X-Message-Number: 25197 From: "Brook Norton" <> Subject: survival is an illusion? Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 07:58:29 -0800 Below Bob Ettinger asserts that if physical systems have extension in space and time, that this might give meaning to survival and may validate our concern for our future selves. I have never understood Bob's assertion that things have extensions over time. The closest I have come is with regards to consciousness in which it seems that a certain duration in time is necessary for consciousness to arise, say on the order of one quarter second (time for several oscillations of the self-circuit standing wave), in which your brain combines sensory input and subconscious reaction to this input of the last quarter second, into the act of being conscious. But this could also be explained by your brain recording the last quarter second in highly accessible short term memory and combining that memory with the present-time sensations, resulting in consciousness, consciousness existing only in the present moment. Even if we have extensions over time, that just adds to our physical description and does not change my previous message's assertion that we simply change over time, without the added complication of considering "survival". As for why we do value long term planning, I believe it is simply an effective means of passing on our genes to future generations. Just as we have the instinctual drive for food and sex, so do we have the drive to plan for our future. But possessing that drive does not in any way imply we "survive" to the future in any meaningful way. Going hand in hand with an instinctual desire to plan ahead, is the instinctual concept of "I" as an entity that "survives" from day to day. Without that instinctual viewpoint, we would likely die due to lack of planning for our survival, and that approach to life would not be passed on to offspring. But just because we have an instinctual sense of self and survival does not make it so. We instinctually fear an explosion in a movie even though there is no danger. Brook Norton Per Bob Ettinger in msg 25192: >Brook Norton concludes that we (probably) never survive from day to day, or >that "survival" is without meaning, since every system changes over time and we >must take the "quantitative" view, viz., that the only meaningful statements >are those describing physical conditions and changes. He appears to believe >that survival is an illusion, or misleading language, and the validity of our >interest in the future is questionable. >I have said that our interest in the future (and the past) may be validated >by the fact (?) that physical systems have extension in space and time, so that >I overlap my predecessors and continuers. Content-Type: text/html; [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25197