X-Message-Number: 25404
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 23:51:26 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Survival Issues (reply to Robert Ettinger)
References: <>

Robert Ettinger, #25387, has some interesting remarks which I comment on.

>Mike Perry and Thomas Donaldson both seem to feel that the question of
>criteria of survival, or of identity, cannot be answered with scientific or
>logical proof, now or perhaps ever.

I think so simple a question as whether "I" survive even more than an 
instant is unanswerable in this fashion. At best you might establish that a 
similar entity exists who *thinks* it is the same as the original (or more 
correctly, thinks it *was* the original). But beyond this I don't see any 
way of deciding the question, in any strong scientific sense.

>  I think this is wrong. Certainly no definitive answer is presently
>available, because we just don't know enough about physics or biology. It 
>is  also
>possible that "survival" is ultimately illusory, that the universe is not
>user-friendly and there are no answers we will like or even find 
>tolerable. But,  in
>historical perspective,  the presumption must be that eventually we 
>will  know
>all that is knowable, and if there are any satisfactory options we  will find
>them.

My alternative is that we will find what I call (in my book) a "position of 
assurance"--a satisfying way of dealing with the matter, but not 
necessarily an "answer" according to our notions of strong scientific 
evidence.

>  Meanwhile, my tentative view seems both scientifically plausible and
>tolerable--namely, that "you" survive (at least in part) if future 
>selves  overlap
>you in matter, time, and space. I label this the physical 
>continuity  criterion.

Very interesting. One problem I have with this criterion is that it appears 
that "you" could be gradually altered into someone unrecognizably 
different. As a little thought experiment, imagine that ETs with advanced 
technology have been playing games with the human race for some time. Their 
trick is to abduct certain individuals near or just after clinical death, 
substituting a carefully made replica that no one suspects and is soon 
disposed of. (We ignore the possibility of cryonics for the moment!) They 
then proceed to nurse their captives back to full health, maintaining them 
in some out-of-sight location. The captives are not in pain, but over time 
are slowly altered, so finally they become copies of contemporary 
individuals. The ETs then proceed to do another switch, exchanging the 
captives for those they now replicate; this is done during periods of sleep 
and/or managed in other ways so again no humans suspect. So, on this basis 
you may learn (if the ETs are forthcoming), based on the physical 
continuity criterion, that "you" are actually some well-known figure of the 
past, Gandhi, say, or Hitler. Would this mean anything? I for one would not 
think it did.

For me, survival would depend, not on physical continuity or the related 
psychological continuity (which could also be enforced here), but on 
psychological connectedness. In essence you become the person you think you 
are, and "survival" is essentially Markovian. That is to say, the person 
you "were" is determined by your memories and other attributes present from 
the given moment onward, rather than depending, in a direct way, on 
previous events. (Memories of such events could still be highly 
significant, of course, and generally will be. But note that this would 
allow individuals to fission into two or more, by activating replicas which 
would start to live different lives; I have no difficulty with this.) But 
this is just another definition based on another point of view. (And I 
realize it has to be carefully managed to avoid certain difficulties 
connected with the history of the various constructs that might be 
involved. In my book I deal with problems connected with forgetting and 
"false" memories, for instance. Also I will allow that the actual past 
history of a given construct could be *highly* important for other reasons, 
but I don't see it as determinative, in an absolute sense, for the matter 
at hand.) Can you offer proof or disproof in the strong sense of 
establishing that the subjective life of the original does or does not 
continue in the various constructs, or in one particular one of them? 
Again, I see no way in principle of ever doing this, either for this notion 
of survival or any other one such as those based on some notion of 
continuity. Perhaps some will simply feel certain that their subjective 
self does survive under certain conditions, and not others. I for one feel 
fairly confident that the Markovian notion is "correct" (at least will 
never be proved wrong--and it has other desirable features, including a 
favorable nod to Occam's razor). To ask for more, to insist on an 
additional continuity criterion for survival, for instance (or even to 
assert its sufficiency as well as necessity), seems to imply a mystical 
notion of the soul.

Mike Perry

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