X-Message-Number: 11183
From: 
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 23:42:54 EST
Subject: allegedly final

First, barring irresistible temptation (and I'm easily tempted), I'm ending my
participation in the discussion of survival criteria on Cryonet for the
foreseeable future. (You're welcome.) I really can't spare the time--even
though, to some extent, it may help sharpen the draft of my book.

But I'll say a quick word about quantum states. I agree with Dr. Perry that
Frank Tipler is to be respected--in most ways, he is certainly both smarter
and better informed than I am. But I can only agree with arguments that I can
follow and that don't have obvious problems.

Tipler says his belief in the identity of duplicates is related to the
"identity" of elementary particles. Again, I think there is a confusion of
language. Certainly if two hydrogen atoms (in the ground state, say) could
somehow be instantly exchanged in location, then there would be no way, even
in principle, to determine which was which (barring quantum entanglements from
previous interactions?). But what of it? Hydrogen atoms still do have location
(even if there is a quantum blurring), and a different location is in some
sense certainly a label. For people, if "my" subjectivity is contained in the
physiology of the brain that is at "my" location, then I cannot see how the
subjectivity of a different brain at another location can properly be said to
be mine or to be shared with mine. Even objectively (from the standpoint of an
outside observer) we are labeled by our locations and trajectories.

Tipler does say that to resurrect people down to the quantum state, it might
be necessary, because of quantum entanglements, to emulate the entire physical
universe.

He also says that, if a "clone machine" is to replicate a person, and if it
must first ascertain the quantum state of that person by interactions, then
(again, because of quantum entanglements) the duplicates could not be in the
same state as the original. 

We must remember too that there is still no agreement on the relation between
the wave function and the quantum state. The wave function supposedly offers
all the information that can be known about the system while it is unobserved,
with only probabilities of locations etc.; while the quantum state refers to
the system's coordinates in phase space after an observation. (The number of
possible quantum states, for a system of given mass and volume, is given by
the Bekenstein Bound, calculated from the fact that a "point" in quantum phase
space, because of quantum uncertainties, has a minimum volume of the order h,
Planck's constant.) All this is still subject to undecided questions about the
nature of space and time--how to handle fluctuations in empty space etc.

Admittedly, most of this has very little immediate practical
application--except to help motivate certain experiments or investigations, as
well as further thought, maybe no small thing. Anyway, after I'm thawed, I
trust that I (or a similar person) will learn a lot more.

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

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