X-Message-Number: 5314
From: 
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 1995 11:19:24 -0500
Subject: doing right

Peter Merel (#5304), Mike Perry (#5308) and Keith Lynch (#5310) had some
amusing and/or interesting things to say about "reality" vs. virtual reality
and about motivations of  cryonicists and those who may revive them. To
reiterate a couple of quick points:

1. Donaldson's distinction between a real and a simulated or virtual
environment is valid, even if the "real" environment as we perceive it,
filtered through our senses and mental processing, is very different from the
objective world we postulate. Degrees of potential deception or misperception
are important. Failure to understand this leads to aberrations such as "moral
relativism," "do your own thing," and generally "hanging loose." Only the
tight-asses have the best chance of making it. (Of course, it is also true
that maybe NOBODY will make it, and the loose-hangers will have had more fun
before the bell tolls. That's one of the chances you take. But tight-asses
don't have to be grim all the time either.)

2. Again, most people--almost everyone who counts, in fact--have effectively
thrown in the towel and abandoned the ancient goal of finding the RIGHT path;
it is almost universally agreed among scientists and "intellectuals" that
individual values at bottom are arbitrary and not susceptible of objective
evaluation. In contrast, I believe that impending knowledge of our basic
biology can permit rigorous derivation of optimum life plans--and, further,
that PRESENT knowledge permits a worldview much more profitable and reliable
than any presently popular.  

Robert Ettinger


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