DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
I've always been fascinated with the concept of identity - of self. Spec fiction is rife with explorations.
ST:TNG explored this in several episodes, one where Riker got caught in a storm while teleporting and a second signal bounced back to the planet, creating two of him. The one on the planet lived for many years cut off from the rest of the world.
A short story by James Patrick Kelly called "Think Like a Dinosaur" explored a type of pseudo-teleportation where the subject was recreated from data at the far end while the source was destroyed. Is the subject that arrive the same one that left?
In Robert Sawyer's The Terminal Man, a scientist uploaded his own mind into a computer. The flesh-and-blood scientist knew which was which - but imagine waking up, deaf and blind, and being told that, not only were you now trapped inside a computer, but you are not you; you are a copy. I imagine the mind would cry 'there's been a terrible mistake! I wasn't supposed to end up inside a computer!'
And Agents of Shield has a time travel story arc. It was all going along tickety-boo until Fitz found out that he had followed a completely different path through time than Simmons. She had gotten married to Fitz in her timeline. That Fitz was gone but now this one was here.
She told him about her life with him - but this Fitz was not there for it; he'd missed out on marrying her and going on their honeymoon.
And he was jealous. Of himself.
That's an angle of time travel I've never seen explored before.
I thought about posting this in the Sci-Fi Fantasy forum, but it's really more about the philosophy of self-identity.
ST:TNG explored this in several episodes, one where Riker got caught in a storm while teleporting and a second signal bounced back to the planet, creating two of him. The one on the planet lived for many years cut off from the rest of the world.
A short story by James Patrick Kelly called "Think Like a Dinosaur" explored a type of pseudo-teleportation where the subject was recreated from data at the far end while the source was destroyed. Is the subject that arrive the same one that left?
In Robert Sawyer's The Terminal Man, a scientist uploaded his own mind into a computer. The flesh-and-blood scientist knew which was which - but imagine waking up, deaf and blind, and being told that, not only were you now trapped inside a computer, but you are not you; you are a copy. I imagine the mind would cry 'there's been a terrible mistake! I wasn't supposed to end up inside a computer!'
And Agents of Shield has a time travel story arc. It was all going along tickety-boo until Fitz found out that he had followed a completely different path through time than Simmons. She had gotten married to Fitz in her timeline. That Fitz was gone but now this one was here.
She told him about her life with him - but this Fitz was not there for it; he'd missed out on marrying her and going on their honeymoon.
And he was jealous. Of himself.
That's an angle of time travel I've never seen explored before.
I thought about posting this in the Sci-Fi Fantasy forum, but it's really more about the philosophy of self-identity.