X-Message-Number: 20904
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 21:00:54 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Francois' Problem, Relevance

Francois, #20892:

>Of course, what Francois A feels, perceives and thinks from that moment on
>will not be shared by Francois B, and vice versa. The two will be separate
>individuals, but they will both be Francois and, more to the point, think of
>themselves as Francois.
>
>It is difficult to wrap one's mind around that conclusion and it took me a
>while to do it. One feels a true repulsion when confronting it.

This becomes easier for me with the thought that I am, today, only one 
possible continuer of myself at an earlier stage, not a unique continuer. 
(This same property holds, of course, for any earlier stage relative to a 
still earlier stage.) This will certainly follow if many-worlds is true, 
for then "I" am constantly splitting into different near-copies which then 
diverge (or very rarely fuse again). By now this thought is so familiar it 
just seems natural (and not repulsive at all)--and I don't give it much 
thought.

The relevance of the duplicates issue to cryonics is often called in 
question but (agreeing with Mike Price) I think it is very relevant, and 
its relevance does not require that we must confront any actual duplicates 
in the future. For the real issue at stake is whether you can survive in a 
partial or complete copy, or whether "it's not you just a copy." In my 
view, it *is* you if sufficiently similar, even if the atoms are all 
different. Thus for me an adequate reanimation would occur if you just 
scanned my original, cryopreserved remains or otherwise extracted the 
information, destroyed the original, made a copy from the extracted 
information, and reanimated the copy. A further elaboration would be to use 
the extracted information to build a replica with appropriate upgrades such 
as aging and diseases eliminated. You would calculate the repaired 
structure first then proceed to build it and wake it up. That could 
conceivably be much cheaper, faster, and more reliable than trying to get 
the original functioning again with as little in the way of atomic 
dislocations as possible. If it is, then it seems clearly better than a 
slavish attempt to conserve my original structure.

Mike Perry

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