[ExI] Cryonics and Identity

[Lee Corbin]

Bryan writes

> [Lee wrote]
> 
>> I perused the cryonics section's titles. It all looked pretty familiar (I've
>> been signed up for nearly 20 years, and many people here are signed
>> up with either Alcor or CI.)  Is there something in particular about it
>> that you wanted to discuss?
> 
> Not in particular. I was figuring that adding to the discussion re:
> probability and changing from one moment to the next had strong
> correlations to cryonics and ultracold vacuum physics because as you
> get colder, less and less actions take place.

It sounds reasonable that fewer and fewer *actions* (and I 
am pretty sure you mean the technical physics term here)
take place at lower temperatures.  Has to do with the Boltzman
distribution, I believe.

> (And quantifying action is [tough], I hear.)

I'll have to take your word for it!   :-)    Thanks.

As for fewer and fewer quantum actions taking place at lower 
temperature, this may or may not be a balm to those who 
believe that they become different people upon every change
of their quantum state.  So far as I can tell, though, they just
don't care much whether they change or remain the same---
after all, they're not the same people no matter what happens
to them.

(Now I would not have a problem---er, excuse me, I don't 
mean to sound antediluvian---I would not have an issue with
their manner of dealing with the philosophical problem if they
chose simply to stop using the term "person".  I myself 
advocate exactly that course of action when a particular
word starts to become troublesome or starts to cause
confusion. What I don't like is to just deconstruct the 
concept entirely, continuting to use it but stripping it of all
sensible or familiar meaning.)

Lee

P.S.  Hate to keep complaining---but that's what you get for
appearing to be quite the good fellow, I guess---but does
your web-interface or email editor make it easy for you to
delete irrelevant parts of posts when replying?  People here
generally dislike wading through all that.  On some lists,
posts grow arithmetically in length because people just hit
reply and peck away.  What is worse, sometimes people
*here* quote every little passage of someone's post, and
reply in equal length to it, and the size of the posts grows
*geometrically*!!   :-(