X-Message-Number: 26645 Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2005 20:08:02 -0700 Subject: Definite Answers, to Charles From: <> > I'm arriving late in this discussion, so maybe I missed > something previously stated, but it touches an area of > special concern to me. Yes, I have discussed this previously, but I am happy to repeat it. > rbr says "annihilation" and so do I. But where does rbr draw > the line? Suppose he is cryopreserved imperfectly and then > resuscitated after some repairs that were necessary as a > result of incomplete cryoprotection. Suppose half his brain > is accurately rebuilt as a copy. Has he been annihilated or > not? Suppose only one-quarter of the brain is rebuilt ... or > three-quarters ... or 99 percent ... or 1 percent. Since by 'me', I mean an arrangement of atoms that facilitates subjective experience (and I think we would both agree, this is the most fundamental component of who we are), the answer to your question is that I stop existing when my brain is arranged so that it longer possesses the ability to experience subjectivity. Is that 99%, 50%, or 1%? I can't say. The answer to the question requires advancing the science of experience. As I mentioned to someone else recently, we must first determine the ground rules for experience: what does an 'experiencing circuit' look like? What are its properties? What is the smallest possible experiencing circuit? Etc. Then, and only then, will your 'fuzzy' questions have known answers. > Do "I" care if "I" am revived after 3 minutes? Yes. After 60 > minutes? Probably. After 100 years? Not so sure. Time is irrelevant. The only thing that matters to your survival is the continued existence of the mechanism by which you experience. We don't know what that mechanism is, so we can't say (precisely) what degree of damage it can sustain. > Everyone has a visceral, subjective idea of when the period > of downtime or the process of repair becomes so extensive, > the break in continuity is unacceptable. Trying to define > this as a universal principle does not make sense to me, > because the sense of self itself is entirely a subjective > thing. No offense, but this reeks of relativism. Survival is not a subjective issue. Dying tonight in my sleep is qualitatively different than not dying. In every single case of damage + repair, there is an objective answer to the question, 'Did I have a last experience [i.e. did I die]?' We cannot yet answer that question in the case of cryonics cases, but it does have an answer, and one day we will know it. Richard B. Riddick Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26645