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Fighting for the Right to Be Frozen
Weirdly, cryonics is still outlawed in BC.
Grodzicki: When dead, freeze my head.
With his 68th birthday approaching, Charles Grodzicki slapped down $28,000 USD for a plot to call home after his death. Like many people his age, the West Vancouverite is working on his will and has briefed his loved ones so they know exactly what he wants done with his remains. But he's having trouble finding a local funeral director to sell him a pre-arranged package, thanks to a little-known B.C. law enacted in 1990. "I've talked to so many people," says Grodzicki over juice at The Bread Garden. "Two Vancouver funeral directors, the head of the Western School of Funeral Services and the B.C. Association of Funeral Directors. All of them tell me what I want is illegal."
Grodzicki wants to be cryopreserved. The goal is to be "deanimated," then shipped to the Cryonics Institute (CI) just outside Detroit, Michigan, where he'll be preserved in liquid nitrogen and hopefully reanimated at a future date. "I'm very curious to know what life will be like in 100 years," says the fit, good-looking retiree who returned to Vancouver after decades working in finance at a Toronto-based global communications company. "At this point, I think the chances of reanimation are very slim. But even if there's less than a one per cent chance of success, it's better than the alternative, which to me is zero per cent."
But before he can embark on the next step towards being cryopreserved, he has to navigate the bureaucratic red tape around cryonics, which became illegal just before the Socreds lost power to the NDP in 1991. The law makes B.C. the only province in Canada to criminalize this so-called "speculative life support technology."
Cryo moms
Cryopreservation has been around since the late 1960s, but as of yet, no cryopreserved human remains have been re-animated, though there have been recent breakthroughs in frozen human embryos, human brain tissues and animal organ transplants. Cryonicists -- many of them scientists, doctors, PhDs, high-tech industry workers and Mensa members -- believe that necessary technologies will one day exist, largely through molecular biology and nanotechnology, which could be used to fix or build new cells ravaged by age, disease and the freezer burn-like damage of vitrification.
The scientific hurdles are certainly big, but so are those in attitude. Mainstream society tends to think of cryonicists as egomaniacal nut-bars with pubescent sci-fi fantasies (many are in fact single men) and more money than sense. In response, the cryonocists politely or otherwise point out that hundreds of millions of people around the globe have spiritually and financially invested in the concept of a heavenly life after death without any worry of scientific proof for such a scenario.
"I'd like my mother to be frozen," says Grodzicki. "But she's religious and thinks it goes against her beliefs. She says, 'What happens to my soul?' I say, 'Well, you'll get there eventually if you believe.' Other cryonicists have managed to convince their moms to trade in the family plot for the deep freeze, including CI's most recent patient, a 79-year-old Kingston, Ontario woman who became CI's 74th patient, joining two other Canucks already in "cryostasis" at the facility. Interestingly, five of the last seven CI patients were elderly mothers of male cryonicists. Forty-two pets are also stored at CI, one of only two cryonics facilities in the world. And currently another 1,500 or so warm-blooded cryonicists around the globe, including about thirty Canadians, have already pre-purchased the services by paying out a lump sum of money or by turning their life insurance policies over to CI or Phoenix-based Alcor Life Suspension Foundation. The latter charges $80,000 USD to vitrify and store a human head and $150,000 for the whole body.
Grodzicki chose CI, which doesn't offer head-only vitrification, and their services are a comparative steal at $28,000; although, unlike Alcor's package, the cost excludes "standby" (waiting at the bedside for the patient to die) and body preparation as well as transport. These services are typically provided by state or provincial funeral directors or the Florida-based company Suspended Animation, which charges up to $75,000 USD. Grodzicki picked CI because of its president Ben Best, whom he calls "the father of cryonics in Canada."
Health food and liquid nitrogen
Best co-founded the Toronto-based Cryonics Society of Canada where Grodzicki started attending regular meetings and events in the 80s. He was impressed with Best's passion and dedication to this field of research. Best became fascinated with cryonics while living in Vancouver, after picking up the book The Prospect of Immortality by Robert Ettinger at a local health food store. Best has since become one of the most prolific cryonics writers, publishing cryonics news on his own website, detailed essays on the science and history of cryonics and a web magazine called The Immortalist. So, when B.C.'s anti-cryonics law came into place, Best doggedly researched the whys and what-fors of the law.
"After contacting many government officials, I discovered that this law was created by one bureaucrat and everyone else just went along with it," says Best via phone. "I think this guy even forgot he'd done this when I contacted him again 10 years later. So it was a pretty slapdash thing, but once in place, hard to change." Best failed to get much sympathy from the NDP government through the 90s but did manage to help two local cryonicists receive something called "comfort letters" from bureaucrats assigned to consumer protection authorities. These letters state that it's actually not illegal for a B.C. citizen to buy cryonics packages or for funeral directors to participate in preparing and transporting their bodies, it's only illegal for B.C. businesses to market and sell cryopreservation, meaning that no storage facilities like Alcor and CI could exist here (though, as far as anyone knows, there have never been any attempts by scientists or snakeoil salesmen to market a Vancouver-based cryonics facility).
Comfort in the cold
Grodzicki recently asked for and received a comfort letter from Tayt Winnitoy, current enforcer of the Cremation Interment and Funeral Services Act and Director of Operations for the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Authority (BPCPA). So, he thought he'd have no trouble finding a local funeral director willing to prepare and ship his body to Detroit. But when he contacted people in the funeral services biz, he realized a comfort letter is no comfort at all if local funeral directors still think it's illegal in the first place and secondly have no clue how to prepare a cryonics patient.
Since the first few hours after death are crucial to the cryopreservation process, it's certainly not the type of tutorial you'd want to give most funeral directors at the last minute. To start, they'd need a whole lot of ice, water and a bathtub, preferably a portable one. Ideally they'd also have a heart-lung resuscitator to artificially restore blood circulation (though conventional CPR can be used) and IVs to administer anti-blood clotting agents, maintain blood pressure and protect the brain. After that, the de-animated "patient" must get to a cryonics facility ASAP, where an in-house team does the high-tech stuff, like replacing the body's blood with glycerol, transferring it to a cryostat chamber and further cooling it in nitrogen gas, to approximately 130 degrees Celsius.
