X-Message-Number: 25266 Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 07:53:36 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #25258 - #25265 Hi everyone! So after a lapse I'm still in the position of trying to get RBR to argue EXPLICITLY for his beliefs on identity, rather than simply assert them. (I will add parenthetically to Bob Ettinger that no, even our behavior in space and time --- or spacetime --- isn't so simple and obvious as you claim). Much like Scott Badger, I was asking for RBR to justify his claims about continuing a QE versus formation of a new one. Sure, if someone (or even myself) makes a copy of me, that copy will very soon after become a new version, with its own QE. But that fails to answer the question I asked: if I am turned into a detailed record --- detailed enough that I could be recreated from it in every testable respect, and then later that record is used to recreate me as specified, does that mean that the recreated QE was different or the same? Note here that whatever physical structures in my brain created my QE, the very same physical structures would first be recorded and then used to recreate my (?) QE. And again, just what is it about our brains that means that sleep does not recreate our QE every night? We would not recognize any difference when we (?) woke up in the morning: same memories, same person. Is there any way at all we could tell that our own QE had been recreated? For that matter, is there any way ANYONE could answer that question? If you don't like sleep because it seems simple and nondestructive, try first answering the question if we had been in a coma.... and from there, try answering it for cryonic suspension by freezing, and from there, restoration from an exact recorded copy as I stated above. As I've said before, the extreme cases such as recreation of me from a very detailed record aren't likely to be at all possible for quite some time. We've all experienced sleep, and I would not be surprised if a few readers of Cryonet had experienced a coma. My questions still stand unanswered. Just why is it that our QE remains the same in some circumstances and becomes different in others? I want not just an assertion but an argument. And for Bob Ettinger, the first thing I notice about your statements on this issue is that you've been much more tentative than RBR. We've even disagreed on this question before, in the sense that I think we'll want not just an unnamed experiencing empty self but preservation of some amount of our memories. My questions are to RBR, not to you. AS I'm sure you see yourself, preservation of identity raises not only complex questions of fact but complex questions of value, too, which each of us must answer for themselves. Best wishes and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25266