X-Message-Number: 22051
From: 
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 07:58:52 EDT
Subject: organizations etc.

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Steve Bridge notes that Alcor's Board of Directors is elected each year by 

the previous Board of Directors, instead of giving the members direct votes. He
suggests that this safeguards Alcor from takeovers and possibly other hazards.

Cryonics Institute's directors are elected (one third of them each year) by 
the members, those with contracts in force. There are other safeguards against 
takeovers as well in the By-Laws. 

Steve also writes:

>pragmatism isn't a very glorious 
>philosophy, if it can be a philosophy at all; and it's hard to write a book 
about it,

Actually, pragmatism IS recognized as a philosophy, or school of philosophy, 
or collection of such schools, and many books have been written about it. 
William James and John Dewey are American exemplars.

As for the "inglorious" part, many associate the word "pragmatism" with 

politics, the "art of the possible," but that is not its meaning in philosophy,
although there is a connection. In philosophy, pragmatism signifies primarily 
that meaning and usefulness are associated with observable results--it is a 
cousin or child of logical positivism. Logical positivism, in turn, has many 
variations, but the main tenet (of the strong form) is that a statement is not 

meaningful, or at least not interesting, if it is not capable of confirmation or
confutation by observation or experiment.

Robert Ettinger

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