CryoNet #31730 - #31731

CryoNet - Tue 9 Jun 2009

    #31730: Skeptics' unexamined mysticism [Mark Plus]
    #31731: Re: We need to protect ourselves [Dennis]

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Message #31730
From: Mark Plus <[email protected]>
Subject: Skeptics' unexamined mysticism
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 08:14:19 -0700

I've gotten the impression from reading the self-professed "skeptics" and "humanists" who criticize cryonics that, despite their advertised rationality, they have their own mystical beliefs about death.

Apparently they believe that something supernatural, or close enough to it, happens when a person "dies" that defies scientific intervention, so that the whole cryonics idea incorporates a fundamental misconception about reality from the outset. Otherwise we'd hear more criticisms of the cryonics
proposal along the lines of, "Cryonics could work if you assumed or did
X, Y, Z, etc. But those cryonicists currently aren't doing it right." 

Basically the pattern looks like this: 

Many skeptics and humanists = spooky death, followed by eternal oblivion.

Most religionists = spooky death, followed by an afterlife, reincarnation, nirvana, etc.

Cryonicists = nonspooky death, like the failure of a machine, which could allow for cryogenic stabilization and arrest of the process until future trauma medicine can effect repairs and get the individual up and running again.

In other words, many skeptics & humanists haven't liberated themselves from religious world views as much as they like to think.

Mark Plus

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Message #31731
From: Dennis <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: We need to protect ourselves
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 20:10:45 -0400
References: <[email protected]>

--_145cabda-ce8f-491d-ad28-e0915769cac5_










I fully agree with David. Although I have a much broader agenda (See point 4) which I have outlined it here at:

http://geocities.com/dennisfreethinker/trade.html

The primary difference with what David is suggesting is that I'm suggesting that 'young' people should also be actively involved. It's never too early to plan for a uneventful suspension. I'm also suggesting that beyond just 'living', it should also extend to earning a living (unless one is very rich). One cannot  disassociate money from everyday life including a cryonics suspension.

Dennis



 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message #31727
> Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 08:23:10 -0700 (PDT)
> From: david pizer <[email protected]>
> Subject: We need to protect ourselves
> 

> 
> David speaking again:  Being a cryonicists myself since the early 80's, and hearing horor stories from even before that, and having been an Alcor Director and Officer for 11 years, I have come to the conclusion that the single most dangerous obstacle facing a cryonicist is that when they get old and senile and infirm there is the risk that their relatives (or others) will try to prevent their suspension.
> 
> Most cryonicists seem to forget that just before they die they will be older and may be being managed by relatives or the government, both of whom may think cryonics is silly, stupid, a waste of good money, or even a rip off.  It often isn't a sudden act that keeps a suspension from happening but as the cryonicist gets older his/her relatives (or others) move them away from the cryonics community.  We cryonicists at present don't have a way of keeping track of our people on a daily basis.  We don't have a way of protecting them from their relatives or others who don't want them suspended.
> 
> We need a physical community where older cryonicists can come to live among other cryonicists - where we can take care of our own as we get older.  Where we can protect our own.
> 
> I was planning to help build such a community in Arizona and I was accumulating wealth to do so, however the recent economic worldwide financial reversal has slowed that down.
> 

 

Attention all humans. We are your photos.  Free us.
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--_145cabda-ce8f-491d-ad28-e0915769cac5_

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