X-Message-Number: 8107
Date:  Fri, 18 Apr 97 23:58:56 
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: CRYONICS Re: CryoNet #8095, #8100

Bob Ettinger, #8095, wrote

>Of course, the info folk could answer that  a simulation is 
>a simulation only while it is a valid simulation, so my 
>question is irrelevant. But that is not quite right. Since 
>they claim that simulated events are just as "real" as the
>original, it becomes necessary to explain what events in 
>our world correspond to any possible events in the 
>simulation OR IN AN IMPERFECT SIMULATION. 

We info-folk might claim that "simulated events are just as 
'real'" in a *valid* simulation. What happens outside that 
domain ("imperfect simulation") is another matter, to be 
judged on a case-by-case basis.

>Perry indicates that personal preferences cannot be 
>attacked or confirmed as right or wrong. I repeat that they 
>can--right or wrong from the standpoint of what values 
>the individual WOULD hold if he applied rigorous logic 
>to well established premises (concerning natural law and 
>his own biology and personal history). The only 
>exceptions would be cases where risk/reward 
>considerations reveal no clear advantage, so it's a toss-up.

What I meant was that personal preferences cannot 
*always* be attacked or confirmed as right or wrong (i.e.
as a "general principle"). A person might "prefer" to leap 
from a bridge (or not be frozen at death, say) thinking that 
will be better for them, yet be quite
wrong, from their point of view. In this case it is
reasonable to say they were, simply, 
wrong. But other cases do not seem so clearcut, i.e., 
whether "risk/reward considerations" reveal a clear advan-
tage is *itself* a matter of personal preferences. To me, for 
instance, it seems right that I should value my memories, 
and plan never to jettison the information (the important 
information at least) about earlier versions of myself. In 
that way those earlier selves can survive in the continuer of 
them that I will become--and I right now will survive in 
that way too.

But there are people who clearly don't see it that way at 
all--by indications Bob is one of them. They don't seem to 
particularly value their memories, and one can raise the 
question if this is right or wrong. Such a person presumably 
wouldn't care if those past selves--and the present self too, 
were eventually obliterated or jettisoned. So Bob, I see 
your longterm survival (as I view survival) in jeopardy, 
unless you change your values. We can ask, Is your atti-
tude or value system "right" or "wrong"? If it's what you 
want, believe in, are comfortable with, etc.-- by those 
standards it's "right." By the same token, people of today 
who reject cryonics, not on religious grounds but simply 
because they don't want to come back (a close relative of 
mine has expressed this view) are "right" if this is what 
they really want. In another sense though it doesn't seem 
"right"--I wish they would reconsider (and you too, though
your case is less urgent).

To elaborate a little further, I can see someone, who is 
sure they don't want to survive, developing later into a 
more advanced version of themselves (continuer) who will 
be glad they survived--but they have to survive to do this. 
Do you withhold a suicide pill from a person, who really is 
most unhappy and wants to end it all now, though if you 
did withhold it they might develop further and be 
happy they were alive? Or do you grant their wish now? 
We are geared to granting wishes, for adults at least, 
when people stand on their rights and do not infringe on 
others' comparable rights. (This attitude is true of individualists
at any rate, including most cryonicists.) I'm not advocating
we should not grant rights in this manner, but the question of
whether values, and views and choices based on them, are
"right" or "wrong" seems a tough one to me, one that may not
be resolved just by "more knowledge."

Bob also wrote (#8100)

>It seems a bit ironic to me that info folk typically seem to 
>think of themselves as materialists, yet believe we are 
>essentially immaterial, being at core just patterns of 
>information and processing of information. 

A good point to make. That is indeed how I think of my-
self, "patterns of information and
processing of information," and "essentially immaterial,"
and yet I consider myself a scientific materialist too. This I
justify because the information processing, as I see
it, must happen through interactions of 
matter (or particles), not by some mystical means. But at 
heart it is information, not matter, that seems more sub-
stantial and "real" to me.

>...Dr. Perry e.g. believes it isn't enough for information to 
>be present in order for a simulation to be a person; the 
>information must also be actively PROCESSED in an 
>appropriate ongoing way.

This seems reasonable to me--if I understand you right. In a sense a 
person "on hold"--in suspended animation, unconscious, or stored as 
information--would not be fully a person, but more a "potential person."

Clearly a person, to have feeling, must be conscious (or partly
conscious), which implies some ongoing brain activity, and
similarly, a computer, whatever one thinks of its states while
it's running, does not possess or support feeling when execution
is halted. (At least it dosen't seem it could have *very much*
feeling --maybe pico-pico-amounts from the vibrations of
atoms? And this--if you allow it--is not from the usual
computation but something else entirely.) On
the other hand, I don't have the full answer (or very much of a
detailed answer) as to exactly *what* activity must be ongoing,
in a brain, computer or whatever, for feeling to exist--but think 
there is an answer, that we'll work out in due course.

Mike Perry

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