclular level, you could move, think, or see........much less grab on to something and bring it OUT of transport with you

You can't, and he wasn't.

What was happening in TWOK when the Kirks party were beamed up from the Genesis case - Saavik was still talking through the transport.

Mark wrote:I try REALLY hard to ignore that episode. I could never understand how, if your broken down at the moleclular level, you could move, think, or see........much less grab on to something and bring it OUT of transport with you

Still not as bad as the worst case of transporter BS. I give that award to the TNG episode where they capture that escaped super solider. When they are trying to turn him back over to his people, he FIGHTS the transporter beam, and manages to resist being transported and escapes into the ship. How do you resist transport? That's like flexing really hard to keep a phaser from buring a hole in you.

Lighthawk wrote:How do you resist transport? That's like flexing really hard to keep a phaser from buring a hole in you.

Bit like Admiral Quinn did in Conspiracy, when he survived a Phaser set to kill due the the adrenaline? For that matter, Remmicks head took its sweet time exploding.

Lighthawk wrote:

Mark wrote:I try REALLY hard to ignore that episode. I could never understand how, if your broken down at the moleclular level, you could move, think, or see........much less grab on to something and bring it OUT of transport with you

Still not as bad as the worst case of transporter BS. I give that award to the TNG episode where they capture that escaped super solider. When they are trying to turn him back over to his people, he FIGHTS the transporter beam, and manages to resist being transported and escapes into the ship. How do you resist transport? That's like flexing really hard to keep a phaser from buring a hole in you.

The only explination I can think of is it was the confinment beam he escaped. As for the rest, he must have just pulled himself together

kostmayer wrote:What was happening in TWOK when the Kirks party were beamed up from the Genesis case - Saavik was still talking through the transport.

She was still talking while the transporter effect was visible - that's not quite the same as talking during the actual transport. Ditto with Rogar Danar. Since the actual dematerialisation has to be effectively instantaneous, the sparklies must be something else - the Annular Confinement Beam or the imaging scanners for example.

Seeing a person's own point of view during transport can't be evidence that consciousness continues throughout.

Imagine there are (for instance) 5 steps to transport and you remain conscious for 1 and 2, then stop being conscious for 3, then become conscious again for 4 and 5. From your own point of view you just went 1, 2, 4, 5 - with no gap in between.

Saavik would have started talking to Kirk, she would have talked through 1 and 2, then she would have stopped talking and Kirk would have stopped hearing her at 4, then everything would have resumed seamlessly for 5 and 6. Similarly everything Barclay experienced could have been during 1 and 2.


Okay, here's a question. I invent a device that suspends time - stasis pod sort of deal, but it doesn't just freeze you or stop your metabolism, it actually suspends time. I put you in it and while it's on your atoms aren't moving, your brain is not functioning, your consciousness has utterly ceased.

Are you dead? When I turn it off and you wake up, are you a different person?