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Interview with Robert Ettinger
by G.P., March 22, 2002
We offer you this
interview with Robert Ettinger, the visionary thinker and writer who, with his
two seminal works "The Prospect of Immortality" and "Man into Superman",
contributed to building strong foundations for modern transhumanist thinking.
Bob is also the pragmatic businessman who founded the Cryonics Institute and
kept it afloat in difficult times. The Cryonics Institute is today one of the
two major cryonics service providers. In this interview we discuss Bob's views
on the status of cryonics today, mind uploading, and the problem of identity.
Please see the web site of the Cryonics Institute (http://www.cryonics.org) for
more information.
Q - "By working
hard and saving my money, I intend to become an immortal superman". This
first line from the preface to "Man into Superman" is frequently quoted
as a great opening line, but is it to be taken seriously? Do you really
think that we, here and now, have the option to become immortal
supermen?
A - It was a bad
line--and a bad book--from the standpoint of selling cryonics. Most
people think radical change is either impossible or frightening. Even
"immortality" sounds too grandiose, although I use it merely in the
sense of eliminating "natural" death. But it is true that, if we live
long enough, radical change is almost certain.
Q - Now many have
heard of cryonics, but it was not so when you wrote "The Prospect of
Immortality" in 1962. Did you develop your ideas entirely by yourself,
or did you use the work of earlier scientists and writers? What were
your sources?
A - I believe I
was the first to put it all together in an organized way, but of course
there were many precursors. In particular, suspended animation is an old
theme, at least in fiction. Reversal of aging had rarely been taken
seriously. The relativity of death, and sub-micro repair capabilities,
were also ideas seldom encountered.
Q - Your wife is
cryonically suspended, and you have declared your intention to also be
"frozen". Do you believe you will see her again? When?
A - Actually, both
my wives are among our patients now. I think we have a good chance of
revival within 50-200 years. And to the inevitable question of what
happens if all three of us are revived, I usually remind people of the
old saying--the rich have their problems and the poor have their
problems, but the rich have a better class of problems. If we are all
revived, I will consider that a very high class problem.
Q - Since you
founded the Cryonics Institute, it has grown into one of the two main
cryonics service providers, the other being Alcor. In one sentence, how
would you differentiate your service offering from Alcor's?
A - That's a
complicated question, and I'll just refer the readers to our web site,
where we discuss it in detail (www.cryonics.org). This is a rapidly
changing arena. CI is the only cryonics organization with a full time
professional cryobiologist (Dr. Yuri Pichugin) as director of research.
Q - The Cryonics
Institute charges 28.000 US dollars for full suspension to life members.
What are the hidden costs? Is there a catch?
A - No hidden
costs. About $20,000 of the suspension fee is invested to produce income
for long term maintenance. (We also have other sources of revenue.) At
revival time, that $20,000 will be freed up for revival and
rehabilitation, and we expect our general resources to increase over
time as well.
Q - Why don't you
offer a cheaper head only option?
A - We think the
"neuro" option is a negative for public relations, and in many cases for
prospective members' intra-family relations.
Q - Your operating
model is having on call teams and funeral houses able to ensure the
short response times required. Have you thought of alternatives, for
example a hospital for terminally ill patients with on site cryonic
suspension facilities and personnel?
A - The closest we
can come to that at present is to have the patient die under hospice
care, which works very well.
Q - What happens
to suspended patients if the Cryonics Institute has to cease its
activities due to financial problems?
A - We are
probably the soundest financially of all the organizations. In
unforeseen emergencies or contingencies we will just do the best we can
for the patients. I cannot envision any realistic scenario that would
shut us down, short of nuclear war or a plague.
Q - It has been
said that funding cryonic suspension with an insurance policy can be a
problem for Europeans. Do you think this is true? Does the Cryonics
Institute accept funding by non US insurance companies? Can Europeans
choose any insurance company, or must it be a company that has specific
agreements with the Cryonics Institute?
A - No problem
that we have encountered so far, and no agreement between CI and the
insurance company needed. (Alcor for a while refused to accept foreign
insurance, but has reversed course on that.)
Q - Anther worry
for Europeans is the time between death and the arrival of a qualified
cryonic team. In Europe you rely on the services of a funeral house in
London. Can you confirm that they can fly anywhere in Europe with a few
hours notice?
A - Albin's can
usually get anywhere in Europe within a few hours, if previous
arrangements have been made. Local funeral directors can also be lined
up. There is also a British volunteer group that can help in some cases.
Q - I believe
European branches of a cryonics service provider, physically located in
the country and familiar with the local medical and legal systems, could
do much to facilitate solving these and other problems. Does the
Cryonics Institute have any plans to establish European branches?
A - Volume will
not support a storage facility in Europe any time soon. Initial
preparation facilities do exist as previously mentioned, and will be
improved from time to time.
Q - Do you think
"The First Immortal" by J. Halperin gives a realistic account of how
things may be? Do you recommend reading the book to those who are
considering cryonics? What other fiction would you recommend?
