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

[Slawomir Paliwoda]

> > 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.

Identity doesn't evaporate even when mind process stops. It vanishes only
when mind process is destroyed. Pausing process' activity is not the same as
destroying it. But this is about halting a process, and my quote above was
about degeneration of a mind into a non-mind process.


> > 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.


I'm not sure how you arrive at this conclusion, but even if one can conclude
from this that people have souls, this is definitely not the *only*
conclusion that we can draw here. Much more effective alternative is to
focus on subjective experience because that's the only thing that stays the
same throughout memory fluctuations or changes in personality. I want people
to think about identity from the perspective of subjective experience rather
than from the perspective of memories and personalities.


> 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.

The error in your reasoning is the phrase "instantly swapped the location of
you and the copy". You can't just "instantly" swap matter in space-time. The
only way by which the switch can be performed is by taking an object and
transport it to another location. This action, however, will carve a unique
trajectory in space-time. Because there can only be one and only one such
trajectory, it is possible to track the identity of any object.


> >>  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.

Suppose the location of any mind in the future is recorded using 4
parameters (x,y,z,t). At the moment of creation, my clone's mind will
necessarily occupy a different location than my original mind. Threrefore, I
will be able to prove my originality by presenting the log detailing
locations of my mind in space and time, which will show different values for
x, y, z, and t from the values of someone who claims to be me. As long as I
can show that the set of space-time position parameters for any two minds
never share the same exact values, I will always be able to prove identity
of any mind.


> > 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.

My point is that two *different* objects cannot occupy the same location in
space and time. This is why you don't get killed crossing the street by a
car that was going 60mph through that crossing 2 years ago.

Slawomir