X-Message-Number: 14708
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 18:47:54 -0700
From: Lee Corbin <>
Subject: Re: Don't take me apart

David Pizer, Message #14701, wrote

>... seems to me to be begging the question.  "All a self
>is is memory, because all a self is is memory."   It can
>either be begging the question  *OR* it can be a basic
>foundational belief that is so basic, so true, there can
>be no further justification.  Which is it??? 

As stated, it's plainly incorrect.  As many others have
noted on Cryonet, memory, though vastly important and central,
isn't sufficient:  your personality also depends on other
things---two probably being your attitudes and core beliefs.

>On the other hand, just as many of us are not comfortable
>with the patterns of information only definition of selfhood,

But there was a time when many people weren't comfortable with
a sun-centered solar system, even though the astronomical 
arguments had started to become clear!  In itself, this discomfort
is very familiar when learning about non-intuitive features of
the universe.  I think that we must base our beliefs, and more
importantly our actions, on what we can rationally establish.

>As far as cryonics reanimation scenarios where the brain is
>taken apart atom by atom to take mesurments to make a new
>device that is to replace the original brain, that is not a
>way I understand that sounds like survival.

It may not sound like survival, but it's not difficult to
construct many scenarios in which this is exactly the 
conclusion you'd be logically forced to adopt.

As one quick example, if aliens patiently explained to you
that you were (aboard their craft, say) being disassembled
and reassembled a thousand times per second, you could end
up having an easier time understanding exactly how their
machinery worked to accomplish this, than if, say, they tried
to explain something really difficult, like quantum field
theory or brain surgery.

Lee Corbin

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14708