X-Message-Number: 8053
From: 
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 18:21:43 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: change & survival

Change & survival: there was a mention that Derek Parfit believes that, if he
were gradually changed into Greta Garbo, at the end he would not have
survived. This is not obvious to me (nor is any other conclusion). If I am
successfully reanimated after cryostasis, I anticipate eventually becoming
transhuman, and probably being indifferent to retention of my ancient
memories, which I might even purposely jettison as junk, retaining them only
in an external file if at all. Maybe my self circuit will exist continuously,
maybe not; lots of unanswered questions here too....If you are conscious
continuously, and by a very long sequence of very small and very rapid
changes you become someone or something else, this may or may not be
survival. Until we know much more--about the self circuit, about objective
and subjective time, about the construction of spacetime, about whatever
underlies quantum mechanics--it is just guesswork.

John Clark (#8045) justifies the information paradigm by saying the universe
holds only matter, energy, and information, and that only the information can
make "me different than you." 

First, "only matter, energy, and information" is incomplete and misleading,
albeit possibly true in some sense, depending on your definitions. For
example, he left out time and space, which are hardly the same as matter and
energy, although related. 

And how about "organization" as a category? If my self circuit requires a
particular anatomy/physiology, it may be possible only in meat. If he claims
(as he does) that meat can be emulated in other media, he is disregarding the
fact that the ORGANIZATION of matter of a self circuit in meat is very
different from the organization in (say) a silicon emulation, or a
tinker-toy, or a Turing tape. If he then responds yes, but only the
isomorphism is important, not the specific organization, not the kind of
atoms or their relationships--then he is back to dogmatism.  

On his "three problems" with the possibility of telepathy to share
consciousness, I leave the answers as an exercise; they aren't difficult. No
black magic required.

He also says (in re the possibility that we do not "really" survive from hour
to hour): "If I have not survived, then survival is not important to me..."
He says, in effect, that he is satisfied with being the continuer of
something and the predecessor of something, whether or not we can rigorously
say that the predecessor/continuer series represents survival.

But the issue is not whether he is satisfied. If I were to discover, and
become convinced, that I (each of my continuers) only exist for a subjective
moment--maybe less than a second--I would be disturbed. I might make an
effort to dismiss the knowledge from my consciousness and consideration,
but--barring psychosis--it would come back to haunt me. This knowledge and
mental health could not easily coexist. Different people would react
differently; some would embrace the most extreme variety of fatalism and
really "drop out." 

Perhaps the only reasonable compromise would be to tell oneself that you
could still be wrong, and until you are convinced you know EVERYTHING
important about the universe you suspend judgment and go on as before.
Nevertheless, we will continue to investigate all possibilities and will not
willingly settle for less than rigorous proof that our values and strategies
are correct....Of course, "we" does not include those too lazy, cowardly, or
handicapped to pay attention.

Robert Ettinger

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