The Man Who Fights Death
Conventional obituaries will say that he died, of heart and respiratory failure, but he doesn’t believe so, nor do many of his friends and admirers.
His body won’t be buried or burned, as most people in his non-metabolizing state are, because those methods of interment would result in a state that even he and they would have recognized as death. Instead, as his bodily functions progressively failed, with a tub of chilled water at bedside, he was declared legally dead so that he could have himself chilled down, his fluids replaced with an anti-freeze solution, ultimately to liquid nitrogen temperatures, to continue a quest on which he had spent most of his life to date: to live indefinitely long.
He is not the first to be so preserved, though he is one of only a few hundred in history. But he is the man who made knowledge of the notion widespread to the point that there is a popular mythology of it (no, Walt Disney was not frozen), and it has become a staple of science fiction and even comedy, such as Woody Allen’s Sleeper and Matt Groening’s The Simpsons and Futurama, the latter in which it is key to the very premise of the show. In fact, the producer of both of those shows had a lot of fun with the idea earlier, when he was a still cartoonist.
He is a man far ahead of his time. As cryonics pioneer Mike Darwin noted in his “obituary” for Ettinger Sunday:
Cryonics depends upon a number of paradigm-changing observations: Death is a gradual process rooted in progressive loss of biological structure (information) and is not a binary condition in most cases. Life does not depend upon continuous function or metabolism; widespread cryopreservation of human embryos was required to bring this idea into the public consciousness. Cryopreservation is possible for a wide range of cells and tissues, and even when uncontrolled freezing occurs, vast amounts of cell and tissue structure remain either intact or inferable (i.e., theoretically possible to reconstruct and restore to health and life from their damaged state). Advances in biology and medicine offer the prospect of growing new organs and regenerating or replacing damaged tissues; this is no longer considered wild speculation, but rather, is today progress expected by the public as a result of the logical progression of biomedicine. Finally, the ideas of nanoscale engineering and computation and their implications for cell and tissue repair (nanomedicine) are still not fully appreciated by the public, although understanding and acceptance of these ideas is growing.
Part of the problem, of course, is that the idea defies “common sense.” As some have argued with me in the past, “dead is dead.” Except when it isn’t –when a drowning victim, not breathing, is revived, when a heart is stopped for surgery, and then restarted. Others make an inductive argument: everyone who has been born has died. (Well, as far as we know; possible exceptions are a staple of science fiction). Well, actually, that’s not even true. There are billions of people alive today who have never died, and they live in an era in which technology has advanced greatly.
“Only libertarians believe that individuals belong to themselves, and want to preserve themselves and their lives as long as happily possible, which also explains their attraction to transhumanism, because they also don’t make as much of a fetish of the human condition as do conservatives.”
About that…
The human condition is a fetish on what level, moral? spiritual, physical?
Most healthy persons accept life as a gift and only sometimes as a curse, whatever its origins. In fact, life is a dynamic passed on through millenia, whether one believes in a prime mover or not. Each of us, under normal circumstances, plays the card that will either continue that dynamic or extinguish it by active or benign means. How we live affects the health of that dynamic. Many feel that we have received the “ultimate free lunch” in our, and the world’s, existence. I would say that the like-minded among us “foster” rather than fetishise our life circumstance.
The conservative position on the human condition is a fetish because it is not logically consistent. The believe in protecting the “unborn” from murder by abortion and the aged from murder by euthanasia. This is all fine and dandy and represents a commitment of life over death. Yet, not only do they not seek to protect us from death by the aging process. They express actual hostility towards developing the biotechnological cure for aging and death. This position is a logically contradictory with their position of life over death, thus making their view nothing more than a fetish.
Given that I consider myself a conservative of some peculiar strain, I am heartened to see that you are not a disinterested participant in this discussion, but I will tell you that we are looking at this from very different viewpoints as my original post makes clear. I don’t seek death and I don’t have a problem with using technology, per se, in its application to life extension. Instead of playing cat and mouse, I will tell you that using innocent life, ie. embryos, is an abomination and will not stop at that level. We do not live in a static world.
Thats fine with me. From what I’ve heard, embryos are no longer necessary for stem cell research as they can now make any kind of stem cell from any kind of regular cell through direct reprogramming. So, this issue has been put to bed.
With regards to the rest, I stand by my earlier comments that hostility towards radical life extension and cryonics on the part of conservatives is logically inconsistent with a genuine pro-life worldview. A pro-life worldview that is hostile towards cryonics and radical life extension is an ersatz position.
