[extropy-chat] Re: cryonics (was: Science and Fools)

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

Quoting Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com>:
>
> Precisely. I know Eugen and others are equally adamant that the contrary is
> true and self-evident, which I find incomprehensible. It keeps coming back
> to this: if someone persuades me that in a trillion years or so, random
> recurrence will generate an exact equivalent to me as I am at the moment,
> should I feel okay about someone blowing my head off right now? After all,
> "I'll" be alive again (or still alive, or something) in the remote future.
> Bullshit, sez I. Blow your own damn head off.

### Now that the hydra of identity thread reared another head, let me chip in my
usual remarks:

"The others" are not adamant that certain claims about identity are true while
others are false. What I am sure of is my attitude towards certain states of
the world. I simply feel very warm and fuzzy about the future existence of any 
material objects endowed with memories and some character traits reasonably
similar to mine. This enthusiasm is not influenced by any considerations
regarding the way such objects come into existence - whether by continuity,
reassembly, uploading, or tunnelling through the 23rd dimension, I really don't
care.

I know that you have different attitudes about future material,
qualia-experiencing objects similar to you - and these attitudes of ours should
influence each other just as much as our attitudes towards e.g the music of
Radiohead, or ravioli with beef. Strictly a matter of taste.

Rafal