Make up Your Mind:  The Legal Identity of Transbemans With More Than One Presence

Martine Rothblatt

4th Colloquium on the

Law of Futuristic Persons

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Whatsa Transbeman?

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Keeping it Straight

Sex

Transgender

Human

Transbeman

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A Modest Legal Proposal

• Copies of a Mind Are The Same Mind Until Proven Differently

• Therefore, One Mind, One Vote, One Continuous Being Across Time & Space

• How Prove Differently?– The Transgender “Real Life Test”– Persuade Two [Cyber]psychologists– Obtain Judicial Order of Cyberbirth– Multi-Year Immigration Process from Res Nullius

to Jus Civile (Satisfy INS You’ll Be Unique Citizen)

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Critiques

• Isn’t This Process Slow?– Yes, but so is growing up & naturalization– Cultivation improves appreciation

• Won’t Some “Mindclones” Pass the “Real Life Test”– Yes, but it doesn’t really matter– Many incompetents have citizenship– Cyberpsychology Certification Standards will

diminish the problem– Naturalization-from-Cyberspace Procedures will

diminish the problem

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Transbeman Minds Are Like Human Minds

“Each of us is a bundle of fragments of other people’s souls, simply put together in a new way.” Douglas Hofstadter, I Am A Strange Loop, p. 252

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Since We Let Humans Birth New Flesh Minds…

Why not also let them birth new non-flesh minds?

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A Mind is a

• Being

• Soul

• Person

• Human

• Transbeman

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Every Mind Is

• A Mixture of Other Minds

• Not Wholly Independent

• Not of Purely Free Will

• In Constant Synchronization With Friends and Family

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So On this International Human Rights Day

• Let me conclude with a variation on one of the most famous quotes of one of the most famous human rights advocates:

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Transbeman Minds Should Be Treated the Same As Flesh Minds

• “I dream of a day when my four children will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

• “I dream of a day when my four children will be judged not by the absence of their skin but by the content of their character.”

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Take Home Messages

• Human rights, such as citizenship, should flow to those who value them, regardless of their physiology…or lack thereof

• Practical solutions exist for multi-presenced bemans and transbemans:– Real Life / Cyberpsychological Tests– Naturalization/Immigration Procedures