Cryonics and the art of the long view

How surprising it is that those with a long view in thinking and behavior are not those with traditional religious beliefs but include sponsors and supporters of the Long Now Foundation and cryonicists. The Long Now Foundation has trans-millennial views on the order of 10,000 years, roughly the forward counterbalance to the history to date of human civilization. Cryonicists, in general, have a practical stance, simultaneously acknowledging the unproven nature of reanimation and assessing and focusing on contributing to the key challenges of the next 200-400 years, as opposed to the 20-50 year (or less) timeframe that appears to be implicit in current individual and political thinking.

Erstwhile cryonicists will do well to remain practically absorbed. It is easy to imagine a long-distanced future visit to the Met, where alongside the Egyptian tombs and mummies, dewars have been emptied to display frozen heads, bodies and pets. Excited expedition excavators from the three key sites, Alcor/Arizona, Cryonics Institute/Michigan and Suspended Animation/Florida pose next to their digs.

Stored possessions and artifacts of the time are neatly arranged in an exhibit with terse placards. "Little is known about the belief systems of these peoples. Middle-era Americans carried many nonmalleable gadgets though it is not clear how useful they were to daily life. It was not atypical for one person to carry cell phones, MP3 players, laptops, power cords, PDAs, cameras, recording devices, cords, batteries and recharging units at all times. [Portable lightweight inexhaustible energy source] was not yet available and devices were not yet appropriately nano-miniaturized and physically embedded."

How much of myself should I bring to the future?

One of the current unknowns in cryonics is how much fidelity a reanimated person will have in the future, will one be an amnestic clone or a being with full memory and personality?

The future form factor or storage and action platform for the human mind could take several and perhaps multiple forms, hopefully by choice, ranging from dryware to wetware; from non-corporeal computers and virtual reality to different flesh bodies. An early example of diverse purpose-driven flesh body types is portrayed in David Brin’s “Kiln People” as an incidental detail.

How much of me (memory, personality, etc.) do I need to feel like me? Do I even want to feel like the me now in the future? What would I like to save from me now for me of the future? Not all the current me will be relevant in the future (in fact, a risk is that all of me will be irrelevant). If corporeality is irrelevant in the future, many memories can be jettisoned. If the construct of self is absent from the future, large chunks of personality and memory will be irrelevant. Beyond irrelevancy, not all of the current me is desirable in the future. Those quirks are part of my uniqueness, but I would be better without at least some of them, and I could still be me without them, especially in a non-me construct. What kind of journal/manual/guide would I write for the future construct of a reanimated me?