X-Message-Number: 18059 Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2001 07:42:49 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: still more on duplication & cryonics Hi everyone! While I don't think much of Henderson's "electrical field", he does raise the possibility that we may have features of our individuality which aren't described by current science. To which, on the question of duplicates, I will answer simply: if we do have such features, then any full repair of me or you means that we restore these features too. If we don't restore them I would agree that we aren't the same, but the same may be said of a failure to restore other individual features we know about right now. The problem about duplication isn't about copying but about copying correctly. And if we DO restore these features, then I do not see any argument claiming that we're still "just duplicates". I do believe that we are physical creatures and a physical copy of us which remains the only copy in existence will be US. The possibility (now looking quite unlikely, but let's consider it) that these extra features can only exist in our current body and CANNOT be copied remains. For this the only thing I can say is that if so we'll want to restore our body itself.. assuming that the restoration does not destroy these extra features. And if it does, then I guess we'd have to adjust to the fact that cryonics can't always bring us back. Not nice. But then if you've been burned up completely in an accident, we can't bring you back either. We'd just have another version of this, which I hope the readers have adjusted to already. Best wishes and long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=18059