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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14149