I understand the moral implications of self and teleportation, but I do not understand how anyone can say "teleportation doesn't exist or can never happen". Teleportation happens everyday all around us. 'Information' is passed instantaneously from one point in space to another without actually 'traversing space'.
Nature defies common sense, and this really happens: an electron or other particle can disappear in one location and simultaneously reappear at another location if the wave associated with the particle extends to the other location. After you buy that, we can make sense out of the rest of it. Here are some examples of the disappearing-reappearing magic:
* Tunneling. An electron does not have enough energy to penetrate through a barrier, but if the wave of the electron exists on the other side, there is a probability that it will disappear on one side and reappear on the other side. Measurements show that the distance divided by time is greater than the speed of light, so it is not a case of traveling through- it really disappears and reappears simultaneously. The tunnel diode and the scanning tunneling microscope make use of this effect.
* Optical tunneling. For example light that enters the prism as shown is totally reflected at the diagonal. But if the other glass (the rectangle) is placed close enough, much closer than in the picture, some light enters it. The laws of electricity and magnetism do not permit the existence of light in the gap, since 45 degree is greater than the critical angle of glass, but photons can disappear in the prism and reappear in the rectangular solid.
* Radioactive decay. An alpha particle does not have enough energy to escape the nucleus, but under the right conditions it can tunnel out, much like in the above cases.
* Electron transitions in atoms. If an electron absorbs a photon it gets kicked up to a higher energy level, or it can give off a photon and drop to a lower level if one is available. These transitions are instantaneous- another disappear- reappear case.
* This property of nature is so pervasive that even in totally empty space, particles pop in and out of existence. This is known as the vacuum polarization, so called because they appear as equal and opposite charges, a dipole.
This all leads one to think that if this happens in nature already, perhaps someday we will figure out how to duplicate this disappearing/reappearing act on ourselves. Blinking out of existance in one point of space/time and popping into existance in another simultaneously and fully intact. Thus the debate of cloning and all that jazz is null and void. 'Where does consciousness exist?' is a whole different ball of wax. Carl Jung believes there is a 'collective unconscious'. So do I. Therefore your conscious is something you are always 'tapping into' anywhere, anytime. Therefore teleporting shouldn't really affect your conscious because "you" are nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Fun.