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From: Lippard.Multics@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Matter Transmission/identity on file
Message-ID: <3645@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Fri, 13-Sep-85 08:30:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.3645
Posted: Fri Sep 13 08:30:36 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Sep-85 05:44:54 EDT
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From: "James J. Lippard" <Lippard@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA>

[Keith Lynch:]
>>    Postultimate thought: if you put yourself on file could
>>    you ever truly die?
>>
>>  Sure.  If all the copies get wiped out.  Just as books,
>>music, and computer data can become irretrievably lost.  The
>>more copies, and in the more places, the better.  Keep one
>>in another solar system (it's called supernova insurance).

[Mark Leeper:]
> I think that there is a misconception here.  Your species remains
> reconstructable while your genetic code is on file, but you do not.

*If* just the genetic code is on file.  If all the information about
your identity was put on file, you *could* come back.  In fact, there
could be more than one of you.  This is assuming a materialist point
of view--if there's a soul which flies away at death then the copy
isn't the same.

Jim Lippard (Lippard at MIT-MULTICS.ARPA)


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