[ExI] No one dies re: Clarke, Arthur

[Lee Corbin]

Samantha writes

> Giulio wrote
>> Kevin writes:
>>   
>>> I am sure that in a far distant future, perhaps thousands or even
>>>  hundreds of thousands of years after I am brought back from suspension,
>>>  we will find a way to peer back in time and recapture his information
>>>  state at the time of his death and "resurrect" him. I'll make it a
>>>  personal goal of mine. He can then bring back any of those others he
>>>  mentioned and even his dog. :-)
>>
>> http://universalimmortalism.org

Oh yes, just posted a link to that myself.

>> Though I am not _sure_ of this, I really hope so.

Totally agree. Kevin is more optimistic than I am when he wrote
that he's sure that it will be possible in the far distant future.

But Kevin is totally right-on in the rest of his post, and the others he
wrote on this subject.  I concur completely.

Back to Samantha:

> And then what?  You have reached back from the far highly capable future 
> and plucked someone out of his time.   He is now in a world utterly 
> incomprehensible to most all of his assumptions and most of his 
> knowledge.

What is happening in many sciences and many technologies is already
totally incomprehensible to me, and as I wrote in the Race Biology 
thread a few moments ago, Brazilian society already has aspects that
are incomprehensible to me (and there are probably a number of places
and peoples in the world today who practices, habits, and beliefs I
simply could never understand without having been raised there or
without devoting years of anthopological society.

So what?  I have a nice little niche among people (I mostly understand,
although having no clue about their internal workings), programs that
I mostly understand (although ditto), and other things that make me
quite happy whether I understand them or not. 

> A world where all that he cared about is very ancient and 
> not very interesting history.   Are you sure any but the extremely rare 
> individual would thank you or be able to cope?

Do you think that an aboriginal human from 70,000 B.C. could
somehow be brought to cope with living in a modern apartment
with running water and a well-stocked refrigerator?  If he had an
income, he and his friends could even buy replicas of the old
sacred drums or whatever he missed.  Somehow, I don't think
he'd be too crushed and bewildered to prefer being dead. 

> Even those individuals  would require a tremendous amount of new
> knowledge and tools really quickly.

Nah.  If I make it, and get the resources, the most advanced versions
of me will run 2005 versions, 2010 versions, and so on, even though
I (as the earlier versions) would naturally appreciate that what the
AIs were thinking about and what a lot of people were into was way
beyond me.  So what?  I already find the behavior of many people
living in San Francisco incomprehensible, and they're only 40 miles
away.  But so long as I can be insulated from the elements, from
rogue programs and people, and fashion my own environment pretty
much the way I want it, I'll make out just fine.  And truth be told,
so will everyone else.

> If you just implanted all that right now would the result more 
> than superficially be the original person?  

No, I think you're right about that.  But see the threads on Merging
Copies on SL4 during the last month or so.

Lee