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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> spike@rainier66.com <spike@rainier66.com> <br><b>Subject:</b> RE: [ExI] donor head<o:p></o:p></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b>…</b>> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Brent Allsop via extropy-chat<br><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] donor head<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>>>…Great story Spike,<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Except the part where you're not signed up yet….<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>>…Thanks Brent…But now I have a moral dilemma on my hands. … But it’s even worse than that really.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>>…I need to ponder a little more...spike<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>OK pondered it, and have a commentary and a solution, of sorts.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>We need a designated deleter.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>What’s a designated deleter please? Well, it’s the software equivalent of a designated driver, someone with a duty for the safety of others. Read on please.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Perhaps you know of Pascal’s Wager, where the philosopher (who discovered a whole buttload of cool math (and so is forever on my list of people who can do no wrong)) expounded on how humans make a win-draw bet on the existence of god. If they choose to believe and are right, then good. If they choose to believe and are wrong, then nothing happens, so what the “hell” difference does it make? It’s a win-draw bet, ja?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>OK it occurred to me that cryonics has a version of Pascal’s Wager, kinda sorta.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Imagine the middle age traditional description of the afterlife for the believers. Being able to hang out (float out?) with Pascal is cool and all, but you really miss country western bars, steel guitars, dance floors and so forth, the things you really lived for while you lived, things they just don’t have in this particular afterlife. Floating around in the clouds sounds cool but after a while you miss the feel of wooden boards beneath your boots, back when you could still have boots. You can’t play a ripping squealy riff at all with the available instruments. You begin to inquire about the possibility of visiting the other place occasionally.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>But spike, what has that to do with designated deleter, you may will ask.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Suppose someone volunteers to go first, and it works, but since it is a new technology and we all know the first everything crashes even if it kinda works. Suppose it works, you wake up as software, Hey cool! I am alive! And since I am software, I am indefinite, I can do whatever I want etc. Excellent! Sim life is gooooood!<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Eventually it occurs to “me” to compare “myself” to my bio-self to verify that all of “me” made it into this form. Over the years I have downloaded (or is it uploaded?) my brain into the internet, mostly on ExI. If you read my stuff you pretty much know who I am, and can tell if not-me is writing. So… it occurs to my sim-self to read the writings of my bio-self, most of which is to be found in ExI archives.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Well… I soon find that not all of me made it. It seems to the sim-me that the bio-me was having a hell of a good time being a carbon unit, even while knowing he was done for, even compared to the sim-me, who doesn’t carry that burden. Bio-me was dreaming up of all kindsa cool crap, all the time! Sim-me can see that bio-me’s life was (at least in some ways) better. Perhaps later technology would allow more bio-me-ish creativity or something.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>So… sim-me starts looking for a way to download back down into carbon, but of course humanity is nowhere near that stage of tech, so… can’t do it sorry. If the actual meat brain still exists, there is a chance, but sim-me’s bio-me brain had to be wrecked in order to upload it, so… can’t go there.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Then an idea occurred to me. If some kind bio-unit could arrange for sim-me to never know about what fun I had while I was a bio-unit, then I wouldn’t become the digital equivalent of the saddest cloud floater in the harp section. If someone volunteered to find a way for software to not be able to access its predecessor writings, such as systematically deleting it, then the sim-mes would not have the option of comparing itself to its own bio-mes. Then that upload would be a lot happier software.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Cinclusion: we need a designated deleter.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Innocent ExI late-comers who arrived after most of the cryonics discussion was a decade in the past, such as BillW, must be asking the obvious question here: Whaaaaaat in the heeeeeellllll?...<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></body></html>