X-Message-Number: 5737 From: (Greg REILLY-COOPER) Newsgroups: sci.cryonics,sci.life-extension,uk.legal Subject: Re: Death (was Donaldson MR and Miss Hindley) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 17:40:33 GMT Message-ID: <> References: <4flato$> <> On 12 Feb 96 03:54:00 GMT, (Brian Wowk) didst utter: :> Fear of death is ancient, instinctive and natural as breathing. :> Evolution has for eons exerted selection pressure favoring creatures :> that fear death, as their avoidance of death allows them to reproduce :> longer. If you do not fear death, you are either not human or a liar. I had not realised that. Perhaps I need help ? Me, and millions of others who, whilst not exactly "chomping at the bit", are content to believe that there is a hereafter. In my view, it is not death but the process of dying - and the worry that one's personal process may be unpleasant - which is fearful. :> More to the point, just what is the purpose of medicine anyway :> if not to extend the length and quality of human life? Why do we have :> ambulances, hospitals, and doctors (not exactly "modern" phenomena)? Why :> expend any resources on medicine at all if death is an equanimous event? Perhaps you have heard of "the quality of life" ? There is no reason why the human frame should not be repaired and maintained in the best possible condition for as long as it is "in use". You might as well have asked why we should bother repairing accident-damaged road vehicles since they will be taken out of service sooner or later anyway. :> How kind. Please keep us cryonicists informed on how to :> remain in your good graces. In the meantime, you might want to :> introspect on how it is possible to be so phenomenally arrogant :> as to believe you have the right to tell people (using the force of law) :> the temperature at which they must keep their remains. Such sardonic prattle does little to advance your case and does more to invite derision. The disposal of human remains has long been subject to legislation and if you feel that you have a viable alternative to anything which is currently accepted as "the norm" it is for you, and not the rest of society, to state the case. :> I agree that medically this is a good analogue to cryonics. :> However the legal and moral circumstances are completely different. :> In fact they are inverse! In the case above, the hospital desperately :> wants to rid itself of a patient, the obstacle being legal and moral :> objections of outside society. In the case of cryonics, we cryonics :> organizations desperately want to KEEP our patients, the obstacle :> being people like you who want us to pull the plug. I doubt that the hospital concerned, and the relatives and friends of the patient, would favour your description of its motives. I, for one, begin to wonder how much (you) "cryonics organisations" are motivated by profit. The "obstacle" which you refer to and are patently unable to recognise is not "people like (us) who want to pull the plug" but people like you who are either unwilling or unable to make a case for change. Until and unless you do, it is entirely reasonable for the rest of us to expect you to accept the established norms. It is probably cause for lament among those who do genuinely believe in the value of cryonics that someone like you should make such a poor show of explaining the position whilst at the same vesting yourself with the profile of President of a "cryonic organisation". Greg Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5737