I understand the position that we are participants in our own evolution, but that participation can take many forms. I wouldn’t speak for anyone other than myself. However, to my mind, the most radical life extension with the highest degree of success is having children. In the western mind and tradition, 2 persons of different sexes volunteer in the furthering of human kind by producing progeny. This, at the outset, is risky insofar as nature plays her own hand; what and who will this child be? To set aside the controls and allow cosmic forces to work their wonder is metaphysical laissez-faire and, perhaps, goes some distance toward understanding the conservative mind set as it applies to radical life extension described here. Perhaps the idea of creative destruction, the never ending cycle of human furtherance, appeals at some base level to the conservative mind.
Parents give up everything for their children, at least in evolved societies.
There is something in the giving that “finishes” us, makes us more authentic and more complete. An act of creation is necessarily original and therefore, eschews replication. So every child is different.
To be honest, the idea of potentially never-ending life is a logical dead end and if it could be achieved would be hell on earth, for as long as earth would remain. I suppose there will always be the school of thought that advocates for the already-living vs. those-yet-to-be on the basis of “Why bother? I’m already here!” I can’t speak for God or nature. I believe that we are participants in our own evolution. I just have a different take on what the means are to achieve those ends.
Humans and chimps are supposed to closely related. Why the arguments over using humans for experiments while there are chimps around?
Oh, yeah. “There are more humans than chimps”. Except there are more chimps than humans legally available for experimentation.
Wrong, Failboy. It’s the leftists and progressives who want the death panels to decide on when someone has begun to be a useless breather and unproductive consumer of resources, and pull the plug on them.
It’s the leftists and progressives who want the death panels to decide on when someone has begun to be a useless breather and unproductive consumer of resources, and pull the plug on them.
This is certainly true. You won’t find any argument from me on this.
Can’t blame a guy for trying, I guess. But this reminds me a lot of SETI – it’s based on a lot of assumptions that aren’t necessarily valid. Egos are involved. What makes this guy believe that his frozen carcass is going to be cared for indefinitely? Society’s values change. Companies go out of business. Machinery breaks down. Is he so important that possibly generations of people will go out of their way to keep him on ice despite everything else that happens? Hard to believe.
Let’s all live as long as we can, certainly. But I think it’s hard enough taking care of old people for their final few years. I wouldn’t wants somebody having to take care of me AFTER I’m dead, with no end in sight. People have their own lives to live. They don’t need to spend their time watching over corpses.
If Social Security’s looking shaky now, imagine what might happen if this kind of thing became widespread? Government agents would have to sneak around pulling plugs.
Healthy life extension (curing aging) will eliminate the need for “old age” entitlement programs such as social security and medicare.
Oh? So we’re gonna live to be 500 or 1000 years old and still have to go to work every day? That’s gonna suck.
Until my maternal grandmother died last year, for awhile both she and my mother, literally two generations in the same family, drew Social Security and Medicare.
But as Abelard says, rejuvenation and radical life extension change the rules of the game about wealth building and retirement. Michio Kaku in his new book “Physics of the Future” features a chapter at the end about the life of an ordinary guy in the year 2100. In a discussion with an AI which provides his basic health care, he tells it that he doesn’t know when to do the sorts of things people used to do when they had to plan their lives under the constraint of a lifespan of only a few decades. When does he retire, if he can stay healthy and productive indefinitely? I think people who have this “problem” will find their own solutions without too much trouble.
Somewhere, there are worms being deprived of a perfectly good meal.
Well the worms may be denied for now, but if this proves to not work (my guess is it doesn’t pan out the way envisioned), then the worms will have freezer burned food.
BTW, if it does work out, I wonder what the freezer burn would feel like after getting revived.
Cryogenic storage is actually very simple.
Even if power is totally lost, there will be plenty of time for repairs.
Or just call in for a shipment of LN2 and pump it in if it starts getting low.
Barring an earthquake or some other similar catastrophe, I would consider it to be a safe method of preservation for decades or even centuries, with proper oversight.
It’s the “thawing out” step of the process that I would be most concerned about.
His idea was not well thawed out to start with.
Life is a fatal, sexually transmitted condition, as far as the body is concerned anyway.
Get over it. It is not a problem.
The big question for me is: what if he’s right? 1) Will future society want him around, or will Earth be so overpopulated that he’ll be as welcome as frozen Bubonic Plague? 2) Will humans continue to increase in intelligence so much that he’ll be legally designated to be a particularly arrogant pet, circa 2700 Anno Domini?