Given the time-sensitivity issue, it's no wonder CI and Alcor recommend that their members move near their facilities if they're terminally ill; some Alcor members are even plotting to set up a retirement community near the Phoenix facility. For out-of-state CI clients, Best works with a Michigan-based funeral director who has trained funeral directors in Toronto, all of the U.S., Australia and even Timbuktu. Worst-case scenario, he's also created an emergency response kit and detailed action plan for Toronto-area cryonicists, which was put to the test in 2002.
'A practical answer to the problem of death'
"I read about a guy who had a stroke and they brought him back six hours later," says Brent, a 30-something cryonicist who's just joined in on the interview. Though he's not currently signed up for cryonics (many younger cryonicists hope that medical science, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence will make mortality a thing of the past before they hit their golden years), the airline industry exec thinks cryonics is "a practical answer to the problem of death." Plus, "All the people I hate would be dead."
Unlike the industrious Toronto group, these three guys haven't organized regular get-togethers, never mind gone shopping for an "Emergency Preparedness" kit.
The initial steps might sound mind-boggling to most of us, but funeral directors are trained to do embalming, which involves a host of toxic chemicals and much more invasive procedures. "It's not a problem at all," says Jim Walsh, CI's contracted Michigan-based funeral director. Walsh has done over twenty cryonics preparation procedures and tutored funeral directors all over the globe, sometimes via phone: giving them step-by-step instructions in emergency cases. Walsh is not a cryonicist himself, and believes his soul will head elsewhere upon death, so plans to be buried. "But a person deserves the best possible service they desire and if someone has faith in everlasting life here on earth and that type of thing, we should not judge these people. We should respect their wishes as much as anyone else." Walsh feels that even if only a few Vancouver-based cryonicists are looking for this novel type of service, "funeral directors are here to service our communities and work very hard doing it."
Letter-writing campaign
Then why is Grodzicki having so much trouble convincing local funeral directors? "They might be having knee-jerk reactions to the cryonics law," says Tayt Winnitoy, BPCPA's resident enforcer of the Funeral Services Act. Winnitoy admits that the anti-cryonics law is confusing. It states that: "A person must not offer for sale, or sell, an arrangement for the preservation or storage of human remains that is based on (a) cryonics, (b) irradiation, or (c) any other means of preservation or storage, by whatever name called, and that is offered, or sold, on the expectation of the resuscitation of human remains at a future time."
Winnitoy admits to a "limited knowledge" about cryonics, but has recently fielded "a few" letters from cryonicists around the globe who reacted to Grodzicki's plight through a letter-writing campaign aimed at bureaucrats and also local funeral directors who were clueless about the government comfort letters prior to the campaign, according to Janet Ricciuti, director of the Funeral Services Association of B.C.
"I'd like to have seen those comfort letters," says Ricciuti, who was under the impression that any involvement in cryonics was illegal until last month. She has worked at the FSABC for 16 years and says cryonics never came up until "a few cryonicists started beating the drum on this topic." So, she recently had an informal meeting with funeral directors and contacted the BPCPA for clarification. The initial cryopreservation steps also need to "be demystified," according to Ricciuti. "With transporting longer distances, bodies are typically embalmed unless there's a cultural reason [in which case] they are placed in a hermetically sealed container. But refrigerated containers aren't required. Also, what about liability? We asked CI for an indemnification clause and they haven't gotten back to us." (Best has told The Tyee that liability clauses are typically offered to funeral directors and indeed even the cryonics facilities themselves have these types of clauses in their contracts.)
Ricciuti is hesitant to comment further, given her lack of specific knowledge about cryonics, but she's not against the idea of a tutorial from Jim Walsh's crack cryopreservation team. "A person's choices and deep-seated desires are important, but if everyone wanted to hang human remains on trees, that would cause a big problem. It's archaic."
Death on the agenda, July 6th
Cryonics may be too futuristic for our local officials and businesses to wrap their heads around. But they have decided to put cryonics on the agenda for the next Advisory Group meeting on July 6th. "It has been fascinating hearing about cryonics and I have spoken with [Grodzicki's girlfriend] about the issue," says Tom Aquiline, BPCPA Deputy Director, Industry Relations and Chair of the Cremation and Interment Advisory Group. "The law doesn't speak to the specific issue of preparation for transport. There seems to be a conflict between the rights of consumers and the rights of businesses. So the topic raises a lot of interesting questions."
The topic of death has always raised some very interesting questions and a wide range of responses that seem satisfactory to some and horrifying to others. The strange B.C. anti-cryonics law alone brings up questions about other, currently legal, medical practices. Could "resuscitation of human remains at a future time" be interpreted to include religious burials? Thousands of frozen embryos stored at fertility clinics round the globe? Today's life-support technologies? In the funeral services biz, which has become increasingly Disneyfied and franchised, where you can buy illegal tainted organs or even have your ashes jettisoned into space, some people think cryonics really isn't that weird. "Maybe they're worried about the legal ramifications, or lack of volume, and don't want to take the risk for one clown," says Grodzicki. "The majority of people think it's a cuckoo idea. They probably think of Frankenstein. But, I've had a ball so far in my life and I want to be able to do it all over again. How is that hurting anyone?"
Zero population growth types would undoubtedly have concerns, particularly if boomers turn to cryonics en masse. But, imagine waking up in 3006? It's for that reason, some people think cryonocists like Charles Grodzicki are brave. Case in point: if a Vancouver funeral director doesn't come on board, he's even contemplating moving back to Toronto. How would the Toronto tourism and real estate industries react to that trend? Imagine the ads geared to North American boomers itching to re-locate to Vancouver's otherwise temperate shores: "Forget Vancouver. Toronto is the place to die."
Danielle Egan is a Vancouver-based writer. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Who Mowed Down the Premier?
