X-Message-Number: 14240 Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 09:00:17 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: more on identity Hi everyone! I have finished the latest PERIASTRON and mailed it off today. So now I have come back to Cryonet. 1. I know that I'm probably reading messages which came out before I put in my own 2 cents on identity, but here are some further comments. Yes, identity is important, and means to preserve it lie underneath and motivate our desire for suspension in the first place. (The technology used won't last forever, even if it provably works ... there will be other better means to follow, but the desire to maintain our identity will not go away so long as we remain human beings. I would even say the same of Indian philosophers: they may have a "nice" theory about how everyone is the same as everyone else (a brief and inaccurate summary), but I still doubt that they would happily die so long as there existed any means to prevent it). 2. The "quantitative view of identity" is a good idea, and we have no problem (or should have no problem) with the notion that there are an infinity of stages and means of comparison by which we are "not the same" ie. differences exist at every level. However there is a different problem. Some things about ourselves we are indifferent to: the exact position of our big toe doesn't usually excite many people. Other things (which differ with the person) we consider, at any given time, to be essential. And still other things we may actually want to remove, even some things about our personality. So there is an element of VALUE in just how we compare ourselves with others, and that value cannot be removed from any consideration of identity. We want to maintain only a subset of all of our attributes. That this subset may change doesn't matter here: it always exists. Moreover, in practical terms, it's very unlikely that we'll ever have technological means to preserve EVERYTHING literally abo ourselves... if that's really what we want to do in the first place. 3. The Western idea of self may have its defects, but any advance on it is unlikely to be simply an adoption of any known viewpoint, Eastern, Western, or whatnot. As for dealing with the defects, it's clear that no one is truly autonomous. It may prove more useful to distinguish between the kinds of influences which can affect or change our sense of self and our desires. Anyone who points a gun at us and asks us to adopt a new religion, and keeps that up long enough, will no doubt succeed in getting us to adopt that new religion exactly as he/she demands. But no one would say that such an influence really SHOULD (even if it does) change our sense of self. On the opposite side, if someone decides to go off and think over what he/she wants to be, without any direct (there's always indirect) influence by anyone or any other institution, then few people would think that any changes came from outside. Yes, these are extremes, and the really interesting questions come in the middle between them. Decision on these middle questions again is likely to involve VALUES. We live now in a world with an increasing number of democracies, of different shapes and forms. Just what a government should force or help its citizens to do differs between them. So how do they rank in "freedom", and what is "freedom" when comparing such different governments? At some level it may simply become wise to accept different values. 3. "Survival is not eternal return". An interesting statement. I would hardly WANT eternal return, but then there are other problems with that notion. Suppose that I found myself in a situation in which I must have a kind of eternal return (for a while) because in my case it is the only available version of survival. And I also had a well founded hope that the "eternal" return would not really go on forever... though I had no good idea as to why. So who would choose that alternative and who would not? Some who chose it would not worry. Others may still wonder just how to escape it. When we consider cryonic suspension, in a certain sense we HAVE CHOSEN a form of "eternal return": we're in a special state which will continue indefinitely, in the hope that OTHERS will work out how to take us out of that state. WE are most certainly not the ones who will find out how to take OURSELVES out. So are we surviving or not when we go into cryonic suspension? Just a few comments on postings on Cryonet. Best wishes and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson PS: nothing about identity directly in the newest PERIASTRON, but then memory and identity are closely allied. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14240