X-Message-Number: 32839 From: Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2010 05:20:36 -0400 (EDT) Subject: thanks to Jens Rabis --for his kind words. I don't always publicize or even acknowledge kind words, and don't want to clutter the net, but I do appreciate the sentiment. Bob In a message dated 9/16/2010 5:00:28 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, writes: CryoNet - Thu 16 Sep 2010 #32837: Re: without really trying (Heinlein) [Keith Henson] #32838: AW: CryoNet #32836 [Jens Rabis] Rate This Digest: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32837%2D32838 Administrivia To subscribe to CryoNet, send email to: with the subject line (not message _body_): subscribe To unsubscribe, use the subject line: unsubscribe To post a message to CryoNet, send your message to: from the same address to which you are aubscribed. Send questions, comments, or feedback to with "CryoNet" or "cryonics" somewhere in the Subject line. Since all CryoNet messages are archived and accessible via WWW, including search engines, make certain that your postings reflect how you want the world to see you. To retrieve past messages, send email to: with the message numbers in the subject line. (Message 0003 describes the advanced syntax.) You also can retrieve them via the CryoNet web page at URL: http://www.cryonet.org/ For administrative or other questions/suggestions, send email to me at "" with "cryonics" in the subject line. - Kevin Q. Brown Message #32837 Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2010 16:29:01 -0700 Subject: Re: without really trying (Heinlein) From: Keith Henson <> On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 2:00 AM, wrote: snip > On the other hand, Robert Heinlein said TANSTAAFL--there aint no such thing > as a free lunch. On the third hand, Heinlein believed in reincarnation, > which is surely in the running for one of the dumbest ideas of all time. As one of the people who tried and failed to get Heinlein signed up, there is a lot to what you say. But it is possible that Heinlein might have the last laugh. Hans Moravec felt the same way but resolved it (sort of) by saying that he had left enough tracks in environment to be reconstructed. We had a bit of argument on the old time Extropian list where I allowed it to be possible but it would require an astonishing amount of computation to generate a version of Hans that thought like he did at the point (say) he finished Mind Children. It would take a vast number of discarded iterations and I expressed hope that the discard process of the millions of versions who were not quite close enough would be painless. Charles Stross who was (I think) reading that list in those days worked this into a chapter of Accelerado. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ How you got here: The center of the solar system ? Mercury, Venus, Earth's Moon, Mars, the asteroid belt, and Jupiter ? have been dismantled, or are being dismantled, by weakly godlike intelligences. [NB: Monotheistic clergy and Europeans who remember living prior to 1600, see alternative memeplex "in the beginning."] A weakly godlike intelligence is not a supernatural agency, but the product of a highly advanced society that learned how to artificially create souls [late 20th century: software] and translate human minds into souls and vice versa. [Core concepts: Human beings all have souls. Souls are software objects. Software is not immortal.] Some of the weakly godlike intelligences appear to cultivate an interest in their human antecedents ? for whatever reason is not known. (Possibilities include the study of history through horticulture, entertainment through live-action role-playing, revenge, and economic forgery.) While no definitive analysis is possible, all the resimulated persons to date exhibit certain common characteristics: They are all based on well-documented historical persons, their memories show suspicious gaps [see: smoke and mirrors], and they are ignorant of or predate the singularity [see: Turing Oracle, Vinge catastrophe]. It is believed that the weakly godlike agencies have created you as a vehicle for the introspective study of your historical antecedent by backward-chaining from your corpus of documented works, and the back-projected genome derived from your collateral descendants, to generate an abstract description of your computational state vector. This technique is extremely intensive [see: expTime-complete algorithms, Turing Oracle, time travel, industrial magic] but marginally plausible in the absence of supernatural explanations. After experiencing your life, the weakly godlike agencies have expelled you. For reasons unknown, they chose to do this by transmitting your upload state and genome/proteome complex to receivers owned and operated by a consortium of charities based on Saturn. These charities have provided for your basic needs, including the body you now occupy. In summary: You are a reconstruction of someone who lived and died a long time ago, not a reincarnation. You have no intrinsic moral right to the identity you believe to be your own, and an extensive body of case law states that you do not inherit your antecedent's possessions. Other than that, you are a free individual. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Heinlein, having written one heck of a lot of material, probably could be reconstructed this way to the level of detail that would have us believe that we were talking to the real person. However, that does not convince me to give up having a suspension contract! snip > On the fourth hand, experience teaches us, or tries to teach us, that few > exceptional rewards are received by those who don't work for them. Too many > cryonicists see themselves just as customers rather than partners or > family. It's a rare individual who is actually doing all he can and should do. So true. There is way too much to do. Keith Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32837 Message #32838 From: "Jens Rabis" <> References: <> Subject: AW: CryoNet #32836 Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2010 09:32:34 +0200 Dear Cryofather Robert, Cryofamily "feels" warmer than liquid nitrogen at -196 degrees Celsius :-) Your Cryoson Jens Germany-Berlin ********************************** Lieber Kryovater Robert, Kryofamilie "fuhlt" sich warmer an, als flussiger Stickstoff bei -196 Grad Celsius :-) Dein Cryosohn Jens Germany-Berlin -----Ursprungliche Nachricht----- Von: [mailto:] Im Auftrag von CryoNet Gesendet: Mittwoch, 15. September 2010 11:00 An: Betreff: CryoNet #32836 CryoNet - Wed 15 Sep 2010 #32836: without really trying [Ettinger] Rate This Digest: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32836%2D32836 Administrivia To subscribe to CryoNet, send email to: with the subject line (not message _body_): subscribe To unsubscribe, use the subject line: unsubscribe To post a message to CryoNet, send your message to: from the same address to which you are aubscribed. Send questions, comments, or feedback to with "CryoNet" or "cryonics" somewhere in the Subject line. Message #32836 From: Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2010 22:32:24 -0400 (EDT) Subject: without really trying Want to live forever without really trying? Some religions teach/preach that everyone will live forever, although some may not like their destination, even though it's a dry heat. A pretty good deal for some, in some ways--immortality regardless of what you do or don't do. And Blaise Pascal said faith is a shrewd bet. Then there are the omega pointers who believe more or less the same thing, but without the hot place. Everybody goes to Heaven, regardless, by ultimate uploading near the end of time. (Giving them their due, some of the omega pointers recommend cryonics for life insurance, just in case.) On the other hand, Robert Heinlein said TANSTAAFL--there aint no such thing as a free lunch. On the third hand, Heinlein believed in reincarnation, which is surely in the running for one of the dumbest ideas of all time. And Phineas Taylor Barnum said there's a sucker born every minute. On the fourth hand, experience teaches us, or tries to teach us, that few exceptional rewards are received by those who don't work for them. Too many cryonicists see themselves just as customers rather than partners or family. It's a rare individual who is actually doing all he can and should do. 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=32839