X-Message-Number: 1589
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 02:41:09 -0500
From: Alexander Chislenko <>
Subject: CRYONICS: Re: Ideas a threat?

Paul Wakfer writes:
 
>... To believe
>that any ideas, at any place, at any time, constitute a threat to
>anything, is a philosophically fundamental misunderstanding of the
>nature of freedom.
 
  What about giving an idea to a baby that this poison pill can be
sweet, or suggesting to Hitler that this nuclear bomb design can
work better, or showing an XXX-rated movie to an innocent child?
 
Since ideas can be translated into practically anything else, and
*every* conscious action (bad ones included) starts with an *idea*,
if anything can be something, so can an idea.
 
  I would say that the very idea that any idea is harmless
is the greatest idea-threat you can find - it works like AIDS,
lowering one's natural defences of *free* intelligent selection
among the alternative ideas.
 
Failure to realize it, IMO, represents a fundamental misunderstanding
of the nature of ideas.
 
In an attempt to connect the above text to cryonics, I'd say that
with all my hopes that this misunderstanding will vanish in a near
future, I can expect that its carriers would be considered a walking
historical curiosity, and the future Museum of Ancient Thought can
help cover their revival costs - ahead of correct, but boring thinkers!
:-(   ;^)

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|  Alexander Chislenko |  | Cambridge, MA  |  (617) 864-3382 |
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