X-Message-Number: 21301
Subject: identity
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 11:07:16 -0500 (EST)
From: 

I have been reading this list for a few months now, and for all those months 

there has been a huge complicated discussion over identity.  People are arguing
subtle philosophical points to the point of exhaustion, over the 
terms "identity", "identical", "same", "soul", etc.  Here is my layman's 

perspective on the question of whether or not you are the same person that died
after you are awoken years later (seconds? millenia?), or even if you are 
copied.  When i go to bed at night, i lose consciousness.  When i wake up in 
the morning, i know i am the same person that went to bed.  I have no hard 
evidence to support this "knowing."  I cannot say that my body is the same, 
because it has been healing itself during sleep, or it could have been damaged 

during sleep, or kidnapped by aliens and replaced, etc.  My brain is not in the
exact same state it was when i went to sleep; i had dreams that i may or may 
not remember in the morning.  But I think i am the same person when i wake up, 
and that is obviously good enough.  I see death as nothing more than losing 
consciousness for a while. People are brought back from clinical death all the 
time, and no one argues about whether they are the same person that clinically 
died.  Apparently the only point of argument is that of time clinically dead.  
Since this acceptable time is constantly being stretched, it is easy for an 

openminded person to see that in the future, reviving people who have been dead
hours, years, or centuries will carry no questions or prejudices about whether 
the person is the same. People say im nuts for wanting to be cryonically 

suspended, because "you cannot come back from being dead."  I disagree. I think
anyone who is a cryonaut believes that human life does not contain any type of 
soul or other supernatural component (if you believed it did, you wouldnt be 
holding on to this physical life so desperately), so that if my physical 
condition can be even closely copied (even if some memory is lost, so what?, 
people with memory loss are still the same people), then I am the same.  As to 
the discussions about making copies, randomizing them, then reanimating, I say 
that both persons are the same. If i wake up in a room with a copy of myself, 

then both myself and the perfect PHYSICAL (physical being the only type of copy

there can be) copy are me, if only for an instant. From that point on our paths

diverge and we are no longer the same person.  This is rooted in my belief that
what makes me ME is simply a collection of memories, and the way my neural 
pathways analyze those memories and derive preferances and personality.  In 
short, if i (whether a hardrive with my current information copied driving 

Windows Human Replacement Software circa 2150 or me waking up from bed tomorrow
morning) think i am me, then that thought alone is proof that i am me.  I 
think, therefore i am, may be the truest words ever spoken.

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