X-Message-Number: 7109
From: (Steven B. Harris)

Newsgroups: 
sci.life-extension,alt.extropians,sci.cryonics,misc.health.alternative
Subject: Re: Is there an AFTERLIFE???
Date: 4 Nov 1996 08:46:10 GMT
Message-ID: <55kagi$>
References: <> <>

In <>  writes: 

>But I like your idea that cryonics "patients" never really died at all. 
>Then does that mean that their souls, if they have any, are pickled in
>liquid nitrogen along with their bodies?
>
>					


   Many religious people believe in a kind of Aristotelian vegetative
soul which confers "life" on lower organisms, and even cells.  But
cells can be frozen in liquid nitrogen and then brought back to life
after decades (at least).  Does their living essence get frozen with
them?  If you believe in that sort of thing, you'd have to say this was
likely.

   Myself I think the whole darn argument is really silly.  Do you
define a cell as "dead" vs "alive" when its cellular ghost leaves it? 
When one of your brain cells dies, does something whispy which looks
sort of like a neuron, but distorted and see-through, and with little
blank holes for eyes, ascend into the beyond, perhaps going
"ooooohhhhh!" in a tinny little voice?  The religious, Aristotelian
view of brain and brain cell death is barely more credible than this
vision.

                                               Steve Harris, M.D.


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