X-Message-Number: 7288
From: 
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 09:09:03 -0500
Subject: SCI. CRYONICS philosophy

Thomas Donaldson's Cryonet # 7287 (the part addressed to me) is frustrating.
Bright as he is, I can't seem to make him understand what I am saying.
Perhaps nothing short of the complete book will do it. But here's another
brief partial try anyway:

First, Thomas says that "right now we are all being selected for our ability
to propagate our genome." Wrong wrong wrong. In the ordinary course of
events, the GENOME is selected for its ability to propagate itself. I am
 talking about INDIVIDUALS.  If by "selection" we mean success in saving or
extending one's own life, then some of us are trying to "select" ourselves by
signing up for cryonics and using life extension supplements and engaging in
research or supporting it, etc.

Thomas further says that "only one possible development will change our
current relationship to natural selection" (and that is genetic engineering).
And once more, I am talking about individuals; and whether we live or die,
and whether we are happy or unhappy, depends in part on our individual
actions, to a considerable extent under our own control, and not just on
blind forces of evolution.

Still further Thomas says, "It isn't enough to set out principles about how
we "should" ...act..." This again shows a fundamental misunderstanding of
what I am saying.

First, I am not "setting out" principles, but working to LEARN and DEVELOP
those principles which tend to further the individual's long term
satisfaction--deriving specific guidelines from the basics of biology and
logic. This has never been done before to any significant extent, and
evidently even the CONCEPT is so strange to most people that they have
difficulty getting past the language barriers. (Or else I am inordinately
clumsy in my use of language.)

In my lexicon, what you as an individual "should" do or "ought" to do is just
whatever is most likely to maximize your future satisfaction. (It has NOTHING
to do with evolution in the ordinary sense, on which Thomas seems to be
fixated.) It is extremely simple in principle (if you can overcome
traditional mind-sets); extremely complex, subtle, and difficult in practice.
It is also the most important question anyone faces.

Robert Ettinger


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