X-Message-Number: 10129
From: 
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 15:38:10 EDT
Subject: validity of goals

The people mentioned below posted on the usenet anti-aging group, but the
discussion is relevant here.

Paul Chefurka said, "Everyone's goals are different, aren't they?" and "The
thought of lifespan for its own sake is repugnant to me," and " dying in my
bed of old age at 95 would be just fine " and mentioned his grandmother who
was satisfied to die, with virtually no previous discomfort, at age 94. He
also wondered whether the life-extensionists will still want another 40 years
when they are 90.

What Mr. Chefurka overlooks--along with most people--is that what you want, or
think you want, or think you will want, may be quite different from what you
OUGHT to want, based on underlying biology and rational analysis. 

To illustrate this point, I often cite a letter to Ann Landers, in which a
woman complained that her husband wanted sex and she didn't. Her problem, as
she saw it, was how to get her husband to leave her in peace. Her real
problem, of course, was how to learn how to enjoy sex in a normal manner, or
to cure whatever caused her negative feelings.

Is there anything wrong with being satisfied to die quietly of old age?
Certainly! It is simply the failure to realize that--given an optimistic
assessment of probable futures--your prospects for growth and joy will be even
greater at 90 than they were at any previous age. Mr. Chefurka's grandmother
thought she had seen, done, and felt enough--but that was merely because of
her limitations of understanding, not to mention her lack of youthful
hormones. What she had seen, done, and felt was trifling compared with future
potential.

To be sure, those who want little are less exposed to stress and
disappointment--but who would trade places with the proverbial contented cow?

As to the feelings of actual people at advanced ages, the oldest Cryonics
Institute patient was over 100 at time of legal death, and still wanted more.
I am no less greedy at 79 than at any earlier age. Granted, people in cryonics
are not typical, but I insist that we are the norm. Remember that "normal"
basically means right or healthy, not average or typical.

In a vaguely similar vein, Jennifer P.  says she is interested in tomorrow,
and being frozen and then revived much later would only allow her to read
about "tomorrow."  But surely, after reflection, she will not insist that she
is only interested in very nearby tomorrows. After all, there will always be
another tomorrow.  If you are interested in the tomorrow after July 27, 1998,
then why not the tomorrow after July 27, 2098?

Present and referenced company excepted, I continue to suspect that many
people just dream up rationalizations for inaction. Dostoevsky again: "Men
prefer peace, even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and
evil."

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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