X-Message-Number: 14726 Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 12:49:33 -0400 From: "Raphael T. Haftka" <> Subject: identity and the alchemist quest for gold The long debate about identity appears to be a bit premature. Hundreds years ago, when people did not know much about chemistry and nuclear physics, many believed that they could make gold from other materials. We are probably at this stage with respect to the question of whether you can duplicate people, upload them into computers, or even have conscious intelligent computers. The nice thing is that we don't need to know the answers to make intelligent decisions about cryonics. We would like to have a good chance of being revived even if it is revival in the old fashioned sense rather than copied into a clone or into another medium. We would like to preserve maximum information in terms of our brain structure in case old fashioned revival is not available and uploading is possible. So can we move on to other subjects? As a spectator from the sidelines, my view is that we have exhausted what can be said with the meager amount of information. If you prefer to ignore my request, at least follow Thomas Donaldson's. I would not mind seeing informative reviews and summaries of books on the topic of consciousness and identity. These books mostly went through several iterations of careful editing, unlike many of the recent posts. Rafi Haftka .. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14726