What if he is carrying diseases that will be fatal to future generations, because of genetic mutations? It’s very unlikely that they’d want to revive him in that case.
I always wondered who was going to wake up the sleepers and who was going to take care of them after they were re-animated.
Your grand children might have pleasant memories of you, and might be willing to take you in after you are re-animated. But what if you have no direct descendants? Or your descendants are complete strangers to you? Will they take you in.
How will support yourself? Investments can go bad. Investments managed by a 3rd party are targets for theft. Currencies can be inflated to worthlessness.
The odds are that at sometime in the future, the heirs of the sleepers will no longer have any emotional connection to them, and if there is any money still around, they will take it and have the old ice cube cremated.
This is a misunderstanding of cryonics and of self-interested groups in general. Who will reanimate us? Whoever is running the cryonics organizations in the future will be the people to do the reanimating. The organizations will continue to exist as along as there are new members joining them. Say that the reanimation biotechnology becomes available in 2150. It will be whoever is running the cryonics organizations in 2150 that will do the reanimation. We do not expect disinterested outsiders to reanimate us.
Niven’s “World out of Time” is a great story about how to deal with the “Corpsicles”.
I’m all for this, though there are problems the newly revived will face. The technology to properly thaw and fix a frozen body will most likely be post-singularity. That means something other than an economy of scarcity, wide spread nano-technology, on demand DNA manipulation allowing humans to take on any form they desire, fully self aware AI’s with god like intelligence… and who knows what else!
If Mr. Ettinger is ever properly revived he will not wake up in the future, he will wake up on an alien planet.
“Who will reanimate us? Whoever is running the cryonics organizations in the future will be the people to do the reanimating.”
“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
I don’t think that is a plan.
The people running the cryonics organizations in the future will not be total strangers to us. They will be people like us who share our values and our commitment to radical life extension and making it through cryonics. How do I know this? Because if they were not, they would not even be involved in cryonics at all. My point is that these organizations will continue to exist as long as there are new people interested in cryonics and join up. If these organizations fail to attract new members, then they will eventually fail and the members in suspension will thaw out (e.g. die). However, the current organizations (both of them) have been around since the early 70′s and continue to attract new members. Thats a 40 year track record, which is not bad. If we can sustain this process for, say, another 150 years, then we stand a good chance of making it.
There are lots of organizations, both private and public, that have been around for 150 years. These organizations serve as useful models to emulate.
Wow. That is true belief. I would suggest reading the new book by Norwich on the history of the Papacy. Remember that the Roman Catholic Church has formal training programs to inculcate and monitor belief systems and have formalized and specified their belief system in excruciating detail. And yet, many Popes have been incompetent, or crooked.
“There are lots of organizations, both private and public, that have been around for 150 years. These organizations serve as useful models to emulate.”
Survivor bias. There are far more organizations founded 150 years ago that have collapsed.
Of course there are many more organizations that have failed over the past 150 years than have survived. No shit, Sherlock. The point is to study the survivors to identify what traits have allowed them to survive when all others have failed. I look at cryonics as a 150-200 year venture. If reanimation is possible, the technology will certainly be available sometime during the 22nd century.
Even if it works, it is likely that the first ones re-animated will only get their brainstem functions back and it will take a number of tries before cognition is achieved. Who’s first? Where’s all that great libertarian self-determination going to be then? Just think about the first guy to get re-animated with minimal cognition, remembering the way things were before, and ending his days in a nursing home anyway, or dying of some new disease that everyone in that later period has acquired immunity so long ago, it is no longer considered a threat.
One more thing–where are the animal studies showing that this has an ice cube’s chance in Ayn Rand’s new residence of working?
To quote a famous, but fictitious physician, “He’s dead Jim.”
“That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die.” — H.P. Lovecraft
I was reminded somehow.
Thank you for that. My dialog with Mr. Lindsey above (## 9 & 12) leads me to think that he is part of a new religious cult. And your quote brings to mind an older cult:
“Then, whispered Castro, those first men formed the cult around tall idols which the Great Ones shewed them; idols brought in dim eras from dark stars. That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.”
http://dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thecallofcthulhu.htm
All I’m talking about is creating an organization that can survive over the next 200 years or so, that will keep us in suspension and ultimately reanimate us when the technology becomes available. To equate what I said to a cult is just utter imbecility.
Back when I took sociology of religion, a religion was defined as a social organization that has a praxis which is intended to achieve salvation, i.e. to alleviate a fundamental existential problem. A cult, in popular usage, is simply a minority religion that has not yet achieved respectability.
