1
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:06,760
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:13,039 --> 00:00:15,560
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

3
00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:18,799
Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb and dian Joe McCormick, and we

4
00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:22,680
Speaker 2: are back with another Star Trek Week episode. Here on

5
00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:25,479
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we're going to be talking

6
00:00:25,520 --> 00:00:28,360
Speaker 2: about transporters and consciousness. But I do want to go

7
00:00:28,440 --> 00:00:30,920
Speaker 2: ahead and get this out out there. We are not

8
00:00:31,160 --> 00:00:34,839
Speaker 2: going to fully explain consciousness, nor are we going to

9
00:00:34,920 --> 00:00:39,760
Speaker 2: fully explain Star Trek transporters or teleportation in the Star

10
00:00:39,800 --> 00:00:40,559
Speaker 2: Trek universe.

11
00:00:40,840 --> 00:00:41,839
Speaker 3: This is a big topic.

12
00:00:42,120 --> 00:00:46,559
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, So we're basically going to Yeah, we're going

13
00:00:46,640 --> 00:00:50,040
Speaker 2: to chat about it. We're going to discuss some interesting concepts.

14
00:00:50,159 --> 00:00:52,640
Speaker 2: We're going to discuss some thought experiments tied into the

15
00:00:52,680 --> 00:00:56,720
Speaker 2: whole thing, and we're going to reference some novel uses

16
00:00:56,760 --> 00:01:01,280
Speaker 2: of teleportation on Star Trek, Star Trek motion pictures and

17
00:01:01,320 --> 00:01:04,600
Speaker 2: so forth. But you know, we're still trying to figure

18
00:01:04,640 --> 00:01:08,160
Speaker 2: out how consciousness works, and actually being able to teleport

19
00:01:08,840 --> 00:01:11,160
Speaker 2: a living conscious being from point A to point B

20
00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:18,520
Speaker 2: remains somewhat beyond our grasp and reach as modern humans.

21
00:01:18,760 --> 00:01:20,680
Speaker 2: I'll also go ahead and add the caveat here that

22
00:01:20,720 --> 00:01:24,920
Speaker 2: we are not Star Trek experts or Trek's perts, I guess,

23
00:01:25,600 --> 00:01:29,360
Speaker 2: and as always invite additional insight and observations from all

24
00:01:29,400 --> 00:01:32,000
Speaker 2: of our listeners, many of whom have seen far more

25
00:01:32,040 --> 00:01:33,959
Speaker 2: Star Trek than both of us combined.

26
00:01:34,400 --> 00:01:37,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, we talked a bit about our individual Star Trek

27
00:01:37,600 --> 00:01:40,080
Speaker 3: viewing histories in the last episode, which if you haven't

28
00:01:40,080 --> 00:01:42,319
Speaker 3: heard the other one from earlier this week, go back

29
00:01:42,360 --> 00:01:43,880
Speaker 3: and check that out too. That's the one where we

30
00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:47,520
Speaker 3: talked about the salt vampire featured in the first ever

31
00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:50,640
Speaker 3: episode of Star Trek and some fascinating analogs in the

32
00:01:50,640 --> 00:01:55,040
Speaker 3: real world in biology. But yeah, as I mentioned in

33
00:01:55,040 --> 00:01:58,880
Speaker 3: the last episode, I have always liked Star Trek. I'm

34
00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:01,440
Speaker 3: not like an anti Trek by any means, but I'm

35
00:02:01,480 --> 00:02:04,480
Speaker 3: just way less exposed to Trek than people might assume.

36
00:02:04,760 --> 00:02:07,560
Speaker 3: You know, I've seen most of the original cast movies,

37
00:02:08,400 --> 00:02:11,840
Speaker 3: handful of episodes of the original series, and mainly the

38
00:02:11,919 --> 00:02:15,919
Speaker 3: solid the first whole season of Star Trek the Next Generation,

39
00:02:16,080 --> 00:02:18,680
Speaker 3: which people tell me is not the best there ever was.

40
00:02:18,960 --> 00:02:22,280
Speaker 2: The uniforms are super tight and uncomfortable looking. Yeah, on

41
00:02:22,760 --> 00:02:24,160
Speaker 2: that season, for sure.

42
00:02:24,160 --> 00:02:26,520
Speaker 3: I was making a go at watching the entire next

43
00:02:26,520 --> 00:02:30,079
Speaker 3: Generation and the effort petered out. But I know there's

44
00:02:30,080 --> 00:02:31,800
Speaker 3: a lot of good stuff in there. I never got to.

45
00:02:32,160 --> 00:02:35,280
Speaker 2: It's probably one of those shows where you really need

46
00:02:36,120 --> 00:02:39,119
Speaker 2: a curated list of which episodes to hit along the way.

47
00:02:39,160 --> 00:02:41,640
Speaker 2: Which I'm to understand is it's much the same with

48
00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:44,520
Speaker 2: The X Files, which, yes, as we've discussed in the show,

49
00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:48,079
Speaker 2: I'm very under familiar with. I've only seen like one

50
00:02:48,160 --> 00:02:49,200
Speaker 2: or two episodes of that.

51
00:02:49,520 --> 00:02:51,560
Speaker 3: Okay, so we're the other way around on that. I've

52
00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:54,800
Speaker 3: seen basically all of the X Files, And yeah, X

53
00:02:54,840 --> 00:02:59,279
Speaker 3: Files is I believe the show with the widest distribution

54
00:02:59,480 --> 00:03:02,640
Speaker 3: of episode quality of any show I've ever seen. Like

55
00:03:03,520 --> 00:03:06,880
Speaker 3: best X Files episodes are among the best television ever made.

56
00:03:07,360 --> 00:03:09,880
Speaker 3: A lot of episodes are some of the worst stuff

57
00:03:09,919 --> 00:03:10,560
Speaker 3: I've ever seen.

58
00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:13,840
Speaker 2: Now, coming back to Star Trek here, as I mentioned

59
00:03:13,840 --> 00:03:15,839
Speaker 2: in the last episode, I was mostly a Star Trek

60
00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:19,280
Speaker 2: the next Generation kid, watched most of, if not all,

61
00:03:19,360 --> 00:03:22,360
Speaker 2: of that, then moved on to Deep Stays nine and

62
00:03:22,400 --> 00:03:25,960
Speaker 2: watched at least a sizable chunk of all that, and

63
00:03:26,360 --> 00:03:29,960
Speaker 2: more recently I've watched Star Trek Exchange New Worlds. I'm

64
00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:31,840
Speaker 2: only two seasons into that, but I think that's an

65
00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:35,960
Speaker 2: excellent show. There are a whole other series that I

66
00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:38,480
Speaker 2: have seen nothing of, But when it comes to the

67
00:03:38,520 --> 00:03:42,760
Speaker 2: original Star Trek series, certainly I watched the films, but

68
00:03:42,840 --> 00:03:45,200
Speaker 2: the original series, I don't know. I always felt like

69
00:03:45,640 --> 00:03:48,840
Speaker 2: I felt this brand loyalty or show loyalty to next generation.

70
00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:50,160
Speaker 2: I was like, this is the trick for me. I

71
00:03:50,160 --> 00:03:53,160
Speaker 2: don't need the old stuff, and I just I tended

72
00:03:53,200 --> 00:03:56,960
Speaker 2: to sort of dismiss it as, I don't know, as

73
00:03:56,960 --> 00:04:00,000
Speaker 2: an inferior product or something without giving it a tremendous

74
00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:03,800
Speaker 2: amount of thought. So I have historically not watched much

75
00:04:03,840 --> 00:04:06,560
Speaker 2: of the original series, but as part of Star Trek

76
00:04:06,640 --> 00:04:09,560
Speaker 2: Week here in our preparation for it, I've watched a

77
00:04:09,600 --> 00:04:13,160
Speaker 2: couple of the episodes so from the original run, and

78
00:04:13,400 --> 00:04:15,680
Speaker 2: it's some pretty fun stuff. I think, I think it

79
00:04:15,680 --> 00:04:18,240
Speaker 2: holds up really well. So I don't think I gave

80
00:04:18,279 --> 00:04:21,200
Speaker 2: the original series enough credit and enough attention when I

81
00:04:21,240 --> 00:04:21,680
Speaker 2: was younger.

82
00:04:22,480 --> 00:04:24,359
Speaker 3: I mean, just this week, I've discovered it has a

83
00:04:24,360 --> 00:04:26,880
Speaker 3: lot more screaming plants than I would have imagined.

84
00:04:28,560 --> 00:04:32,480
Speaker 2: In Lucha Moves, we both watched one of the same

85
00:04:32,520 --> 00:04:36,039
Speaker 2: episodes in preparation, and yeah, there's Captain Kirk busting out

86
00:04:36,200 --> 00:04:38,960
Speaker 2: like not quite a Frankensteiner, but some sort of like

87
00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:41,080
Speaker 2: a Lucha head scissors takedown.

88
00:04:41,320 --> 00:04:44,640
Speaker 3: You're talking about Space Seed, the first run with Ricardo Montleblanc. Yeah,

89
00:04:44,640 --> 00:04:47,000
Speaker 3: so we both watched that for the first time this week,

90
00:04:47,640 --> 00:04:52,000
Speaker 3: and yeah, you know, in that episode, I really expected

91
00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:55,840
Speaker 3: Kirk to finally get the better of Kahn with some

92
00:04:55,920 --> 00:04:58,280
Speaker 3: kind of clever trick. You know, he uses like a

93
00:04:58,320 --> 00:05:00,839
Speaker 3: I bet you didn't think of this, really, he just

94
00:05:00,880 --> 00:05:01,680
Speaker 3: sort of hits him.

95
00:05:01,880 --> 00:05:04,120
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, he pulls something out of the wall there.

96
00:05:04,400 --> 00:05:07,200
Speaker 2: It looks kind of like the pump from like an

97
00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:11,640
Speaker 2: industrial catchup dispenser. Yeah yeah, yeah, grabs that hits him

98
00:05:11,640 --> 00:05:11,880
Speaker 2: with it.

99
00:05:12,240 --> 00:05:14,600
Speaker 3: But that episode not without a lot of cleverness in it.

100
00:05:14,839 --> 00:05:18,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I really dug that episode. All right, Well,

101
00:05:18,160 --> 00:05:22,120
Speaker 2: we'll talk more about that episode tomorrow, but let's go

102
00:05:22,120 --> 00:05:24,680
Speaker 2: ahead and get more focused here for this episode. So

103
00:05:24,720 --> 00:05:27,919
Speaker 2: Star Trek obviously features various technologies that have come to

104
00:05:27,920 --> 00:05:31,120
Speaker 2: define the franchise. You got your phasers, your tri quarters,

105
00:05:31,560 --> 00:05:35,640
Speaker 2: your tractor beams, your photon torpedoes, your holidex, and of

106
00:05:35,680 --> 00:05:39,560
Speaker 2: course the transporter. And while the crew of the Enterprise

107
00:05:39,600 --> 00:05:42,680
Speaker 2: and other starships can also travel ship to ship and

108
00:05:42,720 --> 00:05:45,520
Speaker 2: ship a planet in the show aboard shuttle Craft. That's

109
00:05:45,560 --> 00:05:48,040
Speaker 2: a common feature of i think all of the series.

110
00:05:48,720 --> 00:05:52,960
Speaker 2: The transporter enables swift teleportation from one point in space

111
00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:57,320
Speaker 2: to another, generally within a localized range, and as such,

112
00:05:57,400 --> 00:06:00,279
Speaker 2: the transporter serves as a key means of mood moving

113
00:06:00,320 --> 00:06:03,279
Speaker 2: from orbit to surface, from ship to ship in both

114
00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:05,200
Speaker 2: tactical and casual uses.

115
00:06:05,800 --> 00:06:11,200
Speaker 3: One interesting technical design feature of the transporter is that

116
00:06:11,279 --> 00:06:16,240
Speaker 3: you only need the technology to be at one end. Yeah,

117
00:06:16,400 --> 00:06:19,039
Speaker 3: you know, so you can beam from the transporter room

118
00:06:19,120 --> 00:06:21,280
Speaker 3: down to a planet where there's nothing there. It's not

119
00:06:21,320 --> 00:06:23,200
Speaker 3: like a pad for you to land on or something.

120
00:06:23,240 --> 00:06:25,839
Speaker 3: It just sends you wherever, and it can beam you

121
00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:28,760
Speaker 3: up from anywhere nearby to the transporter room.

122
00:06:29,320 --> 00:06:29,560
Speaker 2: Yeah.

123
00:06:29,680 --> 00:06:29,880
Speaker 3: Yeah.

124
00:06:29,920 --> 00:06:34,000
Speaker 2: It's a different deal compared to the telepods of the Fly,

125
00:06:34,240 --> 00:06:36,840
Speaker 2: where you're have one pod taking you apart in one

126
00:06:36,880 --> 00:06:40,039
Speaker 2: pod putting you back together again, which is probably like

127
00:06:40,080 --> 00:06:42,840
Speaker 2: a cleaner way of thinking about some of the basics

128
00:06:42,839 --> 00:06:46,080
Speaker 2: of the technology, you know, for our purposes here today.

