X-Message-Number: 27609
From: "Valera Retyunin" <>
Subject: The magical power of decision - best remedy for your worries!
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 22:59:54 +0300

Daniel Crevier wrote in his "How I stopped worrying about uploading" 
post:

"There is a point of view that drastically simplifies all these 
discussions we've been having about identity: it is to consider that 
sameness is not an ontological property.
..................................
They are just tags that we mentally apply to things. I believe that 
however essential and necessary they may appear, our reasons for 
applying those tags have purely pragmatic origins.
.................................................
I know that there will be an interruption in my consciousness when I 
go to sleep tonight. Yet I decide that the person who will wake up in 
my brain tomorrow will be the same as me today because otherwise, I'd 
go sleepless.
Likewise, it is entirely up to me to decide whether my uploaded or 
reconstructed self would be the same person as me. If it has my 
memories and behavior, I choose to decide that it would be. It's as 
simple as that."


This really is a point of view that drastically simplifies everything! 
Oh, that magical power of decision! Not only does it move mountains, 
it lets some people overcome death itself! It's as simple as that!!!

Daniel, I wonder what will happen to you if you don't decide that the 
person who will wake up in your brain tomorrow will be you, or if you 
decide that he won't be you. Following you logic (that is, you are not 
your brain but merely a decision result) you will not survive your 
sleep. I'm terrified to imagine what will happen to me if you, for 
some reasons that have "purely pragmatic origins", decide to wake up 
tomorrow in my brain...

I know, I know, I don't have your memories and behaviour, but why 
limit your magical survival decisions to biological clones and 
supercomputer simulations? As Flavonoid notes, identity is very fluid 
from the patternist perspective. You could well settle for someone who 
shares a substantial amount of memories and behavioural patterns with 
you. Your children, for instance. You wouldn't even need to wait for 
the advent of more advanced technologies, quite a few people already 
"decide" they will survive in their kids. Well, they don't believe of 
course that, the moment they die, they will actually pop up in their 
children's heads and start seeing through their eyes, hearing through 
their ears etc. But then, they lack the magical decision power you 
possess...

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