The organization you described fits the definition of religion and the popular category of cult to a tee. Given the practical advantages to being a religion, such as tax exemptions, I would cop to it.
Somehow I did not notice the word “morality”, perhaps implied. Your little life is worth nothing, but to you and God. Please leave the world gracefully.
Hmm. You are very wrong when you draw a dividing line between libertarians and people who believe they belong to God (all theists).
I believe that I, as an individual, belong to God.
And, I believe that He has morally obligated me in certain ways, but that I am free to act as I choose within the options defined by His Moral Law.
Among the limitations placed on me by His Moral Law is this: That I may not initiate or threaten the use of force against a fellow human being except to deter, halt, or punish a wrongful use of force by that fellow human being against an innocent person (myself or a third party).
Also, I believe that I may not morally hire an employee to do, on my behalf, something I cannot justly and morally do, myself. This is the case, whether the employee is a private security guard, a hitman, or the government (who are, after all, merely force-wielding hirelings of the people).
This means I cannot hire the government to initiate or threaten the use of force against a fellow human being except to deter, halt, or punish a wrongful use of force by that fellow human being against an innocent person.
This means that, as a Christian, I am obligated to advocate a government which is essentially libertarian. Such a government would of course use force to defend the rights of innocent persons — including unborn persons, naturally. But it would not initiate force against anyone except in the defense of the rights of individuals.
I am a libertarian. I also believe I belong to God. Indeed, I am a libertarian because I believe I belong to God; that is, because I believe that while He has delegated to me a great degree of His divine free will and authority to choose, He has not delegated to me authority to justly and morally do absolutely anything at all. Using force against a neighbor not guilty of violating someone’s rights is one of the things I am not permitted to do.
This is the typical view of libertarian and libertarian-leaning Christians, who are a large subset of libertarians.
It is not that they don’t agree with social conservatives in regarding the same things as sinful. Porn use is sinful; mutual masturbation between same-gender persons is sinful; gossip is sinful; unjust interference in the free market is sinful; and abortion is sinful.
But of those, only certain sins involve a direct, overt violation of the rights of an innocent person (e.g. abortion). The rest cannot be justly outlawed, because if it is immoral for me to point a handgun at my neighbor to prevent a sin, it is immoral for me to hire a policeman to do the same.
So I am a libertarian.
And I believe I belong to God.
Your notion that the two categories don’t overlap is therefore in error.
Well, I must sayyyyy, I am impressed. Congratulations on cutting through the array of false choices presented between someone like Rand and someone like…God. Many times on these blogs I have suggested that Rand, despite her professed atheism, would not offer complete disclosure on the origins of her “sense of life” or the source of the human spirit. My take is that since she could not discuss those issues rationally, they were not discussable, not that she didn’t believe their antecedents didn’t exist. I remain convinced that the human fire, the will to further ourselves, remained a mystery to her and she could only describe it as something that simply existed. By the way, libertarians claimed her, never the reverse.
R.C., It is true that Christianity and libertarianism can be compatible. Your mention of the “non-aggression” principle (I believe this is called the “Golden Rule” in Christianity) is also the heart of libertarianism. I subscribe to this principle as well. This is the only concept of morality that I recognize. The notion that sin is defined as anything other than the intentional causing of harm to others is just plain silly. Why anyone would believe such a thing is completely incomprehensible to me. As long as I do not cause harm to others, I am a perfectly moral being and am without sin.
As far as conservatism and having kids goes, as long as you do not use the corrupt force of government to prevent the development of effective anti-aging technologies, regeneration, and cryonics; I don’t care what you do. I stand by my previous point only those who are into radical life extension are really “pro-life”. All others are fakes and phonies.
Terance57,
Your’re into kids. I’m into personal life extension. Are you suggesting that these two categories are incompatible? If you are, you are in error.
What if the premise of life evolving from simple to complex states is all backward. Evolutionary biology is a branch of “science” that discards the law of entropy. Jeanette asked the question “Will humans continue to increase in intelligence so much that he’ll be legally designated to be a particularly arrogant pet, circa 2700 Anno Domini?”
What if the assumption of ever increasing intelligence is wrong? What if in each subsequent generation, genetic information is lost, not gained, and average intelligence declines over time? It is theoretically possible for knowledge, which is cumulative, to increase, while actual intelligence decreases on a macro level. Many of the things we “know” today are not things we discovered, but just the accumulation of knowledge obtained prior to our personal existence. As an engineer, I understand Newton’s theories and laws, but I do not necessarily have the intelligence level of Newton. He was intelligent enough to derive the physical laws we engineers use as a matter of course. My point is that knowledge is not the same as intelligence.
