X-Message-Number: 9135
From: 
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 09:57:24 EST
Subject: on stage

I am struck by Peter Merel's "dramatic context" view of self (#9131). The only
similar discussion I recall was one several years ago by my son David, who
referred to the "dramatic fallacy" with respect to the illogical attitudes
many people have about their deaths.

The "dramatic fallacy" concerns the feeling many people have toward events
surrounding and following their deaths. They will die, but they feel that they
will persist in a sense as presences on a stage and in the appreciation of the
audience. They disregard the fundamental fact that after death--in the
ordinary course of events, without cryonics and without religious types of
rescue and without the Omega Point--they will simply NOT EXIST, and nothing
whatever that happens or does not happen in the world will matter to them. 

It matters to them BEFORE death--but should it?  This is a complex and subtle
question that cannot be effectively addressed in a brief discussion, if at all
in our present state of knowledge. However, we can sometimes make an
impression on a few people with the following type of reminder.

Someone speaks of "living on" in the memories of his descendants etc. After
all, isn't George Washington "immortal"? Just a tiny bit of perspective can
change that notion. George has been remembered for a couple of centuries, and
maybe he will still be a household word (if that is any comfort) for a few
more centuries. But how about a few millennia? A few megayears? A few
gigayears? George Washington--let alone George Jones--will be at most a very
minor footnote to history for ALMOST ALL of time to come. 

However, I think Peter overstates the case in prescribing the necessary
psychological condition for acceptance of cryonics--transformation of dramatic
context etc. For some people, at least, it is simpler than that. We think we
can save and extend and improve our lives, and that is more than enough.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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