X-Message-Number: 16836
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2001 22:29:50 +0000 ()
From: Louis Epstein <>
Subject: Replies to CryoNet #16748 - #16757

On 30 Jun 2001, CryoNet wrote:

> ----------------------------------------------------------
> Message #16748 Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 06:56:53 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Scott Badger <>
> 
> Only 4 NDEs out of 63?  Actually the percentages
> are usually closer to the 30% mark in many studies. 
> Still two thirds report nothing.  Ask yourself why.

Because NDEs are not a necessary
consequence of being in the situation.
  
> Near-death experiences (NDEs) have remarkably similar
> characteristics the world over, leading many to cite
> them as proof of a hereafter. Blackmore, a British
> psychologist, carefully reviews the literature and her
> own research for something like an opposite claim.
> NDEs do indeed have universal aspects, but that's
> because they manifest the chemistry of dying brains;
> what's universal is the brain itself.

If all they were were inevitable
brain chemistry doing its thing,
then why were there only 4 out of 63
in the Parnia study?

I understand the desire of resident
atheists not to see their atheism
falsified.But in any event,I'm not 
sure which way this cuts for cryosuspension.
It's evidence of clinical death not
being the end for people,but presumably
the brain activity mentioned would not
continue,or be wanted to continue,
during cryostasis...and it says nothing
about the ability to *restart* this
activity *after* cryostasis.

> ---------------------------------------------------------- 
> Message #16749 Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 07:19:28 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Scott Badger <>
> 
> I would go further and suggest that, although the continued viability
> of the cryonic facilities that aim to revive us is one of the more
> serious threats to our successful reanimation, there may be ethical
> support for the idea that if the medical community believes the
> technology will be available relatively soon, they or some other group
> will intervene to prevent cryopreserved patients from being thawed out
> in the event that Alcor or CI falter for some reason.

Thawed out without revival,you mean.

But might the opposite happen some
time,for some political or regulatory
reason?An avowedly deathist government
banning immortalism because it shows
chances of success,and either demanding
suspended bodies be thawed to rot,or
refusing permission to experiment in
revival when it seems likely?

That,I think,is the "serious threat".
When the inevitability of death begins
to look seriously doubtful,its defenders
may get paranoid.
 
> ---------------------------------------------------------- 
> Message #16754 From: "john grigg" <>
>  
> >From _The Mummy Congress_ by Heather Pringle:
> 
> Eternity, moreover, lies at the whim of future generations, and who knows 
> what they will make of all these twenty-first-century mummies?  Five 
> thousand years from now, when nameless treasure-seekers crawl down into the 
> eerie darkness of a long-buried warehouse and stumble blindly like moles 
> into rows of giant stainless-steel thermoses, now rusty and bent and 
> toppled, who knows what will happen?  Will these fearless adventurers pry 
> off the lids and see long rows of ancient saints with delicate perfect hands 
> rosy cheeks? 

Well,this pessimistic scenario
doesn't really ring true.If the
stainless have rusted and toppled,
I don't expect that the bodies
within would be intact in the
71st century...cryonic suspension
requires regular maintenance,and
the thawed would have rotted.It's
not like either the designed or
deliberate mummification processes
known to history that have produced
visibly preserved bodies at room
temperature.

> ----------------------------------------------------
> Message #16757 Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 22:41:45 -0700
> From: Mike Perry <>
>
> Like Olaf, I'm hoping to learn something useful from her input (as I have 
> already). One thing I would like to learn more about is just why anyone 
> would be a "deathist" anyway.

I think the recent flurry of correspondence
has driven her deeper into Lurk for the time
being.After all,if she doesn't get her lurking
in she'll turn into a Deathist Poster Girl(in
the sense of one who posts messages,rather
than appearing in "I Want YOU to Drop Dead
Too!" posters).

My uninformed guess as to her belief in death
as proper for her is that it might have to do 
with her wanting to be reunited with her husband.

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