X-Message-Number: 7114
From: 
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 1996 12:01:21 -0500
Subject: SCI. CRYONICS wealth

For the near future it is monumentally unimportant, and only distantly
related to cryonics; even so, I'll take a few minutes to defend my assertion
that cryonics resuscitees are likely to have "essentially unlimited wealth."

Remember, I postulated not only full-fledged nanotechnology, but also
full-fledged Artificial Intelligence, with the ever-evolving machines acting
as extensions of human brains and limbs. Such machines, with reasonable
access to matter and energy,should be able to supply virtually unlimited
goods, services, and information to the individual or family. 

The larger question, which I did not address and can only hint at in a short
note, concerns the basic nature of "wealth," which is physiological (this
including the psychological). At bottom it is a question of the nature and
origin of values, which we have scarcely begun to understand.

At the present time, what is it that the "needy" need? What do those "in
want" want?

The "poor" in America are rich by most historical standards. Most of them
have roofs over their heads, clothes to wear, central heating, flush toilets,
considerable medical care, television--and so much food that many of them
waddle through the welfare lines. And in many cases they can have all this
without working. They still feel poor by comparison with those who have
more--more goods, services,and information; and also more respect and
influence. 

Our basic wants and values are based on biology. We not only want and need
the obvious survival requirements of food, shelter, and a degree of security;
we also want achievement and self-expression, esteem, sex, and sometimes
dominance. In the future conditions I postulate, if every individual or
family has a nano/AI machine, and that machine is continually enlarging or
improving itself--and improving the people as well--then both absolute and
relative poverty should tend to disappear.

Contemporary ways of measuring wealth are obviously of very limited use.
There is no simple correlation between possessions and wealth. Wealth is
fundamentally a measure of how you FEEL, or of conditions that allow you to
feel good. There is a degree of truth in the ancient poetic or
"philosophical" platitudes that "the best things in life are free" or that
true wealth is spiritual. It is indeed sometimes possible to make oneself
richer just by a change of attitude. Eventually we will understand the "self
circuit" or the "subjective circuit" at the root of feeling and
consciousness, and achieve an objective understanding of values. 

Can wealth increase without limit? As far as I can see--again postulating
full-fledged nanotech and full-fledged AI--there are certainly no known
limits, nor any plausible limits--and that is true with EITHER contemporary
measures of wealth or future measures based on an understanding of
fundamental physiology.

Robert Ettinger


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