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.  

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