Question: Is it possible to teleport (appear somewhere else) and still be the same HUMAN?

Sam Geen answered on 13 Nov 2020:

This is a really complicated philosophical question. If you can put a person back exactly the same, I don’t see why not. It would be a bit like copying a computer file between computers. But doing this would be very very hard – getting all the atoms in exactly the right places with the right properties. And there are still some religious or spiritual people who think that there is more to life than just atoms, and that a separate soul exists. Science can’t say anything about this for sure right now, so there’s no reason not to believe that, but there is no scientific evidence for a soul. I am a “materialist” which means that I look at the universe as a really complicated physical system (not that I buy expensive things! but sometimes I do like to buy nice things, I guess). That doesn’t mean I think a soul can never exist – the universe is super surprising sometimes, so maybe there are surprises waiting for us there. But I try to focus on the world we live in now, and how we can help people around us.