X-Message-Number: 32537
From: Brook Norton <>
Subject: Survival is an illusion?
Date: April 2, 2010 8:42:18 AM PDT
References: <>


As long-time survivalists, we often ask what we need to do so that "we" survive 
suspension, uploading, brain-matter-substitution, etc. As best I can tell, we 
don't ever really survive in a personal way such that "I" continue into the 
future. When a rock breaks in two, does "it" survive? When a lake totally 
freezes in winter and then melts in spring, does "it" survive. If the lake is 
drained and then refilled with different water, does "it" survive? In a human 
observer's mind, the lake may survive. Perhaps the lake is a favorite vacation 
spot, and the new water doesn't matter to the observer, so to that observer, the
lake survives. The natural universe, however, doesn't care what we think, and 
doesn't care if "things" (rocks, lakes, people) survive or not.


"Survive" has various shades of meaning, and that makes all the difference in 
asking these questions. One could say a refilled lake "survives" but that is not
what we as cryonicists are after. We want to know if some essential quality of 
an entity survives. As cryonicists, we can agree the lake does NOT survive in 
any way of interest to our survival because the lake lacks the essential quality
of consciousness. But is consciousness the end-all quality that we must 
preserve? I don't think so. I don't think there is ANY essential quality that 
allows us to "survive" as we would like to, in an objective sense. Rather, what 
really matters is that we feel happiness now. That's all. For example, consider 
two people that undergo surgery where brain waves are absent for some period of 
time. Upon recovery, one says "I'm the same person because I'm conscious again 
and my memories are preserved." The other says "I'm a different person now. "I" 
did not survive because my consciousness was not continuous." Which is right? 
Neither. Because the question "did "I" survive" is meaningless. What happened is
simply that they were conscious, they underwent surgery and lack of 
consciousness, and later became conscious again. That did happen, and no 
reference to "survival" is needed to describe what happened. Now, they could ask
the legitimate question of "Am I happy after surgery?" And one could 
legitimately answer "yes, I'm happy because I feel like I survived" and the 
other could answer "no, because I'm sad I left my former self behind". Their 
reasoning is off, but their conclusion about their happiness is correct.


We often fall into the trap of envisioning survival scenarios (uploading, 
molecular brain repair, etc) and then asking ourselves, would I be comfortable 
with that type of survival. That's an illegitimate question because we can't 
survive, we can only reflect on what we think our state of happiness would be 
after the recovery event. Evolution has ingrained in us an illusion of personal 
survival. We feel happy if we envision our personal survival. This is because, 
those who prepare for a long (a few decades) life, will pass on their genes. So 
evolution favors those, and gives them happiness, for planning well to stay 
alive. Until we can reengineer the pleasure centers of the brain, we will have 
to play the game of planning for a long life in order to feel happy now. I 
personally am enrolled in cryonics because planning for that, makes me happy 
now. I go along with the survival illusion because my genetics makes me feel 
good when I do. But the intellectual part of me sees the game. I also want 
cryonics to be successful in case the above paragraphs end up having a fallacy 
and my reasoning is off track. I'd like a second chance to change my mind.

Brook Norton

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