X-Message-Number: 5583
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 1996 20:22:52 -0800
From:  (Dwight G. Jones)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #5565 - #5575
References: <>

Robert Ettinger wrote:

> 
> Of course there are many instances of "altruism" or other kinds of short term
> sacrifice promoting longer term self interest; this does not change the fact
> that self interest--feelings in your head--constitutes the only basis of
> value that is physically possible (given certain reasonable assumptions about
> the nature of reality).


Sociobiology shows that "self interest" can be DNA based, not simply --feelings 
in your head--, and of course sociobiology 

describes the strategy of the genes. Note that such a strategy is not a human 
strategy, nor the strategy of the cryonics 

movement. While it is trivially true that we are trying to get our own genes 
into subsequent lives, which is the evolutionary 

strategy, we are attaching certain human-centric conditions. For example, going 
through mitosis and ending up with half a 

loaf (a child with half your genes and half your mate's)statistically satisfies 
the genetic evolutionary model, but it 

doesn't satify our model. The Church of Man doesn't want sperm cells (gammetes),
we need your whole complement.


I mention this here because "self interest" has to be extensively qualified, as 
to which strategy we're actually adopting. 
> 
> I said that life decisions should be based on probability calculations (not
> always explicit, but frequently difficult, involving internal and external
> feedbacks) concerning the effects of present actions on future
> feel-good/feel-bad.   He responds that we collectively can take a thousand
> years if necessary to study our options, and that our phenotype will not
> change in this period; these statements are wrong or irrelevant or both. Many
> of our problems, whether individual or collective, will require quick action;
> and it is easy to envision changes in the phenotype compatible with survival
> as individuals. (Genetic engineering has ALREADY produced geno/pheno changes
> in living individual mammals.)


At some point you are going to lose your present identity following this route, 
wherein you posit radical adaptations within 

the near future. You'd be grasping at straws to stay alive. If you're going to 
take that course, then it's easier to believe 

that your DNA clones of the future are indeed you, if you're prepared to 
identify a radically altered android as yourself.
> 
> Concerning the need for logic and evidence, Mr. Jones responds that the
> Church of Man "takes the view that your clone is you, if only because two
> pieces of chemistry with 6 billion identical parts (DNA) cannot be anything
> but identical." Leaving aside the question of identical quantum states,  he
> apparently believes that a pair of identical twins constitute just one
> person.


That is indeed the belief, and it is what I urge you to consider very carefully.
I am not asking you to adopt the old adage 

that Life is a continuum, a revolving wheel, ashes to ashes like Eastern 
philosophies. That's the statistical strategy of the 

genes and we want to maintain our IDENTITY, not our memories, which have such 
putative value in cryonics.


Identical twins are a living experiment that can teach us just about everything 
we must know about our identities. They are a 

 miraculous printout of cloning that we can try to understand. I am not of the 
 paranormal persuasion in the least, but twins 
do have some aspects about them that are awesome.
> 
> Actually, it's a bit puzzling that Mr. Jones seems to approve of cryonics,
> but just as a means of preserving DNA. You don't need cryonics to preserve
> DNA.


You can dry it, sure, but some larger samples on slides are also inexpensive to 
maintain. If the brain is redundant enough, 

there may be some aspects of it that are retainable. There is no policy against 
neuro or whole body either, just practical 
constraints.


On the other hand, shouldn't the cronics people keep some dried DNA of their 
patients as well? It costs just about nothing 

and promises to hang in there a long time in almost any circumstances. Don't you
owe your patients that option if you are 
their keeper? 

Let me mention that I appreciate your attention to my 

points, and feel privileged to discuss these matters with someone I have 
respected for decades.

Dwight Jones
Church of Man


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