X-Message-Number: 3947
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #3942 - #3945
Date: Fri, 3 Mar 1995 21:23:51 -0800 (PST)



Hi again.

To Dr. Stodolsky: good posting. I admit to thinking your previous one was
terrible, but the one on PBN makes up for it very well.

To Robin:

Work expands to fill the time/personnel available for it. I doubt that these
partial brains will receive wages, it seems to me more likely that they will
be put into lots of specialized equipment. Something capable of scanning 
1 million photographs of cell structure in an hour to search for some 
anatomical peculiarities, for instance.

Nor do I expect such partial brains to stand up and  ask for any rights. Who
would want to make them with the will to do that? We use our machines to do
what WE want, not what THEY want.

As for the need for "human" management, I don't see that as fading either,
though just what we'd need to know to act as managers is sure to change. This
is not because we are "smarter" (whatever "smart" is supposed to mean here ..)
but because it is WE who want things to be done for US. And turning any such
thing completely over to a machine OR to another human being is asking for
trouble.

Finally, as I hope you understand, the discussion of uploading deals really
with a very different issue: just what is our Self and what is required for
us to retain it? Some people here seem to believe that uploading will answer
all our wishes. I don't agree at all ... not really because I believe it is
totally impossible, but because I believe that by the time we are able to
"upload" people our understanding of how our brains work, and how the 
descendants of computers work, will be so extensive that just moving ourselves
across (or whatever uploading is supposed to mean) won't increase our real
abilities at all.

In case you haven't been watching, one major issue among cryonicists is 
exactly this question about survival of our Selves (I don't think we should
be shy about it ... in essence, with suitable redefinition, we are talking
about the survival of our Souls). There are many different opinions. Ultimately
we will simply have to see.

			Long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson

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