X-Message-Number: 14225
From: "Brett Bellmore" <>
Subject: self circuit and Timothy Leary
Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 17:27:05 -0400

Dave, I think it was you that said, "If you choose the wrong option and it
objectivly ends your survival, and you are really dead, and then new guy
(with your old memories) thinks he is you, and no one else realizes that a
critical mistake has been made (they
also think the new guy is you - he is acting just like you used to - how
could they have known?), then the mistake may be repeated often.

Medical reanimators in the future may think they are restoring frozen
patients when instead (because they are using the wrong techniques) they are
insuring the patients will be dead forever by destroying the very thing that
made you you and me me. "

Ok, let's set up a test case. At time "A" you've got a collection of atoms
which looks like Dave Pizer, plausibly claims to think it is Dave Pizer, and
which succeeds in convincing Dave's friends that it is Dave Pizer.  Events
occur, and at time "B", we've got  a collection of atoms which looks like
Dave Pizer, plausibly claims to think it is Dave Pizer, and which succeeds
in convincing Dave's friends that it is Dave Pizer.  Furthermore, no test we
have at our disposal permits us to prove that this isn't Dave Pizer.  Now,
it may be that we haven't got a duck on our hands, just something which is
utterly and completely indistinguishable from a duck. But from an objective,
scientific standpoint, does such a claim even make sense?

I submit to you that if there is no test which can distinguish between "A"
and "B", then "A" IS "B", and to claim otherwise is basically a religious
claim: "Well, sure, he looks the same and acts the same, but now he's
souless!" After all, in exactly the same sense, we don't know that our
selves aren't instantly extinguished on any occasion on which we lose
consciousness for even an instant, to be replaced by new identities which
only think they are the same person. Functional tests are all we've got,
aside from religious doctrine.


*****************************************

John: The allegations on Leary's home page would have to be a lot more
specific for me to find them credible, (OK, let's SEE those memos!) but I
will say this: An awful lot of people in the cryonics movement had, and
have, very little respect for Leary. Helping him get suspended was, for
many, a case of exploiting him for publicity, and nothing more. It's not
like suspending Heinlein would have been! That's not to say that he wasn't
going to get a competent job. I would expect others to know more of the
inside details.

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