[extropy-chat] Altered genes let roundworms wiggle longer

[Damien Broderick]

At 03:17 PM 3/27/2004 -0800, Robert wrote:

> > > There are going to be people who insist that they want the original
> > > atoms in the original form.
>
> > Has anybody ever really claimed this on this list?
>
>To the best of my recall Damien may be the person who is
>least comfortable with a copy (in various forms) being oneself.

Nobody with an understanding of the current ceaseless replacement of atoms 
in a living body could possibly insist on *the same atoms*. Interestingly, 
ardent Xians must also accept that when God resurrects them on the Last 
Day, they'll be made of different atoms; apart from anything else, there 
won't be enough to go around.

The identity question has to do with continuity in space and time.

As Harvey added:

 >I don't recall anybody objecting to the *creation* of copies.
 >People only seem violently opposed to the *destruction*
 >of the original or pre-existing copies.

Make as many copies of me as you wish. The world can use all it can get. 
Each of them will feel convinced that he's me, but they'll all be in error, 
as I will be happy to assure them if I'm still alive at the end of the 
copying process.

And at this point the evil doctor thought-experiments always kick in, and 
we're all severally confounded by our ingenious antagonists.

I can't set a point at which gradual replacement goes to discontinuity. To 
set up a simple model: if we can introduce blank nanones each with the 
capacity to program itself with the function of one existing neuron and its 
thousands of synapses, dendrites and all, and these nanones sit quietly as 
inconspicuous redundant backup, switching into use only as their organic 
partner neuron ails and dies, I'm still me in 1000 years, even though not 
one wheel or spoke of the old cart is still there. But if the copies all 
get sneezed out during a terrible hayfever attack, and coalesce on the 
floor into a functioning Damien brain, that guy will *think* he's me, but 
he won't be.

Damien Broderick