- Canada's Economy, Deconstructed (by a 12 year-old)
- Death in Remand: a Tyee Inquiry
- Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Death In Remand: 'A Gut Feeling'
- Bill C-38: the Environmental Destruction Act
- Bias in BC's Pesticide Decision? Follow the Bouncing Verbs
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- Bill C-38: the Environmental Destruction Act
- Alberta Fills Pipes with Corrosive Denial
- Bias in BC's Pesticide Decision? Follow the Bouncing Verbs
- How Our Immune Systems Exaggerate Fear
- BC biotech company seeks approval for GM apple
- What's Behind BC's Doors?
- Why Blackberry's Embrace of HTML5 Is Good Karma
- Bias in BC's Pesticide Decision? Follow the Bouncing Verbs
- Death in Remand: A Jail Crammed with Risk
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- What's Behind BC's Doors?
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Should You Run from that Medical Test?
- 'The Dictator'
- Death in Remand: Stacked Deck
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Growlhisss
5 years ago
Comments on "Fighting for the Right to Be Frozen"
What an immense waste of resources! I wonder how much co2 will be pumped into our atmosphere keeping some dead rich guy frozen.
Meanwhile, most of humanity lives in poverty while we exploit them for their resources so that we can live our luxurious lifestyles. Considering the other things that we waste resources on, maybe cryonics isn't all that out of place with the rest of our society. After all, our lives are worth more than everyone else's, right?
nightbloom
5 years ago
The thought of reviving the odious Boomer generation 100 years hence to inaugurate a whole new era of self-indulgent egocentric chronic adolescence does not bode well for the future of society.
This is one generation that needs to be hustled into the nursing homes as soon as possible. In fact, I recommend a temporary suspension of our ban on physician-assisted euthanasia to cover the next 15 years worth of retirees. And a Generation Tax should be levied on their estates to pay off the student debt and delayed/lost earnings which they've inflicted on my own generation. That's where that boomer-money should be going.
I mean really. Cryogenics - What a money-scam. Now religion (any one of them) doesn't sound so bad as a means of addressing anxiety about mortality...at least it channels the impulse into sub-creative output that resonates throughout culture, society, community, art, and altruistic endeavours.
Nevertheless, Cryonics seems somehow a propos for the Baby Boomers. They've come full circle to embrace a second-rate, nihilistic wasteful pseudo-scientific substitute for that ancient and time-tested answer to the "death question" that they continually trashed throughout their protracted adolescence. Now we've gotta keep them around in the basement freezer for the next 100 years..? Unplug them!
JensRabis
5 years ago
I am a German. I am disappointed about your opinions. Other language, but the same comments. I do not learn rather better English :-(
Do you not like the life?
We probably do not see ourselves in the future. Pity. Even though a lot of luck for You.
Greeting Jens Rabis
nightbloom
5 years ago
Thanks for the good wishes Jens =)
I was only joking (for the most part!).
Coming to terms with our own mortality is a crucial stage in our personal development. I believe that people who have overcome that mental, emotional and spiritual barrier lead very significant lives, and can have an extraordinary effect on the people and the world around them. They live life differently.
The statement quoted below is all-to-typical of the boomer outlook. I've heard similar statements many times from my father's cohort (only the men, insterestingly), but it's a statement that almost certainly would never have issued from my Grandfather nor probably any of his cohort:
Those ageing boomers with fake tans, sports cars, cruise holidays, viagra prescriptions and trophy wives have't caught on yet. They want to be 22 again. They're like vampires, sucking young blood to stave off their own fast-approaching horizon. They think they can buy one more round, one more orgasm, one more life, just like they bought everything else, so they can continue their plunder in their blind scramble for meaning.
immortal
5 years ago
This law is about my right to buried
according to my beliefs -- either I
believe in Jesus Christ or in science
(cryonics). The law prohibits "...
an arrangement for the preservation or
storage of human remains that is based
on ... any other means of preservation
or storage ... that is offered ... on
the expectation of the resuscitation
of human remains at a future time."
The Christains believe that their dead
bodies will be resuscitated at a future
time and changed into imperishable,
immortal bodies -- by the power of
the God.
(See citation from "1 Corinthians"
below.)
The cryonicists believe that their dead
bodies will be resuscitated at a future
time and changed into imperishable,
immortal bodies -- by the power of
science.
(Resuscitation contradicts Christianity
no more than any other life-saving
medical intervention.)
So either this law prohibits both
Christians and cryonicists to be buried
according their beliefs -- or it accepts
my belief in Jesus Christ (and treats it
as an exception) and denies my belief
in science.
From 1 Corinthians, 15:51 (New
International Version translation):
"Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will
not all sleep, but we will all be changed
- in a flash, in the twinkling of an
eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet
will sound, the dead will be raised
imperishable, and we will be changed.
For the perishable must clothe itself
with the imperishable, and the mortal
with immortality. When the perishable
has been clothed with the imperishable,
and the mortal with immortality,
then the saying that is written will
come true: 'Death has been swallowed up
in victory.'"
Anthony
5 years ago
"What an immense waste of resources! I wonder how much co2 will be pumped into our atmosphere keeping some dead rich guy frozen."
None as far as I know. Co2 isn't much involved in being cryosuspended - you're probably thinking of liquid nitrogen.
The environmental impact of cryonics is tiny. There are only 3 facilities (1 in Russia) and they have very few patients. You and your car and your neighbours cars probably create more pollution than cryonics put together.
How many trees are cut down for coffins? Land used for burial? Poisonous gases resulting from cremation?
"Meanwhile, most of humanity lives in poverty while we exploit them for their resources so that we can live our luxurious lifestyles."
I take it that you are an ascetic who never pollutes and gains nothing from living in Canada - on of the biggest Western nations? I sympathise with your concern for world poverty. The problems are sickening. But lambasting cryonics is ridiculous. Try writing to your MP, join a lobby group or charity. If you want to fight world poverty you have to be political.
"Considering the other things that we waste resources on,"
Like your car? CD collection? Consumer electronics? Your holiday in Cuba?
"maybe cryonics isn't all that out of place with the rest of our society. After all, our lives are worth more than everyone else's, right?"
Who would you rather save: yourself or someone else living in the 3rd world?