From an archealogical point of view, engineers today are completely baffled at how ancient civilizations accomplished some of the things that they did. Imagine, for a moment, the level of intelligence required to develop agriculture. Today, we take for granted the knowledge acquired over centuries of the practice of agriculture. But who is truly the more intelligent: The one who simply practices the skills he learned from others, or the one who develops the skills from the imagination of his mind?
Just saying.
There’s a number of practical difficulties for me as I don’t live in the USA, but it’s certainly something I’d like to try.
Ethically, the biggest issue is the cost – the money I would be spending on neuro-suspension is money that could be going towards my child’s future. However, once he’s seen to, yes, why not?
Is it a sure thing? No. Too many accidents could happen along the way, everything from meteor impacts to religious takeovers, to just plain economic collapse.
Technically, it’s a sure thing, eventually, in the long-term. I’ve seen the measurements of live tissue, then the freezer-burnt results, then the computer reconstruction – a “guess” of what it was before. The correlation’s pretty good, the errors less than the difference in neuro-anatomy from the time we go to bed to the time we wake up.
How long is the long term? Over a century, certainly, possibly a few of them. Less than a millenium though.
So what value could I be then? As a walking history book, I should imagine. As someone who’s biologically pretty close to future humanity (maybe closer than to the current crop, I have some really unusual biology) I wouldn’t be too far away to be understandable.
Think what it would be like to have someone who actually saw the departure of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. Who could tell us what life was actually like in late 15th century Spain and Portugal – or at least, give us one view. I’d also be one of the “early adopters”, so probably revived latest as the damage would be greater, but that might just increase my value to society.
I reckon the odds of successfully getting a second bite at the cherry as around 1 in 10 to 1 in 100. Technically, 99%+, but too many non-technical things can cause the wheels to fall off. In which case, I’m no worse off than if I’d done nothing.
Hmm. You are very wrong when you draw a dividing line between libertarians and people who believe they belong to God (all theists).
No doubt this is true. There are, in fact, Christian members in cryonics and and one has even been CEO of one of the organizations. Clearly there is no incompatibility with Christianity and radical life extension/cryonics. I think the reason why Simberg did draw this line is because of some of the very public hostility expressed by prominent conservatives like William Buckley.
I think it would be good for Christians such as those commenting in here to make clear that this opposition to cryonics and radical life extension, IN NO WAY, represents the mainstream of Christian thought, that it is an extremist attitude that is rejected by all right thinking persons.
Actually, I think you’re mistaken. Opposition to cryonics and/or radical life extension (they are not necessarily the same thing) is not an extremist position in Christian thought. Christian theology (I suspect) demands death from its followers – not in some sense of mandatory martyrdom, but in the sense that, if one has not died how can one be risen from the grave at the return of Christ? In addition, man was “sentenced” to death as part of the doctrine of Original Sin and to find ways to indefinitely “cheat” death would be to thwart the will of God.
Now, no doubt there have been Christians who have chosen to experiment with cryonics. That is an example of their use of free will – another gift from God. However, that does not imply that opposition to cryonics is outside of mainstream Christian thought.
Obligatory caveat: None of this is meant to imply that government should intervene on behalf of the Christian faith to ban the practice of cryonics.
Do any of the Christians in this board wish to challenge this assertion? (R.C.? Terence57?) After all, it is precisely this assertion that prompted Rand Simberg to “draw the line” between Christianity and libertarianism in the first place.
The right to live healthily as long as one desires is the most fundamental liberty of all. There is no way any worldview that refuses to recognize this most fundamental liberty of all could, in any way, be compatible with libertarianism.
I can just imagine what people in the 22nd Century and beyond will say about current socially dominant beliefs: “Wait a minute. People in the early 21st Century said, ‘Death gives life meaning’? Seriously? How could anyone believe such nonsense?”
People in the early 21st Century said, ‘Death gives life meaning’? Seriously? How could anyone believe such nonsense?”
Those who are already brain-dead?
If it works, the first 100 years of trials will “awake” as severely damaged organisms with mush for brains and specialized cells (thyroid, thalmus, etc., etc.) and just jerk around a bit. After 200 years of “progress” in this science, perhaps they’ll be able to perform as good as our most damaged citzens today, wheeled around in baskets with diapers and gags.
Come on!
My last post addressed to one Abelard Lindsey
You said:
“Do any of the Christians in this board wish to challenge this assertion? (R.C.? Terence57?) After all, it is precisely this assertion that prompted Rand Simberg to “draw the line” between Christianity and libertarianism in the first place.”
