Beam Me up Scottie

A couple of hundred years ago man could not imagine technologies we take for granted today. Flying was not even a dream (I know, I know, Michelangelo), nor cloning or transistors not to mention nuclear power. As then, there will be things in the future we cannot even ponder today. Today, watching the snow fall and longing for sunshine and palm trees, I pondered. A few months ago I read somewhere that a Nobel Laureate had claimed to have teleported some object. I dreamt about not having to go to and from an airport and then waiting in long lines followed by sitting in a cramped space. I thought about the possibility of teleporting a person as a means of travel. Today it is accepted that everything, including every part of our bodies is made up of atomic and subatomic particles. Over the years we have developed x-rays to allow us to see our organs and advanced imaging techniques enabling a peek into our brain. Computing power is growing unbelievably and “big data” makes complex analysis practical. We have mapped the human genome and are looking at the structure of the brain with ever greater magnification. How far away are we from being able to map the position of every particle and every bundle of energy in a human body? If we can map a body, why not then, using a pile of subatomic elements, assemble them in precisely the some order shown on the map and voila, the same person with the same genetic makeup, history and memories. The map could be transmitted to a faraway place and the person assembled (that sounds like cloning which we can crudely do now). OK we now have the person at the landing cite. You can say that, from the moment the mapping ended and the file created, these are now two different people, since the original is continuing to change while the other is assembled to the point in time of the cessation of the mapping. So having built the person in the new location, we now have two different people, the original at the destination and a new person at the point of departure. What to do with the person wanting to travel? It could be that there is some sort of a mechanism that starts to disassemble the original as the teleported one is constructed. What happens if the assembly fails? I guess we still have the map. But what if the error was in the mapping? What about the ethics of human cloning? Well it stopped snowing and I can get back to earth and worry about shoveling.