X-Message-Number: 12765 Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999 12:04:15 -0500 (EST) From: Charles Platt <> Subject: Lack of Closure > From: "Marty Kardon" <> > > It seems to me that there is not the same chance for "closure" ... > the survivors are left in a nether > world with respect to their departed family. You have identified a problem which has been mentioned here before, but very rarely, for obvious reasons: it is no fun contemplate the angst of losing a child, a parent, or a spouse--who becomes dead-but-not-dead. Atheists "know" that their loved ones are gone; devout Christians "know" they will be reunited with their loved ones in the hereafter; but cryonicists can only wait in conceptual limbo and wonder what may happen 50 or 100 years in the future. The problem is especially acute where a relatively young person loses a spouse or significant other. To what extent does the survivor retain a primary loyalty to the person who has been cryopreserved? I have seen at least one person deeply affected by this uncertainty. Should the survivor become involved with someone else? Presumably, yes; but if the "someone else" signs up for cryonics, we have the prospect of all three people eventually being cryopreserved, and emerging together at some point in the future. When I proposed this dilemma to Keith Henson years ago, he said the answer was simple: After resuscitation, if we have, say, one husband and two wives, simply grow or build an extra copy of the husband. I tend to feel however that even if this is possible, it will complicate, rather than resolve, the issue, since both copies are likely to feel the same conflicted loyalty, and both may be oriented more toward one wife than the other, thus creating a SECOND romantic triangle. Of course these issues only are troubling if you take the concept of cryonics very seriously. If you believe, as I do, that current techniques allow only a very small chance for resuscitation, there is much less potential angst, especially since the slim chance of one person being resuscitated must be multiplied by itself, and then by itself once again, to get the net probability of all three members of a romantic triangle being resuscitated together. The "lack of closure" problem, as I see it, is relevant primarily to anyone who is in the business of helping to run a cryonics organization. Such a person (e.g. me) has an obligation to warn prospective members of this kind of risk, and to advise them to think about it seriously. Also, we may find ourselves in a position of having to comfort surviving family members (as I have), at which point we have an obligation to be properly prepared for their concerns. Thanks for your thoughtful message. --Charles Platt Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12765