X-Message-Number: 11244
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 02:17:11 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #11236

Thomas Donaldson writes,

>So: just what is the importance of these quantum states? Or to put
   the question differently: if we define two people as identical if
   they are identical for even a very short time, then our definition
   fails to catch some essential features to the notion of "identity".
   Among other things, no one would join my possessions with those
   of Mike merely because we were identical for 0.00005 seconds. Not
   even Mike and I would agree to that (or with an interval that small,
   even realize that we were EVER identical).

The "importance" as I see it is not practical but philosophical, in what
it says about the nature of personhood and "identity." If two persons
are ever really identical, however, they may quickly enough diverge, but
it must mean they *were* identical, as persons,
for all past time, up to when the divergence started. Consider 
the following scenario, which actually
doesn't invoke quantum states at all (or not explicitly). 

We have 2 cryonics patients, Abel and Baker. 
Both, say, are pattern-survivalists
and not too concerned with what is done to their physical remains,
so long as their information survives and is eventually used to make
an appropriate, functioning continuer of each. Meanwhile
it's okay if a little experimenting goes on. So, using advanced 
technology, we map both Abel and Baker to the atomic level. Then
we make molecular alterations in Baker so he becomes a perfect
replica of Abel--call him Abel2. Finally, Abel and Abel2 are revived.
Abel2 must quickly diverge from Abel, and we could say that Abel2
was also different from Abel until very recently, but the 2nd point
is really irrelevant. Because, by the transformation we did to Baker,
Abel2 has retroactively *become* Abel, i.e. two persons now
share a common past, even if they must henceforth diverge. You don't
agree? Suppose, then, that Abel's body didn't exist but his information did.
We take Baker's body, atomically transform it into a perfect
replica of Abel, and revive this frozen individual. Many cryonicists I
think would agree that we did have the original Abel here, i.e.
similar atoms suffice to reconstruct the original. As for the "similar atoms",
it wouldn't really matter where we got them; one is as good as another.

Mike Perry

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