Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2003 10:32:39 -0700
From: Michael Andre-Driussi 
Subject: (urth) Typhon's choices

Andrew quoted Roy and wrote:
>> All this casual talk of cloning that's been going on lately from various
>> quarters strikes me as improbable, given what we know of Typhon. He wanted
>> to live forever--and he wanted to do it with the same face he started out
>> with. If cloning had been a workable option available to Typhon, why
>didn't
>> he use it, rather than resort to the bizarre choice of having his own head
>> cut off?
>
>Another gap between New Sun and SS/LS. IMO it would be odd if the Typhon of
>SS/LS could not clone huimans, given the apparent level of genetic
>technology at his command. And as Roy says, if the Typhon of NS could clone,
>and given that he can download personailites, a head transplant doesn't seem
>like the best solution to his problem.

While I'm not myself so interested in "this casual talk of cloning," and
thus do not want to be seen as defending it, still, the point of Roy and
Andrew that Typhon could have used a clone with a personality
implant/download misses what I think is the critical criteria for Typhon
the original biological individual: the continuity of experience.

Damien Broderick covered this quite well in THE SPIKE.  In my own form of
it, I say: the new form has to be a transfer of the old form, not just a
"perfect copy."  That is, the old form (Typhon software) must transfer, as
if pouring wine from one wineglass (body) to another wineglass (body).
Otherwise, in my crude way I continue, one might as well write one's name
on a card, tape this card to a dog, say "There I go!" and then shoot one's
real self--for all the good that a lack of continuity of experience will do
for the old form.

Personality download/body hijacking =is= an option for the computer bound
gods of Mainframe because their "originals" are uploads, scans from
biological people, scans that have a life of their own.

Having one's head surgically grafted onto the hulking body of a slave
(note: body upgrade here) is unambiguously a continuity of experience for
the old form.  One need not waste even a sentence to explain how this "Mona
Lisa" copy is the real "Mona Lisa": it is the "Mona Lisa," period.

=mantis=



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