[extropy-chat] Agency as Prime Determinant of Personal Identity

[Robert Bradbury]

On 11/12/06, Heartland <velvethum at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Lee, this post
> http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2006-November/030557.htmland the
> one before that was designed to steer you onto the path at the end of
> which the
> difference between preservation of personal identity and preservation of
> life
> should be visible and undeniable. Unless you can show me how preservation
> of
> personal memories (or values or beliefs) implies preservation of life, I'm
> afraid
> that extending this dialog will not bring any more progress.


I've avoided this discussion because  it looked like it was going to go over
and over through things we have already through over and over for over a
decade.  It never hurts to reexamine these things in light of progress in
genetics, neuroscience, preservation methods, etc. but I'm not sure I see
that being done here.

I do know that there are a large number (80,000?) individuals alive today
whose precursor material was frozen.  So they are clearly defined as having
"returned from the dead" (unless being frozen is not the same as being
dead).

I looked at the message cited above and didn't see anything there making it
clear to me what "life" is.  I also realize that there there are people who
believe it to be something other than what I believe it to be (an organized
and *potentially* functioning set of information).

So, Slawomir, if you are willing to provide a statement "Life is ______"
(fill in the blank) I'll be happy to consider it.  Otherwise I think this
discussion has been about "I believe life is ______".

You cannot change the "mind" of a believer, you can only transform it [1].
That can rarely be achieved through classical debate or discussion.

Robert

1. That was something I learned from Est.
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