X-Message-Number: 6797 From: Brian Wowk <> Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 14:23:22 -0500 Subject: Prometheus vs. Public mentality Brad Templeton writes: > It is also worth noting that neurosuspension is the best-known, > least-understood and most-ridiculed aspect of modern cryonics. It's not an aspect of cryonics, it's a choice of cryonics. Anyone who is sincerely interested in cryonics can evaluate each option according to its own merits. If someone who doesn't like neuro persists in arguing about it, that just means they are more interested in arguing than in cryonics. If neuro didn't exist, these people would just argue about other things. No serious signup prospect has ever been lost because of the mere existence of neuro. Conversely, hundreds of people are now signed up, and dozens cryopreserved, who would not have been if whole-body was the only option. > The unfortunate thing about prometheus is that it is of course a > project for neurosuspension. There is nothing about Prometheus that dictates whether you should go neuro or whole-body. It's a completely independent issue. The Project is equally important to the prospects of both whole-body and neuro patients. > So while it would, if successful, do wonders > for the credibility of cryonics in some circles, in others it would > simply add to the ridicule. So some people think that a body frozen with severe brain damage is less ridiculous than a body frozen with no brain damage? If not the brain, I wonder what bodily organ these people would have us preserve well to make cryonics less ridiculous? :) You can't please all the people all the time. You first and foremost have to pursue the most logical course of action to save your own life. If you choose your course well, then other people of logic, scientific literacy and vision will join you. These are the people that Prometheus will have the greatest impact on, and these are the people that really matter. There will always be people who oppose cryonics (and options within cryonics) for all kinds of non-scientific reasons. Let them pursue their destiny, and we'll pursue ours. If cryonics is to become a science (instead of a religion), then science must always be the gold standard that guides us. *************************************************************************** Brian Wowk CryoCare Foundation 1-800-TOP-CARE President Human Cryopreservation Services http://www.cryocare.org/cryocare/ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6797