[extropy-chat] Avoid Too Much Change

[Thomas]

Lee Corbin wrote:

>Regarding future enhancements, [and] the dangers of identity
>loss [...]
>
>I issue this caution:  what gaineth a transhuman if he becometh
>someone else?  Beware any change at all, and allow only those
>that don't change you very much.  If you want to keep on living,
>that is.
>
>Lee
>
I have felt similar misgivings about a heavenly afterlife.  My identity 
would need considerable purging for me to fit in.  

Reincarnation violates basic logic's law of identity.  How could I have 
a past (or future) life as someone other than me?  Yet, surprisingly, I 
have a recalled a couple "memories" of past lives.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation

Uploading with knowledge/memory enhancement would skew me Borgishly. 
 With who's knowledge/memory would I blend?  How could you still call 
that me?  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assimilation_%28Star_Trek%29

Lee, your warning has scared me into investigating 
identity/consciousness.  Ack!  More reading for my tired eyes.  If your 
identity turns out to consist of a process -- then it couldn't continue 
without change.  Keeping your identity would involve keep the changes 
going.  You've already changed from barely-self-aware-Lee to 
extropian-Lee.  Would the upshift to "trans-Lee" work better if it 
included an implanted memory of years of gradual changes?  

I suspect that identity might consist a good deal in what the subject 
considers his or her or its identity  So if you identify with your body, 
best not drop it if you don't want to feel dead.  

Last month Sondre Bjellås told us how she identified with her family and 
friends so much that she felt their length of life might determine her 
length of life.  What if I identified with all humans?  --  Thomas