X-Message-Number: 2272 From: Ben Best <> Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 20:00:00 -0400 Subject: CRYONICS: may cdn events MAY 1993 CANADIAN CRYONICS EVENTS Electons were held on the afternoon of Sunday, May 16 for new officers of the Cryonics Society of Canada. The new officers are: President -- Ben Best Vice President -- Doug Quinn Treasurer -- Bruce Waugh Secretary -- Scott Maynard Ten people came to the Cryonics Dinner on the evening of May 16th. Issues discussed were fairly wide-ranging. One fellow said that he would prefer certain death to the "neuro" option. He seemed to feel that future science would never be able to re-create his current body and that his quality of life without his original body would be unacceptable. Another person challenged my desire for extended life at all costs by asking (to paraphrase) how long I would live if I had to kill one child per day to stay alive. I attempted to protest incomplete moral responsibility in that scenario, and denied that any condition of life cannot ultimately be transcended, but acknowledged that I find the question deeply disturbing. The lecture on May 19th to the Toronto "Meaning and Reality" Group was intended to justify the material basis of the mind in the brain as a prelude to a lecture on cryonics. The "prelude" consumed so much of the evening, that it was decided that an entirely separate presentation specifically on cryonics would be made in September. Many members of the group displayed a decidedly anti-materialist bias, although this bias did not seem conventionally religious. One fellow firmly held that volition (free will) is so universally and intuitively obvious that personal identity cannot possibly be material. Another fellow, in justifying the effects of drugs and brain lesions on the mind, said that the brain is like a transmitter/receiver of spiritual information, that cannot function effectively when it is impaired. When the question was raised concerning where to look amongst the brain's neurons, synapses and glial cells for transmitter/receiver equipment, the answer was a flat "we don't know yet". -- Ben Best (ben.best%) -- CRS Online - Toronto, Ontario 416-213-6002/213-6003 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2272