X-Message-Number: 15949 From: "John de Rivaz" <> Subject: consciousness and reviewing books Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 11:00:00 +0100 Whatever consciousness actually is, it is what we have and/or what we are, and preserving it is still a good idea. The sudden flurry of book recommendations that have appeared here suggest that someone ought to start selling speed reading courses/software or whatever. There does seem to be a growing problem of information overload. I must say that I have wondered whether to give (rather than lend) people I am trying to interest in cryonics various books to encourage them, but really I wonder whether this is a good idea. Suppose that someone wanted to interest me in Roman Catholicism, for example, and suggested I read "The Bible".and sent be a beautiful and expensive leather bound version thereof? Would I be pleased at the prospect of reading it from cover to cover and understanding enough of it to debate the issue, even if I wanted to debunk it? Of course not - the slavery of time makes such a task impossible, especially if say fourteen friends all did the same thing at the same time. However many books have a single message - the rest of the book explains why the writer thinks this message is important. It can indeed be a useful service for cryonet posters to summarise that message and if people want to understand the underlying thought behind it **and they have the time** they can read it up. In the case of many of the recommendations on cryonet those who have read the books concerned are providing a very useful service in distilling out those points which are of use and relevance to cryonicists Of course this becomes a serious problem if the message is not palatable to the reader. A good example of this is trying to persuade your friend that cryonics is a good idea or for that matter even worth considering seriously. It is no good saying "read this book" if the recipient thinks that the whole concept is pointless - he is not going to want to spend 7hrs or so reading about something he thinks is to no purpose. In the debate on the newsgroups about compulsion and autopsy many people who are in favour of compulsion refuse to read even short web articles by respected scientists that support the idea that compulsion may be wrong. They refuse to see that eugenics+compulsion is what made National Socialism evil, not eugenics on its own, which was merely flawed science. (They refuse to consider a television documentary which made that point about a week ago.) Extrapolation of this to the idea that autopsy+compulsion=evil is rejected by epithets such as "stupid" and is not refuted logically but merely with a string of insults. The closed mind is a terrifying thing, and when the owner of that closed mind is in a position of power it is even more so. The "debate" on eugenics cost millions of human lives to resolve, but not one need have been lost if compulsion had not been added to the concept. ********* May I recommend that CI members who don't have their own Amazon affiliates programs include an Amazon link accredited to the Cryonics Institute when reviewing books on cryonet? Just click on www.amazon.com to get the ISBN or ASIN number and add it to the following link instead of the 0618057072 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0618057072/immortalistsocie If you support a different organisation find the right link to use as exemplified below: Alcor members can use http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0618057072/fredchamberlainA American Cryonics society members can use http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/isbn=0618057072/americancryonicsA/ Trans Time http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0618057072/transtimeincA/ apologies to anyone left out: if your organisation isn't here, see if they have books on offer, find the link and alter the ISBN or ASIN to that of the book your are describing and add the link. It costs the buyer of the book nothing and adds a few dollars to the coffers of the organisation you support. -- Sincerely, John de Rivaz my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, music, Inventors' report, an autobio and various other projects: http://www.geocities.com/longevityrpt http://www.autopsychoice.com - should you be able to chose autopsy? Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15949