X-Message-Number: 25418
From: 
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 10:40:04 EST
Subject: "Identity horse not dead, merely suspended." 

--9a.1cabef81_alt_bound

Coetzee writes, in part....

> Which ship is A (Theseus's original ship)? Surely not B-it's 
> just a copy of A, left behind in the museum by the crooks to cover up their 
> crime. It is C that will interest the antique dealer who is interested in 
> buying A, the original ship.
> 
> We are still struggling with Heraclitus's puzzle.
> 

(Rudi Hoffman writing)

Basie provided an excellent posting, in my opinion.  While other analogies 

about identity have not really struck home emotionally or logically with me, the
ship analogy really has.  

And it is interesting to note that the question of 
"identity" is such an old one.  

So, as Scott Badger says, "There is life in the identity horse yet.  Let's 
keep kicking it!"  (Perhaps a future technology will be able to resuscitate 
it.!) LOL!

Without wanting to get in the identity "fray" discussion too deeply, there is 
a question I have to ask.

Is there a fundamental difference to the identity question as Basie has 
defined it, using a ship as an example, versus whether our sense of self will 

survive when replicated or uploaded to a different substrate, or for that matter
simply rescusitated from a short 50 year cryonic sleep?  

Is the identity of a ship or an "original" work of art fundamentally 

different than the identity of the brain pattern that is operating as I type 
these 
letters?  

My guess is that they are probably not different, except in scale and scope.  
Both are patterns and juxtapositions of material which create a unique 
"identity".

It occurs to me even as I write these letters that my sense of self is 
actually a bit "after the fact."  Francis Crick has allegedly explained 

consciousness as an artifact occurring a split second AFTER we actually do or 
think 

something.  The running commentary in our minds that we use to rationalize what
other parts of our mostly unconscious bits do. 

As near as I can tell with my admitadly limited research,  Steven Pinker and 
other leading edge neuroscientists are not in disagreement with this 
"Astonishing Hypothesis." (Crick's term, not mine.) 

But I think we can all agree that, artificial or not, real or not, our sense 
of self is something we are trying to preserve.  

And the life insurance applications on my desk as I write these words, 
feeling vaguely guilty from being distracted from my work by the fascinating 

philosophy and ruminations on cryonet, may actually help some human beings 
PRESERVE 
this sense of self. 

How wondrous and uplifting a thought is that?  I am so privileged to be a 

part of this creative if somewhat fractious community.  And to play a small role
in the development of cryonics, as it expands in the scientific and world 
communities.

Happy Holidays, yours for centuries more of happy days,

Rudi

--9a.1cabef81_alt_bound

 Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"

[ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25418