X-Message-Number: 8037
Date:  Thu, 10 Apr 97 12:50:37 
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #8030

I'll try to address the main questions and issues raised in Mike C.'s 
posting, #8030, which refers to my posting, #8020.

>>
>>Cryonics offers the possibility of extended life in a state of mental
>> alertness. 
>
>I had not heard it offerred mental alertness, please explain.
>
We in cryonics are looking forward to, not merely reanimation 
(assuming the procedure is successful of course) but reanimation
in a state of good health, which certainly includes mental alertness.

>It seems to me a seat refers to a localized( spacially compacted) area
>where a majority of thought occurrs. Like saying the brain stem thinks
>but not as much as the Hypothamamus (is that correct?).

"In the right direction," but it overlooks some difficulties. A more 
rigorous approach, which I've tried to suggest but perhaps haven't 
been clear enough about, is to define the seat of consciousness as 
the *minimal* brain region, *some part of which* is always active 
when the subject is "conscious." (Deciding in turn when the subject 
should be considered conscious is another matter, but we assume it 
can be done.)

>>
>>Thus, we are no more 
>>aware of the psychic field associated with our own cortex, for 
>>example, than we are of the psychic field associated with someone
>>else's cortex." [quoted from *The Hedonistic Neuron* by A. Harry 
>>Klopf, p. 53] 
>
>What is the range?

The range of the "psychic field"?--sorry, I don't know.

>>Now, suppose we go further in our speculation and allow that future
>>posthumans will also find no use for human historical information,
>>and so will even discard that. If that is allowed, then effectively
>>we are dead meat because what are our personal details except human
>>historical information of a certain type? So really our very
>>survival--as posthuman continuers of our present selves--depends on
>>historical information (certain information at any rate) being
>>regarded as valuable enough to be preserved indefinitely.
>
>I place more emphasis on continuing the processing of info 
>than on what has been processed.
>I do realize uses of knowledge of the past, 
>but need roots in the present.
>
Both "continuing to process" and remembrance of the past are 
essentials of survival, I feel. I wouldn't place "more emphasis" on 
one than the other, at least for the more extreme scenarios.
You certainly need to continue to process, i.e. 
to continue to be conscious (or to continue to awaken after 
each period of unconsciousness). But if you allow arbitrary changes in 
your past info (jettisoning it or replacing it with other info) you 
could change into another being entirely. Derek Parfit for example, 
in *Reasons and Persons*, invokes a scenario in which he is gradually 
changed into a copy of Greta Garbo. Clearly not the same person and 
he, Derek Parfit, hasn't survived, even if somehow there was total 
continuity of consciousness the whole time. That's my view at any 
rate. 

>>As for me, I have fond memories of learning and doing math,
>>that I hope will survive in my 
>>posthuman period; this definitely includes comprehension of what I
>>was doing! If I should change my mind later and want to discard these
>>things, you could raise the question whether it is still "me."
>
>I do not care too much if I am still me,

Basically, you do not care too much about survival as I view it. Are 
you interested in cryonics?

Mike Perry

http://www.alcor.org

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