X-Message-Number: 25213 From: Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 10:25:23 EST Subject: CI policy re uploading "Valera Retyunin" writes in part: > I fear that at some point people with a liking for comforting >abstractions and re-definitions may make up a majority on the CI board of >directors and decide to duplicate my mum or dad instead of reanimating them. >I don't want them to be killed, even in such a wonderful futuristic manner >as uploading, and even if I got electronic or biological copies of them in >return. Are there any safeguards against attempts by "benevolent" uploaders >in authority within cryonics organisations to finish... sorry, upload off >cryonics patients? First, nothing about the future is absolutely guaranteed. However, in the CI by-laws (see web site) you can read that our purposes include "the freezing of human bodies and maintenance of them in the hope of eventual revival," and this article can only be amended by unanimous vote of the membership. Of course, it is theoretically possible that "revival" could be construed to include uploading, but many other hazards are much more significant than the remote possibility of such an interpretation and action. Further, I think RBR wrote of the danger that uploading might become cheaper than biological revival, but I think that highly unlikely. "Uploading" will become possible, if ever, only after something very like the "singularity" or "spike"--and that implies extremely low cost for just about anything at all, because we will have AI and assemblers, advanced nanotech etc. Remember too that wishful thinkers don't have to do anything at all. In the most extreme version of wishful thinking, everyone will be resurrected in "Heaven" at the Omega Point, or perhaps is already immortal through the existence of duplicates or emulations somewhere/sometime..Those who actually join CI and contract for suspension are those who rely on survival in the meat, and it would be a gross breach of faith to substitute something else. I think Mike Perry agrees on this. In short, I think the fear of being uploaded rather than repaired is very far-fetched and one of the least of our worries. Robert Ettinger Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25213