X-Message-Number: 12705 From: "George Smith" <> References: <> Subject: Pessimism died July 20, 1999. RIP Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1999 14:48:52 -0800 Once more with feeling.... > Message #12695 > From: Thomas Donaldson < > To Kennita: I myself do not believe in the notion that we'll find > ourselves obsolete due to computers. I hope that was clear from my > posting. However we still need answers to those who DO believe that. > And even if you agree with me here, you may be interested in what you > can say to someone who does. "Obsolete". If I am worrying about being obsolete, this implies I must MEASURE UP to be useful for some PURPOSE.... or I may be "obsolete". There is no need to have a "purpose". You exist. All that is required is that you should want to continue to exist. Otherwise you require PERMISSION from someone to "be". In actuality, only YOU can give someone this "permission" to judge your value, by believing that you must have a "value" in the first place. At any time, you can take your soul off the auction block and stop seeking to achieve or defend your "value". You can simply decide that it's okay to "be" and want to continue "being". Cryonics is an option to help ensure you will continue to "be". The ultimate in "self-esteem" is not have any, to consdier yourself to be "beyond price".... which is to just "be". <deleted section regarding defining feelings in machines, etc.> > And finally, a bit about nanotechnology, for John Clark: Yes, I too have > noticed (and even discussed in PERIASTRON) such things as the invention > of nanosized switches. I will also point out something uncomfortable: it's > fine that various people are now using these ideas to make better > computers. But they do nothing at all to solve our problems as > cryonicists, and show no desire to do so. The problem of reviving a badly > damaged brain, and the problem of making much better computers, both > depend on fundamental understanding of nanophenomena. But solution of one > such problem will do little to solve the other, even though both may > involve some form of nanotechnology. As I have pointed out before, Big Money will develop and use nanotechnology because they are already doing so. The spin-offs will result in cheap and powerful tools to make the goals of cryonics simple to accomplish. How much money is spent every year now to work on brain traumas, comas, strokes, etc? OF COURSE THEY WILL SOLVE OUR BRAIN REPAIR PROBLEMS. OUR BRAIN PROBLEMS ARE THEIRS TOO! To believe otherwise is to not be merely pessimistic. It is to choose be blind. > I will add, as someone who has paid close attention to cryobiology for > all the years I've been a member of a cryonics society (and then some) > that we have a good chance of finding out how to suspend brains which > ARE NOT badly damaged, and if anything that deserves our first priority > until we've got it working. No. Popular polls already quoted in this forum in the past have revealed that a significant number of people already believe that cryonics works. Die - freeze- revived! Doing it for real will NOT change their perspective, which is to reject it for themselves because it isn't popular, isn't "normal". Our first priority is to make it POPULAR so that people en masse will do it - and then, ladies and gentlemen, we will have the money needed to do whatever research you want (until we finally get the tools we ACTUALLY need to be able TO DO THE JOB!) There is this weird belief that if we can convince enough scientists that cryonics can work that this will matter. It will not matter. Popular opinion controls the pursestrings. Scientists are usually just employees, not wealthy research funders. Again, if "Scientific American" stated on its cover page that CRYONICS WORKS, the public response would not be "wow!", it would be "I already knew that but it's too weird for me." Bringing back a brain will impress ME, but not THEM. THEY think it already happened.... and they don't care. They just think it's weird. >It won't solve our problems completely, far > from that, but it's a good start. Later on we ARE likely to need some > kind of nanotechnology (in the broad sense) for repair, given that repair > is possible at all. We're not going to easily escape the possibility that > some brains (OURS???) may end up badly damaged and need such >technologies. And so, shouldn't WE be optimistic then? I close my eyes in death and open them again because I am repaired. That is my personal bottom line. Now for those events to happen, we need more popular support. Don't keep confusing the never-ending call for research with the need for working with human psychology to make this movement survive and succeed. And, again, pessimism died July 20, 1999. All that can linger for those willing to think and be honest is optimism. I urge all to choose optimism. George Smith www.cryonics.org Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12705