IMO, even the digitally sent person could be the original, depending on the philosophical concepts being applied (same ship of theseus style questions). If it’s just the process of reading your atoms to that level of detail that makes you disappear, and the only information that is literally ‘you’ is being transferred over and reconstituted in a similarly one-way-by-function process, it’s almost more of a phase shift to digital and back than a copy. Pretty much just side-stepping matter’s inability to travel without acceleration.
If the machine is basically ‘digesting’ the person only to send over the results for reproduction, though… that’s definitely a copy. Pretty sure Trek describes their transporters as the latter? They’re definitely killing a bunch of people in that show. ha Though to answer it with any kind of conclusive result, I’d think we’d need a technical description for how it works, and it cannot exist, so… lol
IMO, even the digitally sent person could be the original, depending on the philosophical concepts being applied (same ship of theseus style questions). If it’s just the process of reading your atoms to that level of detail that makes you disappear, and the only information that is literally ‘you’ is being transferred over and reconstituted in a similarly one-way-by-function process, it’s almost more of a phase shift to digital and back than a copy. Pretty much just side-stepping matter’s inability to travel without acceleration.
If the machine is basically ‘digesting’ the person only to send over the results for reproduction, though… that’s definitely a copy. Pretty sure Trek describes their transporters as the latter? They’re definitely killing a bunch of people in that show. ha Though to answer it with any kind of conclusive result, I’d think we’d need a technical description for how it works, and it cannot exist, so… lol