X-Message-Number: 9232
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 07:04:03 -0800
From: "Joseph J. Strout" <>
Subject: "Virtual Obsession"

I watched "Virtual Obsession" (from Peter James' cryonics novel, HOST) on
ABC the other night.  Thanks to Robert Ettinger for reminding me to post
some comments about it.

My initial impression was favorable; they dealt with cryonics (even getting
the term correct) frankly and portrayed it as commonplace.  The
protagonist's father had been frozen, but with a disreputable firm that ran
off with all the money and let their patients thaw -- but this was
portrayed as an usual and tragic disaster.  There was also some good
discussion between the protagonist, who was a patient advocate for his
girlfriend who had just been frozen, and her father, who wanted her to have
a decent Christian burial.

For the sake of the story, however, a number of silly things happened --
for example, when an autopsy was ordered on the girlfriend, the cryonics
group converted her from whole-body to neuro (which seems reasonable),
planning to turn over just the body for autopsy.  But then, for no apparent
reason, the "neurocan" is given to the protagonist to take home (!!!), and
naturally it malfunctions and the woman's head ends up in the meat freezer,
where it is discovered by his wife...

The treatment of uploading (called "downloading" in the show) was a bit
silly, as well.  It apparently could be accomplished in a minute or two by
wearing a little electronic laurel wreath on your head, which would convert
your brain into code that runs on a conventional (albiet powerful)
computer.  And though nobody had bothered to program in sensory interfaces
or anything of the like, being inside this computer is "like Eden times
1000".  Whatever.

As a story, I didn't care for it much; the characters weren't particularly
likable and the whole thing was a bit soap-opera-ish for my tastes.  The
portrayal of uploading was also quite unbelievable.  But the portrayal of
cryonics was not too bad, and it did appear that the author and producers
had done their research in that regard.  Overall, I was pleased to see it,
and I hope it caused some viewers to think in ways they hadn't thought
before.

Cheers,
-- Joe

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
|    Joseph J. Strout           Department of Neuroscience, UCSD   |
|               http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~jstrout/  |
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