What is teleportation?

Teletransportation is the theoretical transfer of matter or energy from one point to another without crossing the physical space between them.

The downside of the word "teleportation" is that it was used for the first time in science fiction (mainly popularized by Star Trek) and its recent use in physics brings to the mind of the uninitiated reader almost magical properties.

Reality or fiction?

In 1998, physicists from the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) in conjunction with two European groups were able to teleport a photon at an incredible distance of one meter. They managed to create an exact replica, a clone, of that photon and, as had been anticipated, the original photon ceased to exist when the replica was created. Applying the uncertainty principle of Heisemberg, the scientists came to the conclusion that three are necessary photons to be able to transport one in the distance, that is:

The photon A that we are going to transport

The photon B that will make transport

The photon C that will be replicated from A

If we apply this to Captain Kirk, it means that the teleportation machine analyzes Kirk's entire atomic structure, sends the information in some way to the desired destination, creates an exact replica of the captain there, and then the real captain is destroyed. this point where ethics enters. What is really done is to "murder" the true one and create an exact clone somewhere else. That clone will know that it is a clone because the authentic one knows what is going to happen before it happens and that remains in his memory. That clone knows that it exists because the original has died and knows, that when he wants to return using that same medium he will also die to be able to give rise to another clone. Would this be ethical?

Problems

We have said that the machine should analyze the atomic structure, in the case of man that will involve analyzing more or less 1028 atoms, send that information to the destination and recreate in the totally exact position each of those atoms. the slightest error in the replication and placement of atoms could result in a deformed creature, both physical and psychological, and even incompatible with life. If the original no longer exists and the replica is not viable or is deformed, what would ethics tell us?

Would we be responsible for a murder or would we classify it as a simple mistake even though a person has ceased to exist? Y

Who tells us that it was a fault and not that it was provoked to eliminate that person? Ethics has a lot to say as we are seeing.

What we are seeing is that if such a machine were possible, what we would really have would be a kind of Fax to send people. As some scientists have said, it would be a genetic cloning coupled with a digitalization; but ultimately cloning. During the process:

The travelers would die, in a certain sense.

Your original body and your original mind would cease to exist forever.

The machine would recreate an identical body in another place and implant in its brain the memories, emotions, hopes and dreams of the original by digital means or something similar.