X-Message-Number: 26610
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 23:54:58 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Chemopreservation and RBR's problem
References: <>

I wrote in my last posting that response "has been encouraging to the idea 
of setting up a brain chemopreservation operation." This was not meant as 
any slight to Richard B. Riddick, who chose the same day to air his 
objections. (I hadn't looked at the queue at that point.) Anyway, I wanted 
to comment on three points he raises, and offer what I think are reasonable 
counterarguments. (These will be seen to differ somewhat from previous 
arguments I've raised about his views.)

First, a general comment. I don't think Richard is questioning that a 
chemopreserved brain may be restorable (unless I am using a term he doesn't 
like; I hope *my* meaning in what follows will be clear). By this I mean 
that, with body replacement, we would get back a person similar to the 
original, with full memories as before and full functionality. His 
objection would then be that this is no better than a copy (or maybe just 
is a copy), hence not the original--who therefore has perished, and can 
never be recovered. And that decision is based on a certain line of 
reasoning that identifies a person with a physical structure in the brain, 
the qualia experiencer (QE) that is involved in consciousness and 
experiencing things such as the color red or the taste of pineapple or 
knowing one is alive. This physical structure, he contends, is what "you" 
are. "You" survive over time interval T if and only if this same QE, call 
it Q, is present at the start of T, at the end of T, and at all points in 
between. And there are certain allowable transformations of Q and no others 
that preserve the same Q. For example, the atoms of Q could be gradually 
exchanged, or the subject (who "uses" Q) could fall asleep. But we could 
not suddenly replace Q with a copy, however perfect, it wouldn't qualify as 
the same. Nor could we carry out any, arbitrary transformation of Q, even 
if later it is fully reversed. Q can sleep, but Q can not be split into 
small pieces and still remain the same, even if we could then reassemble 
(something exactly like) Q from those pieces and fully restore it. This is 
because, while Q is split apart, no QE is present, but a (functioning) QE 
is still present (Richard would say) when Q is asleep. When Q is 
cryopreserved (assuming very good vitrification with no cracking of 
tissues), Richard would have it that a functioning QE is also still 
present, but not if Q is chemopreserved. In the latter case there is too 
much change, and unacceptable work would be needed to restore (something 
just like) Q to a functioning state. So the person or soul that inhabited Q 
(or actually *was* Q) is now dead and can never be recovered.

This, as I see it, begs some important questions, such as just when do we 
say that the QE is dormant versus when is it nonexistent and unrestorable. 
I can see, for example, ground for opinion that even a chemopreserved brain 
still has the original QE, it is just "more dormant" than in the 
cryopreserved case. (Among other things, the chemopreserved brain could be 
restored without raising the issue of duplication--it is not simply a chunk 
of information but does still have original material in something like its 
original configuration.) But I will not pursue this train of thought here. 
Instead, I now want to focus more generally on the issue of why it is that 
the original QE must stay in existence, which is the first of Richard's 
three points I refer to above. I contend that really this is not important.

Consider, for a moment, that reality *may* be constantly splitting into 
multiple copies, as with certain versions (at least) of the many-worlds 
hypothesis. In this case the copies are on an equal footing; none are more 
or less "original" than any other. So in particular any QE must also be 
splitting, which destroys the possibility that there is one, original QE 
that persists through time. Now, when you wake up in the morning, you are 
confronted with the question, does many-worlds splitting happen or not? If 
the answer is yes, then you are severed forever from the QE-based "soul" 
you had the night before. In Richard's view, your going to sleep was a 
headlong dive into eternal oblivion, nothing less (as would also be the 
case with just passing the time of day, whenever any unpredictable event at 
the quantum level occurred). In such a case, however, life would go on. The 
severing of the soul would, in and of itself, make no difference whatever, 
experientially, to your present, continuing self. True, we cannot say that 
the splitting is actually happening--maybe it isn't. Maybe the QE-soul does 
persist--in some situations at least. But the point I wish to make is that 
if it does, it still doesn't matter--its presence is undetectable. Lose the 
QE-soul, as might suddenly happen (if the splitting did occur, or by some 
other means entirely) and you don't feel a thing, or at least, nothing that 
depends specifically on the loss itself. The same oblivion (if any) you 
would experience with loss must also occur, by any reasonable test, even if 
the loss does not occur. So again, the QE-soul is not important.

