X-Message-Number: 2711
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: CRYONICS Re: Dreaded Subject
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 1994 00:17:10 -0700 (PDT)

Hi Again!

While I liked Mike's piece on identity, I myself still feel that determined
rational thought on the problem will get us somewhere. It's probably true
that it will get us somewhere we didn't expect to go, but that's what can
happen when we really start to analyze our own thoughts and feelings.

Regardless of what identity "is", I know that I would want very much for
my memories to last IN ME ie. to be able to remember at least as much about
my past as I might if I had not become sick, suspended, and then revived. And
so far as identity consists not of what I feel and think but what others feel
and think about me, I would want to be THOUGHT to be the same person. As for
my personality (which I think is not so easy to separate from my memories
and my experiences) naturally I would not want that to be abruptly changed
merely by the process of suspension and revival. (Which is not to say that 
I would not, given the opportunity, carefully consider changes in my 
personality).

I will also say that in my own thinking, continuity itself doesn't play a
large role. If (while I was unconscious) all my memories and other traits
were stored in a computer, and I was then cloned and recreated, as the SOLE
exemplar of Thomas Donaldson, then I would consider that I had continued.
But I'd also say we have to be careful here: if "they" made 2 copies of me,
then my identity would have been quite radically changed (that is, in fact,
one of the cases in which what other people think of me can affect my own
identity. Even though I am an individualist and much less concerned with
the society, opinions, and company of other people than many others, I 
have come to believe that one major part of identity is what others think
of you).

The issue of continuity comes into play, I think, not because it is really
important OF ITSELF, but because if a change happens slowly, then in some
sense I have had the opportunity to choose whether to fight it or to 
consent to it. 

But Lewis Carroll was a very deep man, regardless.
			Long long life,
				Thomas Donaldson

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