X-Message-Number: 11178
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 00:49:11 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #11165 - #11173

----------------------------------------------------------------------
To Thomas Nord (re #11167)

Thanks for the references on air pollution in Maricopa County, AZ (where
Scottsdale is). Alcor is located fairly near the West McDowell Mountains, in
the northern part of Scottsdale. Possibly the pollution problem is not so
bad here, though I haven't checked since nobody seems to think it is
particularly serious anywhere around here. When I asked Hugh Hixon, our
biochemist here (at Alcor) about it, he said he thought probably the LA
basin is worse. "Wherever you have people, you have pollution," he observed.
Pollution is going to be less in poorer countries with fewer per capita
cars, other things equal. Or less in places with fewer people to begin with.
In any case, you will have to consider tradeoffs no matter where you
go--every place will have its problems. You could perhaps live some distance
from Scottsdale and still be relatively close to Alcor, if that's what you
want. Or try northern California, if both heat and snow bother you, and you
don't mind being somewhat farther from a major suspension facility. Or maybe
try Australia, which might have cleaner air, and does have some cryonicists
though not so many. Etc.

To Bob Ettinger (re #11173)

>
>If I understand it correctly, a "quantum state," especially of a macroscopic
>object, cannot be fully and accurately stated in isolation, because it is
>never fully isolated; you need the quantum state of the whole universe in
>order to claim complete or maximum accuracy. At minimum, we must admit we
>don't know for sure, since the keenest specialists don't agree or admit they
>don't known.
>

Perhaps there is some confusion or disagreement about just what a "quantum
state" is. I am going mainly by what Tipler says in *The Physics of
Immortality*. He is pretty definite, and I think his argument is sound. A
person, regarded as a phenomenon in a bounded region of spacetime with a
finite amount of energy, is just a very glorified finite state machine.
There are only a finite number of states available, and only a finite number
of state transitions and consequently, behaviors. The total number of
possible experiences a person could have is finite. (Again, this is if we
are confined to finite times, volumes and energy content, a reasonable
assumption here, despite our hope of becoming immortal.) The same sorts of
atoms and other particles are found all over the universe. So it certainly
is possible, if very unlikely, that two persons in different locations would
have an identical experience extending even for considerable periods of
time. (I think too that other arguments can be advanced for the possibility
of identical conscious experience that do not lean so heavily on quantum
states.)
...
>
>[Perry]>In my view, duplicate consciousness *is* one and the same as shared
>consciousness. If there is a difference, I submit it is a "non-reductionist"
>sort of difference, a mystical notion, that I feel comfortable discounting.
>
>Mystical? What is mystical about saying that "I" here am subject to different
>hazards and different opportunities than "he" there?
>
Nothing, *but* it doesn't rule out the possibility of conscousness being
shared between "I" and "he" even if the two are "subject to different
hazards and different opportunities."

>[Perry]>As for the objection that "destruction or change of one ... would not
>>affect the other in any way" I handle that problem by allowing the
>>possibility of fissioning. One consciousness or one person can split. The
>>split would occur as soon as a difference develops in what was, up to
>>then, a subjectively identical experience in the two instantiations. Then 
>>you would no longer have shared consciousness. 
>
>I see only language traps there. As long as they are sufficiently similar, you
>choose to call them the same. When they are not sufficiently similar, you
>choose to say they have fissioned. I am looking for proofs, not preferences or
>plausibilities.

"Proofs" would be nice, but once again I ask if there isn't some level at
which "proof" is impossible even in principle, and one must use other means
to arrive at preferences. The example I often cite is the day person
hypothesis, that we die each time we lose consciousness, to be replaced by a
similar, but different person. Not provable or disprovable, I submit, since
it fits all the ascertainable facts, as do other, conflicting hypotheses. I
feel I have reasonable grounds for rejecting it in favor of one of these
others--pattern survival. That too is not provable (or doesn't seem so) but
does have other things in its favor.

Thanks, Bob, for your responses to my scenarios 1-6. At least we are in
agreement that "If whole-body patients survive, then neuro patients do too."
As for the "public relations" problem with neuro, I have long thought that
as long it is just an option (i.e. whole body is available too) there should
be no serious problem. Some, I suppose, will be upset that an organization
would so much as offer the neuro option. But such people generally aren't
cryonicists, or close, and it seems hard to believe that they would convince
many others who otherwise would sign up not to do so. Remember we are
talking about neuro as an option, not a requirement. Why should many people
care much if someone *else* wants to go neuro and has freely chosen this
option? Neuro does create a somewhat lurid image of cryonics, in some minds,
but it also brings home what cryonics is all about--preserving
identity-critical information, i.e. what is irreplaceable, rather than less
essential parts. Moreover, recent successes such as cloning of mammals and
cultivation of embryonic stem cells would, I think, create a more favorable
public image for neuro.

Mike Perry

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