X-Message-Number: 19079
Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 14:24:52 +1000
From: Damien Broderick <>
Subject: Re: A.C.C.

Rudi asks:

>Still alive and very active, and still writing books about cryonic 
>suspension, is Arthur C. Clarke.

>But this author of Childhood's End, 2001, 2010, and a lot of books with 
>cryonics as an assumed technology is not signed up.

I've asked Arthur about this several times; he simply says that he's not
interested, on several grounds. The principal one appears to be his sense
that individuals have no true continuity during a lifetime, that we rewrite
ourselves progressively over the decades. (Even so, no-one suicides just
because in a decade we will be someone else; and besides, it's not really
true, since we morph only by slow stages, embodying into the new butterfly
much of the old chrysalis.) Another is that he would be obliged to leave
behind beloved friends and especially pets. (Why not ensure their
preservation as well when they die?) And I suspect projected culture shock
is part of it; already, he has lived through appallingly disruptive
changes, and even a fellow as far-seeing as Sir Arthur Clarke is
understandably reluctant to awaken in a future almost unbearably disjunct
from his past--even if those who revive and rejuvenate the preserved are
wonderful psychologists, and the newly awakened live for as long as they
wish in a comforting transitional enclave.

Damien Broderick

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