X-Message-Number: 20954
From: "mike99" <>
Subject: Identity --> Pragmatically covering all your bets
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 14:18:42 -0700

Much as I enjoy the Ettinger-Price debate on the nature of identity, I
myself am unwilling to bet my life on just one possibility.

The pattern identity theory (as described most fully in Mike Perry's book
FOREVER FOR ALL) makes sense to me. This theory is in accord with Price's
arguments about the identity of indistinguishables.

Yet at the same time, I have the uncomfortable feeling that it would be rash
to dismiss the theory of physical continuity as a prerequisite for
maintenance of personal identity.

What to do?

First, don't die.

But if you can't manage the first, then use cyronics.

If physical continuity proves necessary for maintaining personal identity,
then preservation of at least one's brain (and preferably one's entire body)
is provided by cryonics.

If pattern identity is sufficient for maintaining personal identity, then
preservation of at least one's brain (and preferably one's entire body)
provides the information pattern that can be transferred (or uploaded or
duplicated) into a new substrate.

Then life goes on.


Michael LaTorra




Member:
Extropy Institute: www.extropy.org
World Transhumanist Association: www.transhumanism.org
Alcor Life Extension Foundation: www.alcor.org
Society for Technical Communication: www.stc.org

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