X-Message-Number: 81
From: Kevin Q. Brown
Subject: Re: individual survival (who are you?)
Date: 25 Apr 1989
The topic of individual survival in an uploaded / networked medium has
generated a lot of commentary! Perhaps that shouldn't be surprising,
considering how many replies Robert Ettinger drew when he published an article
in the July 1988 issue of The Immortalist in which he voiced his concerns
about the feasibility of downloading [uploading]. (See message #16.)
The near-religious intensity of some of the verbiage strikes me as significant.
What is so special about this topic?
I do not believe that it is the feasibility (or lack of feasibility) of
networked uploading that interests people so much as the desirability (or lack
of desirability) of it. (People would not voice such concern about networked
uploading if they were certain it was not feasible.) This message concerns
why some people are for it and some are against it.
Remember that cryonicists are a small minority of the total population. Yet,
even cryonicists split into several subgroups, depending on which options they
consider acceptable. My message on networked uploaders (#72) concerned the most
extreme end of the following sequence:
noncryonicists -> cryonicists -> neuro -> uploaders -> networked uploaders
Which of these options is acceptable (for personal survival) depends on your
notion of "self" - who you think you are. Not who you are, but who you think
you are. This distinction is necessary because identity is not as straight-
forward as Popeye's maxim "I yam what I yam"; self-concept is remarkably
plastic. Even in the noncryonicist realm we see plasticity. A top-notch
actor or actress has to turn on a much different self during a performance
than in everyday life. A person suffering from MPD (Multiple Personality
Disorder) switches among many personalities (with different blood pressure,
immune response, foreign language abilities, etc. [May 15, 1989, Privileged
Information]). Cultural differences can lead to much different self-concepts.
Some Native Americans were their tribes and their ancestors; when speaking of
a battle a hundred years earlier, a warrior might say: "I" was there. Another
example, perhaps even rarer than a cryonicist, is a person who experiences
"cosmic consciousness" (Buddha, Jesus, etc.). As I suggested in the Sept.
1987 issue of Cryonics, such a person "perceives his body and personality as
a throwaway, something to be used for a purpose much larger and more valuable.
(This person has, in his mind, already achieved immortality because he perceives
his real self as being as large as the universe. ["I am you" for each possible
"you".])" One tends to identify most with what one values most.
Cryonicists (and, I expect, the readers of the cryonics mailing list) greatly
value their individuality. For example, in his reply [msg #75] to my posting
on the "fate of individual survival", Pete () showed a
particularly healthy, strong sense of self-determination (and a wonderful
expressiveness of language - "bargain basement soul obliteration" yet!).
But a person who becomes a networked uploader (to prevent becoming outclassed
or even killed outright by the other networked uploaders) may be just as
strongly individualistic, but with a different sense of self; self as network,
not self as single, human body. As Tim () described it:
"... Part of doing this [surviving] in the long term is slipping the
definition of 'self' into something that is easier to add abilities to."
How can one reconcile the fear and loathing about potential loss of control
upon becoming networked with a need to add capabilities (to avoid becoming
outclassed)? More generally, how can one reconcile the fears about dangers of
loss of self from cryonic suspension, neurosuspension, etc. with the desire to
survive otherwise fatal circumstances? The brief answer is "Nobody knows"
because if somebody did, there would be a lot more cryonicists. I do, however,
suspect that it has a lot to do with one's self-concept - who you think you are.
Here, for your review and comments, is my first effort toward a "simplified
model for self-concept state transitions":
To move from X to Y you need to get beyond the belief that Z.
X | Y | Z
---------------|--------------------|-----------------------------------------
noncryonicist | cryonicist | "When life functions stop, you're gone"
---------------|--------------------|-----------------------------------------
cryonicist | neuro | "I am my body"
---------------|--------------------|-----------------------------------------
neuro | uploader | "I am my brain"
| | "A machine cannot be conscious"
---------------|--------------------|-----------------------------------------
uploader | networked uploader | "I am separate from you"
---------------|--------------------|-----------------------------------------
The recent uproar was over the last transition in this table. (Even I am
somewhat queasy over the wording; I WANT to be separate from most, if not
all, OTHER people.) I found it quite significant that both Tom
(cmc12!hombre!dasys1!tbetz) and Pete () entertained the
possibility of accepting (intimate) networking with people they love.
(In contrast to the horrors of (intimate) networking with people they fear -
those with a "secret agenda.") In particular, if the person you are networking
with is someone you consider to be a part of you, wouldn't that be acceptable?
One thing that seems clear is that as our technology improves we will have
more options. And having more options means having to make more choices.
This will require looking deep into our own values, thinking for ourselves,
and choosing; choosing where before we (and ALL of our ancestors) had to simply
take the default. One choice that we will have to make is to select who we
(think we) are.
- Kevin Q. Brown
...att!ho4cad!kqb
PS: In message #75 I said thanks to Pete for responding because too often
people stop communicating when they disagree. It's valuable to get
feedback from others on our ideas, perhaps especially when they disagree.
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