Re: QUESTION- A.C.Clark and Cryonics

Max More (maxmore@primenet.com)
Fri, 01 Aug 1997 12:54:33 -0700


At 09:53 AM 8/1/97 -0700, Hal wrote:
>
>The result is that the typical secular humanist is one of the least likely
>candidates for cryonics. This would apply to Asimov and Sagan in the
>list above. I seem to recall some claims that Feynman was skeptical about
>the workability of the idea. (If true, as one of the founders of the idea
>of nanotechnology this should give us all pause.) Clarke does not come
>across as a bleeding-heart liberal like Asimov, so I don't know what his
>thoughts would be about it.

I completely agree with Hal's comments on secular humanists. They agree on
many extropian values, but their lack of egoism will kill them!

Clarke knows about cryonics, and has even written a brief for Alcor back
when they were under attack by government agencies. He has no plans to sign
up, and has some objection based on his view of personal identity, i.e., he
thinks there is no point signing up because he will eventually become such
a different person. I find it hard to see this as anything other than a
rationalization for some fear he has.

Maybe one day a bunch of extropians will be able to corner him in a room
and probe at his philosophical views and perhaps persuade him to change
them to something less lethal.

Max

Max More, Ph.D.
more@extropy.org
http://www.primenet.com/~maxmore
President, Extropy Institute: exi-info@extropy.org, http://www.extropy.org
EXTRO 3 CONFERENCE on the future: http://www.extropy.org/extro3.htm