[extropy-chat] Identity Transfer (Re: A view on cryonics)

Slawomir Paliwoda velvethum at hotmail.com
Thu Sep 16 13:44:13 UTC 2004


> > If the focus was
> > only on mind pattern, which so many people are happy to ground their
> > identity in, the second constraint would be meaningless here, (what's
the
> > point of maintaining unity of mind if all we care for is the data
itself),
> > and that would lead only to logical confusion and situations where two
> > copies of the same data might be assigned the same identity.
>
> In the interests of communication clarity I would not agree to using
> identity to describe any outcome where people could talk of two
> contemporaneous and disconnected instances of an "identity". If there
> are two it is not an identity. For identity there can be only one, period.


There can only be one identity. That's why "situations where two copies of
the same data might be assigned the same identity" are logically confusing
and unacceptable.


> > Ideally, a person shouldn't sustain any degradation in his subjective
> > experience during the operation.
>
> Ideally, but a little "sleepiness" might be tolerable :-)


Sure.


> Interestingly, I can see how Rafal's view (or rather his communication of
> it) could be reconciled with yours to some potential benefit of both your
> aspirations. He'd just need to acknowledge that you are using the word
> identity in a tighter more strict way than he is. Like a person with a
> rectangle
> recognizes that they have a rectangle and you have a square and they
> should not try an call it a "square".


In my reply to Rafal's post, I've identified the source of our disagreement
and it stems from our definition of what mind is. He, and majority of people
who think about PI, view the mind as a pattern while I see it as a process.
He doesn't say it explicitly, but that's exactly what he means. His concept
of identity is more concerned with questions like, "Who are you?", rather
than, "What, where and when are you?" which is what I'm interested in.


> If something less than
> full identity works for you then don't pretend that it is full identity
when
> you know it isn't going to be seen as full identity for others. To do so
> dumbs stuff down.


Exactly. Definitions of identity shouldn't be opinions. Identity is what it
is and we're allowed to have different emotional responses to how we feel
about preserving it, but this doesn't change its nature.

One person might say he doesn't like yellow, while someone else loves it.
However, a definition of yellow can't be "the color I like", or " the color
I don't like". And you definitely shouldn't hope to get any respect if you
dare to publically claim that yellow doesn't exist. At least when I'm that
audience. :)


> If Rafs vision is held up by cryonics folk as the one to try and attracts
> others than it will repel folk like me at the same time as it attracts
folk
> like him and John.  On the other hand if yours is held up, Raf's lower
> criteria is likely to fall out of a technological pipeline faster as a
sort
> of easier prototype perhaps as more people and resources may go
> in pursuit of yours (assuming of course yours is not impossible - a
> question I've not considered in this post).


Yes. Anything less than a successful subjective experience transplant is,
IMO, simply death. All I hope for is that we don't get stuck with some
memory transfer procedure, advertised as "identity-preserving", as the only
option available.

Slawomir



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