From: Anne Marie Tobias (atobias@interwoven.com)
Date: Fri Jun 01 2001 - 18:21:31 MDT
This is a pointless conversation...
To argue that living long enough will be the death of who you know
yourself to be is silly...
You've already lived long enough to know the death of the infant
you knew yourself to be, the child you knew yourself to be, and
the adolescent you knew yourself to be. Do you waste even a
second mourning their passing????
I would certainly hope that if I lived a thousand years that I would
be vital, strive to grow, sharpen my wit, increase my grasp, expand
my understanding, and continue developing as a human being, if not
then I'm a waste of metabolism... a space heater without anybody
to keep warm.
If I succeed at this endeavor, then I will continually break myself
up, taking what is meaningful and applicable in myself, and cutting
the rest loose. In that way, I would distill that part of being human
which is intrinsic, essential, indestructible. I would grow that in my
being, I would nurture that. I would wage war on the petty, I would
declare battle against anything that didn't serve the purpose to
which I bend my life. I so doing I would over the centuries forge
myself in the form of the spirit to which I am given. I don't see
how that could eve be called death.
I guess, I could die, if I tried to play slacker and float through a few
centuries... but I can't imagine wanting to continue breathing after
living a hundred years of just hanging out... the very boredom alone
should prove fatal. Most of us are sleepwalking through life. If you
were to live a life intently given by your passion, by that thing that
gives you profound joy... living a thousand years would be easy,
living a thousand years would be an blessing!
Marie Tobias
Samantha Atkins wrote:
> Lee Corbin wrote:
> >
> > At 04:00 AM 5/30/01 -0700, you wrote:
> > >> Would you or would you not mind evolving into someone that has
> > >> absolutely no resemblance to Samantha Atkins circa 2001?
> > >
> > >It depends on what the core *me* that I do want to continue is.
> >
> > So the answer is "Yes"? For example, suppose that there exists
> > in 3000A.D. an entity who resembles to a tiny fraction Tony
> > Blair, Prime Minister. That is, this tremendous entity has
> > some of Blair's memories, but that's all.
>
> If that is really "death" then I have no fear of it at all. I
> fear death as utter annihilation of all of me, rather than
> change of much of me but with a crucial core that remains.
>
> >
> > I say that if you slowly turn into this entity, then you are
> > just as dead as if you slowly turn into a stone. There are
> > objective reasons why a stone (or Mr Blair) is not Samantha
> > Atkins. In order for something to be Samantha Atkins (to
> > varying degrees of fidelity) it must satisfy certain
> > physical criteria (though we do not today know what those
> > are).
> >
>
> Really? I would think it rather needed to fulfill some process
> level criteria rather than specific physical instantiations of
> that processing.
>
> > >I am pretty sure that I wouldn't have much fun running
> > >Samantha circa 2001 indefinitely.
> >
> > You speak, again, of a core you "running" these various
> > persona. Okay, I can buy that. Then let's direct my
> > remarks to your "core". Do you want to evolve into
> > something that no longer has this "core"?
> >
>
> No. But I believe this "core" can run/wear a wide variety of
> packagings without being lost.
>
> > >Yes. I would be bored if I didn't move on from Samantha Atkins
> > >circa 2001 eventually. hehe, I don't have an IQ of 250, much
> > >less all the wealth and time in the world. If I did I would not
> > >be the Samantha Atkins circa now but rather someone different.
> >
> > That's very interesting. Of course we're being very crude
> > here, but it's revealing nonetheless. Have any idea about
> > how many I.Q. points you could gain without undergoing this
> > loss of identity? (You might not like that phrasing; help
> > yourself to a re-word.)
> >
>
> I have no doubt IQ or general intelligence or functioning
> intelligence could be boosted tremendously, far beyond 250
> without losing what makes *me* myself in this core sense. But
> much of the packaging might change rather drastically with that
> increase of IQ.
>
>
> > >With those differences I would still get eventually bored
> > >(overly familiar with the envelope of potential patterns) and
> > >want to move on. I might even get "bored" more rapidly.
> >
> > Oh, well, recall that boredom is an evolved process, like pain,
> > that helps us to survive. If that's your only beef, well, there
> > will doubtless be correctives available. Food and sex don't
> > "get boring" precisely because of natural selection, of course.
> >
>
> Guess again. Food and sex get very boring at times.
>
> - samantha
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