Star Trek technology is achievable

Congratulations for finally making it to the end of this long debate. I'll bet you're ready for it to be over. I know I am. I'll try to make this short. If you read this far, then you might as well vote. :-)I want to say thank you to Heineken for one of the most challenging and interesting debates I've had since I've been here. I also want to thank whoever was willing to read the whole thing.In this round, I just want to briefly summarize this debate as sort of a reminder that will hopefully inform the voters. Rather than offer "blind pessimism," as Pro asserts, I actually gave three arguments for why I didn't think Star Trek type transporters would ever be achievable that had the same function and practical application--that is, transporting a whole human being from the inside of one vessel to the inside of another vessel without that person "traveling" in any conventional sense. That involved the person being disentegrated, beamed, and reassembled. If any one of my three arguments are sound, then I have succeeded in showing that teleportation is unachievable, so Pro needed to refute each one of them. Plus, Pro needed to build a case of his own that teleportation is achievable, and his case had to survive my critique.My three reasons:I. Disentegration and assembly problemSince disentegration and assembly are both essential for a transporter to work, pro needed to give us some reason to think both were achievable. But unfortunately, Pro said nothing whatsoever about how the dificulties of reassembly could be overcome. This point alone means that Pro did not carry his burden of proof in this debate.We considered two possible degrees of disentegration--to the atomic/molecular level and to the energy level.1. atomic levelPro never offered an explaination of how it might be possible to cause the atoms or molecules of a person to travel through open air and around obstacles while keeping those parts together and distinct from their environment, so again, Pro has not carried his burden of proof.2. energy levelPro offered one possible way of converting the mass of a person into energy, but that one way turned out to be unrealistic because it involved the use of an insurmountable amount of energy. Plus, converting our mass into energy would've released over 100 times more energy than was released by the 100 megatons of TNT nuclear bomb--Czar Bomba. I explaind why this was a problem, and Pro never explained how these problems could be overcome. Again, his burden of proof is unmet.II. Recording problemExhastively recording all the information about a person is necessary in order to reassemble the person when they are transported, and there are two aspects of it that both present problems--the actual extraction of the information from the human body, and the processing and storage of the information extracted.1. Information extractionAfter explaining the difficulties of accurately and exhaustively extracting all the information about a human body, Pro completely ignored everything I said. He offered no response. Consequently, his burden of proof is unmet.2. storing and processing informationPro's response to the formiddable amount of information necessary to record all the information about a person was to tell us that IBM was going to have a quantum computer in the next ten years, and that computer technology is continually advancing. I admit that in the entire debate, this was his strongest response. However, I don't think Pro really appreciated how much information was required. As I said, there are 7e+27 atoms in an average human body, and there are a formiddable number of bytes that would be required to record everything necessary about each one (think of the significant digits required just to precisely locate each atom). Supposing, conservatively, that it was possible to record all the necessarily information about each atom using only one byte per atom, that would require 7e+18 tetrabytes! Think about that. And that's a conservative number.III. The problem of identityPro dismissed the problem of identity as being "religious" or "metaphysical," but he never dealt with the argument. Unlike the first two problems I raised, this one proves with certainty that teleportation is unachievable. Even if my first two arguments completely fail, this argument alone utterly destroy's Pro's case since it renders the teleportation of a human being logically impossible. At best, all teleportation will ever be able to accomplish is replication, twinning, cloning, etc. It will never actually be able to transport a person. Since Pro all but refused to respond to this argument and instead decided to dismiss it as "unscientific," his burden of proof has not been met.ConclusionPro didn't make much of a positive case for his position. He relied on the sensationalistic claims of the media and scientists that teleportation has already been achieved. But the devil is in the details. The articles that Pro cited did not actually support his position. What they called "teleportation" and what they compared to Star Trek was really not the same thing at all once you looked at the details. The rubidium atoms that were supposedly transported weren't actually transported at all. Rather, some of the properties of one collection of atoms were transfered to the other collection of atoms. All you have to do is look at the details. To call these experiments "teleportation" is just to equivocate on the word, and for Pro to use them in his argument is to commit the fallacy of equivocation.And that's it. I gave three solid reasons for why teleportation is unachievable which Pro was not able to refute (especially the third), and Pro only gave a fallacious argument in favor of teleportation.Before you vote, please take into account your own biases. Personally, I would love it if teleportation ever became possible. That would be wicked cool! I'm sure many of you are like Heinken and me in that you are optimistic about future techologies, and you really hope that some of the wonders of Star Trek will become realities. But it is not rational to base your belief on wishful thinking. In this case, there are solid reasons to doubt that teleportation of the kind we see in Star Trek will ever happen. Let's just be honest with ourselves about it. When you vote, I urge you to choose rational pessimism over blind optimism.Also, just one final word of warning. If some sort of teleportation ever becomes a reality, do not ever use one to teleport yourself. You will not come out alive on the other side. You will be killed in the disentegration process, and a replica of you will take your place. There will be no more you. And that replica will probably make love to your girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse!Thank you for coming to tonight's debate. Please vote, and have a great weekend.