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RE: Technology and Teleportation

in #philosophy6 years ago

What a fast transport really brings us is that the overall movements accelerated globally. Technology, i.e. airplanes, ships, trains and cars, have become ever faster over time. What has this led to?

It has led to a situation in which people and everything in flora and fauna must be stimulated to grow faster and faster. All goods that are produced and consumed at high speeds are subject to a shorter life cycle. A system in which machines become faster inevitably entails that everything else also submits to the accelerated process of creation, life and death. Modern consumer goods, for example, are not designed for quality and durability, but for quantity and rapid consumption. As a rule, the goods are not even used to their full potential, but are artificially devalued. Not to mention quality. Clothing, technology, food: by the time they come into existence, they are already obsolete and the new production cycle is in progress and close to completion.

This way of life expresses itself in the throwing away of food and material things, so that out of this throw-away mentality a new branch of industry has emerged that deals with garbage profits. An absurd machinery of creation and destruction has been created.

From the human, animal and plant perspective, all this is an imposition. Even a journey by plane across the ocean confuses the biorhythm, man needs an adaptation phase to the new time and usually feels uncomfortable when he is suddenly exposed to a changed climate, air and culture. He suffers from sleep and digestive disorders as well as mental stress.

The adaptability of people, who usually live for many decades, is limited precisely because of this lifespan. If we were mayflies, adaptation to changing living conditions would be much faster.

But let's think about it further. What if all products could be teleported from one place to another in a matter of seconds? In order to keep up with this technology, the production cycle would have to be adapted again and greatly shortened. The food would have to be produced and consumed even faster, creating a cycle so rapid that it would be almost impossible to keep up, and an artificial time span would have to be built in to counter this speed. The natural maturation times of plant foods would have to be further accelerated and biochemical processes that interact with the environment would be drastically reduced until there is no longer any connection to the individual environments, i.e. the plant, which grows in a diverse environment and interacts with animals, insects, climate, would have to be isolated so that any contact with animals, insects and weather conditions would be avoided. As a result, this plant loses a large part of its important ingredients, which would have to be produced artificially.

If teleportation were possible, any movement would be absurd. If one could beam from Africa to Finland, from Australia to North America from now on, it would be completely pointless to do such a thing. The speed would make human decisions and experiences impossible and meaningless, as they would basically be superfluous in such an environment of speed. Why? Because experience is naturally part of a process that does not have a defined beginning and end. Human experience is one that takes place in a space-time that is based on physical principles that constitute humanity.

Imagine being beamed to Sydney for the Olympic Games. Right in the middle of the stadium, exactly to the entry of the teams. You would not have had any travel, no encounters on the way, no unpleasant exactly like no pleasant experiences. You would watch a sporting event and know that all delegations, athletes, employees would be teleported immediately afterwards, what sense would a get-together make? The spectators in the stadium - why should they stay longer, why should they book hotel rooms, why should they look at the surroundings? Since everyone else could be out and about all the time, you wouldn't even know who and where to look for. Something like locality would only make sense if you gave it one. Only a certain amount of physical energy makes a thing worth tackling.
Even now journeys to distant countries are losing their meaning. One finds what one has left. Dangers, imponderables, uncertainties are eliminated as far as possible. Surprises as good as excluded. In many respects, the destination is similar to the one we left. But if we don't experience anything strange, unusual or incomprehensible anymore, there is no need to research and question ourselves. All answers are already there before us. Today we go on holiday. But we have stopped to travel, to recognize the way as the actual experience. Anyone who slowly explores a city or a region on foot will notice how many innumerable little things he encounters on this path and that the slower he gets, the more strange and beautiful the detail in his surroundings seems to him.

Nevertheless, the idea of beaming is fascinating and it's because of these mental games that we humans are able to use our imagination. But we hardly ever think a thought until its unthinkable end. We stop at a point that would leave a lot more room for maneuver and rush to the applications as if there were no tomorrow. But maybe we have already given up tomorrow? In fact, I think that this longing for fast appearance and disappearance is much more of a psychological escape in the hope that it will be better somewhere else - and if it gets unpleasant, I am out, if it's pleasant I am in. On other planets or in a more beautifully situated galaxy perhaps.

If I were an alien, I'd say: Wow, you have the best of all the planets in the vast perimeter, excellent living conditions, a diversity you could faint from. What luck you humans have. How beautiful it is here for you. But I have one good advice: Slow down. Appreciate difficulty as something valuable.

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@erh.germany - firrst of all, thank you for your time to write such a long comment/reply and how you see it.

There would certainly be a lot of questions to be answered with such a technology. But as is the case with any technology, it will have its advantages and disadvantages as well as its prejudices.

I don't think you could clone things 1:1 with teleportation technology. This would mean that the essence of the plants, what makes them so unique, would be lost. Consciousness itself would perhaps even be lost if people were teleported and in the end there would only be an empty shell with a ghost in it.

It's a very difficult subject what ethical questions entail...

Yeah, some things are good to remain unknown and mysterious. Life would be spoiled if we get it all figured out.

Happy Easter to you.

maybe we are here - our mission in life is - to discover everything?

:) everything is a big word.
But to answer your question: I really don't know.