X-Message-Number: 16069
From: "Pat Clancy" <>
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 01:06:19 -0700
Subject: Re: Are you the same person you were yesterday?

david pizer wrote:
> So contempory metaphysics has at least two well-developed views of how one
> person can exist over a long time and still be considered the same person,
> as opposed to those who think a person is not the same person from day to
> day and therefore the reanimated person would not be the same person who
> got frozen years before.
> 

I think this question is equivalent to the question of what happens to one's 
identity if one's brain/physical self is copied, a question that was tossed 
around on this list for awhile many months ago (or maybe more recently, I 

haven't kept up...). And it's really a question of what one's identity really 
"is". 
Is it just your current memory of previous moments in your existence, or is it 
more than that (my own view)? However I don't see how cryo-preservation 
would would pose any problems for your beliefs in this area. If you believe 
you're not really the same person day to day, then you certainly would 
believe the reanimated you wouldn't be the same person, but then you 
already believe you won't be the same person tomorrow, so continuing your 
existence for any amount of time is somewhat pointless anyway. OTOH if 
you believe the essential "you" stays the same over time, then any period of 
cryo-preservation is irrelevant (assuming you remain physically intact, of 
course). I think a more troubling form of preservation of the self would be 
"uploading" - then you really have to consider whether the copy is really you, 
and you have to be pretty convinced that your notion of identity is correct.

Pat Clancy

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