X-Message-Number: 1607 Date: 14 Jan 93 02:09:22 EST From: Charles Platt <> Subject: CRYONICS Neurosuspension etc. To: Cryonet I see two sources of confusion in the discussion of how to present unappetizing ideas such as neurosuspension. 1. Presenting ideas in a certain sequence is not, repeat not, the same thing as "deception." I have never knowingly deceived anyone about the truths of cryonics, and I can't imagine doing so. But I feel absolutely justified in starting with the easy ideas and working around to the tough ones after I have established an initial common ground. 2. The process of convincing someone is not purely logical. To accept cryonics usually entails a fundamental shift of emotional values. It also entails changing fundamental ideas about plausibility and feasibility. There are big barriers (in most people) to this process. Some cryonicists don't seem to possess these barriers. Others have been cryonicists so long, they forget what it's like to be an outsider. My own conversion to cryonics was swift; but I'm a science- fiction writer who has always enjoyed fringe groups with weird ideas, and I also have a morbid curiosity about death. I know from experience, very few people match this profile. So let me turn to an analogous area where I am more typical of the public at large: My conversion to libertarian ideals was difficult. It took years. If a libertarian had come up to me at the start of that process and said, "Welfare should be abolished and no one should pay taxes," I would have ignored him because he would have sounded like a nutty extremist. Fortunately, I experienced a much gentler introduction to libertarianism, which enabled me to proceed in small shifts of perspective away from the bleeding-heart liberalism of my social background. I could not have done this in one leap. Do cryonicists really want to discard potential converts just because some people need to get used to an idea step by step? This seems short-sighted and clannish, to me. It's like saying, "if you can't accept all our ideas right away, you're not worth bothering with." Communicating with someone is not merely a matter of spelling out facts. A person may automatically reject those facts, without even bothering to think about them, if the facts seem bizarre. And scientists are probably more prone to this than housewives, because they have stronger preconceptions about what is plausible and what is not. Here's another aspect to this whole subject. There is such a thing as a persuasive personality. That's why Brenda Peters has signed up more people, face-to-face, than I ever will. Would Thomas Donaldson reject those converts because they were not persuaded by facts alone? Or would he argue that sooner or later they would have come around anyway? Bear in mind, some of them had been toying with the idea of cryonics literally for years before Brenda got them to sign up. There is a whole literature on the process of argument, and another large literature dealing with strategies for converting people to different points of view. (Much of this stuff was written by libertarians.) Thomas Donaldson seems to be saying that it doesn't apply here, because cryonics is a special case. Why should this be so? Lastly, to Steve Harris: I like the sentiments in your statement about immortality. But when you suggest that you want to be free to stay alive till you get tired of it, you imply suicide as an option. Here we have YET ANOTHER "taboo" subject! (For many people.) Shall we start yet anothe thread here? Or can everyone simply agree that some subjects are more difficult to deal with than others, when talking about cryonics? --Charles Platt Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=1607