Is it possible to transfer a human mind and survive? (Picard spoilers)

[Riedquat]

He was talking about general questions raised by the concept, basically offering the opinion "no, he isn't, because it would always be a copy, not the real thing, and incidentally that means the big benefit some people would like to see of being able to transfer into a mechanical body that won't age or die (or at least can be copied again) is impossible."

I don't particularly agree with that (or regard it as a desirable goal), but it's a perfectly relevant aside to the subject.

He just suddenly said, Quote, "And this is why human beings in real life will never attain the holy grail" it's a complete non sequitur to the rest of the conversation. The main focus of the start of his conversation was is Picard really OG Picard or is he just a copy. And then he starts talking about the Holy Grail.

A holy grail, not THE Holy Grail. In this case "the holy grail of mechanical immortality" (or something like that without going to back to check), which you've conveniently cut off in your quote. As in a commonly used phrase for "the ultimate goal". And since for some the transfer of a human mind to a robotic body would be such an ultimate goal, which raises exactly the same questions as are being discussed here, it's completely not a non sequitor.

Questioning if a mind transfer can be transferred and questioning if it will result in you still being you or if your just a copy now that your memories and knowledge has been moved somewhere else is one thing but the way he brought up the Holy Grail just came completely out of nowhere.

He didn't bring up the Holy Grail. He just used the phrase, which is a pretty common one to describe what might be the ulimate achievement or goal of something.

[CharlesPhipps]

That depends on what you think defines consciousness. Given Katras are real, the consciousness is not defined solely by the material in Star Trek. So its entirely possible to transfer the soul. Also, if you're a strict materialist, the consciousness of "you" dies regularly.

As far as "Picard" is concerned, he closed his eyes and woke up like he went to sleep.

[Fianna]

If your mind is copied into a robot body, then from the new robot you's perspective, it is you, simply in a different form. And as far as all your family and friends are concerned, it's the same thing. The only person the distinction matters to is you, who's left dying on a metal slab somewhere, still in your frail old fleshy body, while someone else takes your place.

That's why most stories dealing with this concept only have the mind download occur at the moment of death, so that messy reality doesn't have to be dealt with.

Ultimately, I think digital "immortality" is just a more advanced version of trying to live on past your death through the children you've sired or the stories that are told about you after you're gone. It may give comfort to you while facing death, knowing your life will continue to affect the world, and that your loved ones need to suffer being without you, but it's not the same thing as actually cheating death.

[CharlesPhipps]

There's some good arguments that consciousness is more complicated than materialism (or more precisely materialism as we understand it is not true because we don't perceive a great deal of the actual universe's functions) but that gets into a field where a lot of people peddle woo.

[Jonathan]

I made the title of the thread ambiguous just so I did not unintentionally spoil the ending to ''Picard''.

Lets get into some real metahuman discussion here: that man who ends season 1 looks like Picard, sounds like Picard, has the memories of Picard... but he IS NOT Picard. Picard is dead. This is a copy that was downloaded into a body that looks like him.

For all intents and purposes, season 2 will be following a completely different man to the one that we have followed since ''Encounter at Farpoint''.

And this is why human beings in real life will never attain the holy grail of mechanical immortality that many predict will one day happen due to the simple fact that YOU will still be dead no matter how many copies of you are downloaded into other bodies. The only way to get around this would be an actual, full-on body swap - which a) is not what happened to Picard and b) I don't believe that to be possible either.

This is a good point actually; the whole thing was so stupid anyway (Picard died in just the right place at just the right time with just the right people near just the right one of a kind magic golem body; and I thought it was Worf who'd say 'today is a good day to die'!) that I didn't actually think of this point. Unless they could beam all brain tissue then he can only be a copy, but as it's his brain that's killing him anyway then that can probably be ruled out.

Of course, there's the old canard about whether the transporter is killing people and creating new copies each time as well. So maybe this is just Picard number 52,984 anyway. I remember how the Klingons in Children of Time thought that being wiped out because they never existed wouldn't get them into Stovokor, well it's hard to imagine an afterlife full of duplicates of the same Klingons who didn't realise they were getting killed each time they were transported either.

...and so they'll never get to see the Holy Grail either!

[Fianna]

I don't really get the "transporter kills you each time" argument. Yeah, it breaks you down into energy before beaming you across, but we've seen plenty of beings in Star Trek that exist as pure energy; being an energy field is no barrier to being alive.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I don't really get the "transporter kills you each time" argument. Yeah, it breaks you down into energy before beaming you across, but we've seen plenty of beings in Star Trek that exist as pure energy; being an energy field is no barrier to being alive.

If you can bridge that with the scientific principle of a person dying after you chop them up even though you put them back together again, then I will buy one ticket to your post sir.

[Jonathan]

I don't really get the "transporter kills you each time" argument. Yeah, it breaks you down into energy before beaming you across, but we've seen plenty of beings in Star Trek that exist as pure energy; being an energy field is no barrier to being alive.

It's the idea that the breaking down kills you and then the recomposition is, in effect, a new copy I think. And of course, you can create more from existing patterns (cf The Enemy Within, Second Chances).

[CharlesPhipps]

I don't really get the "transporter kills you each time" argument. Yeah, it breaks you down into energy before beaming you across, but we've seen plenty of beings in Star Trek that exist as pure energy; being an energy field is no barrier to being alive.

If you can bridge that with the scientific principle of a person dying after you chop them up even though you put them back together again, then I will buy one ticket to your post sir.

I imagine the barclay being awake during transport shows otherwise. Somehow, the transporter keeps your consciousness between transport.

Why?

SCIENCE.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I don't really get the "transporter kills you each time" argument. Yeah, it breaks you down into energy before beaming you across, but we've seen plenty of beings in Star Trek that exist as pure energy; being an energy field is no barrier to being alive.

If you can bridge that with the scientific principle of a person dying after you chop them up even though you put them back together again, then I will buy one ticket to your post sir.

I imagine the barclay being awake during transport shows otherwise. Somehow, the transporter keeps your consciousness between transport.

Why?

SCIENCE.

That's exactly what I was thinking, and I guess it feels like an instance of Star Trek just doing something random, implications be damned. But that's pretty much what we see lol.

Think about Thomas Riker though. In that case an energy surge duplicated his signal, which implies that that's all they are in the interim. The teleporters really are just matter generators that have some sort of conduit for our katras.

Also though don't you think it's kinda fucked what Scotty did to Porthos?