Hofstadter, Dennett - The Mind's I

Beyond Rejection 244blue-eyed girl in her midteens. She was looking straight into his eyes. through them.Something ... He went on."Which means if he or she is lucky and there's estate money, you’ve got someonewho has to face all the ordinary problems of rejection that come in trying to match ayoung mind with what is almost certain to a middle-aged body. But also the implant hasall those problems multiplied by another. The implant has to deal with a world that istwenty year' in the future. And a `career' that is meaningless because he lacks the memoryand skills that his old mind picked up over that twenty years."More likely, you'll get the real blowout. You'll get massive rejection psychosisand premature essential senility, and death. Real, final mind death.""But you would still have the person's tape, their software, as you cal it," said Ms.Pedersen. "Couldn't you just try again, with another blank body?" She still had her handsoff her young man."Two problems. First"-he stuck his index finger in the air-"you got to realize howvery difficult it is for a mind and a body to make match, even with all the help ussomaticians and psycheticians can pro vide, the best that modern biopsychologicalengineering can put together. Even with a really creative harmonizer to get in there andmake the structure jell. Being reborn is very hard work indeed."And the failure rate under ordinary circumstances-tapes up-t date, good stablemind, decent recipient body-is about twenty percent And we know that it jumps toninety-five percent if there's a second time around. It's nearly that bad the first time if yougot someone whose tapes are twenty years out of date. The person may get through thefirst fe days all right but he can't pull himself into reality. Everything he know was losttwenty years ago. No friends, no career, everything out of shape Then the mind will rejectits new body just as it rejects the new world i has woken up to. So you don't have muchof a chance. Unless, of course you're the rare nympher or still rarer leaper."Second, the Government underwrites the cost of the first implants, tion. Ofcourse, they don't pay for a fancy body-a nympher body, that is. You'd pay more than twomillion credits for one of those beauties. You get what's available and you are lucky ifyou get it within a year or two What the Government underwrites is the basic operationand tuning job That alone costs one and a half million or so. Enough to pay my salary fora hundred years. Enough to send the half-dozen or so of you on the Cunard Line UraniumJubilee All-Planets Tour in first class."Austin had been moving over to the treadmill control console whi speaking. As hefinished, his audience noticed a large structure descend. ing from the ceiling just over thejogging figure, Sally Cadmus's body. It