X-Message-Number: 19573 Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 12:19:10 -0700 (PDT) From: Scott Badger <> Subject: Re: Merging Memories Attention long-time cryonet members: This is another identity post - Please skip over it if you find the topic annoying. With that caveat, let me indulge myself once again. And my apologies in advance for the lengthy post. The discussion of the merging of memories from two separate "copies" of you raises certain issues. First, I think you'd have to take the time factor into consideration to evaluate how the "merged" identity would react. If one assumes that entity #1 and #2 simultaneously and respectively experienced extreme pleasure and extreme pain and the merging took place "immediately" afterwards, I can see some cognitive processing problems given the limited architecture of our current brains. But if the merging occured, let's say, a week after the experiences, there probably wouldn't be a problem. Our recollection of memories is generally, but certainly not strictly, chronological. Your mind would likely artifically impose a chronological sequence upon the experiences in any case. A more salient point I'd like to address is this. Let's replace the notion of intermittently merging specific memories of you and your copy with the notion of intermittently merging specific memories of you and someone else because I'm not convinced that it would be all that different. It was mentioned earlier by someone that another person's memories would feel foreign since they would be colored by the context of the personality that generated them. Let's consider this. What makes up a memory? Visual and aural recollections, certainly. Emotional tags are also often part of a memory (fear, excitement, etc.). We all experience the same emotions to one degree or another so how foreign would that be? Understand that one's personality is a framework, a filter for interpreting and assigning meaning to one's world. A dependent personality style and an independent personality style will differentially interpret the very same experience. If the independent personality attempts to integrate the memories of the dependent personality as his/her own, it will strike that person as incongruous. Cognitive dissonance and confusion might result. Not that all of us don't stray from our typical modes of behavior from time to time. On the other hand, I think that we are much more alike as humans than we are different. Most of us don't have highly dependent or highly independent personality styles (or any of the other dimensions of personality). Most of us lean a little bit in one direction or the other. We like to think of ourselves as unique but in my mind that's really just splitting hairs. You could take a personality test and get an identical score to millions of others in the world (6 billion people and 5 basic dimensions of personality). That obviously doesn't make you identical to them, but the practical degree of your uniqueness is called into question. So very possibly, incorporating the memories of others into your own psyche would "not" be overly problematic. But would you want to? For many, I think probably so. If for nothing else, the entertainment factor. What if I could sell you the memory of my hike through the Grand Canyon? or my shuttle flight to the International Space Station? And what if you could recall it as your own experience? Would it really make a difference whether you originally had the experience or not? Of course others would inform you that you didn't really have the experience, so that would create confusion. You'd ultimately have to accept that some memories weren't originally yours. Of course, then you might start wondering which memories "were" originally yours. What if I could sell you my memory of the German language and with it you could suddenly speak German? Clearly, many memories have great value and if they can be, they'll be bought and sold. And the more that happens, the more similar we will all become, because certain memories will have more mass appeal than others. And I suspect that the more memories we share, the more homogenized we will become. Much like how, thanks to the pervasive media, we all share (albeit vicariously) so many of the same experiences (e.g. news events, the Simpsons, infomercials). Are we as individualistic as we were 100 years ago, before we shared so much with each other? Which life is better? Realize also that if you ran into someone who had purchased the same memory as you, you might well find that your versions now differ. This is because our memories of events can change over time, depending on new experiences and reinterpretations of old experiences. Lastly, if it indeed became possible for one to integrate the memories/knowledge of another into one's own mental data base, then I think that a virtual borg-like entity might eventually be the result. Competition would drive the process, in part. The person who integrated the greatest amount of valuable information in any particular industry would dominate the market unless others strived to catch up. Speaking more generally, say you and I share all our memories and I've already downloaded the memories of 5 others, and you've shared with 7 others, ... are we Borg yet? At what point would the persons that you and I originally were become so diffuse or lost that there is no practical difference between you and me? I hope that upon being revived from cryonic suspension I have the opportunity to choose whether I want to be part of the collective or not. Best regards, Scott Badger __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19573