X-Message-Number: 23369
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 07:42:00 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #23358 - #23368

Hi everyone!

I will try to be brief in my comments on Mike Perry's discussion of
"death". In my reply to Ralph Wakfer, I was suggesting that we
could look at the problem from a different angle entirely: are we
in any way helping the person whom we revive from "death". If,
after all, we ourselves may someday forget ALL of our first 100
years, is there a difference between someone who has been revived
with complete ignorance of his/her previous life, or someone who
has lived long enough to have forgotten it in a "normal" way.

Naturally the entire idea of death may someday be forgotten. It's
not that people won't deal with all of the PHEMOMENA which we 
now associate with death, but that they will do so differently
than we do.

If you read the story you will learn that as part of his revival
Tupac Amaru (the Indian revived) also has other memories put into
his brain: what was known about how his group once lived, and of
course both knowledge and some understanding of the society
into which he had been revived. (We'd hardly be helping someone
to let him loose on the world with no memories at all!).

Even now, when we look at it, the notion of "death" as currently
taken looks more and more fuzzy. To me this is a sign that 
something is fundamentally wrong with it, not just something
which can be fixed by minor amendments. Naturally this also 
includes the whole notion of identity, too. And for identity it's
simply not true that such fuzziness must imply that we'll all
melt into a group or anything similar. Other ways of looking at
the issue also exist.

             Best wishes and long long life to all,
               (including after you've forgotten your first 100 yrs)

                    Thomas Donaldson

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