X-Message-Number: 10023 From: Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 17:23:42 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: Plausibility Reply to Charles Platt, #10016: (note: I hereby abandon the * * and _ _ nerdish "nettiquete" nonsense. CAPS emphasize easily in a medium which is purely visible. If you think I am impolitely "SHOUTING", turn down your computer speakers. I am typing, not speaking.) What a strange ad hominum (below) you are making. Are you suggesting that we must BELIEVE those who proclaimed WITHOUT LOOKING CLOSER that the anomaly on Mars CAN'T be artifical? How could they KNOW in advance it was IMPOSSIBLE? It IS faith or belief to say, as did the medieval Church fathers, that there is no need to look since God has already given us the only truth. By the way, can YOU be certain even now, that non-human intelligent life is impossible off earth? If so, HOW do you know this? I do not know this and, not knowing in advance what was actually on Mars, was quite pleased to get a closer look. If there is or was non-human intelligent life somewhere off-earth, there might be evidence someday discovered of same. If someone can't accept this simple proposition I wonder why? It seems not that strange to me. If possessing curiousity condemns one to being a "problem" in the cryonics movement, we must stop freezing human beings and limit ourselves to cats and dogs. On second thought, I am wrong. Cats and dogs evidence curiousity as well. My wider point is that most important decisions remain made by people for emotional reasons, not due to scientific (or priestly) authority. The fax machine was first invented over two hundred years ago. Ask IBM why it comitted to mainframe computers instead of desktops. Was it cool reason or emotion? Television was developed and used by Nazi Germany but required emotional promotion (not scientific acceptance) to finally become popular more than ten years later. The examples go on and on but the ongoing worldwide and evidently timeless existence of salespeople who are regularly trained in emotional persuasion is nothing to ignore. Their success tells us something important about human nature. You will have your "scientific" authoritative endorsements AFTER cryonics has brought back to life suspended human beings. None of those brought back will be the current authority figures, for those lock-step group-think panderers to the status quo of their "scientism" guilds will have all died years before. Those who survive will be those who were moved to TAKE THE RISK. I consider myself one of the risk-takers. Emotional persuasion moves the markets of the world, like it or not. Additionally, Linus Pauling was a Nobel Prize winner and yet if you read the ridiculous protocals for those "respected" fellow scientists who then "tested" his claims regarding cancer and vit C, you find that it isn't enough to be a respected leader in the religious community. You must above all not be seen as a heretic. -George Smith >> On a more popular level, the so-called "face on Mars" might have been >> the first solid evidence >> for extraterrestrial life, but NASA scientists didn't >> even want to look because they somehow >> "knew" (oh, to be omniscient like >> them!) that it couldn't be artificial. > >This is another reason why the acceptance of cryonics will be delayed >pending authoritative endorsements. So long as it is promoted by people >who are willing to believe in the Face On Mars, we have a real problem, >here. > >--Charles Platt >CryoCare Foundation > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- Peace on Earth ... one mind at a time. THE ANGER CURE (tm) http://www.netcom.com/~smithid/angercure.html ----------------------------------------------- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10023