[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kristin A. Ruhle) wrote:
>Remember this is a guy who has lived his entire life with a genetic
>duplicate (twin) and I think most of us singleton people can't imagine
>exactly what that is like. I sure can't but I'm willing to buy that it
>changes your whole perspective on "selfhood." when they were little kids
>he and his brother were very hard for others to tell apart but each one
>knew who he was as distinct from the other one.
Speculating wildly here... and certainly not claiming to know anything of
the experience...
What if, instead, this gave him an *overdeveloped* sense of self?
Unlike us singletons, twins face this risk of being confused with another
person. So they're forced to elaborate, internally, on their distinction. If
I woke up tomorrow and everyone called me "Bob", but didn't expect me to be
any different, would that change me? Would it affect me as much as two twins
who were nominally switched? I would consider it weird, but not necessarily
an affront on my self-hood.
Does a twin focus on the differences rather than the sameness? I know I
won't be the same person a year from now, but on the other hand I won't be
that different. A 50-year-old writer and his twin are effectively separated
by 100 years of distinct history, which is an awful lot. I wouldn't really
accept a 5-year-old copy of myself as useful continuity. 6-months, maybe.
>(Really creepy
>suggestion: what if you duplicated someone who was still *alive*? Say by
>putting their pattern in t he Star Trek transporter?)
Or doing a process fork on an upload.
Oddly, there's a National Film Board of Canada *cartoon* about
duplicating/transporting people that addresses all of these issues. Yes, a
cartoon. (Of course, they also have one on probability theory. The NFB is
cool.) One of the more amusing bits is where the scientist hops into the
teleporter and zaps from here to there. An observer asks what happened to
the original - and the scientist says it's killed, and opens the door so she
can watch. The scientist then proceeds to take 10-odd trips through the
device, and each time the original is subjected to a grizzly death -
blender, laser beam, flamethrowers, etc.
Then they set a delay on the death-dealing devices, so the original has a
chance to see the copy and come to terms with imminent death before being
slaughtered.
(That's supposedly not what happens of Star Trek, though. I have a FAQ if
you're curious:
http://members.aa.net/~skeksis/Star_Trek/FAQs/transport-faq.html - although
it's in deperate need of updating.)
>anyway I don't think sleep is really that totally uncionscious, here
>is awareness of time passing on some level, plus dreaming.
There's certainly something going on which is affecting memory and using all
sorts of brain bits.
>as opposed to
>something like a deep coma...or anesthesia, where you have no dreams or
>memory of *anything* happening, from your point of view it is as if you
>had been dead for awhile! however, people do come out of these with their
>continuity/selfhood intact. however it doesn't involve total braindeath,
>so perhaps there's a sort of 'continuity wave' (to coin a horrible and
>really meaningless term but do you know what I am getting at?) that is
>operating as long as there is *any* brain activity, and that's where you
>get the continuity from?
Or, you are your memories and that's all that matters. We think it's
consciousness, but we lose that routinely and we don't really know what that
is.
I'm starting to have a hard time watching ER - every time someone dies I
feel like shouting at the screen "chop off their head! chop off the head and
freeze it!"
> > In short, I respectfully disagree. His copy is based upon a much older
> > version of his state. It's as if saying, "we'll upload you, but then
>erase
> > the memories and personality of the copy until shortly the period
>shortly
> > after birth, and also send it backwards in time". That's not very useful
> > continuity.
> >
>huh? why that assumptin? (I didn't read the article...)
He compares his experience being a twin to being uploaded, which seems
mostly bogus to me.
>I think there is such a thing as a deep primitive fear of dying in your
>sleep, at least as a kid I tended to be afraid of it. my mom would say so
>what? you wouldn't know the difference, but I intuitively *knew* sleep
>wasn't death!
Your mom sounds cool. :)
>i've read that patients about to be anesthetized may be
>apprehensive because they're afraid they won't wake up; it's a pretty
>common fear.
I can't blame them. But having thought about this, I'd rather die not
knowing it was coming and save myself those few seconds of anticipation and
panic. But maybe it's the anticipation that's the worry.
>Let's look at another thing.
Which I'd love to, but I have to keep this message short. I think a segue
into a discussion of religious thoughts on immortality is a good thing. I'm
a terrible person to partake, though, being raised atheist. By all means -
everybody leap in!
>other sects argue that dead is dead but when the
>world/universe ends everyone will be resurrected (the day of judgment),
>which is a bit less incompatible with science, you can say God has an
>infinite-capacity computer and uploads everybody anyway!
On that "rants" page I posted a while back there was a great quote about
Titanic...
"After she dies, she is taken down one of those tunnels of light that all
the fashionable near-death experiences are wearing this year. In 'heaven'
she is reunited with the poor boy who saved her in life all those years ago
(which must be rather galling for her husband of forty or fifty years. )" -
http://www.aslan.demon.co.uk/titanic.htm
Joshua
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
