X-Message-Number: 3760
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 1995 23:28:06 -0500
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <>
Subject: Re: SCI.CRYONICS criteria

> We may even choose to jettison our primitive (current) memories as
> irrelevant baggage; then there will be nothing connecting the past
> and future persons except the causal continuity.

I doubt I would ever choose to do so, any more than historians ever
decide to discard all sufficiently old historic material.  The trend
is just the opposite -- it's toward preserving more information, and
reconstructing discarded, neglected, or painted-over information.
This is because people have come to value information more, and to
value the capacity it takes to store it less.

The same should be true on a personal level.  Especially if we get
"memory upgrades" for our brains.  But whether or not we do, even if we
live for a trillion centuries, our first century is unique and precious.

But even if one did discard all memories from earlier than the previous
week every day, one would still have continuity.  This has happened
at least once before.  You currently have some earliest memory.  This
is a memory of a time when your memory contained completely different
contents, with nothing in common with your present self.  But I'm sure
you'll agree that you are still the same individual as you were then.

> It is difficult to see why the present person should be any more
> interested in the  fate of his future continuer than in that of
> any other future person.

Nevertheless, I am.  For instance, I am continually leaving money to my
future self, rather than spending it all today, or giving it all away
to others.  Aren't you?



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