Just because world poverty exists, it does not mean that we should be subject to the same misery. You live in a wealthy country - use your wealth and our dmeocracy to make positive changes for others.
Anthony
5 years ago
"The thought of reviving the odious Boomer generation 100 years hence ...does not bode well for the future of society."
Charles is one of many cryonicists. Cryonicists are not all baby-boomers. I am 28.
"This is one generation that needs to be hustled into the nursing homes as soon as possible. In fact, I recommend a temporary suspension of our ban on physician-assisted euthanasia to cover the next 15 years worth of retirees."
This is your alternative to cryonics? Your post reeks of misanthropy.
"And a Generation Tax should be levied on their estates to pay off the student debt and delayed/lost earnings which they've inflicted on my own generation. That's where that boomer-money should be going."
Fairer taxes are a good way of dealing with economic inequality, but your suggestion seems motivated by resentment rather than compassion.
"I mean really. Cryogenics - What a money-scam."
Cryogenics is not a scam, it is a branch of physics (or engineering) that studies the production of very low temperatures (below –150 °C, –238 °F or 123 K) and the behavior of materials at those temperatures. Cryogenics is also a popular misnomer for cryonics. You have revealed your ignorance.
"Now religion (any one of them) doesn't sound so bad as a means of addressing anxiety about mortality..."
Some cryonicists are atheists (like myself) and have rejected religion for a variety of reasons. I disagree that any religion is a good way of addressing mortality anxiety. Fundamentalist interpretations of Islam and Xianity are especially retrograde. Religions tend to be dogmatic, reactionary, anti-rational, and self-righteous. Religions are to blame for centuries of misery, ignorance, and oppression.
"at least it channels the impulse into sub-creative output that resonates throughout culture, society, community, art, and altruistic endeavours."
One need not be religious to be positively involved in any of these things. You are commiting a fallacy that many American citizens believe in (according to a recent survey) - that to be moral one must be religious. Here is a little light reading:
http://www.infidel.org/library/modern/theism/moral.html
"They've come full circle to embrace a second-rate, nihilistic wasteful pseudo-scientific substitute for that ancient and time-tested answer to the "death question" that they continually trashed throughout their protracted adolescence."
The bile just keeps flowing. Not everyone agrees that religions are time-tested. Some of us understand that the Enlightenment put paid to these institutional anachronisms.
"Now we've gotta keep them around in the basement freezer for the next 100 years..? Unplug them!"
You arguments seems to be:
I don't like people trying to save there lives because it is selfish.
They should believe in God or something.
Because they don't, they should die.
I find your line of thinking objectionable and hysterical.
nightbloom
5 years ago
LOL - Cute, immortal =)
I suppose that,all things being equal, that is as valid an opinion as any other. But really, "according to my beliefs..." I guess everyone can draw that line where they want it...doesn't mean everyone else has to endorse the choice.
However, speaking for myself (and no other) I categorically reject the relativizing of history-steeped belief systems and death-traditions overlaid with four or five millennia of philosophical ruminations, metaphysical poetics and cultural sub-creation alongside the jingoistic money-grab represented by "cryonics" (what happened to "cryogenics"...too sci-fi?).
Your argument reminds me of the cosmetic companies' marketing ploys in the 1980s to sell chemical peels to middle aged women: "Well, men get chemical peels every morning when they shave...So why feel guilty? Don't you deserve it...?" Comparing Charles Grodzicki's attempt to resolve his mortality itch through yet more wanton consumerism with several thousand years of world culture and world religion(s) (any one of them) is liberal nihilist relativism at its most banal. But that (I am obliged to say) is strictly my opinion.
It's his money, so he can throw it away if he wants to. Someone's gonna be happy he did, but it won't be him - he won't be around to realize that he's been had.
Anthony
5 years ago
"Coming to terms with our own mortality is a crucial stage in our personal development."
It surprises me that after your vitriolic attack on something you know so little about, you now deign to explain to us how one must "personally develop". Your personal development seems to be one of tumefaction.
"I believe that people who have overcome that mental, emotional and spiritual barrier lead very significant lives,"
Some of us do not believe in spiritual barriers. Indeed, if you can show me one I'd be most interested.
"and can have an extraordinary effect on the people and the world around them. They live life differently."
Mere rhetoric. You're saying nothing. I'm sure you have some very clear notion as to what these barriers are. My guess is that to "overcome" them, one must agree with you.
"The statement quoted below is all-to-typical of the boomer outlook."
You seem intent on attacking "boomers" rather than cryonics. Why the tangent?
"They want to be 22 again."
I'd like to be 22 again. But you are free to grow old and die. I'm not stopping you, though it is a pity you will not consider the alternatives.
"They're like vampires, sucking young blood to stave off their own fast-approaching horizon."
How is cryonics hurting the young? Should cryonicists drink hemlock? There are institutions and ways of life far more deleterious than engaging in a scientific experiment that could save lives.
BTW, I have none of the things your "boomer" has, yet I can afford cryonics because of life-insurance. I have a family of 5 and a wife, who will benefit from a seperate life-insurance policy. Your notion that cryonics is for the selfish rich is bluster and idiocy.
"so they can continue their plunder in their blind scramble for meaning."
We all need meaning it seems. Some of us choose to be engaged with science. Sure, cryonics has not brought anyone back yet, but neither has God.
nightbloom
5 years ago
That first sentence is a valid opinion, and one which everyone must just subjectively determine for themselves...but the rest of your statement is straight out of the secular liberal nihilist textbook: a simplistic and unoriginal pastiche of selective history and postmodern thought-programming. Incidentally, radical Islam is the product of a whole host of temporal forces we're just starting to understand and address. Ironically, we understand Christian fundamentalism (a very recent development - another Boomer legacy gone bad) even less.
Good for you. Let it all out.
Actually, my comments were meant in fun. I didn't genuinely intend to tresspass on something people actually have faith in.
