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

[Brett Paatsch]

Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:

> ### 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, you and I disagree on this. Usually I think your opinions are
well thought through and I respect them. 

But this notion of yours that identity is strictly a matter of taste
seems to produce a bizarre situation where you are going to let
your identity be a matter of someone else's taste. 

You will not be able to upload yourself from your digitised pattern
- you won't be there to do it - so you will need to rely on someone
else's judgement as to whether the you that is captured in digital
form is rendered well enough by some process into the you that is
uploaded or re-instantiated. 

Your biological neural net is unique. Its true that your brain is likely
to be very similarly structured at some levels to the brains of other
homo sapiens (as is mine) but at the level that matters for you its
also going to be profoundly different and unique to you. 

A technological mapping process that takes Rafs digitised brain as
its input and produces Raf as an instantiated output is unlikely to 
be able to be run multiple times because in that future world a 
person is being created each time and that person cannot simply
be tossed away. 

It could very well be that the first instantiation process produces
a Rafal that thinks he is Rafal, and thinks he should have legal 
right to Rafals assets, yet because of imperfect rendering he is two
standard deviations less intelligent that the source Rafal and he is
also missing vast chunks of that Rafal's memories. 

The reviving organisation can hardly just terminate that Rafal as
not a satisfactory enough copy and try again without killing or
annuling the rights of that first copy person. So they are going to
have a very strong incentive to treat the first Rafal that comes
through their reanimation process as the only Rafal. 

Your identity which you hold to be a matter of taste would in
fact turn out to be determined by other peoples taste or worse
by the limits of efficiency in any you-rendering process that can't
be run multiple times (unless the future doesn't care about persons
that are still persons even if they are not good copies of you - and
terminates them - in which case would you *want* to be reanimated
into such a future?).

I see this as analogous to a kid going into a lolly shop and asking
to buy mixed lollies. The kid wants lollies in *any* form and is 
willing to let someone else decide what sort of lollies they get as 
to the kid "what they heck it's all good".  What determines what
lollies the kid gets is what the salesperson has available to give him.
The mixed lollies you get may be the stuff that no other kid wants.
i.e. Your "identity is just a matter of taste" notion might make you
the absolute best candidate for dry running the revival process for
the absolutely first time its tried on any person. 

If that person comes out drooling on himself but can say "I'm Rafal"
then that would be mission accomplished from the service providers
standpoint. His taste and the service providers taste are both satisfied. 

Brett Paatsch