From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Oct 14 2002 - 22:09:44 MDT
gts writes
> Dan Fabulich wrote:
>
> > I'm used to the idea that I should try to keep me() alive,
> > and I'm not at all used to the idea that me[now] might die
> > while me[past] might live. I want them both to live, I guess...
>
> In our example there are two instantiations of me[past]! One of them is
> a subset of me in the frozen state and one is a subset of me in the
> active state in which I'm pondering the vaporization questions. I can
> eliminate either instantiation of me[past] without eliminating me[past]
> or me[now]. Me[past] dies only if the frozen person and I both die.
> Me[now] dies only if I die.
Your use of "subset" is telling, IMO. When you forget something,
Gordon, do you become a subset of yourself? Does you[now] die?
(See below too.)
> The killing of the frozen copy of me from the past will not eliminate my
> past identity nor will it eliminate my current identity. But the killing
> of my current identity will surely eliminate my current identity even if
> my past identity survives.
I dispute, of course, that you should think that the vaporization
of you at this moment necessarily destroys your present identity.
(On the other hand, you may mean by "current identity" or "present
identity" only "past-identity + current memories", in which what
you say is tautologically true since your current memories do not
survive the vaporization.) This is because if you had a severe
blow to the head that produced a peculiar amnesia that merely
took away this last week's memories, gts would still be alive
and well, and you'd think so too.
Note that cryonicists often talk about how desirable it would
be to have a backup. Suppose that in some SF scenario it is
possible for cryonicists to get a scan made every two weeks.
Then, if a terrible accident occurred, they could still be
restored from backups, sans their most recent memories. I
regard this as survival. Do you?
Lee
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:17:34 MST