X-Message-Number: 14831 Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 22:54:28 -0700 From: Mike Perry <> Subject: Memories and Personhood Dave Pizer, #14822: > I am saying a person is NOT mainly memories, although they play a role in the make up of a person. A person is a mind that feels memories. This is part of a long, ongoing discussion on memories and personhood. The particular issue referred to here, which I see as a crucial one, I would resolve as follows. In the first place I would like to be clear about what is meant by "memories." I think many people think in terms of episodic memories that record specific events in their past, but I would like to broaden the notion to include other forms of information that affect the person's conscious states later. Or, if you like, simply drop the term memories, and consider personal information, which, we will assume, exerts an effect on the later conscious states, or some of them. If that is done, then I think we have two issues here, what can be called the *conservation* of identity and what instead is the *expression* of identity. In my view, complete personal information is both necessary and sufficient for the conservation of identity. (And I realize some will flatly disagree, and there are also certain issues like forgetting that must be addressed so I am simplyfying a bit--but I hope you can bear with that.) But personal information is what we are trying to preserve through cryonics, something that is otherwise lost through deterioration of the remains after death. If you have that, you can get the person back. This, however, will not guarantee the expression of identity--for that you actually have to *get* the person back, in active, conscious form! I should amend that to "in *some* active, conscious form." Thus to my thinking, the material substrate is not critical. Similar but different atoms would do, if suitably placed. So conservation and expression are different things, but without conservation, without the information, you can't have expression, whereas the converse does not follow: Without expression you can still have conservation, as with a well-frozen patient, we think, or more certainly, with dreamless sleep or reversible coma. So conservation--"memories" in a generalized sense, i.e. personal information--is the more important of the two. An issue is sometimes raised, that you can be awake but not thinking of any memories. Isn't this too an expression of identity? To my thinking it is--but only partially, and it doesn't preclude forms of personal information other than episodic memories having an effect. And really, for a past version of the self contained in one's personal information to be fully expressed is something that probably will take considerable time. It is also reasonable that the present version of the self will involve information beyond what is already present in (older) personal information--in general you will be adding to the archive as you go through life. Mike Perry Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14831