| Cryonics has offered much material for mirth. In a BBC interview, Dennis Potter, describes how he had his doctor maintain him at a level of morphine to control the pain from his cancer so that he could continue working on two screen plays for television - Karaoke and Cold Lazarus. In the latter, his head is preserved through cryonics, and his life experience is uploaded some centuries later. In a recent documentary, Timothy Leary's Dead, we see a group of doctors cut off Tim's head and place it in a refrigerated box. Was this simply Leary's Last Laugh?
There has been some recent excitement about cloning. However, even if we were able to clone ourselves, our somewhat belated twins would not have had the XX years of experience we have had in the interval. They may have the same nature but not the same nurture. The important issue is how we could pass this experience on to them. They would share the great conception-day gift of our phylogenetic memory but not our ontogenetic memory. We can't show them our whole mind movie. It has taken a lifetime to make it and they have a life of their own to lead. How could it be compressed so that they can benefit from our experience?
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