Teleportation without loss of consciousness

Question

Trying to figure out a method for a teleportation machine that definitely does NOT "kill" the user in any way. The big thing is preventing a loss of consciousness during the process. Even if it gets a little weird in there, there should never be a point at which your brain's molecules have been individually separated and turned into energy or anything like that. What I'm looking for still involves the user themself moving around in space in some way during the process—e.g. you could end up swapping places with a buddy in the same teleporter as you between point A and B—whether it's from some spatial warping within the interior as the structure teleports between points, or if it's because it's JUST the user that is moving, independently of the teleporter structure/interior.

In short: how would a teleporter work in a way that includes warping the physical/spatial existence of the user themself (so your body might get pushed and pulled and warped around a bit, maybe even spatially merge a little with your aforementioned buddy during a particularly rough teleportation, but it WILL NOT HURT—is that possible?), and involves moving or "blinking" the users (or teleporter interior!) from point A to point B, in a method that doesn't kill the users, cause any pain, or even cause a loss of consciousness?

Answer 1

The more or less classic way to do this has been a portal, wormhole, etc. Think of the tunnels in Tunnel in the Sky or the Gate in Stargate et. al.

These effectively amount to connecting two distant regions of space together, so that a simple step takes one from one side to the other. They may be one-way (like Stargates) or two-way (as in Tunnel in the Sky). They may, as in Hugh Cook's The Questing Hero or Fringe, be subject to unpredictable or uncontrolled shutdown, with fatal results if you're halfway through at the time -- but in normal operation, at least from the correct side, they're effectively just like stepping through a doorway (possibly with a wormhole-traversal special effect inserted along the way).

In some cases, the gate itself can be scanned over a short distance (similar to Stargate's ring transmitters), so the subject of the transport need not move.

Another form of this method is from the novel Jumper (et sequelae) by Stephen Gould -- in this case, as shown (internally) with slo-mo video, the protagonist opens a portal the shape of himself (plus anything he's carrying) and passes through it -- in this case, with some screwiness relative to conservation of momentum. Something similar is found in the "flinging" of The Adventures of McGill Feighan by Kevin O'Donnell Jr. -- only there's no hint of the visible portal, and the flinger has conscious control of momentum compensation.

Regardless, in no case do these disassemble atoms or particles and reassemble them at some destination; rather they bring here and there together momentarily.

Answer 2

The "bending of space" is one possibility - the easiest. Basically, it's magic. It can do and behave as you like.

One way more far-fetched but philosophically intriguing possibility would be to employ technology capable of simultaneously mapping and interacting with individual atoms at the scale of the human body. Machines capable of pinpointing a single hydrogen ion and push and pull it however they want (similar to Iain M. Banks' effectors, but more).

More than that, they can focus on all atoms around that one proton, and push and pull them as if the proton was there, even if it isn't.

And they can do this with trillions of atoms at a speed of several thousand trillion atoms per second.

At that point, we can "transport" a person using a modified Ship of Theseus process: we take the person, and we start removing atoms from the surface. The information about the atoms is transmitted to the receiver, where the required atoms are gathered and assembled. The person is still alive and feels no pain while being dismantled, because all the parts behave exactly as if they were still connected. Some atoms have to be "transported" to and fro several times, for example those in bodily fluids.

Halfway through the process, we have half a person here and the other half there, but they're still connected (if we want to enforce light-speed, then the two locations cannot be very far - probably no more than very few kilometers. More, maybe, using repeaters and "slicing" the person between them all).

Except some double vision and some disorientation, the person reintegrates at the destination, all their atoms replaced and maybe their soul lost in the process, but they never died, their sense of self was neither lost nor interrupted.

Now for something even more challenging -- what if the "destination" was actually a simulation? Now the person "exists" as computer data, and can be "frozen" and sent along to the real destination, and the process can be reversed there (in multiple copies, even)...

Answer 3

You are copied down to the electron, and a new version printed at the destination.

If you are snuggly with your buddy when you get copied the copies might get mixed up some. You do not die. In fact nothing happens to you except you stand there while various beams scan your stuff. Then there are some beeps which means it is done and you are free to go the bar.

You also open your eyes to view your destination once the new version of you has been printed there. You can go about whatever business you have at the destination. Possibly wearing that swanky amber necklace your buddy wears.

