X-Message-Number: 8861
From: Olaf Henny <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #8851; Immortality
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 15:49:00 -0800

Re: Immortality vs. Megalife

 In Message #8851 Joe Strout wrote:

>But if you'll pardon my $0.02 worth, you're neglecting mind uploading.
>Once you're uploaded, you can make frequent (probably weekly) backups.  I
>expect there will be a large backup industry (already fairly healthy today)
>which will guarantee your data against loss due to natural disaster, war,
>etc.  So none of the above scenarios would lose you more than a week (and a
>good knock on a biological head can do much worse than that).
 
Joe, when in a couple of centuries the two of us, you as a mind 
uploaded construct and I in for of ever patched up flesh get 
caught in a fire, your circuits will melt about the same time as 
my brains will boil out.  Unless you will have an uploading 
facility right in your home, I doubt, that you will update it 
weekly, after all, the probability of dying in an accident will 
be only once in thousands of years, and excuses "to do it some 
other day" will be all-prevailing.  Even if it is as easy as 
shaving in the morning, but not as visible, if it remains undone, 
there is great temptation to delay.  What if it is as much bother 
as going to the dentist or worse yet, as signing up for life 
insurance.  In the latter case I can see myself procrastinating 
for centuries. :)

Here is a chilling thought: What if the above fire catches us in 
the uploading facility? >:->

>But there's *still* probably no such thing as immortality, because
>ultimately the universe will run down.  

Where is your optimism?  By that time we surely will have the 
capability to hop to another universe, since we have already had 
plenty practice in switching solar systems and galaxies, which 
went on the blink on us.

>But more to the point, as time
>increases to infinity, the probability that you will commit suicide or
>transform into something significantly different (e.g., a group mind or
>whatever) approaches 1.

Right now I am totally happy with myself, but who knows how I will feel in a
couple of 
millenia?

>So I agree that we shouldn't speak of immortality, but instead of an
>indefinate lifespan or a cure for aging (or some better word, as Will has
>proposed).  Usually when I talk to people about cryonics, I talk about
>living a few hundred years longer.  Everyone's crystal ball grows cloudy
>well before that time scale anyway.

Let's just simple call it attaining megalife (one word to give it 
more punch). ;-)

>Cheers,
>-- Joe

Cheers to you too,

Olaf

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