Re: Afterlife

Yakwax2@aol.com
Wed, 23 Jul 1997 15:20:36 -0400 (EDT)


In a message dated 97-07-22 22:36:56 EDT, Hal Finney wrote:

> > For a rerun to occur (a being that develops so similar to yourself it
carries
> > on your consciousness) the surrounding world would have to be exact in
every
> > detail up to the point of your death (so that the being has the same
memories
> > and 'thinks' it is you).
>
> Not at all, you could be created "from scratch" as an exact match of your
> current body/mind. There is no reason why the surrounding world would
have
> to match. You would experience a discontinuity if the external world
> changed, of course.

I meant 'natural rerun', one which happens to _evolve_ into the same
conscious being as you. For this to happen without outside intervention, the
conditions of the growth would have to be exact to a very high extent. This
idea is flawed however, because if the events before your death where exact
then you would still die (without the intervention of an intelligent being).

> > Simulation as a posthumans recollection of the past, or as an experiment
> > could also rerun dead minds. After simulating the consciousness of our
> > chosen victim, we could then put them into a steady state of evolution
to
> > become fellow posthumans.
>
> Sure, this is the basic thesis of Tipler's "Physics of Immortality". Also
> similar to Hans Moravec's essay in an old issue of Extropy magazine. Ever
> hear of that mag?

Ex-what-tropy? There's a magazine?? Next thing you'll be telling me that
there's a website and FAQ!

> > Preserving yourself at the time of death gives you a smaller time frame
in
> > which to be reincarnated and would hopefully mean you'd have someone
around
> > to tell you what happened.
>
> The real reason is because the universe may not actually be infinite in
> either time or space, or conditions distant from our own may be
sufficiently
> different that we cannot expect to experience infinite (or even many)
> incarnations.

I was just offering a different reason, to say "even though it may be
possible to be ressurected without being preserved, there are still reasons
for it.."

> > In short, even if we are all immortal, it's better to be in control of
your
> > own resurrection (especially if time turns out to be finite, in which
case
> > we're all screwed).
>
> If the infinities do exist, you can only control some fraction of your
> incarnations. I don't see any way to stop someone from reincarnating all
> possible past humans and putting them into Hell.

If you don't die you shouldn't have anything to fear (I doubt that cloned
consciousness would have much effect on you if you are still alive). If you
do die you could be resurrected for all kinds of reasons. The moral of this
stroy is: never piss off a transhuman!

How much does time effect your incarnations? For instance, could your
consciousness end in the present and continue in the past? or has that been
in Extropy magazine already??

--Wax