Monday, February 13, 2006

How much of myself should I bring to the future?

One of the current unknowns in cryonics is how much fidelity a reanimated person will have in the future, will one be an amnestic clone or a being with full memory and personality?

The future form factor or storage and action platform for the human mind could take several and perhaps multiple forms, hopefully by choice, ranging from dryware to wetware; from non-corporeal computers and virtual reality to different flesh bodies. An early example of diverse purpose-driven flesh body types is portrayed in David Brin’s “Kiln People” as an incidental detail.

How much of me (memory, personality, etc.) do I need to feel like me? Do I even want to feel like the me now in the future? What would I like to save from me now for me of the future? Not all the current me will be relevant in the future (in fact, a risk is that all of me will be irrelevant). If corporeality is irrelevant in the future, many memories can be jettisoned. If the construct of self is absent from the future, large chunks of personality and memory will be irrelevant. Beyond irrelevancy, not all of the current me is desirable in the future. Those quirks are part of my uniqueness, but I would be better without at least some of them, and I could still be me without them, especially in a non-me construct. What kind of journal/manual/guide would I write for the future construct of a reanimated me?

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