X-Message-Number: 6835 Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 12:41:17 -0700 From: Tim Freeman <> Subject: Interminable Pointless Leary Argument One possibility is that Leary was competent to make decisions and he simply changed his mind about cryonics, possibly because of influences not associated with cryonics; in that case he's responsible for his decision to be cremated. Another possibility is that Darwin or Harris or somebody associated with cryonics accidentally portrayed their organization in a bad light somehow. In that case Leary could have changed over to Alcor. He did not, and that's his decision, so he's still responsible for having been cremated. Another possibility is that Leary was incompetent to decide by the time the decision had to be made. In that case he should have assigned a competent person who shares his values to make his decisions. He did not do this (or maybe he *did* do this and he did not value cryonics), so he's still responsbile for having been cremated. So what are we arguing about? None of the proposed histories of the event create a link between the outcome and the relative merits of the cryonics organizations; they are just different ways that Leary got himself burned. Leary is not fundamentally different from any of the many other people who decide to die apparently without thinking it out carefully. The fact that he spoke at length about it only demonstrates that verbal reasoning is irrelevant to how people make decisions about important things. At this point Stodolsky should jump in and say something about terror management, but I *still* haven't read his references, so I cannot judge his claim that the phenomenon is well understood by some people. Mea culpa, but that isn't the point of this post. The real tragedy would have been if Leary had acted consistently with wanting to be frozen, but the opportunity was not available to him. That didn't happen, so there was no tragedy, and no blame to distribute. I have a large number of projects more worthwhile than trying to get people frozen who don't want it, and I'm sure the rest of you do too. So get on with it. Tim Freeman Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6835