X-Message-Number: 3920
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 20:11:53 -0500 (EST)
From: Robin Helweg-Larsen <>
Subject: Re: "Dead"



On Feb 26 Steve Bridge wrote: "The legal status of all cryonic suspension 
patients is 'dead'."

That really doesn't surprise me....  As far as I know, not one of them 
was put into suspension while still living; they all died first, and they 
weren't resuscitated before suspension (or not intentionally).  

Surely it's common enough these days for people to say "Joe actually died, 
but they resuscitated him", and not feel that anything supernatural 
occurred, for us *also* to be able to say "they died".

The idea may have been revolutionary 30 years ago.  It's not 
revolutionary any longer, it's common enough, but most people think of it 
as science fiction.

So because the idea is common, we don't have to think about inventing new 
terms to deal with it, or twisting the language so as not to scare 
people.  Those people who are going to be scared (and they're the 
majority) are going to be scared no matter what.  That's a separate 
problem.  Verbal contortions don't help, only cloud a very simple concept 
and help hide it from people who would be receptive to it.

"When I die, I'm going to be frozen - eventually, they'll figure out a 
way to bring me back to life."  That seems the most honest way of 
presenting things.  

What *is* being redefined is, well, everything else; and only in part 
because of the cryonics movement.  Space travel, heart transplants, 
access to all the world's religions and their practitioners, these are 
causing redefinition of Life, Death, Soul, Heaven, Being, Purpose, Miracle, 
etc etc.

So we don't have to shrink from saying "She's dead".  It's no longer a 
cut-and-dried concept (so to speak); death is an organic, fluid, unstable 
concept, at least when mentioned in the context of hospitals, Emergency 
Rooms, laboratories, and high-tech environments.

When someone says "He's dead", the old responses of "Oh no!" or "How 
awful" or "What happened?" have recently been supplemented by "Can 
anything be done?"

The concept of what 'dead' is, is already in flux.  We don't need to play 
word games.

Always opinionatedly,

Robin

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