From: outlawpoet - (outlawpoet@stealth.hell.com)
Date: Thu May 02 2002 - 22:09:07 MDT
I feel very strongly about some of these issues, so I thought I'd break into this thread, already in progress:
--- Dossy <dossy@panoptic.com> wrote:
>Explain to be the difference between cryogenic suspension and
>death.
Welllllll, there is the information preservation thing. There is an 'semi-reasonable' science behind it. Freeze yourself, halting the destruction of the precious information in your noggin. There is no similar claim of preservation by afterlifey claims. Simply a third-party system(souls).
I like information preservation, even in an abstract sense. I'm something of a librarian personality. Knowledge and pattern should be preserved. Preserving my personality and memories seem even better to me! And besides, by this logic, aren't we doubling our chances with cryo-suspension? We get to bank on both afterlife and rethaw as well!
>
>Freeze dried vs. the worms crawl in and out?
>The only reason why we think life has become better (which
>is purely subjective) is because we're comparing today to
>yesterday. However, compare tomorrow from today and that
>Brave New World might not seem too enticing unless you were
>eased into it by living through the transition.
I disagree. I look forward to radicalized social change. (this may be in part because I'm a novelty seeking personality.) I also love technological change for it's own sake. I'm dying for better computers. I want to try things that my current computer(though top o the line) just can't do.
Also, I look forward to radicalized and improved scientific knowledge. Haven't you ever wanted to peek forward into the library of tommorro, just to see if Unified Field Theory ever pans out? Or for a concise and put to rest explanation of QED? Or if quantum computing ever quite gets off the ground? It makes me shiver, the kinds of things I could know, if now was FUTUREnow.
So it may be future shocking, but that doesn't mean it's bad. Just different. I can understand a little fear of unusual things. But I don't understand writing it off because of that.
>
>Would your quality of life really be any better by waking
>up into a world far advanced from the one you left, leaving
>you to learn everything anew as to how to live, interact and
>socialize in this new world? If you're terminally curious,
>maybe ... but that's like taking terminally curious Grandpa
>who built his own ham radio back in his earlier years and
>teaching him how to ride a razor scooter and watch DVD movies
>on an iPAQ. Is he really going to be enjoying "this new
>life"?
I had a grandfather who was terminally curious. He was also terminally ill almost the whole time I knew him. He used to tell me about old Popular Science magazines he read in the Navy. He wanted so badly to see flying cars. That was his thing. He loved to drive his motorcycle when he could, and he loved to sail(hence the NAVY) and fly in airplanes. He used to tell me that flying cars would be all those wrapped up in "one beauty of a machine!". Towards the end, he confided in me, that he was really holding on, to try and see them. He disliked almost everything else. He never was much for hospitals.
I think he would have loved razor scooters. He probably would have destroyed his iPAQ trying to figure out how the darn thing worked. I have a whole workshop full of metalworking tools, and micrometers, and multitesters because of him. But perhaps he and I are rarities. He was in the NAVY because he wanted to see strange and beautiful places. I'm into life extension and ultratechnology for the same reason.
Justin Corwin
outlawpoet@hell.com
"One more time..."
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