X-Message-Number: 605 Date: 14 Jan 92 04:09:21 EST From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: Re: cryonics: #603 Hi: Arel, that was good. I wish you spoke up more often because generally you say good things when you do. I can only speak for myself on the issue of "identity". When I study how memory works of course I'm concerned that I do not lose that past cloud of habits, thoughts, skills, and others that you've spoken of. For cryonics, quite seriously, I don't think we need to go further than that: recover the body, and then recover the mind and memories. As for the deeper issue, without disputing you I would feel like putting it this way. Our identity, if it is to be taken as how we respond and have responded to all the experiences, good or bad, that we have faced, is not simply inside us but outside us too. For the experiences and their consequences are things that we need not remember or encode, but come from whatever we experience, in an ongoing way. That is why I don't think it's quite right to say that anyone is finite, with only N possibilities after which their story is over. To learn anything is to learn also about ourselves. And we won't really know whether we want or do not want some change to ourselves until it faces us (and vice versa). Best, and thanks for your message Thomas Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=605