So let me re-direct on a more constructive note:
Isn't this really a pursuit of novelty? These people are still going to have to face death. If it succeeds, and if they don't suffer debilitating consquences at the other end, aren't they really just curious to see what awaits in a future world where all their loved ones are long dead? Beyond the temporary satisfaction of a fleeting curiosity, what is really to be gained from the exercise once they've read all the headlines they missed?
Anthony
5 years ago
"I guess everyone can draw that line where they want it..."
This is a relativistic argument, which contradicts your diatribe against relativism. But as relativism is contradictory anyway, your nonsense makes sense.
"doesn't mean everyone else has to endorse the choice."
No-one is asking you for your endorsement. But it is reasonable to ask not to be attacked because of what one believes. I refer to your shrill battle-cry: "unplug them!"
"I categorically reject the relativizing of history-steeped belief systems and death-traditions overlaid with four or five millennia of philosophical ruminations,"
I am not relativising world religions - instead I am rejecting them as mainly harmful and misguided. Years of studying theology at university, and many more years beyond that have only reinforced that opinion.
Religions are not all bad, but that you insist on them as being good, necessary, and right is one-sided.
"Comparing Charles Grodzicki's attempt to resolve his mortality itch through yet more wanton consumerism with several thousand years of world culture and world religion(s) (any one of them) is liberal nihilist relativism at its most banal."
Liberalism and nihilism in the same sentence? I see that you are an enemy of personal choice and tolerance. I also do not see how buying oneself a place in a cryostat. is much different to buying a plot to be buried in. If there is no difference, then ordinary burials are "wanton consumerism" by your standards. Or are you going to tell me that you'd happily be dumped in a garbage bag for the bears to eat when you're dead?
"he won't be around to realize that he's been had."
You seem quite certain about something that is impossible to be certain about - again revealing your beligerant ignorance.
Even if cryonics never works, the people who spent their money on it have been a part of a grand experiment - that of saving human life. The results - whether success or failure - will further medical understanding of the dying and dead body, making cryonics a form of altruism.
Percy
5 years ago
There has always been a policy preference in law that the dead NOT continue to rule the living with their choices. For example, the law no longer permits estates in land to be burdened with arcane conditions as to transfer and entitlement for generations to come. Effectively "cyrogenics" is a vehicle for "taking it with you". Rather than releasing, dispersing, and transferring the fruits of a lifetime, cyrogenics essentially encourages the disenfranchisement of dependents and heirs on the theory that the deceased is not really deceased, and can therefore claim resources long into the future in pursuit of importality. That's just not good public policy. The BC law seems eminently reasonable.
Danielle E
5 years ago
Interesting to go back to the fifties, just prior to CPR. People probably thought that was Frankensteinian as well but few would have said that these people shouldn't be resuscitated using this technology. what about doctors today? they promise cures on a daily basis without proof and people are not only ripped off, they might just end up dead. risk/benefit ratio? at least the cryonicists are already dead by today's definition. science is indeed a belief system, some are true believers so there's plenty of promise and peril to go around.
Anthony
5 years ago
"There has always been a policy preference in law that the dead NOT continue to rule the living with their choices."
The dead always influence the living - that is history.
"For example, the law no longer permits estates in land to be burdened with arcane conditions as to transfer and entitlement for generations to come."
Cryonicists are still legally dead (indeed, one cannot begin cryonic procedures until a doctors declares death). The "fruits of a lifetime" are still released.
"Effectively "cyrogenics" is a vehicle for "taking it with you"."
Cryogenics is not cryonics.
Some cryoncists argue that after legal death is declared, you are not actually dead. Indeed, people are routinely brought back from "death" today, whereas in the past they would be declared dead. Isn't that a good thing?
Many cryonicists correctly see their legally dead bodies as still living - most of the bodie's cells are alive, the structure is intact, but the person can no longer function. Because there is not the medical technology or skill to save a person at this stage, they are decalred dead - effectively a way of saying "we can do no more". But more can be done. At this point one can be preserved before cellular decay results in absolute death - by that I mean the putrefaction that would leave no viable brain behind. Legal death - when the brain is usually still mainly intact - allows one to - literally - suspend a person in time. Frozen, there is no decay. Given the right technology, the body could be brought back. You could not do that with a rotted corpse.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Interesting that you had to cut my sentence in two in order to make this fly (which it doesn't anyway). The sentence in question simply acknowledges that we have to respect free choice and freedom of conscience, even when we personally disagree with it.
I never said that. I simply countered your blanket black-wash with a dose of objectivity.
LOL - you're so predictable. Okay, fine. I abhore personal choice and tolerance...and don't forget motherhood. I loath mothers. I never had one myself actually - I came out of a jackal.
I might toss the same thing back at you, in reference to your comments on religion. And for the record: I too am a non-believer. But you know, I'm starting to suspect you're just a different brand of fundamentalist. Here is your godless credo, every bit as dependent on shere faith as your garden variety Bible-thumper:
But that's okay, Anthony. I accept that you might be right (although I suspect the technology is a long way off yet), and that this may one day be possible. However, I strongly question the motivations - "saving" human life has nothing to do with it, not even tangentially (a scientific Salvation Narrative if ever there was one, as brazen as any allegory about risen carpenters), nor is altuism its motivation or altruistic works its product. It's about spinning the hope of the hapless to make a buck. That's my opinion, and there's nothing objectively objectionable or hysterical about it.
Anthony
5 years ago
"Isn't this really a pursuit of novelty?"
Would you ask the same of a person brought back from death in hospital? "Oh, you only wanted to see tomorrow, but you're going to die anyway - why did you bother!?"
You don't have to bother "nightbloom", but there should not be laws preventing you from making decisions about the life-saving medicine you receive.
immortal
5 years ago
Percy wrote:
It is not about being resonable or not. The law discriminates people on the ground of their belief. Will you accept this?
I'm no lawyer, but my feeling is -- there a good chance that the law violates The Constitution of Canada.
Anthony
5 years ago
Nightbloom - most of your comments are pointless - it is clear that I have been quite balanced. You, however, would probably like to unplug me at this point.
"I strongly question the motivations - "saving" human life has nothing to do with it,"
Can you read the mind of every cryonicist? Your arrogance is as appalling as your aggression.
