X-Message-Number: 3289
From:   (Joseph J. Strout)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: Is revival EVER possible?
Date: 18 Oct 1994 01:22:34 GMT
Message-ID: <>
References: <37ubig$>

In article <37ubig$>, 
(Hocus Pocus) wrote:

> 	What is the purpose in being brought back in a hundred years, and 
> not actually being you. It is the same as being dead anyhow. Also, the 

This is a point of view I have never heard expressed before.  In short, 
you're asserting that the person who lives after cryosuspension is not 
the same person as the one who was suspended.  This issue (personal 
identity) is one which is often argued in the context of mind uploading, 
but I've never heard it applied this way.

IMHO, personal identity is a fuzzy concept, but basically lies in our 
experiences (and other mental traits, but experience -- e.g., episodic 
and procedural memory -- is the easiest to talk about).  That is, if I 
remember having some experience, then I am (to some extent) the same 
person as the person who actally had that experience.  By treating 
identity fuzzily, this theory can deal aptly with hypothetical 
"memory-swapping" experiments, etc (press me for more details if this 
is not clear).  But in this case, it's hardly fuzzy at all: if the brain 
damage is repaired and the brain activated, the person will remember 
having all the experiences of the person who was suspended.  Therefore, 
the post-cryo person will BE the pre-cryo person.

Now, some people argue that personal identity needs a continuity of 
matter, but in this case, that is preserved too.  And some argue for a 
continuity of consciousness, but that doesn't hold up very well (consider, 
for example, someone who is placed in a coma, or better yet briefly 
"flatlined", and then recovered).  So I'm curious: by what criteria do you 
judge someone who is revived after a hundred years' suspension to be not 
the same person?

-- 
Joseph J. Strout                    
Dept. of Neuroscience               (619) 534-3377
U.C. San Diego

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