129
00:06:46,120 --> 00:06:48,039
Speaker 2: But yeah, but yes, this is an important point you

130
00:06:48,080 --> 00:06:51,960
Speaker 2: make here about teleportation as we see it in Star Trek. Now,

131
00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:55,360
Speaker 2: the basic teleportation principle here, as in other works of

132
00:06:55,400 --> 00:06:59,119
Speaker 2: science fiction, is of course matter energy conversion. So break

133
00:06:59,120 --> 00:07:04,000
Speaker 2: down matter in to energy, slash information, transmit that energy

134
00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:07,560
Speaker 2: pattern to the destination, and then put it all back

135
00:07:07,560 --> 00:07:12,320
Speaker 2: together again, transforming energy and information back into matter.

136
00:07:12,720 --> 00:07:16,720
Speaker 3: Years ago I read some physics attempts to model, like

137
00:07:16,840 --> 00:07:19,440
Speaker 3: how much energy if you were to think, is this

138
00:07:19,520 --> 00:07:25,040
Speaker 3: process doable in reality? How much energy this would take theoretically,

139
00:07:25,760 --> 00:07:28,880
Speaker 3: how much information would need to be encoded to trans

140
00:07:29,240 --> 00:07:32,280
Speaker 3: you know, to turn an entire human body fully into

141
00:07:32,360 --> 00:07:36,560
Speaker 3: information and recreate it from that, And it seems to

142
00:07:36,640 --> 00:07:37,960
Speaker 3: say the least implausible.

143
00:07:38,760 --> 00:07:42,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we have to remember that in any of

144
00:07:42,880 --> 00:07:46,800
Speaker 2: these discussions of Star Trek technology. You know, it's important

145
00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:49,320
Speaker 2: that it creates drama, that it's cool looking, and that

146
00:07:49,400 --> 00:07:53,800
Speaker 2: you can tell stories around it. But beyond that, it's like,

147
00:07:53,840 --> 00:07:57,880
Speaker 2: we are essentially talking about a civilization that is, depending

148
00:07:57,920 --> 00:08:00,800
Speaker 2: on how you cut it, like one point five to

149
00:08:00,880 --> 00:08:05,000
Speaker 2: two on the Kardashev scale. So whatever they're doing in

150
00:08:05,040 --> 00:08:08,320
Speaker 2: pretty much any realm of science, it's a good bit

151
00:08:08,360 --> 00:08:12,880
Speaker 2: beyond what we can you know, scientifically comprehend in many

152
00:08:12,880 --> 00:08:16,040
Speaker 2: ways from our point of view. But it is certainly cool,

153
00:08:16,160 --> 00:08:18,920
Speaker 2: and it does certainly produce drama. I have to say,

154
00:08:18,960 --> 00:08:22,440
Speaker 2: when I first really starting started watching Star Trek internest

155
00:08:22,600 --> 00:08:25,560
Speaker 2: via the next generation in the nineties, I mostly just

156
00:08:25,600 --> 00:08:28,040
Speaker 2: bought into the technology wholesale at first. You know, it's

157
00:08:28,040 --> 00:08:32,079
Speaker 2: just amazing, It's nearly limitless in its possibilities. But the

158
00:08:32,120 --> 00:08:34,520
Speaker 2: more you watch and the more you think about it,

159
00:08:34,760 --> 00:08:36,760
Speaker 2: essentially two things kick in, I think for the Star

160
00:08:36,800 --> 00:08:40,959
Speaker 2: Trek viewer. First of all, teleportation via transporter raises a

161
00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:44,640
Speaker 2: number of ethical and philosophical questions. Just the more you

162
00:08:44,679 --> 00:08:46,880
Speaker 2: think about it and the more you pull in ideas

163
00:08:46,920 --> 00:08:50,520
Speaker 2: about just what consciousness is. And then, of course, various

164
00:08:50,559 --> 00:08:54,000
Speaker 2: episodes of Star Trek just outright confront the philosophy and

165
00:08:54,040 --> 00:08:59,400
Speaker 2: ethics of teleportation as well, often getting into teleportation mishaps

166
00:08:59,800 --> 00:09:05,640
Speaker 2: that creates some interesting plot developments, but also cause the

167
00:09:05,679 --> 00:09:10,120
Speaker 2: viewer to think and contemplate. You know, exactly what we

168
00:09:10,160 --> 00:09:12,479
Speaker 2: are and how we work, and what is the individual

169
00:09:12,520 --> 00:09:12,880
Speaker 2: and so.

170
00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:15,600
Speaker 3: Forth, Even as early as the original series. Just in

171
00:09:15,640 --> 00:09:18,440
Speaker 3: some of the episodes we were watching this week, already,

172
00:09:18,520 --> 00:09:23,200
Speaker 3: characters are complaining about the principle behind the transporter. Like

173
00:09:23,320 --> 00:09:26,480
Speaker 3: McCoy says in the original series that he does not

174
00:09:26,760 --> 00:09:28,800
Speaker 3: want to get on the transport. I mean, he does

175
00:09:28,840 --> 00:09:31,320
Speaker 3: it anyway, but he doesn't like it. He finds it

176
00:09:32,120 --> 00:09:33,800
Speaker 3: conceptually abhorrent.

177
00:09:34,360 --> 00:09:34,600
Speaker 1: Yeah.

178
00:09:34,720 --> 00:09:38,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like he realizes that it is a death

179
00:09:38,480 --> 00:09:41,079
Speaker 2: he's about to engage in, that there's maybe something a

180
00:09:41,080 --> 00:09:44,600
Speaker 2: little unnatural about it, right, Because I mean that is

181
00:09:45,320 --> 00:09:50,400
Speaker 2: a frequent interpretation and contemplation about the teleportation in the

182
00:09:50,440 --> 00:09:53,840
Speaker 2: Star Trek universe. Are they just killing themselves every time

183
00:09:53,840 --> 00:09:56,319
Speaker 2: they climb into one of these things and then recreating

184
00:09:57,040 --> 00:10:01,000
Speaker 2: an exact copy of themselves elsewhere? And then and when

185
00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:03,720
Speaker 2: you move past that sort of gut feeling of heart,

186
00:10:03,800 --> 00:10:06,720
Speaker 2: you have to ask yourself, well, is that terrible at all?

187
00:10:07,320 --> 00:10:11,360
Speaker 2: Is that really any different than what happens just moment

188
00:10:11,400 --> 00:10:13,880
Speaker 2: to moment with our own consciousness and so forth. So

189
00:10:14,200 --> 00:10:16,000
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the lovely things about it

190
00:10:16,040 --> 00:10:20,720
Speaker 2: is just considering it on that level. It forces you

191
00:10:20,800 --> 00:10:23,360
Speaker 2: to deconstruct a lot of what you think you know

192
00:10:23,600 --> 00:10:26,000
Speaker 2: about who you are and how your brain operates.

193
00:10:26,360 --> 00:10:29,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. Obviously, if the idea is that your

194
00:10:29,800 --> 00:10:34,839
Speaker 3: body is decomposed entirely, it's like completely taken apart at

195
00:10:34,840 --> 00:10:40,160
Speaker 3: the point of origin. And then reconstituted somewhere else. The

196
00:10:40,200 --> 00:10:43,640
Speaker 3: most straightforward way to understand that is that the original

197
00:10:43,720 --> 00:10:47,480
Speaker 3: you is destroyed, and that a new copy of you,

198
00:10:47,640 --> 00:10:52,040
Speaker 3: with all of the same thoughts and memories and all that,

199
00:10:52,160 --> 00:10:54,760
Speaker 3: is recreated in the target location and it can just

200
00:10:54,960 --> 00:10:58,160
Speaker 3: continue going about your business. But I think our intuition

201
00:10:58,240 --> 00:11:00,400
Speaker 3: about that is just that, like, Okay, that means like

202
00:11:00,440 --> 00:11:03,200
Speaker 3: whenever the first time I use a transporter is I

203
00:11:03,320 --> 00:11:05,840
Speaker 3: just die. That's just the end of my life. And

204
00:11:05,880 --> 00:11:08,720
Speaker 3: then there's something that's exactly like me that is going

205
00:11:08,760 --> 00:11:12,800
Speaker 3: on with my life, but my experience of life will

206
00:11:12,840 --> 00:11:15,720
Speaker 3: not be continuous. I will step into the transporter and

207
00:11:15,760 --> 00:11:19,559
Speaker 3: then that is death. My experience ends. Now something else

208
00:11:19,679 --> 00:11:23,319
Speaker 3: exactly like me is having an experience. But yeah, as

209
00:11:23,320 --> 00:11:28,280
Speaker 3: you bring up, of course we are our bodies are

210
00:11:28,440 --> 00:11:32,120
Speaker 3: changing moment to moment. You know, I this one moment

211
00:11:32,200 --> 00:11:35,040
Speaker 3: am a different being in a way than I was

212
00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:38,679
Speaker 3: a few moments earlier. But I have the sensation that

213
00:11:38,760 --> 00:11:43,520
Speaker 3: my conscious experience has been one continuous thing. Yeah, and

214
00:11:43,559 --> 00:11:46,000
Speaker 3: so the death in time of the me from a

215
00:11:46,040 --> 00:11:48,960
Speaker 3: few moments ago, just as you know, the seconds tick by,

216
00:11:49,520 --> 00:11:52,079
Speaker 3: that doesn't really feel like a death or like anything

217
00:11:52,160 --> 00:11:54,240
Speaker 3: came to an end, even though I am a different

218
00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:57,160
Speaker 3: being now than I was just a few moments ago. Uh,

219
00:11:57,640 --> 00:11:59,839
Speaker 3: it does feel like that would be something different than

220
00:12:00,080 --> 00:12:02,880
Speaker 3: what we're imagining with the transporter, where your your body

221
00:12:02,960 --> 00:12:06,360
Speaker 3: is decomposed into atoms or even I don't know, decomposed

222
00:12:06,400 --> 00:12:11,199
Speaker 3: into what. Yeah, and that does seem to more intuitively

223
00:12:11,920 --> 00:12:14,440
Speaker 3: suggest there will be a final kind of end to

224
00:12:14,520 --> 00:12:17,840
Speaker 3: your conscious experience, even if something like you is getting

225
00:12:17,840 --> 00:12:18,439
Speaker 3: to carry on.

226
00:12:19,280 --> 00:12:23,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely right. Yeah, the teleportation here that

227
00:12:23,360 --> 00:12:29,240
Speaker 2: the transport seems to, in a lovely way, exaggerate, greatly

228
00:12:29,320 --> 00:12:31,840
Speaker 2: exaggerate some of what may already be going on with us, because,

229
00:12:32,200 --> 00:12:35,719
Speaker 2: like you said, our bodies are constantly changing, our identity

230
00:12:36,040 --> 00:12:40,840
Speaker 2: changes over time to varying degrees, and we periodically have

231
00:12:41,280 --> 00:12:44,360
Speaker 2: interruptions in consciousness. I mean, if nothing else, we go

232
00:12:44,400 --> 00:12:48,600
Speaker 2: to sleep every night. You know, we may undergo surgery

233
00:12:48,640 --> 00:12:51,079
Speaker 2: at some point in our life, and then we have

234
00:12:51,120 --> 00:12:54,360
Speaker 2: you know, little altered states of consciousness that arise along

235
00:12:54,360 --> 00:12:55,080
Speaker 2: the way as well.

236
00:12:55,520 --> 00:12:59,000
Speaker 3: I have had this thought going into general anesthesia before

237
00:12:59,720 --> 00:13:03,160
Speaker 3: I've I've thought, what if the me that is going

238
00:13:03,280 --> 00:13:07,280
Speaker 3: under now just dies and the thing that wakes up

239
00:13:07,400 --> 00:13:11,120
Speaker 3: will feel always like it is it is me, and

240
00:13:11,320 --> 00:13:14,679
Speaker 3: it will feel like it has had just a continuous experience.

241
00:13:14,800 --> 00:13:17,280
Speaker 3: Woke up after surgery and all that. But what if

242
00:13:17,320 --> 00:13:21,680
Speaker 3: somehow I right now before surgery never get to wake up.

243
00:13:23,520 --> 00:13:25,480
Speaker 3: There's no way to prove that or disprove I mean,

244
00:13:25,520 --> 00:13:28,760
Speaker 3: you know, that's not like an empirically testable thing. There

245
00:13:28,840 --> 00:13:31,600
Speaker 3: is just it's just a weird kind of headspace you

246
00:13:31,600 --> 00:13:32,280
Speaker 3: can get into.

247
00:13:32,800 --> 00:13:35,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can ask the same question about going to

248
00:13:35,240 --> 00:13:38,760
Speaker 2: sleep each night, Like you close your eyes, you enter

249
00:13:38,800 --> 00:13:43,200
Speaker 2: a different state of consciousness and become unconscious. You engage

250
00:13:43,240 --> 00:13:47,920
Speaker 2: in dream activity. Your brain is undergoing various changes, sort

251
00:13:47,960 --> 00:13:51,800
Speaker 2: of a defragmentation, you know, to some degree. And then

252
00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:54,000
Speaker 2: the next morning, oh well you feel a little bit different,

253
00:13:54,040 --> 00:13:55,000
Speaker 2: You feel refreshed.

254
00:13:55,400 --> 00:13:55,880
Speaker 3: But are you.

