X-Message-Number: 5047
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #5041 - #5045
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 09:54:05 -0700 (PDT)

Hi again.

In our ideas about immortality there is a moral component and a factual 
component. The moral component is simply that people ought not to die, nor 
should they become less healthy than younger people as they age. The factual
component makes no claims about the possibility or impossibility of actually
living forever, but does take account of the fact that we are currently very
far from achieving anything close to abolition of aging or very great 
longevity with our current, limited technology.

I would put these matters quite differently. Whether or not these ideas are
seen as extreme:

1. It is the aim of medicine to keep everyone alive indefinitely in good
   health.
2. So far as we cannot do this, we need to work on our technology to increase
   our ability to do so.
3. We now know no way that ALL those now living can permanently avoid death
   and aging. At a minimum, we must continue to reduce the percentage which 
   will not.

And I would call these 3 tenets (which are closely linked) IMMORTALISM. A
very little thought would suggest that immortalism and immortalists are 
working towards far more than simply the abolition of aging or the improvement
of cryonics as it is currently done. That is true. To try to replace the idea
by such ideas and words as "emortalism" limits the aims far too much. That is
only the first chapter. Does anyone really believe that after we get through
that first chapter that will be the end of our reading? Or is "emortalism"
the notion that so long as we do away with aging, all the other events which
might kill us are not worthy of attention?

Finally, about the 21st, and the 22nd, and the 23rd ... Centuries, I doubt that
anyone then will laugh at us. In the Middle Ages categorizing people as 
Christians and Satanists was close to what they did; we do not laugh at the 
Middle Ages. We may even be moving into a new historical period (note the
the move from the Middle Ages to "modern times" took much longer than a 
century). We shall find out. Besides, if you spend too much time being ashamed
of your childhood, you can't deal with the present day ....

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson


Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5047