X-Message-Number: 14149
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 11:16:02 -0400
From: "Raphael T. Haftka" <>
Subject: In support of Brook Norton

Living in the moment.

I very much agree with Brook Norton that we live in the moment and our 
desire for some kind of survival is evolutionary conditioned. Keeping that 
in mind, I do not see why we need a universal definition of survival. Let 
each of us use the definition of survival of identity that makes him or her 
happy.

Personally, I would like to have a future person that will share as  many 
memories as possible with me, and that would feel that I was a previous 
version of himself. Note that this 'future me' could possibly be also the 
future of one of you. If memories are stored and reinstated via some tape, 
we may run into a situation that it will make sense to have a single 
individual share memories of two past people. For example, that may happen 
if not enough survives of me, and another person shares a lot of my 
personal background. In that case, it may be best for my memories to share 
a brain with somebody else's memories.
Raphael (Rafi) Haftka, Distinguished Professor          
University of Florida                                   phone:352-392-9595
Department of Aerospace Engineering,                    fax: -7303
Mechanics and Engineering 
Science                       http://www.aero.ufl.edu/~haftka
Gainesville, FL 32611

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