X-Message-Number: 5867
From: Peter Merel <>
Newsgroups: uk.legal,sci.cryonics,sci.life-extension
Subject: Re: Virtue of suffering
Date: 3 Mar 1996 00:48:43 +1100
Message-ID: <4h9jjr$>
References: <> <>

John Sharman <> writes:

>If "everyone understands" why is it necessary to use grossly misleading
>advertising slogans?

Good question. I agree that this slogan is too strong.

>No, my objection is to fraud, deception, trade misdescriptions and stuff
>like that. Stop trying to con people and I shall be very happy to let you go
>on with your cryonics. Why is it that cryonicists cannot accept the
>reasonableness of this request?

The slogan is too strong, but so is your reaction to it.  Go and look at
the contracts that cryocare get their clients to sign - they have them
all available at their web site - and tell us if there is any fraud,
deception or misdescription in there. If there is, then I'd strongly
agree with you that cryocare should be hauled up short on it.  But for
an advertising slogan? Do you get equally het up when Coca Cola imply
you'll have an orgasm in the Bahamas with your next coke?

>children die for lack of a 15c bag of saline. But they're
>black or yellow or brown and they don't speak English. If you have to pin
>your chances on innate human altruism your odds of revival diminish
>by a few orders of magnitude.

Many of the same folks who are working on cryonic suspension are working
on molecular nanotechnology. If you have a look at some of Drexler's
books on the subject, or at Merkle's web site, you'll see that such a
technology has the potential to end all resource-scarcity on the Earth.
Without such technology, it seems highly unlikely that any humans will
survive the next hundred years - read "http://www.zip.com.au/~pete/uw.html" 
for an idea about the imminent dangers and opportunities we face. I dare
say that this qualifies these technologists as considerably more
altruistic (whether they intend it or not) than someone who only
contributes to short-term charitable goals.  If you are truly
compassionate towards your fellow man, then become an engineer - or 
fund one!

>If a scientist is able to get a revival licence, then I guess he might
>be allowed to revive the odd one or two for research purposes, but
>according to you lot, there will be precious little research as all the
>problems will have been solved and all the questions answered.

"We lot" are engineers. We know that none of these problems can be
solved or any of these questions get answered without us doing the work.
No one imagines that cryonic resuscitations are going to happen without
a frightening amount of brain-sweat.

>In any event, what makes you think God will allow this? It could
>potentially put Heaven out of business.

Depends on which god you prefer. A surprising number of cryonicists go
in for Dyson & Tipler's "Omega Point" theory, which you can find
represented on the web at

  "http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/Trans/omega_page.html". 

A few, including myself, prefer philosophical Taoism - have a look at

  "http://www.zip.com.au/~pete/gnl.html".  

Others go for straightforward atheism, agnosticism or freethought -

  "http://atheist.tamu.edu/~blemoine/my_atheism.html" 

Often in combination with the cult of memetics -

  "http://www.sepa.tudelft.nl/~afd_ba/mem.html"

Or some other variety of transhumanism -

  "http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/trans.html"

I don't know of any theist cryonicists, but I shouldn't be surprised to hear 
of some of them either.

But I guess your real question is, what makes us think the church will
allow this? That's a damned good question, since what the cryonicists
are about is engineering the same thing that many churches regard as 
fundamental evidence of God's existence.

One way to look at this is that such churches will become outmoded by the new
technology, just as the old hellenic cults disappeared when the world became
more rational. Another is that the God of eternal vanity and vengeance will
smote us but good. Either way, it'd be fun to watch ... from a distance ...

>Serious Question: Does the Roman Catholic Church have an official line
>on cryonics yet?

Another interesting one. Does anyone know what their line is on frozen embryos?

>Depends upon my quality of life, on a day to day basis. If it meant
>sacrificing to the medics a substantial part of the wealth which I
>intend to pass to my loved ones, then very probably not.

No such sacrifice is required. Paying for cryonic suspension via a life
insurance policy will cost you about the same amount as a pizza a week
... well, ymmv depending on the price of pizza in your area :-)

>Sure, but your side has brought up a detailed discussion of the precise
>nature of speculative "possibility". If my herring is red, yours
>certainly shows signs of a little pinkness around the gills. It's only a
>matter of counting the zeroes before the significant digits in a decimal
>fraction, after all.

Unfortunately (?), the proposed methods of time travel all entail the
manipulation of energies that are vastly greater than those we presently
have to play with. Even assuming a mature nanotechnology, it could be
thousands of years, if ever, before such a thing can be considered 
practicable. Even then, Niven's law gives a good reason to think
that time travel can never be invented.

Cryonic revival, on the other hand, requires nothing but nanotechnology.
Merkle's pages describe the requirements in great detail, and it seems
like a timescale of one half to two centuries is a not an unreasonable
estimate for the work. But please read the reasoning and try to poke
holes in it - I can think of at least one notion that I'm not too
convinced about - Drexler's assumption that the rise of nanocomputers
will lead to rapid design bootstapping. Not that I think that's
infeasible, but I shouldn't be surprised if it is more difficult than
has been estimated - maybe as much as fifty or a hundred years more
difficult.

But that's not really a worry for the cryonicists - at liquid nitrogen 
temperatures you'll keep for about 50,000 years if need be.

-- 

mailto:                 |            Accept Everything.         |

http://www.zip.com.au/~pete/           |            Reject Nothing.            |


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