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From: push@mit.edu (Pushpinder Singh)
Subject: Re: Minsky's new article
Message-ID: <push-1811940209100001@mind.mit.edu>
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References: <39bl8t$gjs@cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu> <39f9ruINNbo1@life.ai.mit.ed <burt.784712857@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca>
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 07:09:10 GMT
Lines: 38

In article <burt.784712857@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca>,
burt@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Burt Voorhees) wrote:

> An interesting term, deathworshipper...,
> Presumably it is used to refer to people
> such as yourself, and all of us others,
> who don't buy into the vision of immortality
> achieved by downloading our minds onto a mainframe.
> But, one could do a bit of analysis around the
> term.  Starting out with the question of
> personal identity.  It seems to me that
> only a person with an inordinant identification
> with their own ego could have such a vision
> of immortality, and of course, the ego lives
> (to the extent that such a mechanical construct
> can live) in terror of death.  So, to cover that
> terror, it constructs fantasies, and attacks
> anybody who questions the beliefs on which thosse
> fantasies are based.  A sorry case of mis-identification
> if you ask me, and it suggests that the barb of
> deathworshipper is actually pointing in the other
> direction.
> 
> bv

Think what you will about Minsky's visions of immortality, but your
insolence was completely uncalled for.  As for death, do you not
"worship" death in some way, if you do not believe it is worthwhile
to live longer, or forever?  It seems a reasonable term, and that it
is provocative is I think a good thing.

And is there nothing out there that excites you, no subjects to learn,
no masterpieces to create, no ideas to develop, no work to be done that
will no doubt take longer than you have left to complete?  Really, it
saddens me that people think life extension is a bad thing.  It just
shows how jaded they have become.

-push
