X-Message-Number: 14150 From: "Brook and Helen" <> Subject: The present moment self responses Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 09:52:03 -0700 Mike Perry, #14141, writes >>> As a rough approximation, I will say that my present self survives in a future self if that self has memories of having been the present self and feels a sense of identification with the present self. This is not an utterly meaningless idea. <<< response- The use of "survival" above certainly has some meaning. But it still doesn't indicate to me that some essential common denominator survives into the future. One thing I like about the present-moment-self hypothesis of survival is that it passes all the hypothetical problems I can subject it to. Whereas, other hypotheses of survival can all be challenged with counter-examples that leave them in a state of paradox. For example, in your above description, one could imagine that a future historian (not your future self) finds great interest in you and gets to know your past very well and even comes to feel a camaraderie with your past. Meanwhile, your future self has moved on to issues of the day and rarely if ever remembers his distant past self. In fact those memories may have been wiped clean from his brain. Therefore, the historian, not your future self, has the greater link to your past. Have you become the historian? I think this example shows the limits of using memory as a survival criterion. I find no paradox in saying "We are who we are now. We will become someone different in the future. Our present and future selves may share some commonality such as memories...or they may not." Bob Ettinger, #14142, writes >>> But I cannot emphasize too strongly that, in our current condition of ignorance, it is grotesquely premature to draw any firm conclusions about the nature of reality. <<< response- I agree. The present-moment-self idea that I like may prove to be wildly wrong based on our current highly distorted view of reality. That is another big reason I have cryonics arrangements. >>> In particular, a standing wave (with its modulations) must extend over both space and time. I have postulated something along the lines of a standing wave as the basis of the self circuit.<<< response- I am uncomfortable with viewing time like picture frames in a movie with the present being a single frame. Continuity of time, like space, is appealing. I can see how things "bind space," that is, exist over a finite volume. And I can also imagine binding time (somewhat in conflict with my earlier posting). But if "binding time" is a real phenomenon, then is seems likely it is a general phenomenon applicable to many or all things. The self circuit has no SPECIAL time-binding attributes. Therefore, it seems unproductive to often describe the self-circuit as time binding. If time binding is real, then the present-moment self view would be modified to be more like the following... One's identity spans time. One's current identity peaks at the present and falls off quickly into the past and future with "tails" of identity extending infinitely into the past and future. Even if one dies, one's identity continues in that the physical remains have some commonality with the past entity. Again, no special common denominator called "me" survives entirely into the future. The more the identity changes, the more "me" changes, until at some point "me" becomes someone else for all intents and purposes. I can't come up with a mental example that portrays this approach as a paradox. Regarding Scott Badger's comments on survival.... I find much to agree with and little to object to. The points and counter points are numerous and perhaps we will cross paths someday and discuss these things in a way not achievable in email. Brook Norton Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14150