X-Message-Number: 25476
From: 
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 10:17:23 EST
Subject: coadjutants

Matthew Sullivan wrote about coadjutant minds--each "person" perhaps  
scattered over many planets, the parts in some kind of communication.
 
I mentioned this, among other possibilities, in 1972 in Man into Superman,  
talking about "multicorporeal giants" who might have not only many disjunct  
bodies but also multuple scattered brains or brain segments. 
 
This was partly to contradict the contention that literal immortality is  

mathematically impossible, because--they say--there is always a non-zero chance
of calamity, with eventual calamity certain. But it you are large enough and  
growing fast enough, and if destruction of any single piece is not fatal, then 
 there can be a non-zero chance of infinite life (assuming the universe 
itself  lasts forever--and even if it doesn't there is a chance of infinite 
subjective  life as in Tipler).
 
Looking at the implications for criteria of survival, this scenario  seems to 
bolster the quantitative view that I tentatively espouse. We can't be  sure 
until we know the details, including better knowledge of matter/space/time  

than we have now, but it seems reasonable that "you" in that case  would have no
single, central essence, but would have (or be) many qualia  and systems of 

qualia at all times. Changes, losses, or additions would be just  that or those,
both subjectively and objectively. Remote, but hopeful. While  we're playing, 
might as well think big.
 
Robert Ettinger


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