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
-----------------------------------------------

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