CryoNet #32531 - #32533

CryoNet - Sun 4 Apr 2010

    #32531: Re: 50 copies of the same person [John de Rivaz]
    #32532: Thought experiment  & survival [2Arcturus]
    #32533: Comments for Luke [Ettinger]

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Message #32531
From: "John de Rivaz" <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: 50 copies of the same person
Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2010 10:42:14 +0100

If a person was duplicated and 49 copies made, then presumably the 
technology could duplicate that person's posessions including his house, and 
even his partner as well. But his land cannot be duplicated (ie where to put 
the duplicated houses). What I am really saying is you cannot duplicate his 
position in the universe. The 49 copies would have to occupy different 
positions in the universe. They cannot occupy the same space.

Therefore it is possible to identify the original if it is possible to 
measure space-time coordinates. He would be a part of a line going back in 
time, whereas all the others would be at the start of new lines.

Debating as to who owns the original plot of land would no doubt enrich many 
lawyers, but one wonders how they could be paid in a time when everything 
can be duplicated at a whim! :-)

-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:  http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including
Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley
Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy,  Nomad .. and
more

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Message #32532
References: <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2010 11:31:47 -0700 (PDT)
From: 2Arcturus <[email protected]>
Subject: Thought experiment  & survival

--0-1437903262-1270319507=:58810

In trying to do a thought experiment about whole brain emulation, it's taking a wrong turn to imagine yourself as you are now alongside the emulation. If it were done for the purpose of survival, then by that condition, your current mind would no longer be continued, and so in a sense, it would not exist -- for example, the mindlessness of cryopreservation, deeper than any coma or other kind of unconsciousness. So the proper way to do the thought experiment would be to compare the emulation to the continuation of the body you have now, which would have no active mind. 

Ideally, the emulation would support the entire process of your embodied mind, resuming from the point where it left off in your present body. Since the mind is not defined materially, it does not make sense to regard this as a copy. The mind that resumed would be the same mind, just supported by a different substrate, in different circumstances, and it would be the only such mind in existence, if it were done for the purposes of survival. Yes, emulation raises the possibility of copying, as well as merging, splitting, enhancement, and a million other possibilities, but for the purposes of a thought experiment about survival, copying is not the issue. So then, if you imagine what it would feel like to be this emulation, by definition, it would have to feel exactly the same as you would fee
 l, if you were to find yourself in that circumstance, except for your body (although if that were identical also, you would feel no difference in your embodiment,
 either).

As we all know, cryonics is only a partial solution to the problem of death, not a complete solution. There are innumerable ways the brain can be destroyed, for example, in an explosion or fire, or by a neurodegenerative disease, or crushed beyond the ability of any computation or scaled technology to reconstruct. Those of us who are transhumanist are also dedicated to enhancing the mind in an unlimited direction, which would not really be possible if were to remain bound by the constraints of the organic brain's biochemical processes. Maybe other alternatives will be found in the future, but for now, brain emulation and emulation on more flexible substrates offer the only hope for a comprehensive solution to the danger of death and unlimited advancement of the human mind.




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Message #32533
From: [email protected]
Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2010 21:50:25 EDT
Subject: Comments for Luke

Luke Parrish is quoted  below, with some comments by me labeled  such.
>If I was in a room with 50 copies of myself, I would consider
myself  to be a different individual from the rest of them.

>However this  feeling would not make me more important or more
closely connected to my past  life (prior to the copying event)
than the rest of them. So why should the  person prior to copying
identify more with the being that shares their atoms,  as
opposed to sharing their memories?
 
COMMENT: Neither sharing atoms nor sharing memories
signifies identity, only a specific kind and degree of  similarity

>People get spooked at the concept of trading their atoms  around
for a simple reason: this is not something evolution has ever  had
to cope with. Always in times past, keeping your information
pattern  alive has coincided with keeping your atoms generally
intact. We shouldn't be  surprised that this instinct remains.
 
COMMENT: People have always traded atoms to some extent,
e.g. by breathing the same air. Evolution does not "want" to
preserve either information or material--it is just a name we give
to a process tending, at certain times, to favor survival and 
proliferation of types with certain traits. In any case, I don't think 
our wish to preserve our bodies should be called an instinct. 
The "instinct" of self preservation, for most people at most 
times in modern conditions, is conspicuous by its  absence.

>Consider this: you lose consciousness every night. In  other
words, you cease to exist as a conscious being, yet are able to
come  back into existence as such in the morning. Information is
preserved, and  that is how you know you still exist later on.
 
COMMENT: Your identifying with your future and past selves, 
at least in part, is justified by your overlap in matter, time, and 
space. This is spelled out more fully in Youniverse.

>If you lost  all memories of your previous life, you wouldn't
know that you had survived.  The person you were before would
seem a stranger to you.

COMMENT: So what? 

>Getting your atoms replaced would be indistinguishable from
not  getting them replaced.
 
COMMENT: We must try to distinguish psychology from logic.

>* The  person existing before the event can't tell the difference.
They can't see  the future.
* The person existing after the event can't tell the  difference.
They have the same exact memories, emotions, skills, etc.
*  The person existing during the event can't tell the difference.
They are  unconscious.
* Nobody around them can tell the difference either.
 
COMMENT: This is unclear to me, but in Youniverse,
and in some of these postings, I have tried to lay out
logically and scientifically justified viewpoints. How
much any of this matters is also unclear, but in at
least some cases there will be effects on attitudes
toward cryonics.
 
Robert Ettinger






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