X-Message-Number: 31539 From: Mark Plus <> Subject: Re: the immortalist Bible and cryonics Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 08:52:12 -0700 In Cryonet #31530, David Stodolsky writes: >In other words, there will be a Personal Emotional Reaction (Kogan et al., 2007). That is, thoughts of death will be suppressed from awareness. This is a way of not dealing with the issue at all. Skeptics argue that cryonics avoids "dealing with the issue" as well, given all the seemingly unlikely things we depend on to make this work. >This Personal Emotional Reaction will stop all, except atheists/agnostics, from making any kind of rational decision. Atheists and agnostics who concede that cryonics could work often just come up with the same weak objections to it that everyone else does: Future Alienation, lack of "closure" when someone goes into the dewar, arcana about economic discounting, etc. Robert Ettinger must have encountered these kinds of people 40 years ago, because in "Man Into Superman" (1972) he complains about the sort of guy who "wants immortality, all right, but he wants it on a silver platter. It is not life he objects to, but effort and risk. Far from being stoic, or resigned, or well- adjusted, or complacent, or mature, or philosophic, or self effacing, or altruistic, or any of the other dignified things he pretends to be, he is merely myopic and nervous." "Around 2010 the world will be at a new orbit in history. . . Life expectancy will be indefinite. Disease and disability will nonexist. Death will be rare and accidental -- but not permanent. We will continuously jettison our obsolescence and grow younger." F.M. Esfandiary, "Up-Wing Priorities" (1981). http://www.box.net/shared/static/ay9lub60ha.pdf http://www.scribd.com/doc/10948503/Up-Wing-Priorities Mark Plus _________________________________________________________________ Express your personality in color! Preview and select themes for HotmailR. http://www.windowslive-hotmail.com/LearnMore/personalize.aspx?ocid=TXT_MSGTX_WL_HM_express_032009#colortheme Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=31539