255
00:13:56,400 --> 00:13:58,840
Speaker 2: Feeling refreshed as in you just stepped out of the

256
00:13:58,840 --> 00:14:03,680
Speaker 2: telepod and now you have brundlefly energy? You know? Yeah,

257
00:14:03,760 --> 00:14:08,160
Speaker 2: so again, the sci fi exaggeration forces you to rethink

258
00:14:08,280 --> 00:14:11,959
Speaker 2: all of this, the day to day things about our

259
00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:15,080
Speaker 2: consciousness and existence. And indeed a lot of it does

260
00:14:15,120 --> 00:14:20,640
Speaker 2: boil down to consciousness and identity. Because to be clear,

261
00:14:21,440 --> 00:14:25,680
Speaker 2: Star Trek's Teleportation, to my knowledge, has never engaged in

262
00:14:25,760 --> 00:14:30,920
Speaker 2: any direct contemplation of at least as far as teleportation

263
00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:33,520
Speaker 2: goes as soul. I know that some episodes, you know,

264
00:14:33,520 --> 00:14:37,640
Speaker 2: get into more spiritual territory, and you do have entities

265
00:14:37,680 --> 00:14:40,800
Speaker 2: that are an encounter that do not have physical bodies,

266
00:14:41,120 --> 00:14:42,880
Speaker 2: So you know, it can kind of be all over

267
00:14:42,920 --> 00:14:45,920
Speaker 2: the place and contradict itself in places as well. Because again,

268
00:14:46,240 --> 00:14:49,640
Speaker 2: this is a decades long franchise, it tells many different stories,

269
00:14:49,640 --> 00:14:51,680
Speaker 2: created by many different people. It's not going to be

270
00:14:51,840 --> 00:14:54,960
Speaker 2: entirely consistent on all of this. But when it comes

271
00:14:55,040 --> 00:14:57,680
Speaker 2: to the transporter itself, the show does seem to lean

272
00:14:58,440 --> 00:15:03,160
Speaker 2: materialist more often than not, So you know, it's not

273
00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:07,160
Speaker 2: getting into what we would call mind body dualism. The

274
00:15:07,200 --> 00:15:11,080
Speaker 2: ideaic consciousness exists separate from the body, as opposed to

275
00:15:11,120 --> 00:15:13,440
Speaker 2: a thing that is generated or cast by the body,

276
00:15:13,760 --> 00:15:15,160
Speaker 2: the basic materialist view.

277
00:15:15,840 --> 00:15:17,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree that most of the Star Trek

278
00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:21,720
Speaker 3: I'm familiar with has a basically materialist approach to the mind,

279
00:15:22,400 --> 00:15:25,640
Speaker 3: though I would add that I think that's not necessarily

280
00:15:26,280 --> 00:15:31,120
Speaker 3: inconsistent actually with speaking about a soul, depending on how

281
00:15:31,200 --> 00:15:33,680
Speaker 3: you speak about it. I mean, I'd just say, from

282
00:15:33,880 --> 00:15:37,400
Speaker 3: my personal point of view, I am I personally have

283
00:15:37,560 --> 00:15:40,640
Speaker 3: a materialist view of what the mind is. And I

284
00:15:40,760 --> 00:15:44,400
Speaker 3: also am quite comfortable speaking of a soul. I'm using

285
00:15:44,400 --> 00:15:47,080
Speaker 3: it more in the metaphorical sense, in that the word

286
00:15:47,200 --> 00:15:52,000
Speaker 3: soul in English captures things about our personality and integrity

287
00:15:52,080 --> 00:15:54,560
Speaker 3: and stuff like that better than any other word does.

288
00:15:55,480 --> 00:15:57,640
Speaker 3: And yet I don't think it refers to like a

289
00:15:58,480 --> 00:16:00,840
Speaker 3: ghost that is physically separate bull from the brain.

290
00:16:01,640 --> 00:16:05,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I think that one of the key things,

291
00:16:05,200 --> 00:16:07,080
Speaker 2: and we've discussed this in the show plenty of times before,

292
00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:09,280
Speaker 2: is that you know, we ultimately can have it both ways.

293
00:16:09,320 --> 00:16:11,960
Speaker 2: We can have it multiple ways. We can have you know,

294
00:16:12,040 --> 00:16:16,360
Speaker 2: contradictory even ideas floating around our brains when it comes

295
00:16:16,360 --> 00:16:19,880
Speaker 2: to understanding who we are and how we work. So yeah,

296
00:16:20,120 --> 00:16:22,280
Speaker 2: I mean, for my own part, I tend to be

297
00:16:22,720 --> 00:16:26,120
Speaker 2: more of a materialist when I think about my consciousness.

298
00:16:26,160 --> 00:16:29,480
Speaker 2: But you know, depending on how you know the mood

299
00:16:29,560 --> 00:16:33,160
Speaker 2: hits me, I might also engage in more of a

300
00:16:33,200 --> 00:16:35,400
Speaker 2: more of a dualist approach to it and think more

301
00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:37,800
Speaker 2: in terms of like a soul and a body, either

302
00:16:37,880 --> 00:16:41,280
Speaker 2: casually in terms or just interacting with language. And I

303
00:16:41,280 --> 00:16:44,760
Speaker 2: don't know, poetry and song and so forth, or you know,

304
00:16:46,120 --> 00:16:49,280
Speaker 2: maybe at times feeling more like religious about things or

305
00:16:49,280 --> 00:16:52,200
Speaker 2: more spiritual about things, like you can you can engage

306
00:16:52,240 --> 00:16:54,680
Speaker 2: in different ways and in the same way that show

307
00:16:54,760 --> 00:16:56,840
Speaker 2: like Star Trek can have it both ways and sort

308
00:16:56,840 --> 00:17:01,200
Speaker 2: of like follow whichever directions is in the moment providing

309
00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:03,800
Speaker 2: the best story or the best or the best thought

310
00:17:03,840 --> 00:17:07,720
Speaker 2: provoking content. Yeah, but it is crazy then to think, though, Okay,

311
00:17:07,800 --> 00:17:10,320
Speaker 2: if we're engaging in a very again materialist idea of

312
00:17:10,320 --> 00:17:14,640
Speaker 2: what consciousness is. Consciousness is generated via the physical brain,

313
00:17:14,760 --> 00:17:17,200
Speaker 2: the inner workings of the physical brain, and then we're

314
00:17:17,200 --> 00:17:22,800
Speaker 2: thinking about it being the physical body being broken down, destroyed, transmitted,

315
00:17:23,160 --> 00:17:27,080
Speaker 2: and then recreated. And then consciousness kind of cuts back

316
00:17:27,119 --> 00:17:31,919
Speaker 2: on again or doesn't cut out in completely, or the

317
00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:36,320
Speaker 2: same consciousness is reawakened, but it is not the exact

318
00:17:36,400 --> 00:17:39,119
Speaker 2: same consciousness in terms of there was consciousness one, and

319
00:17:39,119 --> 00:17:42,199
Speaker 2: now there's consciousness too, but consciousness too it's identical to

320
00:17:42,200 --> 00:17:44,160
Speaker 2: consciousness one, which no longer exists.

321
00:17:44,560 --> 00:17:47,520
Speaker 3: One way I've always imagined this within the narrative is

322
00:17:47,720 --> 00:17:49,760
Speaker 3: I mean, if you stop to think about it, and

323
00:17:49,840 --> 00:17:52,920
Speaker 3: sometimes they just don't really encourage you to worry about

324
00:17:52,920 --> 00:17:54,600
Speaker 3: this too much. But if you do stop to think

325
00:17:54,640 --> 00:17:57,439
Speaker 3: of it, I tend to assume that, Okay, if the

326
00:17:57,480 --> 00:18:00,880
Speaker 3: person who goes into the transporter is in fact they

327
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:04,680
Speaker 3: are not, it's not possible for that person that brain,

328
00:18:04,840 --> 00:18:07,720
Speaker 3: that body to think I Am still the same person

329
00:18:07,760 --> 00:18:09,560
Speaker 3: who came out the other end. They're just they don't

330
00:18:09,600 --> 00:18:12,159
Speaker 3: exist anymore. But the person who does come out the

331
00:18:12,160 --> 00:18:14,840
Speaker 3: other end does think I Am still the same person.

332
00:18:14,960 --> 00:18:19,199
Speaker 3: So the experience of consciousness is continuous for the person

333
00:18:19,280 --> 00:18:21,760
Speaker 3: who came out the other end, not for the person

334
00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:22,439
Speaker 3: who went in.

335
00:18:23,040 --> 00:18:27,119
Speaker 2: M Yeah, and maybe it's also like just maybe ultimately

336
00:18:27,560 --> 00:18:32,200
Speaker 2: they think differently about consciousness and self. Like, your consciousness

337
00:18:32,320 --> 00:18:35,159
Speaker 2: is like just disregarding any idea that you have some

338
00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:37,800
Speaker 2: sort of a soul or anything, and just know that

339
00:18:37,840 --> 00:18:40,080
Speaker 2: you were a shadow puppet. You know, you were a silo,

340
00:18:40,240 --> 00:18:42,879
Speaker 2: or rather you were a silhouette cast by a shadow puppet.

341
00:18:42,960 --> 00:18:44,960
Speaker 2: That is what your consciousness is, that is what your

342
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:48,880
Speaker 2: sense of self is. That shadow puppet that is used

343
00:18:48,920 --> 00:18:51,479
Speaker 2: to cast that silhouette, let's say, of a king on

344
00:18:51,560 --> 00:18:54,639
Speaker 2: a wall or on a screen. That puppet can be

345
00:18:54,760 --> 00:18:57,280
Speaker 2: disassembled and then shipped to the other side. Of the

346
00:18:57,320 --> 00:19:00,600
Speaker 2: world reassembled, and it can cast the same silhouette on

347
00:19:00,640 --> 00:19:03,679
Speaker 2: the on the screen on the wall, and likewise you

348
00:19:03,720 --> 00:19:07,840
Speaker 2: could destroy the puppet, write down instructions for how to

349
00:19:07,920 --> 00:19:11,760
Speaker 2: build an identical puppet, and that putt that identical puppet

350
00:19:11,800 --> 00:19:14,200
Speaker 2: can be built on the other side of the world

351
00:19:14,280 --> 00:19:16,560
Speaker 2: or on another planet, what have you, and used to

352
00:19:16,640 --> 00:19:20,480
Speaker 2: cast again the exact same king upon the wall, that

353
00:19:20,600 --> 00:19:25,960
Speaker 2: exact same silhouette. So ultimately, ultimately, maybe that's how someone

354
00:19:25,960 --> 00:19:28,400
Speaker 2: in the Star Trek universe is supposed to think about themselves.

355
00:19:28,480 --> 00:19:30,440
Speaker 2: And you know, don't get caught up and offt the

356
00:19:30,520 --> 00:19:33,399
Speaker 2: ideas about about your eternal soul. You know, you were

357
00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:35,280
Speaker 2: you were a silhouette on a wall.

358
00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:38,200
Speaker 3: I can see how that could be a very comforting framework.

359
00:19:38,240 --> 00:19:40,760
Speaker 3: Though at the same time, I think a person going

360
00:19:40,800 --> 00:19:44,640
Speaker 3: into a transport transporter, were this a real technology, could

361
00:19:44,640 --> 00:19:48,240
Speaker 3: be forgiven for not wanting their experience of the world

362
00:19:48,280 --> 00:19:51,800
Speaker 3: to cease and and to to essentially die from their

363
00:19:51,840 --> 00:19:55,439
Speaker 3: own first person perspective, uh, just to get a copy

364
00:19:55,480 --> 00:19:58,960
Speaker 3: of themselves somewhere else. It's almost taking on a kind

365
00:19:58,960 --> 00:20:02,639
Speaker 3: of I don't know, like a worker aunt kind of

366
00:20:02,720 --> 00:20:04,800
Speaker 3: point of view about like as long as there's something

367
00:20:04,800 --> 00:20:07,480
Speaker 3: that can continue doing my job at the other end,

368
00:20:07,600 --> 00:20:08,400
Speaker 3: then it's okay.

369
00:20:08,880 --> 00:20:11,439
Speaker 2: Or if you believe in the great work of the

370
00:20:11,440 --> 00:20:15,000
Speaker 2: Federation of Planets, or the might of the Klingon Empire,

371
00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:18,359
Speaker 2: whatever faction you happen to represent it, Yeah, if you

372
00:20:18,600 --> 00:20:21,359
Speaker 2: believe firmly in something greater than yourself, then you're just like,

373
00:20:21,400 --> 00:20:24,679
Speaker 2: all right, I'm going to sacrifice myself once again in

374
00:20:24,800 --> 00:20:36,879
Speaker 2: order to pursue this end. Now. I don't think we

375
00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:41,160
Speaker 2: mentioned this, but of course a common thought experiment and

376
00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:43,240
Speaker 2: analogy that comes up all the time is of the

377
00:20:43,760 --> 00:20:46,280
Speaker 2: Ship of Theseus, which we've talked about in depth in

378
00:20:46,320 --> 00:20:49,680
Speaker 2: the show before. The idea that if you have here's

379
00:20:49,680 --> 00:20:53,359
Speaker 2: the ship of Theseus, and then over time stuff breaks,

380
00:20:54,280 --> 00:20:56,439
Speaker 2: pieces of the ship rot, pieces of the ship have

381
00:20:56,520 --> 00:20:59,560
Speaker 2: to be replaced, and after enough time you will have

382
00:20:59,640 --> 00:21:02,639
Speaker 2: replaced the entire ship. Is it still the same ship?

383
00:21:02,760 --> 00:21:02,960
Speaker 3: Right?

