X-Message-Number: 11207
From: 
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 16:58:41 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Are any aliens signed up for cryonics?

In Message #11195, professor Ettinger in part wrote:
>
>One of our CI directors, Dr. Michael Hart, was co-editor and contributor to
>the book EXTRA-TERRESTRIALS: WHERE ARE THEY? published by Pergamon in 1982.
>His calculations indicated that, based on studies of atmospheric evolution,
>the chance of  life developing on a habitable planet is only around 10^ -30.
>This implies that, if the universe is finite, there are probably no other
>planets with life; or if the universe is infinite, while the number of planets
>with life is also infinite, almost certainly all of them are extremely far
>away, with only a tiny chance of there being another one in our galaxy.


Of course, if the universe were also eternal (infinite in time) as suggested 
again in modern 

times in THE BIG BANG DIDN'T HAPPEN (Lerner), it would be hard to understand why
we are not up 

to our ears in corporeal aliens right from the beginning of our own presence on 
earth ... unless 

they really either didn't want us to notice them (Men In Black!) or we simple 
cannot (or perhaps 
will not*) recognize their presence.


(* I really can't discount the possibility that even the most wide-eyed "true 
believer" types 

might be right.  Maybe Steven Speilberg is right and all the UFO sightings are 
just alien 

teenagers out for a good time slumming around earth.  I still would not wait 
around betting that 

the "Space Brothers" will arrive next week and usher in a new era of universal 
love and peace.  

History seems to indicate that these "interactions" usually leave the believers 
sitting alone on 

hilltops rationalizing why they WERE NOT rescued and the earth DIDN'T end at 
midnight).


The nice thing about expecting to survive for a long time is the hope we will 
actually get to 
find out which view is correct.


And, yes, I personally would want to reduce suffering for other species if I can
the capability 

as suggested by Professor Ettinger, especially cats ... but I don't seem to care
very much about 

what happens to insects or bacteria.  (And that was a nice ham sandwich I just 
ate!)  It all 
seems to be an issue of context as far as I can tell.

-George Smith
A signed-up cryonics member

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