First, the “Rand” I’m referring to is Ayn Rand. Second, I considered it first an intellectual necessity (and now just a courtesy) to address on the the topic, as conservatives were given over to having concerns of the human condition as a type of fetishism. It’s no one’s job to answer your assertions.
You said:
“Yet, not only do they not seek to protect us from death by the aging process. They express actual hostility towards developing the biotechnological cure for aging and death. This position is a logically contradictory with their position of life over death, thus making their view nothing more than a fetish.”
Whoever “they” are, they are entitled to their opinions, as are you. Speaking only for myself, however, I have no opinion of life over death or the reverse.
As entertaining as it is to put words in the mouths of others and coming up with arguments refuting those “ideas,” the exercise strikes me as masturbatory.
You said:
“I think it would be good for Christians such as those commenting in here to make clear that this opposition to cryonics and radical life extension, IN NO WAY, represents the mainstream of Christian thought, that it is an extremist attitude that is rejected by all right thinking persons.”
Well, let’s examine this. Why would it be good for Christians to offer any type of gloss in favor or against? To what end should they seek approval and from whom? And I’ve always enjoyed using the phrase (learned from an old college prof.) “right thinking person,” as a way to end a discussion with the feeble minded, as in “No right thinking person could think otherwise,” etc.,etc.
He got a lot of mileage from it. I considered using it myself earlier.
Struggle on and find victory against foes who aren’t there, suppositions not posited and assertions not made.
You’re being evasive by not answering my assertions. My assertion is what prompted the discussion in the first place (Duh!). The reason why Rand (Simberg, not Ayn Rand) made the line of distinction in the first place was in response to the article about when William Buckley expressed hostility towards cryonics. If you read the article, you would know this is the case. Dragging Ayn Rand into the conversation is a red herring.
Speaking only for myself, however, I have no opinion of life over death or the reverse.
If this is true, then say so and make clear that that those who are hostile to life extension in no way reflect your thought at all. Also, if you claim to have no opinion of life over death, what would it matter to you if embryos are used in medical research? I assumed that you are “pro-life”. I guess this was a wrong assumption on my part.
It seems to me that if “pro-life” is not about life over death, then its rather meaningless, don’t you think?
Well, let’s examine this. Why would it be good for Christians to offer any type of gloss in favor or against?
The reason why we are even having this discussion is that Rand (Simberg, not Ayn Rand) noted in his article that prominent conservatives have publicly denounced cryonics and radical life extension, and cited Ettinger’s debate with Buckley as one example. I am well-aware that cryonics is not on the “radar-screen” of most conservatives. However, I have noticed the few times that conservatives have picked up on the issue of cryonics, life-extension, and transhumanism; they have been hostile towards it. This tells me that their wouldview contains some ideological component that makes them hostile to such. Rand Simberg thinks that component is Christianity. If its not Christianity, just say so and the discussion is settled. Your evasiveness makes me wonder about you.
There seems to be some confusion in here. Rand Simberg noted the logical inconsistency of the conservative position where they believe in protecting people from death by abortion and euthanasia, but not from the aging process. He referred to this logical inconsistency as a “fetish”. This does not fit the dictionary definition of “fetish”. However, the conservative position on the life over death issue is a logical inconsistency and no amount of spin can change that fact.
I don’t think it’s spin- rather, it’s the definition of life that a conservative might use, as compared to what yours might be. To a conservative, life is not reduced to the state of being alive, which is why life is not pursued at all costs. The Catholic Church has very consistent thinking in that regard. Sometimes people are surprised to find out that the Church does not, in fact, support extraordinary care at the end of life- considering it is usually thought of as being quite “pro-life.”
To you this may be spin, but what it really is is a simple divergence in the definition of human life. Which for most conservatives includes such concepts as the soul, a God-given purpose, or the idea of “natural life.” When these things are present, then life is to be pursued, and when they are not, it isn’t.
Thanks for clarifying this point for me. I think what you are saying is that “pro-life” does not mean being alive as oppose to being dead. Rather, it means adherence to a fixed pattern life cycle. Any deviance from this fixed patterned life cycle is defined as being “anti-life”, even if it means longer and healthier life spans. I have to say that I find this creepy. I certainly do not relate to this concept of “pro-life” at all. However, if others are into it, its fine by me as long as they don’t try to force it on me.
I lived as an expat for 10 years (in Asia). Among my life extension friends, I used to refer to people who lived by the conventional life-cycle as “Patternists”. I probably got the term from a cyberpunk novel, as I used to be into cyberpunk SF at the time.