384
00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:07,119
Speaker 2: And of course, again a sci fi technology like this

385
00:21:07,359 --> 00:21:09,840
Speaker 2: just speeds everything up. It's the Ship of Theseus. On

386
00:21:09,960 --> 00:21:13,600
Speaker 2: fast forward, We're going from the ship at the beginning

387
00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:16,080
Speaker 2: to the ship at the end with the destruction in

388
00:21:16,119 --> 00:21:19,200
Speaker 2: the middle. Is it the same ship at all? As always,

389
00:21:19,200 --> 00:21:22,159
Speaker 2: the answer is yes. And no, yes but no, and

390
00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:27,520
Speaker 2: also no but yes. Another sort of navel gazing thought

391
00:21:27,560 --> 00:21:30,879
Speaker 2: that I've often had watching Star Trek is the what

392
00:21:30,960 --> 00:21:33,199
Speaker 2: if you do have an eternal soul? Okay, what if

393
00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:37,119
Speaker 2: we were to have like a religious view of the

394
00:21:37,119 --> 00:21:40,239
Speaker 2: Star Trek universe. What if the first time you use

395
00:21:40,280 --> 00:21:44,600
Speaker 2: the technology, you die and your soul leaves your body?

396
00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:48,440
Speaker 2: Then what are you when you're recreated on the other end,

397
00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:52,359
Speaker 2: like just sort of like a soulless living automaton, a

398
00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:55,120
Speaker 2: copy of what you were, And then that just continues,

399
00:21:55,200 --> 00:21:56,800
Speaker 2: the cycle continues. I don't know.

400
00:21:57,320 --> 00:22:00,360
Speaker 3: You get a new soul, you multiply souls just going

401
00:22:00,400 --> 00:22:03,280
Speaker 3: through the transporter, and then what happens when the new

402
00:22:03,320 --> 00:22:06,520
Speaker 3: one dies? Now there are two us in heaven or

403
00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:06,880
Speaker 3: in hell?

404
00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:09,679
Speaker 2: You know. Well, but then we're a materialist again though, right,

405
00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:12,600
Speaker 2: because the soul a soul pops into being because the

406
00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:15,760
Speaker 2: body exists. But what if I guess, I guess if

407
00:22:15,760 --> 00:22:16,960
Speaker 2: we're doing well, No.

408
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:19,280
Speaker 3: If you're dualist, you could you could have a view

409
00:22:19,320 --> 00:22:21,440
Speaker 3: of dualism. It's like, we have to make a soul.

410
00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:24,159
Speaker 3: A soul must be created for each new copy of

411
00:22:24,200 --> 00:22:27,159
Speaker 3: the body. Therefore, every time the body is copied, a

412
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:29,600
Speaker 3: new soul is made. Now, the bodies are never going

413
00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:31,160
Speaker 3: to end up in the same place at the same

414
00:22:31,200 --> 00:22:34,800
Speaker 3: time unless something goes wrong, but they're never supposed to,

415
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:36,879
Speaker 3: so you wouldn't have this problem with the bodies. But

416
00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:40,120
Speaker 3: wherever the souls are going, they're just accumulating, right.

417
00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:44,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, good point. Now I want to make another

418
00:22:44,359 --> 00:22:46,960
Speaker 2: quick note about memory without just really going down the

419
00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:50,040
Speaker 2: rabbit hole of memory, because we've done whole episodes about

420
00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:53,720
Speaker 2: different forms of memory and so forth. But obviously memory

421
00:22:53,760 --> 00:22:58,879
Speaker 2: plays a huge role in identity and consciousness, and just

422
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:02,439
Speaker 2: thinking about the role of memories and teleportation is pretty

423
00:23:02,440 --> 00:23:06,120
Speaker 2: mind boggling because the transporter here wouldn't just be recording,

424
00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:09,880
Speaker 2: breaking down and rebuilding your body and your brain and

425
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:13,119
Speaker 2: you know, the cells, the molecules and every atom and

426
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:15,320
Speaker 2: so forth, but it would have to we would also

427
00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:20,960
Speaker 2: have to copy, send, and then replicate patterns of neural activity,

428
00:23:21,040 --> 00:23:27,520
Speaker 2: so neurons, synapses, electrochemical signals, and synaptic plasticity. Copying of

429
00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:30,200
Speaker 2: a person's in grams, you know, the physical trace of

430
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:33,640
Speaker 2: their memories. And again like this in and of itself

431
00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:37,840
Speaker 2: may be more feasible for a type one and a

432
00:23:37,880 --> 00:23:40,879
Speaker 2: half to two civilization on the Kardashev scale, but almost

433
00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:46,359
Speaker 2: inconceivable by today's technological standards. It's just so so much

434
00:23:46,600 --> 00:23:48,960
Speaker 2: that would have to so much information here that would

435
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 2: have to be recorded, sent and then reproduced.

436
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 3: Though presumably if you are a materialist about what the

437
00:23:57,160 --> 00:24:01,240
Speaker 3: mind is, then if you were to make a perfect

438
00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:06,280
Speaker 3: and actually perfectly exact physical copy of the brain, that

439
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:10,359
Speaker 3: would seem to imply, unless there's a contingency I'm not

440
00:24:10,359 --> 00:24:12,360
Speaker 3: thinking of, that would seem to imply that the perfect

441
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 3: copy of the brain would come with all of the

442
00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 3: same memories and tendencies and everything else. Because if you're

443
00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:22,640
Speaker 3: a materialist, you think that that information is somehow represented

444
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:25,639
Speaker 3: in the internal structure of the brain. That's what the

445
00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:29,000
Speaker 3: storage of the information is. Now again, you could have

446
00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:32,399
Speaker 3: another view where there's something that the physical copying of

447
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:34,879
Speaker 3: the brain or physical copying of the body in the

448
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:38,920
Speaker 3: brain doesn't capture, there's something outside the body. But yeah,

449
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:41,679
Speaker 3: if you think it is there in the body somewhere,

450
00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:46,479
Speaker 3: then perfectly copying the body should bring everything like that along.

451
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 3: But then maybe that raises questions about like just how

452
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:55,720
Speaker 3: much impossibility almost would be involved in actually trying to

453
00:24:55,760 --> 00:24:57,840
Speaker 3: create a perfect copy of a living body.

454
00:24:58,200 --> 00:24:59,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like it kind of comes out of a question

455
00:24:59,880 --> 00:25:04,479
Speaker 2: of like how high detail is the snapshot of the body,

456
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:07,840
Speaker 2: and then ultimately how much information are we talking about?

457
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 3: Yeah?

458
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:12,119
Speaker 2: All right, well, let's let's get into a couple of

459
00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:17,280
Speaker 2: different philosophical takes on all of this. These are both

460
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:19,959
Speaker 2: going to be things that we've discussed in the past

461
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:22,840
Speaker 2: on the show before, but I think it's good to

462
00:25:22,840 --> 00:25:26,080
Speaker 2: get into them here again when we're talking expressly about

463
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:31,680
Speaker 2: really I think the most famous pop culture vision of teleportation.

464
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:34,639
Speaker 3: All right, now, one thing I know we've talked about

465
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 3: is a couple of years ago in an Anthology of

466
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:42,000
Speaker 3: Horror episode, we talked a bit about teleportation, didn't we.

467
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, we talked about We talked about two.

468
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:48,200
Speaker 2: As is our practice on Anthology of Horror, we each

469
00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 2: picked out an episode from a TV horror, horror or

470
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:55,399
Speaker 2: sci fi anthology series and we discussed like some of

471
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:58,600
Speaker 2: the ideas there. And the one we talked about one

472
00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 2: of the two that we talked about in this episode,

473
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:02,639
Speaker 2: it was from the nineteen nineties Outer Limits series. It

474
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 2: was an episode titled Think Like a Dinosaur, based on

475
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:07,480
Speaker 2: a short story of the same name. You can go

476
00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 2: look up that episode if you want a full breakdown

477
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:14,480
Speaker 2: of that. But the concepts explored in that episode line

478
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:18,360
Speaker 2: up rather perfectly with the work of Derek Parfitt, a

479
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 2: British philosopher who specialized in personal identity, among other subjects.

480
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:27,120
Speaker 2: He lived nineteen forty two through twenty seventeen. He gets

481
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:30,679
Speaker 2: into this in his nineteen eighty seven book Reasons and Persons,

482
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:32,920
Speaker 2: and he lays out what has come to be called

483
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:37,959
Speaker 2: the teletransporter paradox. And in this he presents a basic

484
00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 2: teleportation idea and resulting paradox where you have somebody that's

485
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 2: being sent to Mars, so they're standing on Earth, their

486
00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 2: body's destroyed in the scan, and then this is what's

487
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 2: supposed to ideally happen. The information then is sent to

488
00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 2: Mars and they're recreated there, but something messed up and

489
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:01,439
Speaker 2: the original was not destroyed. Which is which is the

490
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:05,080
Speaker 2: individual the original copy or the new copy or they're

491
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:09,399
Speaker 2: the original or the copy rather, And so yeah, he

492
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:13,840
Speaker 2: gets into this and choose over the philosophical contents here,

493
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:16,879
Speaker 2: you know, and acknowledging that this is a common feature

494
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 2: in science fiction that some people say, well, the first

495
00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 2: person is destroyed, and the new person is not me.

496
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:26,359
Speaker 2: It's like my doppelganger. Others say, well, no, that is me.

497
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:30,400
Speaker 2: That's just a complete, recomplete continuation of who I am.

498
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 2: And so he uses the thought experiment here to discuss

499
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:37,879
Speaker 2: what he calls two kinds of sameness. There's qualitative identity

500
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:41,639
Speaker 2: and numerical identity. So the scanner and the replicator in

501
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:47,879
Speaker 2: his scenario produce a double that is qualitatively identical but

502
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 2: not numerically identical. In other words, the two were otherwise

503
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:53,879
Speaker 2: the same but not literally the same person in a

504
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 2: physical sense.

505
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:56,399
Speaker 3: Kind of in the same way that you can have

506
00:27:56,480 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 3: two copies of the same book, but they're not literally

507
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 3: the same object, right right.

508
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 2: And likewise, numerically identical individuals, he points out, can also

509
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 2: become qualitatively different. And this is this is something as

510
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:15,119
Speaker 2: I'll bring this up again here in a bit, this

511
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 2: is also something that's explored in Star Trek. You know

512
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:21,119
Speaker 2: what happens if you have two copies but then of

513
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:23,359
Speaker 2: the same they're essentially the same person, but then they

514
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:26,640
Speaker 2: have different events that occur to them afterwards.

515
00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would actually be really if you could do that,

516
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 3: that would be great for like psychology and medical experiments

517
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:36,680
Speaker 3: and stuff get.

518
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 2: Out in the Federation. The Federation wouldn't do that. Maybe

519
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 2: the Romulans are up to that.

520
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 3: Well, no, not to do that on purpose. Let's just say,

521
00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 3: as you accidentally create a bunch of exact atom for

522
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:50,360
Speaker 3: adam copies of people they exist anyway, that those people

523
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:53,760
Speaker 3: would be great to volunteer for various kinds of you know,

524
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:57,400
Speaker 3: human experiments, because then you could have like perfectly controlled,

525
00:28:57,760 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 3: true true groups.

526
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 2: So Parfit sums us up by writing quote, though our

527
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 2: chief concern is our numerical identity, psychological changes matter. Indeed,

528
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 2: on one view, certain kinds of qualitative change destroy numerical identity.

529
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:14,240
Speaker 2: If certain things happen to me, the truth might not

530
00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:16,840
Speaker 2: be that I become a very different person. The truth

531
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 2: might be that I cease to exist and the resulting

532
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 2: person is someone else. So again highlighting that this idea

533
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:29,480
Speaker 2: of the teleporter or the transporter creating this new individual

534
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:33,320
Speaker 2: that might not be me, Well, that same consideration occurs

535
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:37,560
Speaker 2: in our own life. If something significantly alters your identity

536
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 2: and changes who you are. Maybe you just have a

537
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:43,240
Speaker 2: really awesome meal, or see an amazing movie, read a

538
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 2: great book. Well, congratulations, you just destroyed yourself and recreated

539
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:52,480
Speaker 2: a doppelganger of yourself that is qualitatively different than who

540
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 2: you were.

541
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a philosophical question that has been explored

542
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 3: in other formats, like the question of how can you

543
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 3: really know if you want to make a major decision

544
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 3: in your life? And you know, common ones are like

545
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 3: if I want to move, you know, move across state

546
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:13,960
Speaker 3: lines or have a child or something like that, or

547
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 3: like change jobs. You know, something is like a big

548
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 3: change in your life. You are making the decision in

549
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:24,960
Speaker 3: a prospective way by like, you know, presumably evaluating the

550
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 3: pros and cons. You have a set of things you

551
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 3: think you want, and then you imagine, we'll we'll doing this,

552
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:34,480
Speaker 3: We'll making this big change in my life better get

553
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 3: me towards the things I want out of life. But

554
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 3: the truth is, when you go through a big change

555
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:43,520
Speaker 3: in life, the things you want can change. So in

556
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 3: some way, it's hard to predict whether going through a

557
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 3: big change will get you closer to what you want,

558
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 3: because what if going through the big change changes what

559
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 3: you want? And we know it often does.