I go now to a second point Richard raises, which he refers to as 
"inevitable immortality within a toilet." The argument here appears to be 
that any physical system of any size (a toilet for instance) has very 
complex behavior occurring through Brownian motion, if nothing else. So 
complex, in fact, that, any other system in effect is simulated within the 
first, and all we need is the right kind of "interpreter" to "see" this. So 
in particular, if, following the uploader's premise, we regard a simulation 
of a person as the real person, we have to take the position that our own 
death does not matter. Why? Because all around us we are being simulated, 
that is to say we survive, as the right interpreters would reveal.

There are two points I would make about this position. One is that I think 
a version of it actually may well be true, though it is not exactly what 
Richard imagines. The other is that, nevertheless, it still does not render 
superfluous such a practice as cryonics or, as the case may be, 
chemopreservation.

In any case, I don't accept Richard's position whole-cloth. Simulation at 
the quantum level (which I think might be necessary) would be too 
complicated for it to happen under just any conditions--there is just not 
enough complexity. If, on the other hand, there is somehow enough 
complexity it still could be unreasonable to claim that persons are being 
simulated. For example, to see a civilization at work in the Brownian 
motion of particles in a rock (if it were possible) would require an 
extraordinary interpreter. If we would have to consider that sort of entity 
on an equal footing with, say, normal human beings, well, we could just as 
well imagine someone (an "interpreter") who was so affected that they 
consistently saw a purple petunia when normal people saw a red rose. Saying 
we must treat both possibilities on an equal footing undercuts the position 
that there is a mind-independent reality. Unless we are to take the stance 
that reality is all in the mind (extreme idealism) I think we have to be 
committed to the view that all minds are not equally authoritative in what 
they perceive as reality. Some interpreters we need to take more seriously 
than others.

However, I also think there is (probably) a version of inevitable 
immortality, that actually holds. This is "inevitable immortality within 
the multiverse." The multiverse simply means reality as a whole but 
arguably includes many universes (or possibly just one, infinite universe). 
Continuers of you are out there, and will be out there no matter what 
happens locally. "You" in the sense of some continuer, cannot be totally 
and finally annihilated, but that is not to say that all possible futures 
are on an equal footing--far from it. It matters what you do, and cryonics 
is still relevant. These matters are treated at length in my book (esp. ch. 
13), and more briefly in "Resurrection: Coping with Information Loss," 
http://www.universalimmortalism.org/community/articles/ui/resurrection.html; 
here I omit discussion in the interest of brevity.

The third point I want to consider is Richard's claim that the burden of 
proof for the definition of survival is on the patternists like myself 
because his version of survival is, he contends, more restrictive. I should 
comment first that, by and large, his definition of survival is more 
restrictive, but not totally. If Derek Parfit is changed, gradually, into a 
copy of Greta Garbo then by patternist criteria Derek does not survive (at 
least not in the resulting Greta-instantiation) whereas according to 
Richard, this would still be Derek, even if she now thinks firmly 
otherwise. But I think that sort of possibility will not prove too 
important in future reanimation scenarios so I leave it aside. I will ask, 
then, should the burden of proof be on patternists, whose notion of 
survival is (generally) more inclusive? Or instead, why not consider the 
notion of annihilation--which is more inclusive (usually) with Richard's 
idea of survival? Should the burden of proof be on Richard, then, to show 
that certain changes (loss of the QE-soul) amount to annihilation where I 
would deny that they do?
	
This would seem to depend on the attitude one takes about the prospect of 
one's death. If the fear or concern over your own death predominates, then 
you'd want to be as sure as possible that "you" will truly survive, so the 
burden of proof, you could say, would fall on the broader rather than the 
more restrictive notion of survival. If you have a different mindset, 
however, you may be especially concerned about death more generally, that 
is to say, as it may affect a large class of persons or all possible 
beings. You could then find yourself interested in the most general 
conditions under which, arguably, individuals might reasonably be said to 
survive or be resurrected. And in particular, if an individual has memories 
and functioning intact you might be inclined to say that the person they 
think they are survived, however it may have happened, and insist that the 
burden of proof be on whoever would deny this claim. That in fact is my 
position, and it requires a certain lessening of concern over my own 
personal death (not to the point of unconcern, however), to accept a more 
hopeful viewpoint on people in general.

Again, there is more to be said on this issue, but I will stop in the 
interest of brevity (and also because of time constraints). To return to 
the starting topic, chemopreservation, clearly there are different 
viewpoints. At one extreme, it is simply death, even if it results in what 
is, by appearances, a fully successful reanimation with mind, memory, and 
functioning intact, and uses original material without uploading or 
duplication. But I reject this point of view, and I think many others will 
too, for one reason or another.  To address one concern, though, I am not 
aware that Alcor or any other cryonics organization has plans to offer 
chemopreservation as one of its options, or to offer storage space to an 
operation that does.

Mike Perry

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