X-Message-Number: 32316
From: David Stodolsky <>
Subject: Re: Stressing rejuvenation to promote cryonics
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 13:52:42 +0100
References: <>

On 17 Jan 2010, at 11:00 AM, CryoNet wrote:

> From: Mark Plus <>
> Subject: Re: Stressing rejuvenation to promote cryonics
> Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 07:34:12 -0800
>
> In Cryonet #32314, Ben Best writes:
>
>>> I was asked to concentrate on the scientific
>>> aspects of cryonics. I will devote the first
>>> half of my presentation to rejuvenation science because
>>> I believe this is an essential part of the cryonics
>>> program that is too often missed, and which provides
>>> so much incentive (a marketing benefit for outreach).
>
>> David Stodolsky wrote:
>
>>> What evidence is there to support this view?
>
>>  I have drawn this conclusion from the hundreds if not
> thousands of conversations I have had with people
> about cryonics.
>
> I've also noticed that several components of the cryonics idea fail  
> to communicate well, including the role of rejuvenation as part of  
> the revival process, and the expectation that progress in trauma  
> medicine will lead to the ability to repair "whole body frostbite,"  
> as someone called cryonic suspension.
>
> Instead I read or hear misconceptions about waking up in Future  
> World with the aged body that killed you in the first place, or  
> "skepticism" that because nobody can revive you from suspension now,  
> the whole cryonics exercise can't possibly work.
>
> Of course, "skepticism" of that sort rationalizes not doing anything  
> to make cryonics better, and therefore guarantees its continuing  
> underperformance. As I feel tempted to say to such people, "Okay,  
> brainiac, tell us your plan for staying alive."
>
> Given that cryonics idea has circulated in the culture for almost 50  
> years, and that people can now easily read about it online, I'd like  
> to know why such misunderstandings about it persist.


I address this issue in my in preparation paper on Marketing Myths:

The Badger (1998) Survey questions examining public knowledge about  
cryonics addressed one of the earliest myths about public acceptance  
of cryonics. This myth was typically expressed, "If people knew that  
cryonics was not that expensive, then it would gain wide-spread  
acceptance". Similar statements questioned knowledge about the  
technology of suspension, number of persons suspended, and the number  
enrolled in suspension programs. The Survey results, while not  
conclusive, suggested that public knowledge was quite accurate on the  
average. As the years have gone by and as cryonics has received more  
and more mass media exposure, this myth has subsided. We will not  
address this myth further here, except to show that attitudes tend to  
be the cause of factual misperceptions. This is widely accepted in  
psychology, where perception is assumed to include a search process,  
except in the simplest, typically laboratory, situations. Powers  
(1973) made this same point from a foundation of control theory, which  
might be more acceptable to many from an engineering background. The  
above mentioned myth presumed the other direction of causality, that  
is, that misperception of facts leads to unfavorable attitudes. This  
is typically referred to as the rational choice model of decision  
making. It tends to dominate virtually all discussions of these issues  
with in the cryonics movement.



Powers, W. T. 1973. Behavior: The control of perception. New York:  
Aldine deGruyter.






dss


David Stodolsky
  Skype: davidstodolsky

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