X-Message-Number: 11113 Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 11:06:46 -0700 From: Mike Perry <> Subject: Re: CryoNet #11104 Brook Norton, #11104, has offered some interesting comment on the viewpoint that a person perishes each instant, to be replaced by another, similar if not identical being. Fundamentally, this instantly-perishing-self theory does not depend on any such property as a gradual loss of memories over time, or other changes. Even if that is not the issue we can still hypothesize that "you" perish each instant to be replaced by a similar but different individual. A similar, if weaker form of this is the "day-person" concept advanced by Thomas Nagel, that basically, we die in our sleep to be replaced by a different but similar individual. Such theories are untestable; they cannot be refuted, they "fit the facts." Yet if we take literally the idea that we will not live past our next period of unconsciousness, it makes little sense to plan for such things as cryonic suspension. As it happens, I like the opposite extreme, i.e. to say that "you" survive in any construct whatever that is sufficiently like you (with the exact meaning of "sufficiently like" a matter to be decided, but certainly allowing the possibility of duplicates). I think this can be made to "fit the facts" too and I prefer it for other reasons. Mike Perry signed-up cryonicist Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=11113