[Europan Ocean (OP)]

As we look upon the matter/life transporter that beams individuals up in Star Trek, and look at a science realistic composition, it makes me think... if a man is transported up by coordinates from a distance perfectly, would the person be alive and animate at the other end, or still have his mind? And if he is materialized from the computer memory, why not five minutes later from memory simply materialize another copy of the same person?

[Colin2B]

In most SciFi transporters the subject is scanned, deconstituted and then reconstituted (using new atoms) at the far end. The assumption is that the scanning process requires the deconstitution process. However, advances in body scanning might make that unnecessary so, as you say, there would be the possibility of duplication rather than transfer.
A number of short stories examine this dilema because if you can duplicate, then clearly the ‘transported’ person and the original have separate consciousness - albeit with the same memories - and deconstitution clearly kills the original.