X-Message-Number: 17094 Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 10:37:54 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: altruism and all that HI Everyone! I note Scott Badger's "psychological" discussion of identity and do not really know where to begin in discussing it. The first point is that we have several different kinds of memories, which can operate well or poorly. Some of them only last a short time; others rather swiftly change what is remembered to fit our preconceptions and ideas. All are very closely bound up with who we are and what we want to be. This tells me that we're very unlikely to want to share ALL our memories with others. At a minimum, we quite possibly could NOT do such sharing because some of our memories will have been rewritten repeatedly and bear no relation to those of anyone else ... including especially anyone who "experienced the same thing". This is separate but also related to the simple point that we aren't just memories but attitudes to them and attitudes to the attitudes. (In practice these go together, so that we can't just get new memories and then form attitudes to them ... except if we're getting quite new experiences). All theoretical issues aside, it's clear that we do not work like any presently existing computer, nor like any which will be built soon. It's far from obvious how we could transfer valueless memories between one another ... by which I mean that our memories always carry with them feelings and values, not that our memories have no value. Not only can't we, but we would probably object if someone came along with a (highly theoretical!!!) machine which was supposed to do that... supposing that such machines could exist. George Smith also brings up a related issue... not the same but related. While it's useful to understand just how much our own sense of value and self are involved in what we say, that does not mean that they should not be involved or that we should not have values. Yes, we do have wants, and what we do tries to achieve them. Yes, we don't always succeed when we do that. Yes, sometimes our wants turn out to contradict one another ... not in a logical sense but in the sense that we cannot get one without giving up the other. Life is hard. But by assuming that we should NOT have those individual wants we make a big mistake, one which doesn't really help anything. We would either try to suppress our individual wants (and ultimately fail) or accept them as ours, not those of the Universe at large, and continue trying to see what we can do to bring them about. Finally, I note a quite prolonged discussion of altruism. I will make one point which affects what some have said: when we consider altruism in biology and natural selection, we must keep in mind that the aim of a creature is not just to insure its own continual survival. Mothers may sacrifice so that their children can survive. Brothers can sacrifice themselves so that one of them survives. This happens every day even if it usually doesn't involve actually dying on the part of the one who sacrifices. In the case of someone who throws himself on a grenade to benefit his soldier-brothers, we have altruism, yes, but like all such altruism can be explained by the operation of personal modes by which we generally promote our genes. And like all such biological altruism, I'd say that 1. it leaves unknown exactly how we individually choose to behave and 2. in the sense that it is not REALLY altruistic in the sense of religious or ethical teachings, it simply shows the many varieties of "selfishness" that biology has made possible. Best wishes and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17094