X-Message-Number: 12204
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
Subject: Virtual Obsession
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 11:32:11 +0100

The film Virtual Obsession was shown on British television (channel 5) on
Monday night. There was no mention in the Radio Times (who were more
interested in an actress who also appears in Star Wars) that it was based on
Peter James' novel Host, and fact it was by pure chance that I videoed it.
More about Host can be found on
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0679437339/longevitybooksA/

The film was focussed clearly on uploading not cryonics, but cryonics was
part of the backdrop to the story and I think better for it. The matter of
relatives and coroners murdering cryopreserved patients using the law courts
was included.

The only bit of the plot that I queried was when the uploaded mind of Julie
Spring was being considered "inhuman" as a result of being uploaded. The
fact that she was trying to kill people that were trying to kill her seemed
to me to be a very human response. To say that such a response is inhuman is
simply not correct. It much be "unchristian" and "unlawful" but being "
Christian" or "lawful" are subsets of being the state we call being human,
not all of it.

The only point one could make is that, given that the uploading had worked,
the murdering of the cryopreserved body wasn't really murder and the
extermination of the people responsible was an unnecessary and inappropriate
response for what was in reality attempted rather than successful murder. I
don't think the law in any developed countries still with death penalties
executes attempted murderers. Although accomplices to murder have been
hanged in the UK's final years of its death penalty this is now some decades
ago. But even then, the response is still one of human, not inhuman, anger.

--
Sincerely, John de Rivaz
my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, my singles club for
people in Cornwall, music, Inventors' report, an autobio and various other
projects:       http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JohndeR

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