Answer 4

Actual Teleportation

Teleportation is the act of changing the position of something without moving it through the intervening space. Wormholes are just shorter distances of intervening space, while breaking you down into (sub)atomic particles just introduces the complexity of (dis)assembling you correctly. Instead of trying to teleport bits and pieces, just exchange the entire teleporter contents at once.

Now you may be wondering, how does this actually work? In quantum mechanics, an electron doesn't have a position, but instead has a probability function of where it could be. With the appropriate quantum manipulator, you can modify this probability function, effectively shifting the position of it. That would allow you to shift as single particle, but we want to move entire people. So we use the quantum aggregator that allows us to apply quantum effects at scale. This allows us to manipulate the probability function of the entire volume at once, transposing it with the contents of the other teleporter.

At least that's what the strange man in the labcoat says. From the inside, it feels more like an elevator. You step inside and the doors close. There's a brief lurch and when the doors open everything outside's different.

Answer 5

Have a spaceship do hyperspace travel

Have an alternate dimension where distances are much shorter. When you step into the teleporter, the ship flies you wherever you need to go, and then you get off.

Answer 6

Do it gradually. First replace each neuron with an antenna to a server. The antenna acts with nearby neurons in the same way that the replaced neuron did. Eventually the person's brain is fully antennas and they "live" on the server. Then find them a body at the ending location and repeat the process in reverse.

Answer 7

A classical teleporter with a feedback loop

The classical teleporter would tear you down, atom by atom, and reassemble you at the target.

My modified version of the teleporter would tear you down starting from one end (e.g. from top to bottom), but while disassembling the user, it would simulate the effect from the already removed layer onto the next layer, and do the same on the assembly side.

Say, for example, layer A was already removed and teleported, while the next layer (layer B) is still at the original site.

Instead of just removing and recreating, it would simulate all effects that layer A has on layer B (e.g. the weight of your now-missing head pushing down onto your still-remaining body) and vice versa (e.g. your not-yet-created neck holding up your already recreated head).

This would, obviously, have to happen on a sub-atomar level, not on a body-part level as I described it above.

This way, the user wouldn't feel the difference, since the effects of all missing parts is simulated.

The teleporter thus only needs to work on two layers of atoms, instead of on the whole body at once.

Answer 8

A Time Machine

I don't recall where I read this idea (it's not mine), but one way to do this is to travel (normally) to your destination, then activate your Personal Time Travel Device^TM and travel back in time to when you departed. To an outside observer, you arrive at the destination at the same time you depart.

Answer 9

Well, you know, there are theoretically methods for digitizing the brain that preserve the continuity of consciousness? Yes, replacing neurons with artificial ones one by one. Or analyze a few neurons - delete them - connect to the area they had influence on and simulate their activity, so at the same time you will become platform independent lol. Both methods have already been explored in science fiction, the first for example in the quantum thief, the second in Vinge's story iirc

I've been thinking, in the same way it is possible to make teleportation with the destruction of the original continuous.

Two plates can be made, each plate is connected to the nervous tissue and exchanges a signal with the other plate. That is, each simulates the presence of nervous tissue on the other side in real time with a negligible lag. To do this, of course, it is necessary to add or remove blood from the vessels, replacing it with synthesized one.

If you slowly begin to pass one of these plates through a person, and synthesize the disassembled parts on the other side, while continuously maintaining the connection, then the person will not lose continuity, they will be conscious all this time, even when one half of their brain is kilometers from the other.

In this way, you can teleport no more than (informed guesstimate) 10 kilometers, then the lag due to the speed of light will increase too much. The problem can be solved by ftl methods of transferring information or by intermediate stations or by a preliminary continuous transfer of consciousness to a substrate that suffers less from lag between parts.

Of course, the problem of Theseus' ship remains, but this is not so important, people already regularly replace all the atoms in their bodies, and feel fine

(all this is said taking into account sufficiently advanced technologies, but not straight magic, just more or less technology that is conceivable with the current course of development in the distant future)

Answer 10

A knife

Philip Pullman in His Dark Materials book came up with the idea of the Subtle Knife, a knife that can cut through reality and allow you to travel to other worlds. It was an actual cut in the air that opened a breach.

This was also used in the Lucifer series: https://youtu.be/OD8gvoXG4Xc?t=110

You can adapt that to same-world travel, where you just get into the tear as if it was a door.