560
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I've mentioned it before, but there's a Terrence

561
00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 2: mckinne quote that is at once reassuring I sometimes turn

562
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 2: to it for rescis insurance, but also it kind of

563
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 2: lines up with what we're talking about here. He says,

564
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 2: if something needs to be done, you will find yourself

565
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:10,800
Speaker 2: doing it, which is like, yeah, like if something happens,

566
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 2: I'll deal with it when it happens, But it's also like,

567
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:16,479
Speaker 2: I don't know. It kind of reverses the flow of

568
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 2: how we think about our own agency in life.

569
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, anyway, Rob, you cool if I talk about swamp man.

570
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:25,240
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, let's summon the swamp man.

571
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 3: So this is another philosophical thought experiment that is very

572
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:33,040
Speaker 3: similar to the transporter question, and it has come up

573
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:37,040
Speaker 3: on the show before. This is the American philosopher Donald

574
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 3: Davidson's swamp Man analogy. Davidson introduces this idea in a

575
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 3: paper called Knowing One's Own Mind from Proceedings and Addresses

576
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 3: of the American Philosophical Association. You're nineteen eighty seven, and

577
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 3: in the paper he sets up the swampman thought experiment

578
00:31:56,520 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 3: like this quote. Suppose light strikes a dead tree in

579
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 3: a swamp. I am standing nearby. My body is reduced

580
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 3: to its elements, while entirely by coincidence, and out of

581
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 3: different molecules, the tree is turned into my physical replica.

582
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 3: My replica, the swamp man moves exactly as I did,

583
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 3: according to its nature. It departs the swamp, encounters and

584
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 3: seems to recognize my friends and appears to return their

585
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 3: greetings in English. It moves into my house and seems

586
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 3: to write articles on radical interpretation. That's what Davidson didn't.

587
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:36,320
Speaker 3: He writes his kind of articles. No one can tell

588
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 3: the difference. But the interesting thing here is that Davidson.

589
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 3: The point of Davidson's thought experiment is that there actually

590
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 3: is a difference, and in his view, that difference illustrates

591
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 3: weird facts, not about it. Parfit's point was about identity.

592
00:32:55,800 --> 00:32:59,200
Speaker 3: Davidson is not making a point about identity. He's trying

593
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 3: to make a point of about knowledge, thought, and meaning.

594
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:09,560
Speaker 3: So Davidson writes, quote, my replica can't recognize my friends.

595
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 3: It can't recognize anything, since it never cognized anything in

596
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 3: the first place. It can't know my friend's names, though

597
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 3: of course it seems to. It can't remember my house.

598
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:26,959
Speaker 3: It can't mean what I do by the word house,

599
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:30,840
Speaker 3: for example, since the sound house it makes was not

600
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 3: learned in a context that would give it the right meaning,

601
00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 3: or any meaning at all. Indeed, I don't see how

602
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 3: my replica can be said to mean anything by the

603
00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 3: sounds it makes, nor to have any thoughts. And so

604
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 3: I think in the end, I might disagree with Davidson here,

605
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 3: but I think he is making a very interesting point.

606
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 3: He's arguing that even if the swamp man, you know,

607
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 3: the perfect copy of him created out of this tree

608
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:02,440
Speaker 3: by strike of a light, even if it is a

609
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 3: perfect copy of him that behaves exactly as he would

610
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:11,880
Speaker 3: in every scenario, it nevertheless is not capable of having

611
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 3: actual thoughts, and that whatever statements it makes have no

612
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:21,440
Speaker 3: meaning because the swamp man never learned the actual connection

613
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:25,719
Speaker 3: between objects and phenomena in the real world and the

614
00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 3: words and concepts that point to them. Davidson's trying to

615
00:34:29,560 --> 00:34:32,879
Speaker 3: make a point that meaning is created not just by

616
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:37,839
Speaker 3: internal mental states in the brain, but by instead a

617
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:42,880
Speaker 3: relationship between those internal mental states and a history of

618
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 3: interactions with the external world that cause those mental states

619
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:51,520
Speaker 3: to arise. And it is the fact that you learned

620
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:57,240
Speaker 3: to associate the word dog with this actual material fluffy

621
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:01,120
Speaker 3: quadruped in the real world that makes the word dog

622
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 3: means something when you say it or think it. A

623
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:07,799
Speaker 3: swamp man that has never seen or met or even

624
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 3: learned any that has never encountered any kind of sensory

625
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:15,320
Speaker 3: evidence of a dog, but can use the word dog

626
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:19,760
Speaker 3: correctly in a sentence, does not actually know what dog means,

627
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:22,759
Speaker 3: and thus when it uses the word dog, it is

628
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:26,000
Speaker 3: not actually talking about a dog. In fact, it is

629
00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:30,200
Speaker 3: not talking about anything. This is another way of phrasing

630
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 3: the point he's getting at, According to Davidson, aboutness comes

631
00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:40,800
Speaker 3: from this history of relations between internal signals and external phenomena.

632
00:35:40,920 --> 00:35:42,759
Speaker 3: So if we take this to the analogy of the

633
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:45,840
Speaker 3: Star Trek transporter. To be clear, Davidson never used this

634
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:49,840
Speaker 3: example himself, but it's similar enough to the swampman, I

635
00:35:49,880 --> 00:35:54,319
Speaker 3: think he would probably argue that after being teleported, the

636
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:57,960
Speaker 3: copy of mister Spock that arrives down on the planet

637
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:01,879
Speaker 3: does not actually have thoughts, at least not initially. Now

638
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 3: it could go on and live a life and maybe

639
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:09,800
Speaker 3: have experiences and learn associations and have thoughts later, but initially,

640
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 3: the newly teleported Spock does not have thoughts, and when

641
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:17,480
Speaker 3: it speaks, the words it speaks do not mean anything,

642
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:21,280
Speaker 3: because this new spock has no causal history to connect

643
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:26,480
Speaker 3: those words to experiences. This view is sometimes called externalism.

644
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:29,800
Speaker 3: Davidson's is one version of the idea that thoughts or

645
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:35,840
Speaker 3: mental content cannot refer only to internal structure, structures, or

646
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 3: states in the brain. They have to involve the external world,

647
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 3: and specifically, Davidson actually argues, you need like three different

648
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:46,239
Speaker 3: things in order for thoughts to have meaning. You've got

649
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 3: to have, of course, the self, the thinker. You have

650
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,239
Speaker 3: to have the external world. It's the things you were

651
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 3: thinking or talking about. And then usually you also need

652
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:58,720
Speaker 3: at least one other person or mind to communicate with.

653
00:36:58,719 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 3: With these three things together, meaning can actually be created

654
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:04,359
Speaker 3: because the self is able to have the thoughts, the

655
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:07,120
Speaker 3: external world is something for those thoughts to be about.

656
00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:10,479
Speaker 3: And then with another mind you can compare thoughts about

657
00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:14,320
Speaker 3: the external world to triangulate and check for validity. Essentially,

658
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:18,080
Speaker 3: you can talk, and these three things together generate the

659
00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:23,680
Speaker 3: aboutness of mental activity. This triangle is how meaning arises.

660
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 3: So Davidson here tries to leverage this Swampman argument to

661
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:33,600
Speaker 3: make the further case that there are limits to self

662
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:37,759
Speaker 3: knowledge through introspection and the background Here is you know,

663
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:40,799
Speaker 3: he's arguing against an existing point of view because some

664
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 3: philosophers in the tradition of Descartes would argue that knowledge

665
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:50,800
Speaker 3: about your own thoughts is basically infallible. I think, therefore

666
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 3: I am, and it's impossible for me to be wrong

667
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:56,759
Speaker 3: about that. In the same way it's impossible for me

668
00:37:56,840 --> 00:37:59,879
Speaker 3: to be wrong about what I think I mean when

669
00:37:59,880 --> 00:38:04,120
Speaker 3: I think of a dog. But Davidson says, no, actually,

670
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 3: it is not impossible for you to be wrong. Swamp

671
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:09,680
Speaker 3: Man could look at an animal and say I think

672
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:13,320
Speaker 3: that's a dog, but swamp Man has actually never met

673
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:17,239
Speaker 3: or seen or learned about dogs before. So swamp Man

674
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:21,840
Speaker 3: is incorrect about what his own thoughts mean. And for

675
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 3: a star Trek analogy here, Spock could beam down to

676
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:29,120
Speaker 3: a planet. He could see a creature with the gray olfface,

677
00:38:29,239 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 3: with the fangs and long white hair and suction cup fingers,

678
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 3: and Spock could say, that is a salt vampire. I've

679
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:39,360
Speaker 3: dealt with one of these before. But the newly created

680
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:43,279
Speaker 3: Spock that was reassembled by the teleporter has actually never

681
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:46,680
Speaker 3: seen assault vampires, never met one. So while he can

682
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:50,040
Speaker 3: say the words and behave as if he has met

683
00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 3: a salt salt vampire. The words don't actually have meaning,

684
00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:57,399
Speaker 3: and he is thus wrong about what his own thoughts mean.

685
00:38:57,520 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 3: Our knowledge of our own thoughts is not infallible, according

686
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 3: to Davidson. Now, plenty of philosophers reject Davidson's argument here.

687
00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:17,160
Speaker 3: One response that we've talked about on the show before

688
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 3: is the late philosopher Daniel Dennett's response. Dennett said, you know,

689
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:26,480
Speaker 3: Swampman is interesting to play around with. Clearly, I think

690
00:39:26,520 --> 00:39:29,279
Speaker 3: he liked talking about this thought experiment, so he was

691
00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:32,359
Speaker 3: not like hostile to it, but he argued a couple

692
00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 3: things about it. For one thing, he said, it's actually

693
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:39,720
Speaker 3: a good illustration of why thought experiments tend to become

694
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:43,879
Speaker 3: less useful or less valid the more they depart from

695
00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:49,080
Speaker 3: plausible reality. This scenario could never actually happen, the swamp

696
00:39:49,640 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 3: that's never going to just happen like lightning strikes a

697
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 3: tree and it makes a perfect copy of somebody. And

698
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:59,400
Speaker 3: because it could never actually happen, our intuitions are not

699
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:04,920
Speaker 3: very useful in manipulating and drawing conclusions from it. For Dinnet,

700
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 3: thought experiments are more illuminating when the scenarios they describe

701
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:13,480
Speaker 3: are somewhat realistic, because then our intuitions are better tuned

702
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:17,120
Speaker 3: to react sensibly to them. But beyond that. In actually

703
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:22,960
Speaker 3: addressing Davidson's argument, Dennett wrote that with that plausibility caveat,

704
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 3: the conclusion actually didn't pass the basic intuition test for dinner,

705
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:30,960
Speaker 3: It's like, if it walks like a duck and it

706
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:34,160
Speaker 3: quacts like a duck, most people actually would assume it's

707
00:40:34,160 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 3: a duck. And similarly, if the swampmen were actually created

708
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:42,440
Speaker 3: and it behaves exactly like you, most people would just

709
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:45,400
Speaker 3: assume that it is you. And it actually is able

710
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 3: to think about a dog, even if it is never

711
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:51,440
Speaker 3: in its own form, as these atoms physically met a dog.

712
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:56,359
Speaker 3: If swampman's behavior is functional, why should we say it

713
00:40:56,400 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 3: is not meaningful? So for Dinnet, though, a history of

714
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:05,239
Speaker 3: interactions with the outside world and other minds that does

715
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 3: in fact explain how our mental representations come to have meaning.

716
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 3: That history is just how it usually happens. It's like

717
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:17,240
Speaker 3: not a necessary part of the definition of what thought

718
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:22,160
Speaker 3: and meaning are. So Dennet's position is sometimes called functionalism.

719
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:25,879
Speaker 3: His would be a version of functionalism if it behaves

720
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:29,440
Speaker 3: exactly the same as a thinking being and you can

721
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:33,280
Speaker 3: make accurate predictions by imagining it as a thinking being,

722
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:35,640
Speaker 3: then we have no reason to say it's not a

723
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 3: thinking being. And if those thoughts are behaviorally indistinguishable from

724
00:41:40,719 --> 00:41:43,360
Speaker 3: thoughts that have meaning, we have no valid reason to

725
00:41:43,360 --> 00:41:46,560
Speaker 3: say that they don't have meaning. One thing I was

726
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 3: thinking about. Neither of the philosophers I was just talking

727
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:52,400
Speaker 3: about make this comparison. But I was thinking about the

728
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:56,240
Speaker 3: idea of like, okay, so if you imagine the swamp

729
00:41:56,320 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 3: man or the traveler who just went through the Star

730
00:41:59,080 --> 00:42:06,360
Speaker 3: Trek transporter as kind of having meaning like a system

731
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:09,160
Speaker 3: operating software that comes pre installed on your computer when

732
00:42:09,160 --> 00:42:12,920
Speaker 3: you arrive at an analogy to nature in some ways,

733
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:16,400
Speaker 3: I think could be the way that animal brains in

734
00:42:16,520 --> 00:42:21,359
Speaker 3: nature can have associations that are not learned through experience,

735
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:26,400
Speaker 3: but delivered genetically through innate instinct. Like some prey animals

736
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:29,960
Speaker 3: know with no prior experience to be afraid of certain

737
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 3: shapes of predators, like the silhouette of a hawk or

738
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:35,400
Speaker 3: something maybe the shape of a snake. And if you

739
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:38,200
Speaker 3: think about it like this, you can think that like, well, okay,

740
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:41,880
Speaker 3: so learning and prior interaction with the world is usually

741
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:45,240
Speaker 3: necessary in order for internal states like thoughts to have meaning.

