X-Message-Number: 25437
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 06:46:09 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #25426 - #25436

Hi all those talking bout QE's etc (and any others interested):

For Valeria:

I said in my note to RBR that duplication was irrelevant, and 
added that it would clearly create two different individuals.

As for a record of me (and presumably my QE as a physical part
of me) that record would not have any QE AS A RECORD or any 
special activity at all. Nor would it in any sense be "inside"
me. I don't know how that confusion arose and hope that it
did not arise from some mistake I made in my message.

Since by assumption the FORMER version of myself had ceased to
exist, but a detailed and precise record had been made of me,
including my QE, then if I were recreated from that record
as an active human being I was saying that that recreation
would have the same QE and I would continue to exist. And I
added that any other belief looked to me like metaphysics
rather than any special understanding of selfhood.

For Bob Ettinger:

Apologies. I know that you were not stating anything definite
but raising a possibility that you considered likely. In short,
you weren't as certain as some other discussants.

I will still add that the possibility of multiple definitions
of continuity for our selves or our QE allows us to survive
damage that more narrow definitions of continuity do not. And
those other definitions have at least as much standing as 
your own in terms of whether or not WE survive.

To some other discussants:

I have said that the day in which we can really make a detailed
enough record of any other person remains far away. To do that
nanotechnology may well come in handy, but so will many other
technologies.. At present, we don't even fully understand how
our brains work in the first place (remember that we aren't
computers!) and such understanding will clearly be needed 
to make any such detailed record, or even to revive someone
badly damaged by their suspension. And that, incidentally,
is why I spend so much attention on neuroscience in PERIASTRON.

          Best wishes and long long life to all,

             Thomas Donaldson

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