X-Message-Number: 16108
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 16:05:20 +0000 ()
From: Louis Epstein <>
Subject: Hello CryoNet

I figure I might as well say hello to Cryonet.

Not too long ago I read a lot of the archives.Not the whole
thing,but enough to provide a sweeping over-the-years overview...
seeing the various stages of people's affiliations and so forth.
I see that the saga that began with Mike Federowicz,starry-eyed
teen CSNY volunteer,as recounted by Steve Bridge when he was the
Alcor Indiana rapporteur,has now entered yet another chapter
(the last being when Mike Darwin,CCR researcher,said he saw
little point in "freezing corpses" and despaired of cryonics
as it then was).I've seen John Grigg go from his intro to the
list as a politely-drooling Natasha Vita-More groupie,to the
message where he invited me to join the list after I had
provided him with the pertinent deathist Bible quote.(And I
note that Natasha has found a voice,from the Nancie Clark
posts in Keith Lynch's old archives that have almost no text).

Some of you know me from the GRG mailing list(Damien Broderick,
Max More,for example).John De Rivaz is on my own list of persons
interested in supercentenarians...he put my list of known cases
(which has since grown enormously) in Longevity Report 70.
Keith Lynch knows me from alt.obituaries.I have had some side
correspondence recently with Robert Ettinger and Olaf Henny.

Looking at cryonics and people who are interested in it,
it's easy to assume that it's strictly for atheists,bible-thumpers,
extropians,homosexuals,posthumanists,"right-to-die" supporters,
"right-to-life" supporters,singularitarians,transhumanists,
vegetarians,and venturists.I am none of these things,to be clear.
I'm just intrinsically hostile to dying.And even if I do die I
do not want to rot.

(I have yet to see a full explanation of how the much higher
maintenance method of cryopreservation achieves better atomic
fixation than the "modern mummification" of summum.org...clear
out the alien-channeling nonsense and I think they still avoid
the brain-destruction practice of the Egyptians.I am sure that
such explanations can be offered).

I am forty years old,and hope to see medicine that renders aging
obsolete.I keep close watch on the extremes of proven longevity and
look forward to seeing records shattered.

(Here is something I have yet to be able to quite piece together
with five notable lives,though with many,many sets of four available
I present the closest approach...doing it with three is absolutely
trivial.
	Adam Petty,Winston Cup top rookie and stock car dynast,
	was killed in a crash last year.He was born *the month
	before* Dorothy Stratten was murdered.
	Dorothy Stratten,onetime Playmate of the Year,maturing
	into an actress and Bogdanovich protegee,was murdered in
	1980.She was born in 1960.
	King Faisal II of Iraq was assassinated in a coup d'etat
	in 1958.He was born in 1935.
	Clyde Barrow,gangster,was killed in a shootout in 1934
	(along with the slightly younger Bonnie Parker).He
	was born in 1909.
	Luis Filipe,Crown Prince of Portugal,was assassinated
	in the streets of Lisbon in 1908.He was born in 1887.



Marie Marthe Augustine (Mesange) Bremont was born the year before
Crown Prince Luis Filipe.She celebrates her 115th birthday Wednesday.
ALL these people have come and gone,one after another,in her life.)

I celebrate endurance in the midst of surrounding change...not
change itself,which can sometimes be useful but should be viewed
with caution.I regard the highest obligation of a species as 
seeing to it that it is never replaced...which places me in
opposition to the Yudkowskian-Posthumanist paradigm.Of course,
I can only disprove "posthumanism" by successfully surviving
all would-be "posthumans" without having to become one.

I regard neuropreservation as a bad joke...if I sign up for
cryonics it would be whole body.This ties in,I suppose,to my
views on identity...that there can not be a "former me".
Nor would I use a teleportation device that failed to beam
the exact atoms disassembled for reassembly.As for an "artificial
intelligence",if it thought the way I did it would have to share
my views that an AI could not be me,and if it did not share my
views it would not be an accurate representation of me and it
therefore could not be me.Continuity is the keystone,whatever
evolutions there can be no clean breaks.

Well,I'll sit back and await the welcomes and flamewars and things
in between Wednesday morning.

Louis Epstein

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