Re: Vale, William Donald Hamilton, FRS (1936-2000)

From: Zero Powers (zero_powers@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Mar 18 2000 - 22:34:31 MST


>From: Spudboy100@aol.com
>
>Well one form of denial is relgion, simply because its a way of dealing
>with
>frustration with an intolerable situation. One observation is that what
>happens if a person is away from their cryo tank when the end comes?

Hey, there are no guarantees. If I happen to be in Mozambique when I come
down with a bad case of sudden death, chances are I will have missed the
train. But for just that reason, I don't plan to do much traveling out of
range of my cryo-rescue team once I get to the old and feeble stage of my
life.

>What
>about family and friends, are ya "ok" with the big goodbye to them, as long
>as you survive?

I love my friends and family to pieces and would love for them to reach the
promised land with me. But they are mostly deep into the theistic deathist
meme and consider me to be the heretic black sheep of the family. So far no
luck convincing anybody I know and love to consider taking a shot at
immortality. So, yeah, I'd love them to come along, but if I have to I'm
prepared to go it alone.

>It may not be a choice, however, I am desiring the BIG
>solution as profferd by Moravec and Tipler. So far there has a paucity of
>any
>other thinkers exploring this area with any usuable ideas. Maybe it does
>not
>exist?

What is the BIG solution? Is that the resurrection of everybody who has
ever lived? I've heard a little bit of discussion on that. But I'm not
convinced. In order to do that it seems to me that you'd have to recreate
almost all of a person's subjective experiences. Sure a lot can be inferred
from accurate data about the person's recorded or remembered words and
deeds. But once the brain has undergone dissolution, the great majority of
its patterns are in all likelihood lost forever. I'd like to think it ain't
so, but I just can't wrap my brain around any convincing argument to that
effect.

-Zero

"I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past"
--Thomas Jefferson

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:05:48 MDT