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

[John K Clark]

"Slawomir Paliwoda" <velvethum at hotmail.com>

> How would it feel to be the copy? It would feel exactly
> the same as being the original.

Yes, with emphasis on the word “exactly”.

> That doesn't mean I would be the original.

OK, but if so then using nothing but your own words above I conclude that
the distinction between the words “Copy” and “Original” is of trivial
importance and not worth bothering about.

> Your memories and mental abilities are merely your data, or *pattern*

Merely?! Besides than Mrs. Lincoln how did you like the play?

> which is static

It’s hard to imagine anything more wrong. If your pattern, the thing that
makes you be you, were static you couldn’t make new memories or change in
any way.

> I'm not talking about the trajectory of atoms that make up the mind's
> substrate, but a trajectory of a mind process.

You can make a trajectory of atoms but “a trajectory of a mind process”
makes no sense, not one bit.

> mind is a tangible process. It's an activity of matter

But what makes this particular activity interesting is not the matter, there
is absolutely nothing special about those atoms, the interesting thing is
what they do and that is a function of how they are arranged and that is
a function of a pattern and a pattern is information. Claiming to find a
distinction between “Origanal” digital information and a copy is silly.

> Whatever these experiments might be, I'm afraid they would
> have to violate the laws of physics first to prove that verification
> of identity is impossible.

I am unaware of any law of physics that makes it imposable to erase the
information about which is the copy and which is the original.  I believe
you are conjuring up a new law of physics to justify your common everyday
experience. I think it’s safe to say that up to now you have only found one
chunk of matter that behaves in a Slawomirpaliwodaian way, but that is just
a historical accident not a law of physics, it need not always be true.

> Electrons flowing through the brain are not matter?

You can also perform computations with photons and you can put lots of them
in exactly the same place. But who cares where some stupid electrons are
anyway, or does your mind feel trapped inside a dome made of bone?

  John K Clark      jonkc at att.net