X-Message-Number: 11170
From: 
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 23:00:19 EST
Subject: comment re Donaldson

Thomas Donaldson (#11159) notes that a physical duplicate would not have
(easy) access to the property or spouse or perhaps even the credentials etc.
of the original (assuming one could keep track of who was who). However, I
don't think this point has any practical importance, because I doubt that
anyone seriously envisions actual creation of physical duplicates, even in the
distant future. So what is the usefulness of speculation about duplicates?
There are several possibilities:

1. It's just a tool of the imagination, helping to sharpen our ideas about
criteria of survival.

2. If uploading ever proves possible, then duplicate or multiple people, and
even worlds or universes, emulated in electronics or photronics or whatever,
might actually be feasible one day. There would be staggering complications,
but still, at minimum, further tools to improve our viewpoints and
philosophies, even now. 

3. If the Multiverse that Dr. Perry and others favor should turn out to be
real, then we don't necessarily have to make duplicates, either meat or
emulated--they already exist. Once more, challenges to our criteria of
survival and our philosophies of life.

Dr. Donaldson also says:

>As for my basic reasons for believing that even an approximate duplicate,
in the case of cryonic suspension, would constitute you, they come 
from a belief that so long as all externally observable (observable not
just by present technology but by future technologies) facts about the
physical you remained the same, then that subjective you must have
continued also. 

First, there is the question of "continued" vs. "restored." Second, we still
have the question of whether we "survive" in the ordinary course of events. "a
belief" is not enough; we are looking for rigor. Certainly, while awaiting and
seeking new information, we must do the best we can with what we think we know
now; but it seems better to me to acknowledge current failure rather than
claim a problem is solved when it is just swept under the rug. You are more
likely to solve a problem by worrying at it than by turning your back on it.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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