As for life purpose, I’ve never understood why this has to come from an external source. As a goal seeking being, I’ve always created my own purpose in life and to act on it. For me, purpose is self-created. It is entirely internal. This issue is described in psychology and management theory as the internal locus of control vs. external locus of control. People who create their own purpose in life are of internal locus of control. People who feel the need for an external source (God, etc.) to provide them with a sense of purpose are of external locus of control. You know, this is actually taught in business school.
Cryonics and life extension appeals to those of internal locus of control. I can see why these ideas would not be so appealing to those of external locus of control. However, I don’t think these are hard categories as there are Christians who are signed up for cryonics and there are certainly a great many agnostic libertarian types who have no interest in cryonics and radical life extension at all.
If we do not “fetishize” human life, why do were preserve it? To “transcend” it? Who is this “we”? Who gets to live forever? What happens to people who don’t? And don’t tell me you truly envision a world where every person is immortal; we can’t even manage a world in which every person has electricity. We can’t even manage a world where every person has food. Shall we leave transcendence up to the conscienceless workings of natural selection? Shall our supermen resemble Nietzsche’s, free to impose their will on those too weak to resist? Shall we breed slaves for gods? What would stop us?
I am agnostic. I do not know if a god exists, and I see no evidence one way or another. But I know that life is full of pain. I know that everything humans create, including systems of behavior, and including technology, is imperfect. We think with three pounds of meat, and I do not believe the soul and body are separate entities. Therefore, I share Asimov’s misgivings about immortality for myself, and I can’t recommend it to anyone else.
Like it or not, no-one is in control of their own destiny. God might control our fates, or simple material determinism. We are not completely free. We can never be completely free, no matter how long we live. And I have no faith that immortality can bring meaning to our bound existences. I would rather live a brief life, able to convince myself that perhaps my actions have meaning, than to stare eternity in the face, alone, with only my own “godhood” as company.
Why live forever if there’s no point?
I’m not sure why a Christian would want to go cryo. Our physical bodies are not fit for eternity but our resurrection bodies are. Why settle for old-busted when you can have new-hotness. “To live is Christ, to die is gain.”
Death is separation. At the moment of death our soul is separated from our body. It doesn’t matter how good of shape the corpse is in. A corpse is a corpse of course of course. The thing that makes death “death” is not the physical element but the spiritual element. There will be a second death for those not entering heaven. This will also be a separation; a separation from the presence of God permanently. All the cryo in the world won’t stop the first death from being permanent, nor the second one.
I agree. To me, the whole life-extension thing smacks of desperation. I certainly agree with avoiding premature death, after all, I made that my career. Some would say that’s an arbitrary definition- what if ALL death could be made premature? Well, there are some pretty big experiences we’ll never experience if we keep putting it off. I don’t think I’ll mind being the grandma who gets to make cookies (instead of worry about making a living0- or maybe I’ll just be the crazy cat lady. And it’ll be interesting to see what’s around the bend when those days are done. That’ll be the most exciting experience of all.
The notion that human consciousness survives physical death presupposes that it exists in a form that does not require a physical body to exist and to function. This premise makes the physical body analogous to a car. Obviously, modern life requires a car (unless you live in Tokyo or NYC, where they are unnecessary). Yet, if the car get old and becomes high maintenance, noone thinks twice of getting rid of it in order to either buy a new car or to relocate somewhere (e.g. Tokyo) where you do not need a car at all. Yet, all of the major religions (including Christianity) forbid one from applying this principle to one’s physical body. It is precisely this prohibition that convinced me that the afterlife is a fantasy when I was a teenager. The correlating analogy, which I thought about at the time, is that if we really do survive physical death, when one gets old, one should be excited about the afterlife the way a high school senior is excited about going off to college. Yet, I have never noticed this attitude among old people. This also convinces me that the afterlife is a fantasy.
There have been bazoodles of people who have had out-of-body experiences, near death experiences, and visits to heaven or hell. Of particular interest to a skeptic would be when blind people have had out-of-body experiences where they describe in detail what everything looked like at the scene of the event. Clearly soul can exist apart from the physical body.
Many older Christians that I know are indeed excited about the afterlife and not at all troubled about beginning their real life on the other side.
I don’t see how an “afterlife” solves anything. Assuming that something like an afterlife exists, we have no reason to expect it to last, apart from arbitrary religious assertions.
Even in the christian context, how do you know that god hasn’t predestined you to become another satan? You might have drawn the short straw in the next stage of god’s greater plan.