742
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:50,040
Speaker 3: But that prior interaction doesn't have to have happened to

743
00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:53,320
Speaker 3: the same massive atoms that make up your current body.

744
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:56,080
Speaker 3: That prior interaction could have happened in the case of

745
00:42:56,160 --> 00:43:01,600
Speaker 3: the transporter to the body of which a copy is made,

746
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 3: or in the case of the real world in biology,

747
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 3: it could have happened to other organisms that were subsequently

748
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 3: shaped by evolution to have instinctual knowledge coming pre installed

749
00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:14,640
Speaker 3: by the time that you're born.

750
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:16,400
Speaker 2: That's a great point.

751
00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, So anyway, this raises the question, Like you imagine,

752
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 3: McCoy is beamed down to the planet. McCoy hates it.

753
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 3: He says, I didn't want I didn't join Starflee to

754
00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 3: have my atoms scattered back and forth across the galaxy.

755
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:30,799
Speaker 3: But sorry, you did. That's what you gotta do. So

756
00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:32,680
Speaker 3: you're gonna get beamed down to the planet. No, you

757
00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 3: don't like it. So McCoy arrives on the planet. What

758
00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 3: does this now arrived McCoy actually know or mean when

759
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:45,480
Speaker 3: he thinks about a friend or a familiar concept, especially

760
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:48,360
Speaker 3: if you take the view that the original McCoy was

761
00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:51,680
Speaker 3: destroyed and this is a reassembled new body out of

762
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 3: new atoms and molecules.

763
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:58,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, like this numerically, this McCoy does not know quote

764
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 2: unquote know anyone on the show that he just damned

765
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:05,320
Speaker 2: down from. And is it is carrying out a mission

766
00:44:05,440 --> 00:44:07,200
Speaker 2: that is just pre installed.

767
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know exactly where I come down here.

768
00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 3: I think I would tend to lean more toward the

769
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 3: functionalist view that says it. You know, if this McCoy

770
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:20,240
Speaker 3: is behaving as if he knows, you know, Nancy Krater

771
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:22,920
Speaker 3: here on the planet, he does know her, and the

772
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:25,880
Speaker 3: words he's saying he's behaving is if the words have meaning.

773
00:44:26,160 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 3: We have no reason to say that the words do

774
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 3: not have meaning, even though like he may never have

775
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:34,279
Speaker 3: used these words before. But yeah, it's just it's a

776
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:38,920
Speaker 3: scenario that is so removed from reality. I agree with

777
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:41,160
Speaker 3: Dennet's point that it is kind of hard to apply

778
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 3: our intuitions to it. We may just be kind of

779
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:49,040
Speaker 3: being led astray by weird little kind of red herrings,

780
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:53,880
Speaker 3: little actually not important features of the scenario. Because this

781
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:56,880
Speaker 3: is a scenario we would never actually deal with, so

782
00:44:57,080 --> 00:44:59,239
Speaker 3: we don't we don't know, we don't have to know

783
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 3: how to react to it.

784
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 2: Right, right, the more like pressing. Real world versions of

785
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 2: this would be say some sort of a machine that

786
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:10,320
Speaker 2: is exactly or an advanced language model that's presenting itself

787
00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:12,879
Speaker 2: as McCoy or some individual.

788
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:15,400
Speaker 3: And you know what there when you think about it

789
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:19,800
Speaker 3: that way, I have intuitions. I'm not sure they're correct.

790
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:23,239
Speaker 3: They might just be kind of an emotivism like emotional expressions.

791
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:26,560
Speaker 3: But if you start asking me, do I think that

792
00:45:26,600 --> 00:45:31,320
Speaker 3: the things said by a large language model AI are meaningful?

793
00:45:31,520 --> 00:45:35,240
Speaker 3: Is it actually having thoughts? Part of me there seems

794
00:45:35,239 --> 00:45:37,960
Speaker 3: to think no. Actually, I feel more like this is

795
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:45,000
Speaker 3: a kind of uncomprehending but sophisticated manipulation of symbols. But

796
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 3: I don't know it. Maybe that's just a kind of

797
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 3: emotional bias on my part.

798
00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:53,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, this, of course is a huge area of consideration,

799
00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:56,480
Speaker 2: and you know, by some estimates, maybe there is a

800
00:45:56,520 --> 00:46:00,400
Speaker 2: line there and it's not necessarily visible to us. And

801
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:03,600
Speaker 2: once we crossed that threshold, we are getting into an

802
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:06,440
Speaker 2: area where there is something like consciousness on the other end,

803
00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:13,160
Speaker 2: and otherwise maybe not. But again, a more practical and

804
00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:17,360
Speaker 2: near future consideration compared to the complete you know, down

805
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 2: to the molecule, down to the atom down to the

806
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 2: very signups in the brain copy that is created by

807
00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:28,200
Speaker 2: some sort of teleportation device. But still, the swamp man

808
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:29,600
Speaker 2: discussion is a lot of fun.

809
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:32,160
Speaker 3: I mean, do you have intuitions on this, Like what

810
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:32,879
Speaker 3: what do you think?

811
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:33,200
Speaker 1: Like?

812
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 3: Does it make sense to you that a being could

813
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:40,239
Speaker 3: have meaning when it refers to something that it has

814
00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 3: actually never experienced in any way?

815
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:47,279
Speaker 2: I mean, people talk about things they have little experience

816
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:51,719
Speaker 2: with all the time. It doesn't mean I said meaningful. Yeah,

817
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 2: I mean sometimes I mean I guess it's a sliding scale. Yeah,

818
00:46:57,160 --> 00:47:00,279
Speaker 2: I guess I tend to I tend to deal with

819
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:03,040
Speaker 2: this particular scenario. I tend to believe that, yes, if

820
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:09,239
Speaker 2: you've made a complete one copy of McCoy and and

821
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:14,160
Speaker 2: he has preloaded opinions about things that, yes, numerically this

822
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:18,480
Speaker 2: individual has never actually encountered. Uh, it doesn't take away

823
00:47:18,520 --> 00:47:21,319
Speaker 2: from the meaning behind it, Like like what he's when

824
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:24,240
Speaker 2: when he you beam him down and he's going to start,

825
00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:27,920
Speaker 2: you know, giving you a medical checkup. I totally trust

826
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:31,440
Speaker 2: him to apply medical care to me. I'm not going

827
00:47:31,520 --> 00:47:34,960
Speaker 2: to say, oh, but you actually don't have personal experience

828
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:37,759
Speaker 2: treating anyone that was the other copy. Now, like this

829
00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:41,759
Speaker 2: is good enough. So I guess I tend to I

830
00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:44,120
Speaker 2: tend to buy into good enough isms when it comes

831
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:44,879
Speaker 2: to this sort of thing.

832
00:47:45,040 --> 00:47:47,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess the functionalist view again. Yeah.

833
00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:49,719
Speaker 2: Yeah. By the way, I think I've mentioned this on

834
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:51,839
Speaker 2: the show before, but I researched this a little bit

835
00:47:51,840 --> 00:47:57,080
Speaker 2: at one point. Obviously, Alan Moore's run on swamp Thing

836
00:47:57,760 --> 00:48:02,360
Speaker 2: has close parallels to Davidson's swamp Man scenario. Prior to

837
00:48:02,400 --> 00:48:05,880
Speaker 2: Alan Moore writing on the swamp Thing title for DC Comics,

838
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 2: swamp Thing was like a man who became a monster

839
00:48:08,640 --> 00:48:11,920
Speaker 2: in the more typical sense, but Alan Moore recasts the

840
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:16,320
Speaker 2: character as in a very swamp man way, being completely

841
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 2: destroyed and recreated in the likeness of the previous individual.

842
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 2: And as far as I can tell, no one is

843
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 2: entirely certain on how and to what extent these two

844
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:31,680
Speaker 2: were actually connected, and of the two, only Alan Moore

845
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:35,759
Speaker 2: is still alive. But it basically seems to be a

846
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 2: case where Alan Moore was creating entertainment based on philosophy

847
00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:47,840
Speaker 2: and then Davidson was creating philosophy based on pop culture entertainment.

848
00:48:47,920 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 2: So maybe it's entirely possible that the two were completely

849
00:48:51,239 --> 00:48:52,239
Speaker 2: unaware of each other.

850
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:55,120
Speaker 3: That's funny. By the way, I have thought multiple times

851
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:57,120
Speaker 3: that I want to come back and check out one

852
00:48:57,160 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 3: of the swamp Thing movies for Weird House.

853
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:02,399
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, the swamp Thing movies. They also came

854
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:06,160
Speaker 2: about after Alan morris tremendous run on the series, but

855
00:49:08,400 --> 00:49:11,080
Speaker 2: bear none of its complexity. Better still just still still

856
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:13,000
Speaker 2: still pretty fun, still pretty fun movies.

857
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:14,600
Speaker 3: Did Wes Craven do one of them?

858
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:17,560
Speaker 2: He did? He did the first one. Yeah, And Louis

859
00:49:17,640 --> 00:49:20,840
Speaker 2: Jordan playing the villain in that one.

860
00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:23,400
Speaker 3: I haven't seen him, but I gotta make it there

861
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:32,759
Speaker 3: one day.

862
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:38,759
Speaker 2: Now. Coming a bit back to science fiction itself, teleportation

863
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:44,160
Speaker 2: science fiction naturally predates Star Trek itself, and this gets

864
00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:47,840
Speaker 2: pretty fascinating when you start tearing into it. There was

865
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:51,080
Speaker 2: an eighteen seventy seven short story titled The Man Without

866
00:49:51,080 --> 00:49:54,880
Speaker 2: a Body by Edward Page Mitchell that, by some estimates,

867
00:49:54,920 --> 00:49:59,760
Speaker 2: might be the earliest example of teleportation science fiction, detailing

868
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:04,480
Speaker 2: method by which matter is telepumped from one point to

869
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:08,239
Speaker 2: another over a telephone wire. I believe I believe a

870
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:11,440
Speaker 2: cat is telepumped in this story. And then when it

871
00:50:11,480 --> 00:50:15,560
Speaker 2: comes to the term teleportation, it's my understanding that this

872
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 2: largely originates with Charles Fort. When you hear the word Fortian,

873
00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:27,160
Speaker 2: this is the Charles Fort in question. Here. He wrote

874
00:50:27,200 --> 00:50:30,920
Speaker 2: a lot about anomalous phenomena.

875
00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:32,920
Speaker 3: The namesake of the fourteen Times exactly.

876
00:50:33,040 --> 00:50:37,480
Speaker 2: Yes, he coined this term teleportation in his then consideration

877
00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:42,360
Speaker 2: of mysterious disappearances and appearances as far back as nineteen

878
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:45,120
Speaker 2: thirty one. So things like someone vanishes or fish fall

879
00:50:45,160 --> 00:50:47,879
Speaker 2: out of the sky, that sort of thing. Okay. Now,

880
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 2: prior to Star Trek, one of the really big ones

881
00:50:50,280 --> 00:50:54,920
Speaker 2: is Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination, which employed the

882
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:59,520
Speaker 2: idea of teleportation, calling it jaunting, which of course also

883
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:03,960
Speaker 2: in Stephen King, apparently because this is because he has

884
00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:08,000
Speaker 2: the excellent, terrifying nineteen eighty one sci fi horror tale

885
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:12,080
Speaker 2: The Jaunt, which was published in Twilight Zone magazine. Now,

886
00:51:12,080 --> 00:51:16,959
Speaker 2: whether King's Jaunt is truly teleportation is another matter, I imagine.

887
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:19,400
Speaker 3: It's been a while since I read that, But it

888
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:23,799
Speaker 3: has a very mentally grizzly twist. Folks, if you want

889
00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:26,359
Speaker 3: to experience the story unspoiled and want to keep listening,

890
00:51:26,400 --> 00:51:29,280
Speaker 3: I don't know, skip twenty seconds ahead. Basically, the idea

891
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:32,120
Speaker 3: is that when you go through teleportation, you have to

892
00:51:32,160 --> 00:51:34,560
Speaker 3: take a sedative to be asleep when it happens, because

893
00:51:34,560 --> 00:51:37,759
Speaker 3: if you are conscious at the moment of teleportation, you

894
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:41,840
Speaker 3: get mentally imprisoned for like billions of years inside of

895
00:51:41,920 --> 00:51:46,960
Speaker 3: a consciousness jail where you're just stuck there with nothing

896
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:49,040
Speaker 3: to experience, and you go insane.

897
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:51,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, he come out of the end completely insane, and

898
00:51:51,760 --> 00:51:54,280
Speaker 2: then oop Olympus sing a song about how you shouldn't

899
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:54,640
Speaker 2: have done that.

900
00:51:55,040 --> 00:51:55,600
Speaker 3: Yeah.

901
00:51:55,680 --> 00:52:00,120
Speaker 2: Now, another key predecessor, and we've referenced this already a

902
00:52:00,160 --> 00:52:03,560
Speaker 2: little bit in this episode is George Langlan's nineteen fifty

903
00:52:03,560 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 2: seven sci fi horror tale The Fly, which was made

904
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:10,280
Speaker 2: into a film the following year. It was originally published

905
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:13,239
Speaker 2: in the June nineteen fifty seven edition of Playboy magazine,

906
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:16,920
Speaker 2: and it of course introduces the most famous teleporter accident

907
00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 2: in science fiction. What happens if I enter a telepod

908
00:52:20,840 --> 00:52:24,840
Speaker 2: with a house fly and then you mix mix the idea,

909
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:27,680
Speaker 2: You do a mashup of these two concepts, and that's

910
00:52:27,680 --> 00:52:29,040
Speaker 2: what merges on the other end.