"It's about spinning the hope of the hapless to make a buck."
You do realise that the Cryonics Institute and Alcor are not very rich companies? Indeed, most people working for CI are volunteers. Cryonics does not make you money.
nightbloom
5 years ago
This is not "life-saving medicine" - not by any stretch of the imagination. This is faith and snake-oil until we have the results of credible scientific clinical trials. Any plans to revive Walt Disney anytime soon? We can start with that one...
Even so, classing it as "life-saving medicine" is spurious. Shall we list it as a taxpayer-funded health service? Perhaps even a "human right"...?
Anthony
5 years ago
"the rest of your statement is straight out of the secular liberal nihilist textbook:"
I don't have any liberal nihilist textbooks on my shelf. I do have lots of history books and various holy-books, all of which attest to the atrocities committed and bigotry spread in the name of loving gods.
"Incidentally, radical Islam is the product of a whole host of temporal forces we're just starting to understand and address."
I don't deny that the West has provoked Islamic terrorism, but the basis for that is in Islam itself. I refer you to the concept of "holy war".
"Ironically, we understand Christian fundamentalism (a very recent development - another Boomer legacy gone bad) even less."
Fundamentalism - in any religion - in much older than the boomers or stupid Western foreign policy.
nightbloom
5 years ago
"Objectionable"
"Hysterical"
"Arrogant"
"Appalling"
"Aggressive"
All I did was disagree with you, my friend. No need to get personal about it =) If you want to believe in cryonics then all the more power to you. I genuinely hope it works for you.
Anthony
5 years ago
"This is not "life-saving medicine" - not by any stretch of the imagination."
It is if it works. Even if it doesn't, it furthres knowledge about cryobiology which IS used in life-saving medicine.
"This is faith and snake-oil until we have the results of credible scientific clinical trials."
Sure, it is not science, though the methods are scientific. But we won't get results unless there are volunteers.
"Any plans to revive Walt Disney anytime soon? We can start with that one..."
This is an urban myth.
"Even so, classing it as "life-saving medicine" is spurious. Shall we list it as a taxpayer-funded health service?"
Why? Not enough tax-payers are interested.
"Perhaps even a "human right"...?"
Of course - one has a right to decide what happens to ones body - dead or alive. Do you disagree?
Anthony
5 years ago
"All I did was disagree with you, my friend."
I appreciate your conciliatory tone, nevertheless, you made a bad impression.
You did not merely disagree, you ignored the points I raised that you had no good argument against.
Unfortunately, facts, rationality, and fairness do not necessarily sway minds.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Nay, Jihad means "to exert utmost effort, to strive, struggle". How that is interpreted is very much a product of temporal factors at a given time and era. Islam was once much more tolerant and cosmopolitan than it is now. Progressive Muslims are trying to reclaim "Jihad" as a call to personal improvement.
No again on the nature of fundamentalism. We've had many literalist, charismatic and militant phases and movements, but the current strain of Evangelical Fundamentalism is a post-war phenomenon, given a huge boost by fall-out from the Culture Wars (c. 1960s & 1970s) in the United States. It is, in large measure, a reaction to the New Left and its socio-cultural programme.
But whatever, my friend. You read your books and I'll read mine. Peace.
Anthony
5 years ago
"Islam was once much more tolerant and cosmopolitan than it is now."
Yes and no. Need I point out the warist, sexist, and classist verses that populate the Koran? Islam began with war and slaughter - not a good start.
"No again on the nature of fundamentalism."
If that is how you want to define the fundamentalism you were refering to, then fine. I was referring to fundamentalism in a broader sense.
nightbloom
5 years ago
I've never heard "warist" before but I can guess what it means. We already have too many "-ist" words in the repertoire. We need a new suffix to help us pathologize our origins further.
I'm no expert, but to my knowledge all three monotheistic faith traditions encompass genuine attempts to break down the class divisions of their day.
You're right about the sexism, but that too is an interesting statement on our ongoing cultural evolution. The patriarchs haven't had the last word yet, and they're still digging interesting books out of the sand. It now turns out that Christianity has strong feminist roots after all, but this is tangential to our discussion.
Nevertheless, you're operating on a form of belief system without tradition or ritual, but which is based on a determined hope (faith) in a kind of Salvation from death...perhaps even with hints of the "everlasting life" theme thrown in. At least that's how it sounds to me.
It still strikes me as a misguided waste, however, with little positive good for humanity at large.
immortal
5 years ago
nightbloom wrote:
If one follows your logics he might say about humanity:
"It still strikes me as a misguided waste, however, with little positive good for universe at large."
Human life and human rights are the essence of humanity. And this article is about fight both for human life and human rights.
Anthony
5 years ago
"We need a new suffix to help us pathologize our origins further."
I didn't think you could be funny ;)
"I'm no expert, but to my knowledge all three monotheistic faith traditions encompass genuine attempts to break down the class divisions of their day."
Except for the subjection of conquered people by Muslims who become second-class citizens if they don't convert!
Not to mention the Jews considering themselves superior for being "chosen" and all the nonsense about "gentiles" being unclean. Not to mention the genocidal prescriptions found in Leviticus (kill them all, women, babies, and animals).
Nor Jesus Christ who thinks rich people have less chance of getting into heaven.
Just off the top of my head...
"It now turns out that Christianity has strong feminist roots after all, but this is tangential to our discussion."
Any links or references?
The only "feminists" roots I can think of are Graeco-Roman mystery cults which had some influence on the ideas of Trinity and the Virgin Mary. Otherwise, Xianity arose out of the normal morass of misogyny.
"Nevertheless, you're operating on a form of belief system without tradition or ritual,"
This is because I have need for neither.
"but which is based on a determined hope (faith) in a kind of Salvation from death..."
Indeed, it is a hope - and a slim one at that. I don't know if cryonics will work. But it is not salvation, only more life.
"perhaps even with hints of the "everlasting life" theme thrown in. At least that's how it sounds to me."
