I was thinking about Captain Kirk the other day. There he was, standing in the chamber next to Spock, and he turned into a sparkling bundle of energy. I thought about him being beamed up and what that really meant. What it meant is that his body was completely destroyed and turned into energy that is reformulated elsewhere. If his body was completely destroyed, this means he died each time he was beamed somewhere and a newly formulated Captain Kirk arrived. Would that be okay with you if you were destroyed (killed) and then completely replicated? Would it still be you? Does this mean you would have no qualms about dying if a replica of you is produced as a result? If such a technology were possible, then the solution of time travel on the macro scale would have been achieved, if you consider the human body macro enough to satisfy you.

 

Are you still you? When you were a baby you were kind of small. Somewhere around age 18 years you became what you physically are…or maybe not. Since that 18-year-old benchmark, molecules have been constantly replaced. I wonder how much of your 18 year old body still exists. I imagine most has been replaced. You are not the same physical person you were at age 18. I guess you could consider this a slow motion “beam me up”.