X-Message-Number: 16077 Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 23:52:47 -0700 From: Mike Perry <> Subject: Identity and Resurrection Recently there has been more discussion on the old issues of personal identity, duplicates, and so on. My feeling is that a person is essentially informational in nature, thus could be continued by copying, including uploading to a suitable computational device, whenever such may become available. We are not atoms in motion but evolving patterns of information. Our patterns are what are important, not the particular material substrate that may instantiate those patterns. This theory is developed at length in my book, *Forever for All* which (for those who don't already know) you can read about at http://upublish.com/books/perry.htm. Recently, when I lost my father to a lung disorder, I had a chance to put this theory to the test--a test of confidence, at least. Dad was interested in cryonics, but only in a sort of academic way, never at the personal level. He didn't think it had a chance of working, he said, though he was also interested in the progress being made with ice blockers and the like, and seemed as if he might be willing to reconsider his position if enough positive results were obtained. Unfortunately, it did not happen soon enough and he perished without being suspended. On April 3, I and other relatives were gathered around the dying, bedridden man, who was still quite lucid and able to communicate with facial gestures and head movements though he could no longer speak due to having been intubated for many days. In fact he had emphatically wanted the tubes pulled, and, being advised that his prognosis was poor, we had seconded this wish to the hospital staff, who carried it out. This gave him an hour or so of lucidity before the gradual loss of oxygen saturation induced a drowsiness and coma, which became terminal the following morning. During the lucid interval we said our tearful goodbyes. He clearly was expecting the end, at one point gesturing with a sweeping arc and pushing down with his outstretched palm to indicate "it's over," and the calm way he faced his death was, I think, worthy of Socrates. Like that ancient sage and many others, he had come to believe in an afterlife, and the subject came up among us. The other relatives expressed their assurances that this life was not the end, there would be a hereafter. My father then turned to me, smiling and waiting for my comment, which I readily gave, based on my own views about pattern survival. I agreed that death was not the end, and noted also that I had written a book on the subject, which he would (someday) get to read. Before that is to happen, a lot of other things must happen, needless to say. But the pattern survival theory can be made to fit the facts, just like other, contrasting theories that deny the possibility of resurrection after death and loss of structure. It won't be easy, but the fabric of reality does offer the possibility, I think, of eventually creating replicas of the long deceased, who then will live again. Get signed up and have your remains well preserved, if at all possible. But if not, you can still have confidence that death is not an absolute. Mike Perry Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=16077