You'd be right too, with regards other cryonicists (but not me). There are cryonists who wish to be immortal, or even expect it. you're probably familiar with transhumanism and the Singularity - themes of immortality, salvation, utopia - they're all there. Some of us are more sober, but those who ascribe to a crude scientism have a faith in progress which rivals that of any religious eschatology.
"It still strikes me as a misguided waste, however, with little positive good for humanity at large."
A waste of what? Money? Then take out another life-insurance policy, if you're young it'll cost around $11 a month. Liquid nitrogen? Is there a shortage of that somewhere? Seriously, how is it a waste? You're obviously smart, so I'd like to contemplate it.
I understand that it seems a bit useless, but if cryonics does work, it will save lives. It is an experiment, and a pretty bold one.
freebear
5 years ago
Unbelievable how mcuh discussion generated by this but so little on important topics.
It does highlight how some are only concerned about themselves (their life and death) rather than contributing to society and the planet.
Go ahead and freeze yourselves, my guess is that there will be no one around to thaw you out!!!!!!!!!! Unless you can be converted into a fuel!
nightbloom
5 years ago
This is because I have need for neither.
...But your cryonics is a belief system nonetheless, one that is ultimately grounded in faith not rationality. It only wears the appearance of rationality because it is garbed in pseudo-science.
Oh, details!
Hey, ever try to mezizah an uncut zayin after it's spent 40 days in the desert? You'd think the goya were unclean too.
On the suppressed (and now gradually recovered) feminine influences on Christianity, I'd look up some background on the Gnostic controversy and the discovery of the Gnostic Gospels at Nag Hammadi in the 1940s.
This is what I'm getting at: the secular intellectualized language is there, but the basic emotional yearning is the same. You're looking for answers to the same set of questions. Personally, I find what's motivating cryonics to be no more sober than organized religion, but without the positive socio-cultural influences (and there have been many). Ultimately, the product it is selling is a consumerized knock-off of the salvation line. That's how I see it. Cryonics can't deliver.
billy pilgrim
5 years ago
seems like a good racket to me. maybe i'll offer the service for $22,500. what are the dead guys gonna do when they don't wake up, sue me?
if murray pezim was alive he could take this promotion and run with it.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
nightbloom
The principal of this story, Grodzicki, at 68, would appear not to meet your definition of a baby boomer - a small point of course. Neither was Ted Williams, nor, we're told, Walt Disney. The foolishness of idiots is unrestricted to particular age groups, as I know you're well aware. Further, I can find no persuasive way to extend the definition of human rights to cover the care and feeding of dead body parts – especially when the interests of live, healthy humans might be tangentially affected by such fecklessness on the part of the wealthy. I suspect your anger at baby boomers, humourous though it is, would be better aimed at the idle wealthy.
The fact that any person who considers him or herself a responsible member of the human race would spend several tens of thousand of dollars on an attempt to have their dead flesh continually nourished and cared for after death in this way while 4/5ths of the world's population is in one or another kind of dire need is absolutely reprehensible. The ability of people with power and money to telescope their influence down through the generations is a big enough problem for the future without actually keeping their dead meat in some form of suspended animation.
It would, however, be quite interesting if some idiot did manage to have his head re-animated only to discover that his ego had dissolved in the cryogenic process and his fortune was now so depleted that he could no longer afford to buy the necessary 'headless' body upon which to re-attach his pathetic skull. There’s a horror movie in that conception, I’d say. Further, think of the amusing legal problems when the progeny of these re-animated heads discover that their claim to daddy’s fortune is no longer operative since daddy is no longer ‘dead’.
Say a prayer if it suits your fancy and kiss the dead goodbye.
Anthony
5 years ago
"Unbelievable how mcuh discussion generated by this but so little on important topics."
Some people believe that a potentially life-saving medical procedure is important. Others believe that defending the right to choose how you die or how your body is treated is important, even a right.
It makes me wonder why people are so indignant about how cryonicists choose to be treated upon legal pronouncement of death, yet these people themselves usually haven't even arranged for their organs to be donated, instead being happy for everything to be chucked into the dirt or the furnace.
"It does highlight how some are only concerned about themselves (their life and death) rather than contributing to society and the planet."
Your assumption that cryonicists are egomanics is insulting. If cryonics works, many many lives will be saved - an experiment of this kind is a very real contribution to society - more so than being buried or cremated. This will be due to the hard-work and financial investment of cryonicists. Furthermore, cryonicists are well known for paying for the cryosuspension of others (as the article points out). Finally, the Cryonics Institute is known for its charity, having freely given a cryonics contract to John Swayze, a paraplegic.
"Go ahead and freeze yourselves, my guess is that there will be no one around to thaw you out!!!!!!!!!! Unless you can be converted into a fuel!"
It is unfortunate that you have this attitude because your understanding of cryonics is so flawed. Perhaps if you read beyond the article you will be less blasé.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Lives 'saved'. Under what rubric? This kind of egomania is the worst consequence of runaway greedy capitalist nonsense.
Exactly how is keeping these chunks of corpses around for generations a contribution to society?
Anthony
5 years ago
Dear Alcibiades
"Neither was Ted Williams, nor, we're told, Walt Disney."
The popular urban legend that Walt Disney was cryopreserved is false; he was cremated, and interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.
"The foolishness of idiots is unrestricted to particular age groups"
And this coming from someone who named themselves after a Greek general, passing judgement on something s/he obviously knows little about.
"Further, I can find no persuasive way to extend the definition of human rights to cover the care and feeding of dead body parts"
Feeding? Cryonics freezes or vitrifies the body, there is no need for nourishment - obviously.
If you think people do not have a right to decide what happens to their dead body, then perhaps you should be smashing up gravestones to prove a point?
"– especially when the interests of live, healthy humans might be tangentially affected by such fecklessness on the part of the wealthy."
I am not wealthy, yet my life insurance covers me & my wife for cryonics, and my seperate policy covers my children.
Also, I'd like you to explain how cryonics could harm the living.
"The fact that any person who considers him or herself a responsible member of the human race would spend several tens of thousand of dollars on an attempt to have their dead flesh continually nourished and cared for after death in this way"
A typical funeral does not cost much less than cryonics with C.I.
