X-Message-Number: 12766
From: 
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999 12:19:47 EST
Subject: feelings of survivors

Marty Kardon (#12763) asks about "closure" and the emotional states of 
survivors of cryostasis patients over the years.

No detailed survey has been made of this, and so far we only have personal 
impressions, plus second-hand impressions of people we know. 

For myself, I have two close relatives in cryostasis. I am VERY glad it was 
done, and have high hopes for the long term future. There has been "closure" 
in the sense that they are  no longer in my day-to-day thoughts, although 
they certainly have a background presence which occasionally emerges to the 
fore. The lack of finality for me is positive, not negative.  

The psychology of death has many strange elements. For example, many people 
actually make decisions based on "what (s)he would have wanted." Obviously, 
nothing you do or don't do matters in the least to someone who is buried and 
decayed and non-existent. "Loyalty" to a destroyed person is just a neurosis 
or a means of maintaining your own illusions, living in make-believe.

It's a small sample, but for those survivors with whom I have had an 
opportunity to speak from time to time, the cryonics choice is overwhelmingly 
positive. It doesn't prevent a sense of loss or pain, of course, but it 
certainly mitigates it, and this effect persists over time, and perhaps even 
increases.

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

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