X-Message-Number: 24755 From: Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 09:05:38 EDT Subject: Re: Shermer and Cryonics In a message dated 10/4/2004 5:00:29 AM Eastern Daylight Time, writes: Message #24752 From: "Tripper McCarthy" <> Subject: The Skeptic One of Us? Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2004 20:08:46 +0000 An article in Scientific American I think might be of interest to us. See the discussion here: http://www.universalimmortalism.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8 Tripper Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24752 Hello, Tripper, and fellow cryoneters, This is Rudi Hoffman, back from the greatest trip I have ever enjoyed, two weeks in England and UK. We saw and thoroughly examined some 40 points of interest, which I will elucidate later on an "off topic" post. But I wanted to briefly respond to Shermer and cryonics issue, since I was personally involved in trying to sign Michael Shermer up. Perhaps 4 or 5 years ago I attended a fabulous "Skeptics" conference, sponsored by James Randi in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Shermer was one of the speakers. Michael was/is a fitness buff (He was involved with the Bicycle Race Across America for a time) and would swim in the pool in the mornings. Thinking it would be a real "coup" for cryonics I arranged to be in the pool with him, we were the only swimmers there. We talked about cryonics, and the funding of same through life insurance. He was very aware of the concepts and ideas, and had enjoyed some considerable contact with Dr. Steven Harris, evidently. He was not particularly negative. He even seemed interested. Which is why I was so ticked when he disparaged cryonics in his skeptic column in SA, and especially because he wrote that it was a hugely costly and unlikely bet. He KNOWS most folks fund with life insurance as a VERY affordable choice! I wrote a succinct and crisp letter to the editor of SA, sending it both in electronic and snail mailed form. But letter was never printed or responded to. Yes, I agree Shermer would be a reasonable prospect, given his materialistic and atomistic outlook on brain patterns and sense of self in the articles you reference above. So would James Randi, who I also talked with about cryonics. So would have been Francis Crick, who, sadly, is now permanently dead as of July of cancer. We will eventually additional high profile thought leaders and scientists as rational cryonicists. Although Joe Waynick made it clear that everybody must pay their own freight, closing the door on PR based signups discounted for good publicity value. Must go for now, have 364 emails and a stack of mail a meter high, with cryonics sales to process and wonderful people to serve. Great to be back! Warm greetings to all, Rudi Hoffman Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24755