X-Message-Number: 11477
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 16:17:03 +0100
From:  (John de Rivaz)
Subject: Re: Physics of information loss and comments on belief in cryonics

In article: <> "Garry Wright" 
<> writes:
> Sir Arthur C Clarke says that we change throughout our lives anyway, and I
> agree with him totally.  You would have to actually be religious and
> believe in a supernatural unchanging soul, to think that an upgraded
> version of yourself would be the same person.
> 
> The relatively new theory of memetics suggests that the very concept of
> self is an illusion - merely the result of Darwinian evolution of so
> called memes. 

So what? If anyone really beleives that illusion, then the wouldn't bother 
to anything but seek pleasure until they burned out, ie died.


> The concept of a conscious self is a powerfull meme for obvious reasons. 
> There are experiments, also described in Penrose's book, that demonstrate
> that we do not actually possess free will.
> 

Similar experiments are described in Time - A Traveller's Guide by Clifford 
Pickover http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0195120426/longevitybooksA/

Pickover seems to imply that these experiments suggest that the brain can 
"travel" short periods in time. What is actually happening is that a few 
positive delays are added to control systems in the human body in order to 
synchronise everything. But yes, you can set up situations where an 
experimenter "knows" what a person is going to do before the person has 
decided to do it. Time - A Traveller's Guide explains how it is done.

Personally I am not convinced that these experiments prove time travel or 
the lack of free will, merely that the brain and body don't act in isolation 
from each other.

> Having said all this, I am not against anyone who wishes to be preserved,
> and I wish the movement well.

Thank you

> It is certainly a more interesting thing to do with a dead
> body than burning or burying it.  I just think that it is pointless, and
> the efforts of these intelligent people could be better utilised in trying
> to create the next level of intelligence, rather than trying to preserve
> the current one beyond its usefullness.
> 

Usefullness to whom? If "self" is an illusion as people like Susan 
Blackemore suggest it is still a useful concept, and some of these illusory 
selves do want to continue indefinitely.

I am reminded of Terra Libra's Frederick Mann who says that government is a 
illusion. He can beleive that if he likes - but it makes talking and life 
generally more difficult to  adhere to that belief. And the destruction 
caused by these "illusions" in Yugoslavia is real enough.

I suggest that saying that "self" is an illusion is an interesting 
philosophical excercise, but I don't think it helps with reality. If you are 
ill, do you decline medical treatment because self is an illusion? Likewise 
you (and Sir Arthur C Clarke) should not decline cryonics on that ground 
alone.


I would also concur with the idea that oneself at say age 10 is a very different
being, in size, shape, appearance and personality to onself at aged 50. But at 
fifty you can still remember things that happened at 10 and think of youself as 
being the same person. If you had been cryopreserved at 10 and reanimated in the
same condition 300 years later such that your consciousness has been active for
50 years now  would this have made any difference? 


On BBC television recently there was a "docusoap" called "Paddington Green" in 
which one of the characters was a person who had been surgically and 
pharmacologically changed from a man into a woman. Was this the same person? Or 
was the man killed and a woman created out of his "remains"? Of course it is the
same person. 

So is someone cryopreserved and reanimated.



-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz
Homepage:         http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JohndeR
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