A - His treatment
of the (then) present was well researched. His conjectures about the
future were reasonable but of course still conjectures. There have been
countless books and stories involving cryonics, a few of them centered
on cryonics. One of the most recent is PALMER LAKE, a murder mystery by
Thomas C. McCollum III (Shoji Books, Charlottesville VA).
Q - In "Man into
Superman" (1972) you were already thinking of the concept that is now
described as "mind uploading". Referring to suggestions made by Arthur
Clarke, you wrote "human personalities will be copied and stored
electronically, perhaps in several locations, conferring essential
immortality and near invulnerability", but then expressed your lack of
enthousiasm for this concept: "... assuming that identity is preserved
when this is far from clear". Did you do any further thinking in the
last 30 years? What is "identity"?
A - The problem of
identity, or criteria of survival, has not been solved. I doubt that a
computer could live (have subjective experiences), but the discussion is
a long one. Yes, I have written a good deal on that in recent years.
Q - Even with no
evidence, I am willing to bet that identity (whatever that is) is
preserved by "running" a brain scan sufficiently complete. I also think
that while the technology to "run" the brain scan may not be available
for some decades, the technology to acquire it may be available much
sooner, perhaps in one decade. So can brain mapping develop into a
viable alternative to cryonics?
A - See above.
It's possible, but in my opinion unlikely, even in principle.
Q - Will the
Cryonics Institute offer brain mapping/storage services when the
technology becomes available, perhaps as an add on to cryonics services?
A - That's not
something we worry about now.
Q - Your life work
has been dedicated to ensuring the survival of the self after death,
using technologies available today. Did you stop to think that perhaps
the survival of the self is already ensured, either by some unknown
natural mechanism or by the purposeful intervention of a future "Omega
Point" civilization able to exploit vastly superior technologies to
reach into the past and "rescue" stranded minds?
A - I have
discussed many of these possibilities in various venues, and in my book
in progress, YOUNIVERSE. Some scientists believe that "you" are already
immortal, with many versions of you alive right now, and in the past and
future, in various forms or in various "universes." But these ideas
remain speculative, while cryonics is by comparison down-to-earth
practical.
Q - I hear you are
writing a new book. What can you tell us about it?
A - It is
primarily a book of philosophy in the classic sense, which has never
heretofore been realized--viz., to provide personal guidance based on
rigorous science.
After the
interview Bob Ettinger sent the short note below to clarify his views on
the problem of identity:
In preface, if you
were vaporized in an explosion, but then somehow rebuilt with high
fidelity, would "you" survive? There is no agreement--plenty of
opinions, but no proof one way or the other. Maybe the question itself
has little meaning. It's just too soon to be sure. Involved are
questions about the nature of time and other hard problems.
But today's topic
is whether "you" could survive as a computer simulation or emulation,
and the case for this is much weaker--so weak that I think the answer is
almost surely negative. In a nutshell, the negative case can be made in
either of the following two summaries:
1. The map is not
the territory.
2. A description
of a thing (or an event) is not the same as the thing or event itself,
and not "just as good" except for limited applications.
A map may be just
a piece of paper with some marks on it. The marks can be interpreted to
provide information about the corresponding territory. In some cases,
the map is better than the territory--e.g. if you are traveling by car,
a map is more useful than an aerial view of the terrain, since the
aerial view has no street labels etc. But no matter how detailed the map
is, or how often it is updated, it is not the same as the territory; you
can't walk or live in it. (Yes, extremists may claim that a "map person"
or description of a person could "live" in a map, but that is just an
empty assertion.)
A computer
simulation or emulation of a person is very much like this. All the
digital computer does is generate successive sets of numbers, which can
be interpreted as descriptions of a person and his activities and even
feelings. But no matter how detailed and faithful, it is still just a
description. A Mickey Mouse cartoon shows "feelings" on a character's
face, but the character as well as the feeling is counterfeit.
Now the extreme
position of the "uploaders" or "isomorphists" is that correspondence
(isomorphism) is everything--nothing matters except relationships
between symbols. A pool of water simulated in a computer won't get you
wet, but it will seem wet to a simulated person, they say. But this is
only a conjecture or postulate, not proof of anything.
There are many
other problems with the isomorphist position, of which I'll mention just
one before stopping. That is the nature of qualia or feelings or
subjective experiences. The essence of life as we know it is in feeling,
the capability of subjective experience.
Its
anatomy/physiology are not yet known; it is in some subset or aspect of
the brain and its activities. But it clearly must bind (span) space and
time; a quale cannot exist at a geometrical point or an instant in time.
Possibly it is something like a modulated standing wave of some sort.
But until we know what it is, it is premature to assume that it can be
duplicated outside of organic matter, let alone as an abstraction in a
computer.
We can speculate
until the cows come home, and one speculation is that we are right now
just simulations in some super-being's computer. (There are ways to
check on that, however.) But common sense dictates we use what is
likeliest and easiest, and that means to try to save yourselves through
cryonics, not vague hopes of uploading.
Transhumanity
magazine,
http://www.transhumanism.com. Copyright © 2002 World Transhumanist
Association,
http://www.transhumanism.org. Unless otherwise noted, this material
may be freely copied or republished provided this copyright notice is
reproduced in full.
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