Is your refusal to capitalize proper nouns, according to correct English usage, due to ignorance, apathy, or bias? If the latter, you have committed a hate crime.
Going by the discussion here, I think its reasonable to say that “most” Christians consider cryonics and radical life extension to be incompatible with their beliefs. As long as they do not try to impose this belief on those of us who do not share it, I have no problem with it.
Question:
Who is here for whom?
Are we here for the world, or is the world here for us?
In other words who is more valuable, life or the world?
I’m a religious Jew and so generally theres this manual which explains stuff that I like to open and look at for answers.
When you want to know the value of life it makes sense to look for what it means to take a life ie. murder.
Hope you bear with me..
Talking about murder it says “…Because the blood will flatter* the earth” Chapter 35:33 Book of Numbers
Flatter?
*The translation explained at the end
Most societies do not accept murder. However the reasoning generally differs from the Biblical in that it is understood that society would be undermined if murder was accepted, there would be total chaos. So for the common good of the world murder is outlawed.
Among the ramifications of this approach would be that murder could be justified and even lauded in such a case where it serves the good of society.
Need I mention Stalin, Hitler.. Many many more examples swiftly spring to mind. What about abortion and pulling the plug on someone on life support?
I recall reading here last week about a concept called millenarianism. It was the fist time I heard of it but it fits. Murder can be condoned with the Utopian goal in mind.
In fact as we become less and less important trees are more valuable, as are animals and their skins. The precious vast expanses of Alaska are untouchable for our quest for energy(oil) because we have to save it for that time to come.
For the children, for the others. We are not important, just tiny specks in history.
(Why the American economy is so expendable is beyond me if this is your approach..
Although from a global point of view it makes sense. For the better good of the entire earth, America has to go, first and fast.)
I guess you’ve guessed that this is the liberal ideology, or religion to be more accurate(being based on a belief).
The Bible disagrees.
Since murder is unaccepted in society, someone can only murder after reaching the conclusion that the world needs, for whatever reason, to rid itself of its victim.
This would in essence be saying that man is here to serve the world, instead of vice versa. Ergo, murder is the ultimate flattery of the world, putting it before human life. God tells us, do not murder, and do not flatter the the earth”
Human life is to be respected and flattered. Value the elderly and the infirm, and respect even a few sacred moments of life.
*In Hebrew (the language the bible was written in) the word used is “ya’chnif” the root being “chanifa” translated as flattery. Your welcome to look it up but as a Hebrew speaker thats the word we use nowadays. The online translation is pollute which defies the logic on which my case is built, and is redundant in my eyes. Pollute the land with blood, is that what were worrying about??
Adapted from sfasemes.blogspot.com
The commentary on the bible was the late R Moses Feinstein, leader of American Jewry in the 20th century.
Read to me Friday night by my good old dad.
I’m surprised at all the hostility towards this idea. What on Earth is wrong with letting this guy try to attain a goal that most of us understand to be desirable? It might not work, (for the early cases, it probably won’t) but then not trying has 100% chance of failure.
He didn’t steal anything from me to fund his suspension. He won’t be stealing anything from me by being revived at a later date by whatever means he or his organization will arrange. People don’t steal from each other by merely existing, either now or in the future.
What prompts such hostility?
Hostility to ideas other than ones own, especially when they do not at all infringe on ones lifestyle, generally stems from innate lack of confidance in ones own beliefs where they are not based in logic rather on social asperations and phsycological pressures such as:Insecurity and inferiority, thereby adopting a superior attitude to everyone else, intensely following the mainstream ideas where one is promoted if he is good and moral. Whatever moral is trending becomes ones ambition, ones mantra and feeling safely accepted one turns his nose up at all the rest of the unenlightened.
What prompts such hostility?
My point exactly. If someone is not into cryonics, no one is about to force them to do it. It’s a personal choice. It makes no more sense to be “opposed” to cryonics any more than it would be to doing bodybuilding workouts or kite surfing (both of which I do).
In psychology, boundary issues are defined as being obsessed with the actions of others as though it is proper that you have control over those other people. This is considered a marker of psychiatric disorder. Since the pursuit of cryonics is purely a personal choice, to oppose the right of a private individual to pursue it, especially if that person is a complete stranger to you, can be considered a psychiatric disorder.
There! You said better than I did.
The double standard applied to cryonics:
http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2011/07/29/the-double-standard-about-cryonics/
Another example of the double standard:
http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2010/10/08/mark-plus-on-cryonics-and-double-standards/