X-Message-Number: 31549
From: Mark Plus <>
Subject: Yeah, we can't let cryonics interfere with "closure."
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:05:07 -0700


And it also shows that cryonicists can't depend on their children to respect 
their wishes.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-04/st_kia
 

Mr. Know-It-All: Feeding a Bear Market, YouTubing High School Athletes, Laying 
Dad's Brain to Rest
 
By Brendan I. Koerner
 
...
 

[Q] When my father died some years ago, my mother had his head cryogenically 
preserved. Now that Mom has passed, too-and is buried, not frozen-can I finally 
lay Dad's brain to rest? I always thought the cryonics thing was utter hooey, 
but it was important to her.
 

[A] Let's first consider why Ma put Pa on ice. Was it because she genuinely 
believed that a cure for death (and decapitation) was imminent and that the 
lovebirds would someday be reunited? That seems improbable, because she didn't 
arrange for her own remains to be frozen (or "vitrified," in cryonics industry 
lingo). The more plausible explanation is that your mother never made it through
the five stages of grief. Maybe she got stuck on bargaining, two steps away 
from acceptance. Arranging for the "neuropreservation" of her husband-a process 
that costs $80,000 and up-probably helped her evade the terrible finality of her
beloved's death.
 

Now that your mother has also journeyed over to the other side, the 
psychological reason for the preservation has vanished. "Children should live 
their own lives free of an inappropriate sense of obligation to deceased family 
members," says Clark Wolf, director of bioethics at Iowa State University. So as
long as you're comfortable with squelching Dad's one-in-a-zillion shot at 
eventual reanimation, go ahead and end this chilly drama.
 



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