X-Message-Number: 10348 Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1998 09:30:30 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #10343 - #10347 To Bob Ettinger: Fortunately or unfortunately, Tipler made assumptions about cosmology which have turned out to be clearly false. A SCIENCE article a few weeks ago detailed the results of current tests of cosmological theories. There may be no end of objective time, and the universe will expand forever. Yes, we could be wrong about this, but I doubt very much that we will be wrong in such a way as to resurrect the old assumptions Tipler used. You also say something which quite bewilders me. Sure, others may know this too. But just how do Tipler and Moravec believe that they can resurrect someone on the basis of no information about who or what they were like? Since I've read Tipler's book, I can make a guess about HIS methods. But what about Moravec? Or has he signed on to Tipler's ideas? In any case, there are two essential assumptions here which may very well be false: that information about the past survives indefinitely in sufficient detail to recreate it, and that the number of forms people may now take is finite. (The second is not clear either, since those forms will contain memories of the world, and the world --- in the sense of the Universe --- may very well not be finite. Sure, the individual people may be finite just like every integer is finite, but the totality may not be). Best and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10348