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From: cw@madvax.UUCP (Carl Weidling)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Who are you?
Message-ID: <344@madvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Sep-85 12:17:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: madvax.344
Posted: Fri Sep 27 12:17:46 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 3-Oct-85 05:46:14 EDT
References: <3773@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Organization: Varian, Walnut Creek, CA
Lines: 43

> From: "pugh jon%e.mfenet"@LLL-MFE.ARPA
> 
> 
> assume it works on life though.  Creatures notice no ill effects and people
> feel continuous through the process.
> 
> What we have here is a way of spawning processes...
> this template will feel like they are the original, except that they should
> know they are copies from a discontinuity in the surroundings.  There is
> ...
> I wonder about their first words.  Would they all say the same thing after 
> walking out of the machine?  Would it be the same thing the original said?
> How quickly would they pick up on the fact they were not the original?
> 
> What if there are a bunch of you walking around?  How do you identify the 
> original?...
> decide who got to live again?  Popular vote?  Elvis Lives?
> 
> The point I'm trying to make, I guess, is that cheating death may be fun, but 
> it's not a really sensible long term solution to life.  After all, you still
> have to die, each and every replication.  Why put yourself through that pain
> again {, and again}?
> 
> Jon Pugh


	A science fiction novel that explores some of these ideas has the
misleading title "Rogue Moon".  It is by Alfred Bester.  A man is run through
a machine that sends all the info on him to a station on the moon.  Two copies
of him now exist, one on earth, one on the moon, tapes can also be made.  For
awhile the two copies are in telepathic content.  The people want to keep them
in telepathic content as long as possible because the moon copy is figuring
out a deadly maze and constantly getting killed, but all his experiences,
including his death, are experienced and remembered by the earthly copy.

	An interesting story by Clifford Simak, concerns a double created to
perform a deadly mission.  The double doesn't know it's a double and is
supposed to be rubbed out when the job is done.  Simak has said that this is
the most vicious story he ever wrote, and that it is no wonder it is the only
one ever put on television.  It was done in an "Outer Limits" episode.

				Regards,
				Carl Weidling


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