911
00:52:29,280 --> 00:52:33,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, did Brundle absorb Fly? No fusion.

912
00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:36,160
Speaker 2: We did a whole episode of stuff to blow your

913
00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 2: mind not weird, howse cinema stuff to blow your mind

914
00:52:38,560 --> 00:52:42,359
Speaker 2: about the fly many years back, where we got into

915
00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:46,560
Speaker 2: some of the additional teleportation considerations when you're talking about

916
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:53,040
Speaker 2: sending one human through the teleporter, and maybe you don't

917
00:52:53,040 --> 00:52:54,680
Speaker 2: have to worry just about the fly, but how about

918
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:57,160
Speaker 2: all the other things that live inside us that are

919
00:52:57,160 --> 00:52:59,319
Speaker 2: genetically different than from us? Oh?

920
00:52:59,360 --> 00:53:02,239
Speaker 3: I forgot about. Yeah, wouldn't you get fused with all

921
00:53:02,239 --> 00:53:04,000
Speaker 3: of your gut microbioda and all that.

922
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:07,680
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, in Star Trek, the Federation seems to have

923
00:53:07,760 --> 00:53:10,200
Speaker 2: various safeguards in place to keep this sort of thing

924
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:13,600
Speaker 2: from happening. But if you've watched Star Trek enough, you

925
00:53:13,600 --> 00:53:18,279
Speaker 2: know that transporter mishaps do occur. Sometimes, as with the fly,

926
00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:21,640
Speaker 2: they seem to happen for sheer horror's sake. The main

927
00:53:21,680 --> 00:53:24,239
Speaker 2: example of this is from nineteen seventy nine Star Trek

928
00:53:24,320 --> 00:53:27,040
Speaker 2: the motion picture Joe, I don't know if you remember

929
00:53:27,080 --> 00:53:28,759
Speaker 2: this moment or not. I'm not sure how you could

930
00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:33,359
Speaker 2: forget it, in which two individuals are fatally distorted via

931
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:36,080
Speaker 2: the transporter. They're like not able to get them in

932
00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:38,920
Speaker 2: all the way, and then they're gone and we're just

933
00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:43,160
Speaker 2: told what we got back didn't live long fortunately. Yeah,

934
00:53:43,200 --> 00:53:46,800
Speaker 2: so like straight up you know, horror moment here in

935
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:50,759
Speaker 2: that film, more in line with The Fly or even

936
00:53:50,800 --> 00:53:51,320
Speaker 2: the Jaunt.

937
00:53:51,840 --> 00:53:54,680
Speaker 3: Why did that happen in the story? Was it just

938
00:53:54,800 --> 00:53:57,480
Speaker 3: random or was there a sabotage of some kind?

939
00:53:57,680 --> 00:53:59,799
Speaker 2: I don't you know, it's been so long since I've

940
00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:02,200
Speaker 2: seen Star Trek the motion picture. I don't even remember

941
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:04,720
Speaker 2: how important it was. If it was more about setting

942
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:07,920
Speaker 2: the tone that like, this is Star Trek the motion picture,

943
00:54:07,960 --> 00:54:12,080
Speaker 2: and the stakes are pretty high because prior to this,

944
00:54:12,239 --> 00:54:14,640
Speaker 2: you know, we did have teleporter misapps on Star Trek

945
00:54:14,719 --> 00:54:18,000
Speaker 2: the original series. For instance, in the episode The Enemy

946
00:54:18,040 --> 00:54:23,240
Speaker 2: Within that the transporter messes up and generates to Captain

947
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:26,839
Speaker 2: Kirk's one that embodies all the goodness of Captain Kirk

948
00:54:26,880 --> 00:54:28,799
Speaker 2: and the other one that's all the evil. So the

949
00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:31,479
Speaker 2: best and the worst of an into individual split into

950
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:33,839
Speaker 2: two beings who then, you know, do get out now?

951
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:36,320
Speaker 3: I imagine they have to deal with the bad Kirk.

952
00:54:36,400 --> 00:54:38,400
Speaker 3: But at the end of the episode, are you just

953
00:54:38,560 --> 00:54:40,960
Speaker 3: left with the good Kirk or do they re merge

954
00:54:41,040 --> 00:54:41,600
Speaker 3: back together?

955
00:54:42,360 --> 00:54:45,319
Speaker 2: I believe we re emerged because the good that's the

956
00:54:45,480 --> 00:54:47,080
Speaker 2: I guess That's kind of the meat of what they're

957
00:54:47,080 --> 00:54:49,560
Speaker 2: getting into here is the if you take all the

958
00:54:49,560 --> 00:54:51,840
Speaker 2: good out of the person, like that's still not the person.

959
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:56,080
Speaker 2: You've created two versions of the individual that aren't the original,

960
00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:59,080
Speaker 2: so you've got to reconsolidate. It's actually it's an episode

961
00:54:59,080 --> 00:55:01,040
Speaker 2: that I haven't gotten yet, so there may be some

962
00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:03,560
Speaker 2: nuts and bolts of that episode that that I'm not

963
00:55:03,640 --> 00:55:07,520
Speaker 2: aware of now a next I am. I'm more familiar

964
00:55:07,560 --> 00:55:10,719
Speaker 2: with the next generation teleporder mishaps, and there are some

965
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:14,160
Speaker 2: doozies in there. There's an episode called Rascals in which

966
00:55:14,239 --> 00:55:17,960
Speaker 2: four crew members are reverted to their twelve year old selves.

967
00:55:18,920 --> 00:55:22,759
Speaker 2: And I have not seen this one since since I

968
00:55:22,920 --> 00:55:25,000
Speaker 2: was a young person, but I remember it being a

969
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:28,120
Speaker 2: lot of fun because you know, oh, suddenly you know

970
00:55:28,160 --> 00:55:31,320
Speaker 2: they're they're these characters that are basically my age, and

971
00:55:31,360 --> 00:55:33,120
Speaker 2: they're running around the starship Enterprise.

972
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:35,279
Speaker 3: Is one of them Richer Well.

973
00:55:35,320 --> 00:55:37,959
Speaker 2: I had to look it up to remind myself it's actually, yeah,

974
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:42,680
Speaker 2: it's it's Whippie Goldberg's character, it's Picard, it's insign Row,

975
00:55:42,920 --> 00:55:45,160
Speaker 2: and then a character by the name of O'Brien that

976
00:55:45,239 --> 00:55:48,560
Speaker 2: I don't clearly remember remember all that well, but yeah,

977
00:55:48,560 --> 00:55:51,200
Speaker 2: they're all reduced to twelve year old versions of themselves.

978
00:55:52,040 --> 00:55:56,160
Speaker 2: How is that possible? You know, it's for plot reasons,

979
00:55:56,160 --> 00:55:56,840
Speaker 2: it's possible.

980
00:55:57,040 --> 00:56:00,880
Speaker 3: Do they retain all of their adult knowledge minds? Or

981
00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:03,880
Speaker 3: are that do they like revert to what they knew

982
00:56:03,960 --> 00:56:05,240
Speaker 3: and were when they were twelve?

983
00:56:05,440 --> 00:56:08,520
Speaker 2: Like are they muppet babies? Kind of? Yeah, I don't

984
00:56:08,520 --> 00:56:11,440
Speaker 2: remember how this one plays out. I think clearly maybe

985
00:56:11,480 --> 00:56:15,200
Speaker 2: one of the sillier examples. Yeah, But then there's another episode,

986
00:56:15,200 --> 00:56:16,799
Speaker 2: and I remember this one too, and this one I

987
00:56:16,840 --> 00:56:18,920
Speaker 2: remember being quite good, and I think this one also

988
00:56:19,000 --> 00:56:23,880
Speaker 2: involves Ensign Row as well as Jeordie LaForge. A mishap

989
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:27,239
Speaker 2: with the Chet teleporter makes them invisible and intangible, so

990
00:56:27,280 --> 00:56:32,759
Speaker 2: they become like ghosts aboard the Enterprise, So that one

991
00:56:33,120 --> 00:56:37,200
Speaker 2: I remember being pretty good. One of the more famous

992
00:56:37,320 --> 00:56:41,280
Speaker 2: examples from Star Trek the Next Generation is the episode's

993
00:56:41,320 --> 00:56:45,360
Speaker 2: Second Chances, in which we get two Lieutenant Rikers. So

994
00:56:45,920 --> 00:56:48,920
Speaker 2: essentially the way this happens is they're trying to beam

995
00:56:49,400 --> 00:56:50,719
Speaker 2: At one point in the past, they were trying to

996
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:53,920
Speaker 2: beam him back up, and they were challenging environmental conditions

997
00:56:53,920 --> 00:56:56,040
Speaker 2: in place. They're like, okay, we'll use two channels to

998
00:56:56,080 --> 00:56:58,360
Speaker 2: do it, to pull him up from the surface, and

999
00:56:58,400 --> 00:57:01,040
Speaker 2: then we're going to consolidate all that into one riker.

1000
00:57:01,080 --> 00:57:03,320
Speaker 2: But I guess this way, it's like you could incomplete

1001
00:57:03,320 --> 00:57:05,880
Speaker 2: information on one side, incomplete on the other. But between

1002
00:57:05,880 --> 00:57:09,919
Speaker 2: the two streams we'll have one complete riker. Okay, sounds good,

1003
00:57:10,320 --> 00:57:13,160
Speaker 2: But only one beam makes it back up and it

1004
00:57:13,239 --> 00:57:16,680
Speaker 2: delivers a full riker. The other beam bounces back down

1005
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:20,120
Speaker 2: to the surface and creates another Riker who's identical. So

1006
00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:22,959
Speaker 2: now you have two rikers, but one gets to go home,

1007
00:57:23,040 --> 00:57:25,320
Speaker 2: and if memory serves the other one is like left

1008
00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:28,520
Speaker 2: Robinson Crusoe on the planet's surface. So we end up

1009
00:57:28,560 --> 00:57:31,920
Speaker 2: with years later, we have two different Rikers. We have

1010
00:57:32,240 --> 00:57:35,480
Speaker 2: William Riker and then we have Thomas Riker, so identical

1011
00:57:35,520 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 2: at the point of creation, but each has gone a

1012
00:57:37,720 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 2: different way since then.

1013
00:57:39,240 --> 00:57:42,520
Speaker 3: What is the Crusoe Riker like? Is he like bitter

1014
00:57:42,600 --> 00:57:43,000
Speaker 3: about it?

1015
00:57:43,480 --> 00:57:47,760
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, there's as I recall, he's bitter. Yeah, these

1016
00:57:47,760 --> 00:57:49,360
Speaker 2: two they don't get along.

1017
00:57:49,440 --> 00:57:52,919
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's an interesting plot device because, yeah, it's easy

1018
00:57:52,960 --> 00:57:56,280
Speaker 3: to imagine all the different ways that you could not

1019
00:57:56,560 --> 00:58:00,120
Speaker 3: like yourself or not like people who you otherwise, like

1020
00:58:00,280 --> 00:58:02,440
Speaker 3: if you just get to see them react to different

1021
00:58:02,440 --> 00:58:03,560
Speaker 3: circumstances than.

1022
00:58:03,480 --> 00:58:06,600
Speaker 2: You, yeah, yeah, Or if you met the you that

1023
00:58:06,720 --> 00:58:09,919
Speaker 2: had slightly different circumstances, right, yea, the you you could

1024
00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:13,520
Speaker 2: have been. Now, there's an episode of Voyager, and I

1025
00:58:13,560 --> 00:58:17,040
Speaker 2: watched I think none of Voyager. I think it basically

1026
00:58:17,040 --> 00:58:18,520
Speaker 2: it came out when I was kind of getting out

1027
00:58:18,520 --> 00:58:20,680
Speaker 2: of watching Star Trek, but I understand it has some

1028
00:58:20,720 --> 00:58:23,920
Speaker 2: great episodes. But you have two characters that get merged

1029
00:58:23,920 --> 00:58:28,560
Speaker 2: into a third character, a character named Tuviks, but not

1030
00:58:28,640 --> 00:58:31,240
Speaker 2: in the flyway, not in a monstrous way, but it's

1031
00:58:31,280 --> 00:58:34,320
Speaker 2: like two individuals become a new third individual that is

1032
00:58:34,440 --> 00:58:39,000
Speaker 2: like a perfect blending of the previous two. And so

1033
00:58:39,120 --> 00:58:41,600
Speaker 2: that one, I think gets in questions of like, Okay,

1034
00:58:41,600 --> 00:58:44,000
Speaker 2: we have an entirely new person. Do they have the

1035
00:58:44,080 --> 00:58:46,680
Speaker 2: right to exist or are you going to separate them

1036
00:58:46,680 --> 00:58:50,520
Speaker 2: into the two people that were merged to make them again?

