X-Message-Number: 10088 Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 10:45:45 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #10080 - #10084 Hi to Olaf (and everyone else, of course): You're likely to be right when you say that most people want a future. On the other hand, I understood you to be giving a statement about why ANYONE would want to be suspended. I continue to believe that the desire to be suspended comes from a desire to continue living. That is not "rational" in the sense that no amount of logic can decide the question of whether or not to continue living, even for the next 5 minutes. Somehow, though, almost all people want to do that. It is in that sense that the desire for suspension is always emotional. My own belief (which comes from encounters with various people) is that many people spend almost their whole lives in a low-level depression, and would not want to continue those lives indefinitely. Just telling them of the wonders of the future is unlikely to help very much at all. If you are not one of those people, that's fine, and your interest in cryonics comes (a bit) from that. I'll add that I find your 2 postings confusing when put together. First we are to give rational reasons for suspension, rather than emotional ones. Second we are to provide a picture of the future for people, so that they will want to live in that future --- an appeal to the emotions, as I understand it. Perhaps you cut up the world into categories differently than I do, but rightly or wrongly I read one posting as contradicting the other. If you can find the time to explain I'd appreciate that. I'm serious here --- I can't work out what you are really saying. Best and long long life, Thomas Donaldson PS: And if you can get a miniaturized brain, so can I. What will happen is not that one of us will become superior to the other, but that neither of us will depend on inherited abilities for what we can do. That's interesting. It's not exactly a leveller --- we'll both probably find that we want to do different things, and grow to be able to do them. And if anyone wants to set up a hierarchy of abilities, it will really have to base itself not on any innate inherited abilities but on what different people WANT to do --- but even wanting to set up such a hierarchy will by then seem silly. AS if I am to be inferior to you because I like cherry pie rather than blueberry pie. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10088