Teleportation, Immortality, Stargate. How Close Are We, Really?

Time Travel

This idea will undoubtedly come to mind as one of the first for any fantasy enthusiast, but I will permit myself to skip it. Time travel is a topic around which so many auxiliary concepts and ideas have grown that covering the entire subject would essentially require a separate article.

And at the beginning, one would have to consider what kind of time travel we are discussing. So, I am omitting time travel for now, and perhaps one day I will tell you about the various concepts of this theory, dreamed up by writers and filmmakers, as well as by serious physicists.

Stargate: Can Such Technology Exist?

I deliberately reference the title of a feature film and a popular multi-season series because that very title perfectly captures the core idea of this type of cosmic travel. Here we have a “gate” or “gates” that are, in reality, a portal to other worlds. Whether we can create them ourselves, or whether we stumble upon the creation of an alien, advanced civilisation, is a secondary issue.

Future Technologies: When Will Space Exploration Happen?

The important thing is that the entire Cosmos opens up before us, a civilisation trapped on our own planet and unable to effectively penetrate our own Solar System. And if not the entire Cosmos, whose vastness we cannot grasp with our imagination, then let it just be a part of it. Even if it is severely limited to only our own Galaxy, which only has about 400 billion stars.

Heck, let’s drastically limit ourselves to just the Orion Arm, the tiny area of the Galaxy in which we are located. This is a stellar structure where light needs 20,000 years to fly across its length and 3,500 years to cross its width. Such a cosmic little one…

A Hundred Planets, and a Human on One of Them

Scientists calculate that there may be around 300 million planets in our Galaxy with conditions that could allow biological life to develop (in the form we know it).

Can you imagine what would happen if we gained access not even to a million, not to a thousand, but to at least one hundred such planets? How profoundly would it change the life of our civilisation, redefine our goals, give rise to new ideas, and extinguish others?

Interstellar Travel: For a Date or a Shopping Trip

Alongside expeditions heading to new planets, not only innovative technological solutions would be born, but also revolutionary ideological and philosophical concepts. And what if life were found on one of those planets? And what if it were intelligent life? How would we behave toward beings that might have a completely different structure from ours, not only physically but also mentally? Perhaps so vastly different that it defies human comprehension.

Who Is Hiding Access to This Door?

It is difficult to even imagine how much the Stargate would change our civilisation, certainly to a degree incomparably greater than the discovery of new lands during the age of colonisation.

And who knows, perhaps the Stargate would ultimately lead us to destruction. Because we, as humans, have an enormous curiosity about the world. So great that when something growls behind the door of a dark cellar, we absolutely must open it to find out what it is.

In fact, who knows, perhaps something in the shape of a Stargate has already been discovered? And is standing unused, surrounded by strict guards, precisely for fear of what we might encounter on distant planets?

Immortality: What About Our Pension?

Immortality is the eternal dream of our civilisation, as we are condemned to a life lasting only a microscopic fraction of the planet’s existence. From the perspective of the entire world’s timescale, the lifespan of each of us is virtually imperceptible. Indeed, two thousand years have passed since the death of Jesus Christ—that is about 30 generations of a family, counting each member living to the ripe old age of 70.

But what if we could live not for a few decades, but for several centuries? Is this even possible? Scientists claim that yes, one day medicine will find the gene that might not grant us immortality and eternal youth, but will extend our lifespan to several centuries.

New, Better Bodies for Each of Us?

Or perhaps we will cope not by eliminating the symptoms of ageing, but by changing bodies? Fantasy knows of ideas about transplanting brains into specially grown young bodies, which would allow us to live as long as our own brain functions efficiently. What about the digital recording of the brain and recording it onto a new brain, like onto a disk or a flash drive?

That, too, is an idea known to writers and filmmakers. Is it possible to implement it in some distant future technologies? Well, considering that in two thousand years we have progressed from the Greek phalanx and the Roman legion to rocket forces and the atomic bomb, future generations will probably handle this problem, especially since the volume of both information and new inventions is growing exponentially every year.

Scientists Talk About Eternal Youth. But Do We Need It?

Would we be happy living five hundred, seven hundred, or a thousand years? Not being forced to observe the death of our own children and grandchildren, as they would live just as long as us. How much could we learn, how thoroughly could we travel the world, how many books could we read (and write!) and films could we watch, how many great loves and quick romances could we experience, how much could we party, and what a sea of alcohol we could drink!

Finally, how many new inventions could we see, new ideas could we learn, and social and technological transformations could we observe with our own eyes to a degree unimaginable for people today? And one thing is certain: the pension system would have to change globally!

See also: Mind Uploading to Computer: Billionaires Dream of Immortality

Teleportation: It’s Crazier Than We Think

According to science fiction writers, we can teleport in two ways. The first is finding properties of space that would allow us to bend it at will, and the second is disassembling our body into atoms in an entrance chamber and reassembling it in an exit chamber.

Both methods are, of course, merely literary and cinematic concepts, and from a scientific perspective, they remain on the shelf labelled “absolutely impossible to achieve.” The thing is, I myself would sooner believe in the possibility of inventing a way to bend space than in the possibility of destroying and recreating the human body in a completely unchanged state, only in a different location.

A Jump Across Continents? Does Anyone Believe This?

Either way, imagine how this invention would change not only our travel (one step and we are in the Canaries!) but also global transportation issues. Why do we need thousands of cargo ships, planes, trains, and lorries if teleportation chambers exist?

The entire global trade system, the entire logistics sector, would be turned upside down. Huge sectors of our activity would be shut down, and millions of people would lose their jobs. And military matters? How easy it would be to launch a paratrooper landing right into the heart of an enemy capital, teleporting not just small special forces units, but armies of thousands with artillery and tanks.

Worth reading: How The Witcher Nearly Died Before It Lived — A Fantasy Author’s Tale

You Will Be Pleased!

I always think with envy of future generations, because they will witness revolutionary technological changes, probably even ones we cannot imagine today. For could a person from the Middle Ages grasp the world we live in?

Our technological inventions (electricity, for instance!), our economic systems, our medical achievements, our ability to move around the entire world instantly and instantly use all available information globally?

Therefore, I believe that not our children, but our great-grandchildren, await extraordinary experiences. Although, at some point, these will probably become as common and ordinary for them as mobile phones are for us.

And show a mobile phone to a time traveller arriving not even from the Middle Ages, but from the first half of the 20th century. Their eyes would pop out of their head in amazement that such a marvel is possible!

Read the original article: Teleportacja, nieśmiertelność, Gwiezdne Wrota. Jak blisko naprawdę jesteśmy?