X-Message-Number: 5640 Date: Fri, 19 Jan 96 19:02:50 From: Mike Perry <> Subject: Memories Dwight Jones (#5612, 17 Jan), responding to Peter Merel, responding to Dwight Jones: > >> >>>what is the ESSENTIAL difference between successful >>>cryonic rebuilding and regeneration from DNA seed? >>>What is it about today's memories that we MUST >>>[preserve] them to deem ourselves successful in this >>>venture? >> >> Software and hardware, Dwight. Without software, >>what good is a computer? Doesn't software exist in your >>philosophy? Do you imagine that software is somehow >>implied by hardware? Or do you believe that all >>programs are equivalent to one another? We spend our >>lives writing our own internal software - it determines >>how we behave, who we love, the people and qualities >>and dimensions of our worlds. Perhaps your philosophy >>devalues this software, but for most of us here that's the >>whole point; the hardware can be replaced by some other >>machine with sufficient power to express our software, >>and we won't fuss - many of us even look forward to it! > >I'm not denying that such memories would be nice to >have. But as the years (and lifetimes) go by, we learn to >let go of childhood, adolescence, and so on, just as we go >to sleep each night confident of prospects in the coming >day. Could we not look at lifetimes, gracefully >surrendering each as we surrender the day? > To me, memories are not simply "nice to have" but are an important part of the person I am today. To try to restore me from DNA alone would strip away this information, replacing me with a much earlier version of myself, essentially just my zygote, which would have to start all over again. Part of the "me" that I am today, no doubt, but hardly all, and hardly all that I hope to save through cryonics. As I see it, "letting go of childhood," "surrendering the day," etc. are not processes of forgetting, whose end result is erasure of all information whereas the "letting go of lifetimes" appears to be just precisely this, or very nearly. After my "letting go" I still remember, and I still *value* this remembering. Not that I would want to return to a much earlier lifestyle--but even so, the memories are important. As a case in point, when I was about 3 my parents bought me a tricycle. It was soon apparent that I would have trouble operating it because my legs were too short to properly engage the pedals. So they obtained wooden blocks which, when attached to the pedals, made them easy to reach, and I soon became a proficient tricyclist. Now, this is not an experience I'd like to repeat, i.e. shrink back to 3-year-old size and go through it all again. However, I do enjoy thinking about it occasionally, and its larger connections with where I was living, who was involved, etc. Ditto for other things I remember, and that includes even bad experiences, which I think can have value even if not always remembered with the same fondness we reserve for happier moments. I would not want these memories erased--indeed, I foresee no time in the future when I would want the information destroyed, any more than one would contemplate, say, destroying all records of events before the 1st century C.E. But if "surrendering lifetimes" is the way to go, why not obliterate historical documents as well? Especially for what happened over 1,000 years ago! Isn't it outmoded? Why not "gracefully" give up this material that has surely "served its purpose already" and recycle all the records so they can form new records, buildings and bodies? On the other hand, if we would be reluctant to follow this course of obliterating our history, I'll offer this thought: personal memories are part of the historical record too. If the indefinite preservation of historical records can be justified, as I think most people would agree today it can, then it seems hard to argue that personal experiences are just something to "let go of" after a period of time. Instead their indefinite preservation must be considered too. Does this mean we should be frantically devoted to preserving all past information whatever? I don't see that it does, and indeed, it is clear we should draw the line somewhere, as indeed we do. We don't record every snowflake or dust mote, nor do I think we should try. So where to draw the line? For me, the information that is personally important should be preserved--it's that simple, and this includes my own past experiences, along with much other information, though certainly not everything, which is impossible. But surely personal history, on the level of individual memories (and not just what can be communicated and recorded with devices of today) is important. It has some significance even apart from its value to the individual--its preservation could be justified from the historical standpoint alone--and mine in particular, to me at least, has vital importance to me as a functioning person. Overall, in fact, I view life largely as a process of creating an assemblage of valued memories. This has two important aspects: (1) having new experiences which will, in due course, take their place in the memory archives, and (2) reviewing the archives from time to time, to in some measure relive or recount the older experiences. I hope to be able to do this indefinitely, building an increasing archival record much as civilization has been doing, as a whole, since the invention of writing. And I hope others will join me in this, so we all build our individual archives as we live and interact. Each of us, properly, is a civilization in miniature. In time all of us ought to, and hopefully will, individually surpass all of our present civilization, in many and fascinating ways. In this developmental process, even the humblest early memories should have lasting value, much as the most primitive ancient history continues to hold our interest today. At present, the best shot at preserving the memories of a person at death is by freezing the brain, i.e. cryonics. To achieve our rightful destiny we must become more than human--many times over. But we have the technological potential to do this, as I think good arguments attest. A good starting point would be to develop a mature nanotechnology and eliminate our mortality, but we aren't to this stage yet. Cryonics is the best approach that acually *is* available, as far as I can see, for the seeker of a more- than-human future. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5640