A view on cryonics (was Re: [extropy-chat] Bad Forecasts!)

[John K Clark]

"s. p." <velvethum at hotmail.com>

> Brett at 10 years old is the same at 20 because his mind process
> never degenerated into, one, non-mind process

Not true, when Brett sleeps his conscious mind stops and if he has ever had
surgery and anesthesia even his unconscious mind stopped.

> He is the same because his mind process has been carving
> out the same, uninterupted line of three-dimensional chunks
> in space-time.

Space-time is 4 dimensional, and the perfect copy Brett in no more
uninterrupted than the Brett who awoke after receiving anesthesia.

> Memories/experiences aqcuired throughout person's life do not define
> identity. They do define his personality and psychological make-up,
> not his identity.

If you’re correct and neither memory nor personality defines identity then
the only conclusion to draw is that the TV preachers are correct and we
have a soul. If I thought that was true I’d burn my science books, buy some
saffron robes and become a monk; I don’t have plans to do that in the
immediate future.

Thought Experiment:

You and your exact copy are standing an equal distance from the center of a
symmetrical room. I now claim to have instantly swapped the location of you
and the copy. There is no way an outside observer can detect any objective
change, there is no way you can detect any subjective change, and there is
no way for you to prove that my claim to have made the swap is true or not.
So we have something that has no objective effect, no subjective effect, and
there is no way to disprove the thing. I conclude that this is not a
scientific question. If you're still right then you're talking about a soul.
I don't find souls useful.

>>  Me:
>>  there is no way to prove that you are not a copy of the original

> Yes, there is.

One day you bump into somebody who looks exactly like you, you start to
speak to him but are distracted because he is also speaking and saying the
same thing you are in perfect synchronization. Three questions:

1) Prove to me that you are the original and not the copy.

2) If you can’t do that (and you can’t) then show, at least to yourself,
that you are probably the original and not the copy.

3) If you can’t do either of the above (and you can’t) then who cares if
you’re the original or the copy?


> Identity is defined by the uniqueness of mind process in space-time.
> There's room for only one mind process in the fabric of space time.

Or what, they both get swallowed by a black hole or something? That may be
your definition of identity but the laws of Physics don’t even hint at such
a thing.

> If you value living then you should care because if the original you gets
> killed, the film ends, and you won't live, even though your clones might.

I’ve had this discussion many times before and for some reason in these
thought experiments people always always always assume they are “The
Original” and look at it from only that viewpoint, just once pretend you’re
“the copy” and get a different perspective.

 John K Clark     jonkc at att.net