X-Message-Number: 10736
From: 
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 09:54:05 EST
Subject: future perfect

Scott Bankston (#10727) writes:

> .. Is there a mechanism in place to assure that those taking the "plunge"
are >psychologically fit to inhabit whatever future they will arive in? I am
an avid
>proponent of life extention but quality of life is of utmost importance. I do
not enjoy >the thought of arriving at a common destination with many of the
thought >processes I see at functioning at times on this board.

In the third place, the future population will not be dominated by
resuscitees, so worry about the personalities of some cryonicist fellow
travelers is misplaced.

In the second place, there is obviously no such mechanism in place (assurance
of psychological fitness of patients), and cannot be, because competence to
make such judgments does not exist.

In the first place, both future environments and our future selves are subject
to continual examination and improvement. Stupidity and neurosis/psychosis can
be cured.

Those who demand iron-clad guarantees that they will be revived, and that the
instant they open their eyes they will feel nonstop heavenly bliss, are asking
too much. Don't reject the probable good for want of perfection. You don't
have perfection now, yet you persevere. If you are revived at all, it will
almost certainly be in conditions far better than the present, and with
unlimited potential.

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

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