Martine Rothblatt on Techno-Immortality:
Lingering objections to mindclones based upon inexactitude simply misunderstand the nature of identity. Identity is a property of continuity. This means that a person’s identity can exist to a greater or lesser extent depending upon the presence or absence of its constituents. We believe that we have the same identity as we grow from teenagers to adults because to a great extent our mannerisms, personality, recollections, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values have been continually present over those years. Of course we have changed, but the changes are on top of bedrock constancy. For the same reason it is not necessary for our mindclone to share every memory with its biological original to have the same identity as that original.
The problem I have is that what we’re really talking about is a copy made of your mind prior to your physical death. Sure, this copy may outlive your ‘first’ mind for millennia to come, but your ‘first’ mind still must die with your body. That mind retains its sense of self and personhood, so there really is no escaping death. You still will die, and will experience death. Given that nobody truly knows what that experience entails beyond the physical experience, it would be foolish to assume that creating a copy is enabling immortality, or at the least, the avoidance of death.
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