From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Oct 28 2002 - 14:04:44 MST
Jef Allbright wrote:
> I'm saying that in this hypothetical future we will
> fondly appreciate seeing our "branches" set out on
> their own, but will think of them as a new kind of
> twin sibling, rather than as "our self".
Yes, that is exactly how I see it also, Jef.
However in your following passage to Lee, to which I
was responding, you seem to be giving validity to the
idea that "survival of identity" is something
important and distinct from "survival of self."
>> Jef Allbright wrote to Lee:
>>>
>>> In your posts later today, two of your points
>>> have become clearer, at least to me: (1) You are
>>> talking about survival of identity, and (2) you
>>> are saying that in the future, as the technical
>>> means become available, it makes sense for us to
>>> value the survival of our identity with
>>> importance equal to our current concept of
>>> survival of self.
Those may be two of Lee's points, but do they really
make any sense upon careful analysis?
Because of divergence in experience and personality
after a bifurcation, other versions of what were once
"you" will be going about in life calling themselves
by your name. However they will each have slightly
different personalities, none of them exactly like
yours, and those personalities will continue to
diverge until they lose any resemblance to you. Thus
they will not in actuality be carrying your true
identity. Or to put it another way, they will be
carrying your identity *in name only*.
If it is proposed by Lee that survival of our
identities "in name only" is something we should seek
and value more in the future, then my comment is that
this is something we already seek and value greatly.
In the simplest example, we ensure the survival of our
identities for posterity each time we contract with an
undertaker for a tombstone bearing our name and
epitaph.
I for one at least find little satisfaction in knowing
that I might live on in name only, and I hardly need
to embrace extropianism as a means of finding ways to
do so. The desire for the survival of identity in that
sense is trivial and common already in the world
today, as in for example a father who wants sons so
that his surname might survive into future
generations.
The truth is that all we really want is survival of
our *sense of self*. We want to transport this sense
of self into other objects or persons. That is what
this thread is about, or so I thought.
-gts
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