X-Message-Number: 8398
Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 09:52:27 -0700
From: Peter Merel <>
Subject: Odds and Sods

Thomas Donaldson writes,

>Not only can you make a difference, but you are not a passive gambler even
>while suspended. Right now all those involved in cryonics are doing the best
>they can to avoid the problems you raise. So long as cryonics exists 
>ANYWHERE they will continue to do so. You may have noticed Paul Wakfer and
>Prometheus; we are all doing whatever we can to make cryonics work, not
>just medically but politically and socially also. And when I am suspended,
>I do not expect all that work to suddenly cease. It will go on until we
>know how to revive someone and decide to do so. 

This is an excellent point.  Estimates of the odds are almost a self-
fulfilling prophecy; if everyone on the planet thinks, "yeah, sure, and
pigs might fly!" then cryonics would get resource-starved and its odds of
political and technological success go to nil. If everyone on the planet
thinks, "whoop de do, we CAN live forever!", we'd see early revivals within 
the millenium. Compared with a moon landing, cryonics is not exactly rocket
science :-)

And then there's the plausibility of Everett's multi-worlds interpretation
of QM; if there's any chance that cryonics might work for you, then, Everett
being on the mark, a plethora of you will make it. Why should you care

if you don't survive in a millionty-billionty other universes, so long as you're
fat and happy in this one? 

Any odds are better than sods.

Peter Merel.

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