1037
00:58:50,680 --> 00:58:53,560
Speaker 2: Kind of an impossible question. I'm not sure to what

1038
00:58:53,640 --> 00:58:56,640
Speaker 2: extent this one has any like real life ramifications, but

1039
00:58:57,560 --> 00:59:01,200
Speaker 2: still an inventive development. All right. These next two are

1040
00:59:01,240 --> 00:59:04,600
Speaker 2: ones that that I that I have definitely seen. One

1041
00:59:04,600 --> 00:59:07,280
Speaker 2: of them I think was probably the Star Trek Next

1042
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:09,840
Speaker 2: Generation episode that blew my mind the most of the time.

1043
00:59:09,840 --> 00:59:11,400
Speaker 2: I don't know. There were several like that that really

1044
00:59:11,400 --> 00:59:15,120
Speaker 2: presented me with sci fi concepts that I've never encountered before.

1045
00:59:15,560 --> 00:59:18,760
Speaker 2: There was a it was an episode titled Relics, and

1046
00:59:18,920 --> 00:59:20,880
Speaker 2: it was always a favorite of mine because it features

1047
00:59:20,880 --> 00:59:24,640
Speaker 2: a Dyson sphere. Like the ship encounters a Dyson sphere,

1048
00:59:24,720 --> 00:59:26,800
Speaker 2: they go inside of it and you see like the

1049
00:59:26,800 --> 00:59:30,040
Speaker 2: interior surface of it that is, you know, like a

1050
00:59:30,040 --> 00:59:33,080
Speaker 2: planetary surface, like a hollow Earth, and with the Sun

1051
00:59:33,600 --> 00:59:37,480
Speaker 2: captured in the middle. I had not been exposed to

1052
00:59:37,520 --> 00:59:41,200
Speaker 2: this concept in science fiction or or you know, or

1053
00:59:41,280 --> 00:59:45,040
Speaker 2: cosmology before, so this it was entirely new, just completely

1054
00:59:45,120 --> 00:59:45,840
Speaker 2: blew my mind.

1055
00:59:46,400 --> 00:59:49,440
Speaker 3: I still remember how bizarre and exciting it was when

1056
00:59:49,440 --> 00:59:51,560
Speaker 3: I first found out of this concept, and I've never

1057
00:59:51,600 --> 00:59:54,600
Speaker 3: seen it in fiction. I think I just read about it.

1058
00:59:54,720 --> 00:59:55,680
Speaker 3: Still it was so weird.

1059
00:59:56,040 --> 00:59:58,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, So for me, that's the most memorable thing about

1060
00:59:58,280 --> 01:00:01,840
Speaker 2: this episode. But it was a also pretty neat because

1061
01:00:02,200 --> 01:00:06,600
Speaker 2: they happened to beam in Montgomery Scott played by James

1062
01:00:06,640 --> 01:00:10,120
Speaker 2: Doohan Duhan from the original Star Trek series, with the

1063
01:00:10,160 --> 01:00:14,280
Speaker 2: idea here being that he was this former version of

1064
01:00:14,360 --> 01:00:18,680
Speaker 2: himself was preserved in a transporter buffer, so the information

1065
01:00:19,720 --> 01:00:22,520
Speaker 2: from the transporter like between point A and point B,

1066
01:00:22,760 --> 01:00:26,840
Speaker 2: got just stuck with, you know, due to some sort

1067
01:00:26,880 --> 01:00:29,480
Speaker 2: of a significant energy overflow I think from the Dyson

1068
01:00:29,560 --> 01:00:31,800
Speaker 2: sphere here, and so they were able to like just

1069
01:00:31,920 --> 01:00:36,960
Speaker 2: beam him into being. So yeah, yeah, yeah, cashed page.

1070
01:00:37,120 --> 01:00:40,160
Speaker 2: But once it's reproduced, well there you go. Here he

1071
01:00:40,280 --> 01:00:43,800
Speaker 2: is again in a similar way. The current series star

1072
01:00:43,880 --> 01:00:47,600
Speaker 2: Trek Strange New Worlds that I've really been enjoying. The

1073
01:00:47,680 --> 01:00:51,280
Speaker 2: chief medical officer on that is this character Joseph Imbinga

1074
01:00:51,480 --> 01:00:56,240
Speaker 2: played by Bab's Ulusan Mocon. He was he was in doone.

1075
01:00:56,320 --> 01:00:59,840
Speaker 2: He played Jamas, a really good actor. But this character

1076
01:01:00,320 --> 01:01:03,040
Speaker 2: keeps his terminally sick daughter, we find out in a

1077
01:01:03,120 --> 01:01:06,280
Speaker 2: transporter buffer. So she has some sort of ailment. I

1078
01:01:06,280 --> 01:01:08,560
Speaker 2: forget the details of it, but basically, you know, she

1079
01:01:08,600 --> 01:01:12,960
Speaker 2: has very little time to live in reality. So what

1080
01:01:13,000 --> 01:01:14,800
Speaker 2: he can do is he can keep her in a

1081
01:01:14,840 --> 01:01:18,600
Speaker 2: transporter buffer and bring her out of that transporter buffer

1082
01:01:18,640 --> 01:01:21,280
Speaker 2: periodically to spend time with her, but then puts her

1083
01:01:21,280 --> 01:01:25,000
Speaker 2: back in almost like keeping her frozen until such a

1084
01:01:25,080 --> 01:01:29,200
Speaker 2: time as her ailments can be properly treated. So these

1085
01:01:29,240 --> 01:01:30,800
Speaker 2: are just these are just some of the ones that

1086
01:01:31,280 --> 01:01:33,240
Speaker 2: came to my mind or that I was aware of,

1087
01:01:33,480 --> 01:01:35,600
Speaker 2: or you know, popped up on a few lists here

1088
01:01:35,640 --> 01:01:38,160
Speaker 2: and there. There are probably some other great examples of

1089
01:01:38,520 --> 01:01:42,200
Speaker 2: teleporter mishaps that have created some great drama and some

1090
01:01:42,960 --> 01:01:45,200
Speaker 2: fascinating ideas on Star Trek, and I'm sure they're going

1091
01:01:45,280 --> 01:01:48,400
Speaker 2: to keep coming up with new ones. But even the

1092
01:01:48,440 --> 01:01:50,960
Speaker 2: ones we've discussed here, there raised so many questions about

1093
01:01:51,000 --> 01:01:55,920
Speaker 2: like the power of teleportation as revealed in Star Trek,

1094
01:01:56,000 --> 01:01:58,960
Speaker 2: Like what are all the things that you could conceivably

1095
01:01:59,000 --> 01:02:02,160
Speaker 2: do that don't necessarily fit into the world and of

1096
01:02:02,280 --> 01:02:05,480
Speaker 2: the show and the plot of individual episodes, Like if

1097
01:02:05,520 --> 01:02:09,760
Speaker 2: you can filter out biocontaminants from someone's you know, information

1098
01:02:09,920 --> 01:02:12,240
Speaker 2: when it's being back to the ship, what else can

1099
01:02:12,280 --> 01:02:15,200
Speaker 2: you filter out? What else can you change? Could you

1100
01:02:15,400 --> 01:02:19,200
Speaker 2: improve on the original individual each time? You know? Naturally

1101
01:02:19,280 --> 01:02:22,040
Speaker 2: that would take things into the forbidden zone of augments

1102
01:02:22,400 --> 01:02:24,600
Speaker 2: in the Trek universe. But it's an easy to imagine

1103
01:02:24,600 --> 01:02:27,360
Speaker 2: how a society could be completely changed by access to

1104
01:02:27,360 --> 01:02:28,280
Speaker 2: such technology.

1105
01:02:28,520 --> 01:02:30,640
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it makes you wonder like why would you

1106
01:02:30,680 --> 01:02:34,960
Speaker 3: even need physical medical interventions? Couldn't all of your medical

1107
01:02:34,960 --> 01:02:38,800
Speaker 3: interventions be databased. Yeah, you know, so like if instead

1108
01:02:38,800 --> 01:02:42,360
Speaker 3: of doing physical things to your body when you've got

1109
01:02:42,880 --> 01:02:45,720
Speaker 3: when you've got an infection or something like that, they

1110
01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:49,040
Speaker 3: could just put you into the teleporter and then pop out,

1111
01:02:49,520 --> 01:02:52,400
Speaker 3: make some digital edits, and then pop out an information

1112
01:02:52,520 --> 01:02:54,400
Speaker 3: based version of you without the infection.

1113
01:02:54,960 --> 01:02:56,920
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, basically be like, I'm just going to do

1114
01:02:56,920 --> 01:03:00,760
Speaker 2: an Amazon return on my current state of physical or

1115
01:03:00,800 --> 01:03:03,560
Speaker 2: mental well being, just to run this one through again.

1116
01:03:04,040 --> 01:03:05,600
Speaker 2: In some of this too, you can, I don't know.

1117
01:03:05,720 --> 01:03:07,560
Speaker 2: It also brings me once again back to the Fly,

1118
01:03:07,680 --> 01:03:10,760
Speaker 2: more specifically David Cronenberg's treatment of it. I'm sure you

1119
01:03:10,800 --> 01:03:16,200
Speaker 2: remember early on in the film, doctor Brundle believes that

1120
01:03:16,200 --> 01:03:20,480
Speaker 2: that teleportation through the pods has purified and improved him. Yes,

1121
01:03:20,880 --> 01:03:23,080
Speaker 2: he doesn't know yet that he's been fused at a

1122
01:03:23,120 --> 01:03:25,960
Speaker 2: genetic level with a house fly. So for a while

1123
01:03:25,960 --> 01:03:29,440
Speaker 2: he's just like, the process itself is purifying, The process

1124
01:03:29,480 --> 01:03:32,400
Speaker 2: itself has made me like a better end, I don't know,

1125
01:03:32,560 --> 01:03:37,720
Speaker 2: more intense person. So you can imagine like the various possibilities,

1126
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:41,760
Speaker 2: like actual possibilities with this kind of technology where people

1127
01:03:41,800 --> 01:03:47,000
Speaker 2: would just continually redo it and redo themselves, changing themselves,

1128
01:03:47,000 --> 01:03:50,040
Speaker 2: and also engaging in the idea of it each It's

1129
01:03:50,080 --> 01:03:52,960
Speaker 2: like waking up in the morning fully refreshed, instead of

1130
01:03:52,960 --> 01:03:55,800
Speaker 2: taking a shower in the morning. You get up, you

1131
01:03:55,880 --> 01:03:58,120
Speaker 2: climb onto the end of the telepod, and you just

1132
01:03:58,400 --> 01:04:01,400
Speaker 2: teleport yourself point A to point A and then go

1133
01:04:01,480 --> 01:04:03,000
Speaker 2: about your day and you don't even have to have

1134
01:04:03,000 --> 01:04:03,640
Speaker 2: a cup of coffee.

1135
01:04:03,720 --> 01:04:07,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, edit out the dirt, Yeah yeah, all right? Does

1136
01:04:07,720 --> 01:04:08,400
Speaker 3: that do it for you?

1137
01:04:09,240 --> 01:04:11,880
Speaker 2: I think that's probably the limit. Obviously, I could keep

1138
01:04:12,160 --> 01:04:18,360
Speaker 2: rambling on about sci fi teleportation endlessly fascinating topic. But again,

1139
01:04:18,440 --> 01:04:21,960
Speaker 2: we have no firm answers on consciousness or teleportation here today,

1140
01:04:22,440 --> 01:04:24,479
Speaker 2: but maybe we gave everyone some food for thought, food

1141
01:04:24,480 --> 01:04:29,400
Speaker 2: for discussion as well. Obviously, write in with any thoughts, observations,

1142
01:04:29,600 --> 01:04:33,800
Speaker 2: corrections that you have about the use of transporters in

1143
01:04:33,920 --> 01:04:36,680
Speaker 2: Star Trek media. If you have anything from you know,

1144
01:04:36,720 --> 01:04:39,520
Speaker 2: extended Star Trek media you want to write in about,

1145
01:04:39,600 --> 01:04:42,880
Speaker 2: or just other examples of teleportation and science fiction that

1146
01:04:43,000 --> 01:04:46,680
Speaker 2: you think tie into the discussion here, write in. We

1147
01:04:46,720 --> 01:04:49,800
Speaker 2: would love to hear from you. Just a reminder that

1148
01:04:49,840 --> 01:04:51,880
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow your Mind is primarily a science and

1149
01:04:51,920 --> 01:04:54,760
Speaker 2: culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays each

1150
01:04:54,800 --> 01:04:57,200
Speaker 2: week in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed.

1151
01:04:57,600 --> 01:04:59,760
Speaker 2: Within that feed, we also have a short episode on

1152
01:04:59,800 --> 01:05:03,400
Speaker 2: win Days and then on Fridays, we set aside most

1153
01:05:03,400 --> 01:05:05,640
Speaker 2: serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on

1154
01:05:05,720 --> 01:05:09,080
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema, and indeed tomorrow we will be discussing

1155
01:05:09,160 --> 01:05:10,400
Speaker 2: one of the Star Trek films.

1156
01:05:10,600 --> 01:05:14,480
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1157
01:05:14,760 --> 01:05:16,280
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1158
01:05:16,280 --> 01:05:18,840
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1159
01:05:18,920 --> 01:05:21,560
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

1160
01:05:21,600 --> 01:05:24,520
Speaker 3: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

1161
01:05:24,560 --> 01:05:33,640
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.

1162
01:05:33,800 --> 01:05:36,720
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1163
01:05:36,800 --> 01:05:39,600
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1164
01:05:39,760 --> 01:06:01,320
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.