X-Message-Number: 17458 Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 22:34:57 -0700 From: Mike Perry <> Subject: A Brief Comment on the Future of Self We hope (most of us anyway, I think) to become more than human in an unlimited future. A lot of things that are unclear now should become much clearer, including many properties relating to the self and its possible continuation over time. I think mathematics will play a significant part in this, as well as computational and informational issues. I am hopeful that fantastic things will eventually be discovered or worked out. Today we are rather fuzzy-minded creatures when it comes to this sort of inquiry. The evolutionary process didn't "anticipate" that we'd make a bid for immortality. It didn't equip us well, psychologically, emotionally, intellectually, for addressing the various problems, including philosophical ones. So we have more of a challenge. There are problems people bring up, such as what about memory loss or other possibly slow but ultimately profound changes--are we still "ourselves"? These we will have ways of addressing, that are presently unavailable. We will probably have much better memories, at least as an option. And there should be many other options. So I am confident of the difficulties being resolved, and reasonable, eventual agreement on the self: how it should be viewed, valued, and continued. Mike Perry optimistic about eternity Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17458