X-Message-Number: 299 From att!CompuServe.COM!72320.1642 Sun Apr 14 02:04:15 EDT 1991 Date: 14 Apr 91 01:48:00 EDT From: STEVE BRIDGE <> To: KEVIN <> Subject: Reply to #291 -- Motivation for Reanimat Message-Id: <"910414054800 72320.1642 EHK12-1"@CompuServe.COM> TO: KEVIN Date: 4-13-91 In reply to Alan Batie's question about "whether or not people in the future will *want* to reanimate anyone": The question presupposes one group of people which exist only now and another group of people which exist only in the future. That supposition ignores the fact of continuity. Most people now involved in cryonics will be alive for 30-50 more years. New people will join them along the way. Many people will be suspended and the new people will move into positions of leadership and care. This process will be on-going and probably expanding geometrically. Eventually, some of the people who have joined will live in a future where lifespans are long and cryonic suspensions uncommon. THEY will be the people who will begin the process of reanimation. They will want to revive us because we will have known them and persuaded them that this is the RIGHT thing to do. They would have wanted such revival for themselves if they had been suspended. That is why they will have joined Alcor (or other cryonics groups) in the first place. And for many of them, their friends, lovers, and family will be in suspension and they will want to see them again and to share life with them. If this does not happen -- if cryonics does not grow, if there is not continuity over the century or two required for this -- then cryonic suspension patients probably WILL NOT be revived, even if it is technically possible. In fact, if cryonics does not grow and have continuity, no patients will still be in suspension -- there will have been no one to care for them over that length of time! If there are patients in suspension at the time revival is technically possible, they will be revived. It might be slow to develop; it might be expensive; it might be opposed by some segments of society. But a large number of people will be pursuing it, because "a large number of people" is the same thing required for cryonics to survive at all. The personalities and desires of some vague future populace are irrelevant. The Venturists are actively working on another approach to this (which may be biting off more than they can chew, but why not try): they believe that we need to work to help change society as a WHOLE so that people will respect life and feel morally obligated to keep all humans living and healthy. I suspect that society as a whole will never agree on ANYTHING, especially not on the sanctity of life; but enough people might be persuaded from this direction that the climate for reanimation will improve. As for the "postulation that death is a good thing for the species," I think that is far from proven. For a highly evolved, intelligent species like humans, the opposite may well be true: The ELIMINATION of death might be necessary for the survival of the species. It MIGHT be true that for a species to evolve further _physically_, that less fit members must STOP REPRODUCING. That does not make death necessary. It should also be noted that humans have evolved several nifty traits (intelligence, language, writing, science) that allow us to continue evolving in less traditional ways. For centuries we have been controlling --to some extent -- the evolution of our cultures. We have made many changes in our abilities to adapt and survive (clothing, medicine, heating and air conditioning, libraries, sanitation). These are not permanent physical changes; but they have allowed the survival of many more traits and physical characteristics than were possible in past generations. Strong-minded, creative humans with weak bodies can now survive and reproduce to pass along a certain kind of intelligence. This no doubt includes many of us in this discussion. Without antibiotics, I would have died of pneumonia at the age of three. Future medical technologies will allow us to control our own evolution -- even changes in our DNA and changes in our lifespan. Why then would death be necessary? We have evolved intelligence; so now that ability can be brought to bear in improving the species --and ourselves as individual members of that species. This includes (and may REQUIRE) the elimination of short life spans. The survival of us as a species may well require the depth of vision and understanding which will be the result of a long-lived race. Think of this: who is more likely to start a nuclear war: A 70 year old man with 10 years to live or a 70 year old with 1000 years to live? Who is more likely to dump pollutants in his drinking water: someone with a couple of decades of life left or someone who will be around in a few hundred years to experience the consequences of his own decisions? If a three year old child does something wrong, the correction or punishment must come immediately, because children of that age cannot connect cause and effect over a time period of more than a few minutes. Most adults can recognize that their actions have consequences over longer time scales. A person with an indefinite life span is going to develop an even greater ability to make good survival decisions. I worry very little about the interest of future people in reviving us. I worry a LOT about our ability to survive the next 20 years until we can grow enough to make cryonics more likely to survive as a long-term aspect of society. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=299