X-Message-Number: 23805 From: Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 01:44:35 EST Subject: Re: CryoNet #23797--encoded memory In a message dated 04/03/2004 5:29:34 AM US Eastern Standard Time, writes: > Message #23797 > From: "Basie" <> > Subject: Re encoded memory > Date: Fri, 2 Apr 2004 19:56:59 -0500 > > A friend told me recently that he does not think there is much sense in > cryonics because long-term memory is not copied but re encoded every time > the memory is recalled. Every time it is re encoded it is changed. According > to him if you live long enough you will not have any original memories. > I will do literature research myself but hope he is wrong. > > Basie Then your friend will not care if you kill him right now, since there is no point to living one year longer or ten years longer or fifty years longer. Now, moving away from sarcasm -- I've read a couple of books on centenarians (people over 100 years old). They all seem to be happy to be who they are after 100 years. They just wish they were healthier. I don't see that living for 500 years or more will be different. The point of his argument has no validity at all, whether or not it is technically true. Your friend is just taking the easy way out of an argument and is avoiding real thinking. It makes no difference to cryonics if he is right or not. No change in memory creation will take place while in cryonic suspension. Even if his supposition (certainly not "knowledge") is correct, whatever changes occur for a revived cryonicist will take place at the same rate as for any other human being. So what? At the worst, we'll still be human and still be alive, healthy, and growing. He thinks being dead is better? Steve Bridge Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23805