X-Message-Number: 2774 Date: 22 May 94 23:24:12 EDT From: Michael Riskin <> Subject: CRYONICS Cryonics Philosophizing One of the more important aspects of self awareness is the individuals occassional conclusion that it no longer wants its' self to exist any further. Whether explained as death conditioning (nurture), or genetic predisposition (nature), cryonicists are , at face value, some measure of mutant human. Cryonicists may be classified in the future by historians as THE missing link. Meaning, the crudely evolved human that marked the beginning of the evolutionary process that consequented in immortality as the majority disposition. Discussions of self, needs/wants/desires, existance/living/ecstasy, strategies/goals, will differ from the traditional, us, and the futureones. Most organisms will put up a fight to the full extent of its' resources to avoid non-being, the most notable exception being humans. When a prisoner condemned to death is led to the execution area, would it not seem that the rational act is to martial every possible resource to avoid the execution? This might include physical resistance and attack, emotional hysteria, and desperate attempts at rational renegotiation of the sentence right to the point of inability to do so. What would a cryonicist do? Attempt to have a suspension team ready? But, the typical condemned go passively to their death in much the same manner as the general population. Again, nature or nurture? Interesting, eh what, that the "lower" conscious organism that is supposedly not aware of immortality, heaven/hell, God, fights like crazy to stay alive. As far as "feel good" strategies, that of course implies the existance of a free will, otherwise such concepts as "strategies" are meaningless. Without free-will, a strategy becomes merely the erroneous belief that what one is doing has a "choice" component to it. That erroneous belief would constitute an important "feel-good" mechanism as it certainly seems to feel better to have options to chose from than to believe you are mechanically following the only available course of thought or action. If the goal is to accumulate the highest possible total of net feel-good time before permanent non-being, and each individual feels good in different ways (including the feel good sensation of the cessation of pain), then such activities as the use of hallucinogens/opiates, commonly dismissed as self delusionary activities become a possibly effective strategy. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2774