When I started taking hormones in order to fix the sorry state my body was in I really didn’t think they would change me much in the realm of personal identity. And there really hasn’t been any earthshaking alterations, not sure if that is because my brain architecture was already mostly female or because hormones don’t cause many changes, but the amount of small subtle changes and a few moderate ones that added up to make me a almost a completely different person. I may have some other flaws that make it difficult for me to form a personal identity but I think it is next to impossible to maintain a coherent personal identity while going through this type of change.
The first thing I think a newly minted girl would notice is that everything smells different. And these smells effect the way you think in interesting ways, such as altering what type of foods you enjoy by changing how they taste. Let’s not even get into smelling other people. That alone has caused my sexual orientation to flip-flop back and forth so much that I am just confused.
To pack all this into a single jolt would likely destroy any hope of sanity in the near future. So I can see Eliezer’s problem here pretty clearly, still struggling to keep my own self from going loopy. Yep.
To me cryonics causes a stark panic inducing terror that is only alittle less than death itself and I would never in a million years do it if I used my own judgment on the matter but I decided that Eliezer probably knows more than me on this subject and that I should trust his judgement above my own. So i am in the process of signing up now. Seems much less expensive than I imagined also.
This is at least one skill I have tried to cultivate until I grew more educated myself; the ability to export my judgement consciously to another person. Thinking for yourself is great to learn new things and practice thinking skills but since I am just starting out I am trying to build solid mindset so its kinda silly for me to think I can provide one to myself by myself without tons wasted effort when I could just use one of the good ones that are already available.
I would probably be more likely to try such a thing if I was younger but I am getting started abit late and need a leg up. Though I do guess the idea is abit risky but on an inituitve level it seems less risky than trusting my own judgement which is generally scared of everything. Yep.