"while 4/5ths of the world's population is in one or another kind of dire need is absolutely reprehensible."
And what are you doing for the starving poor? Have you given up your car, your consumer frivolities and holiday in the sun to avoid hypocrisy? Do you expect every Westerner to renounce our medical technology because only a few of us in the world have access to it? I take it you are currently living in a diseased mudhut and accessing this website from a library.
"the cryogenic process"
Cryogenics is not cryonics. Look it up.
"Further, think of the amusing legal problems when the progeny of these re-animated heads discover that their claim to daddy’s fortune is no longer operative since daddy is no longer ‘dead’."
New technology creates new problems.
It also creates ignorant, reactionary backlashes.
Anthony
5 years ago
"Exactly how is keeping these chunks of corpses around for generations a contribution to society?"
Read my posts and you might get some idea. Then again, you still might not get it.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
I was speaking metaphorically - as you should have known - of course one can't feed a dead body that’s why I put it that way, to demonstrate the absolute idiocy of the proposition of wasting scare resources for nothing more than an ego trip for the dead - one shouldn't be spending real money freezing it either. Obviously. I could care less about Walt Disney's 'final' destination.
I expect intelligent modern people not to indulge in something worthy of an alchemist trying to create a homunculus out of blood, semen and cowshit in the back of a medieval stable.
You might want to check out Alcibiades biography in a little more depth, by the way!
As to what I'm doing for the starving poor, you might be surprised.
However, despite your apparent inability to have a discussion without 'personalizing' things I won't say anything about what you're doing 'anthony' - since it has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand.
You still haven't made even a tiny inroad at making a convincing case for this as a human rights issue. I'm not surprised that the insurance industry would find a way to charge you and your wife for this 'service' - they will insure almost anything these days.
Anthony
5 years ago
"your cryonics is a belief system nonetheless, one that is ultimately grounded in faith not rationality."
Belief-system? I would hardly conceptualise my hope that cryonics will work as a system. Yes, there is faith involved - faith that there will be social and scientific progress so that this might work. There is also rationality - human embryos are routinely revived from cryopreservation (indeed, if you think they are human lik us then cryonics already works), various organs - including cat's brains - have also been recovered from cryopreservation.
"It only wears the appearance of rationality because it is garbed in pseudo-science."
Cryonics is based on the very real science of cryobiology.
Me "Except for the subjection of conquered people by Muslims who become second-class citizens if they don't convert!"
Nightbloom "Oh, details!"
From the Koran:
Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
The Jizya is a tax on non-Muslim males. I'm sure being non-Muslim in a Muslim-conquered country would bring a fair share of social stigma too.
"Hey, ever try to mezizah an uncut zayin after it's spent 40 days in the desert? You'd think the goya were unclean too."
Of course, those laws make some sense. I was refering to other matters of uncleanliness too, like menstruating women or homosexual sex.
"On the suppressed (and now gradually recovered) feminine influences on Christianity, I'd look up some background on the Gnostic controversy and the discovery of the Gnostic Gospels at Nag Hammadi in the 1940s."
The Gnostics came after Christianity was first organised. Their influence is minimal because they were slaughtered as heretics. when they came back later in history as the Cathars, they were slaughtered again.
"the secular intellectualized language is there, but the basic emotional yearning is the same."
If you mean the yearning for more life - well of course! Living things want to live. Think about that next time you eat a burger.
"You're looking for answers to the same set of questions."
Personally, *I* have all the answers I need with regards to "ultimate" questions: when you die, you are dead.
"Personally, I find what's motivating cryonics to be no more sober than organized religion,"
Perhaps, but it seems to me that I am the only cryonicist you have ever talked to, so beware. In my experience, cryonicists don't see cryonics as a religion, but as a medical experiment. Some are more optimistic than others.
"but without the positive socio-cultural influences (and there have been many)."
What do you expect from a pratice still in the experimental stages?
Also - since when did having your dead body dealt with suppose to bring socio-cultural benefit!? How many buried or cremated people have done anyone any good!?
"Ultimately, the product it is selling is a consumerized knock-off of the salvation line. That's how I see it."
Then don't buy it. But don't stop anyone else from buying it either. Be decent - even if you think it is crap, the law is unfair.
"Cryonics can't deliver."
You don't know that for sure.
Anthony
5 years ago
"I was speaking metaphorically - as you should have known"
Why should I know that? People condemn cryonics (not cryogenics dear boy) with great ignorance all the time.
"the absolute idiocy of the proposition of wasting scare resources"
Please explain to me how cryonics wastes resources.
What resources are wasted?
How much?
Then compare this to a typical funeral.
"I expect intelligent modern people not to indulge in something worthy of an alchemist trying to create a homunculus out of blood, semen and cowshit in the back of a medieval stable."
But if they do - you're happy to see B.C. stop them? For what!? What other laws would you like to pass preventing people from doing something you have contempt for?
"As to what I'm doing for the starving poor, you might be surprised."
Yes, I would be.
"However, despite your apparent inability to have a discussion without 'personalizing' things"
This is personal. You can avoid it, but I can't.
"I won't say anything about what you're doing 'anthony'"
Anthony is my real first name. What's yours?
"- since it has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand."
It obviously does. Are you, or are you not a hypocrite? That interests me. Do you have your organs marked for donation?
"You still haven't made even a tiny inroad at making a convincing case for this as a human rights issue."
Orthodox Jews want to be buried the same day they die. I think this is an anachronism, but I won't pass laws to stop them. Hell, I won't even jeer. Funnily, cryonicists also want to be cryopreserved as soon as possible after death too.
"I'm not surprised that the insurance industry would find a way to charge you and your wife for this 'service' - they will insure almost anything these days."
Will they ensure the self-righteous bullshit that you spew out?
nightbloom
5 years ago
Hmmm...this will be a cash bonanza for the lawyers too. Reworking the legalities surrounding death, inheritance and estates will generate a lucrative make-work project for the legal class for the next two centuries and beyond. Cripes, I see a whole new branch of the profession opening up...
Alcibiades
5 years ago
anthony
clearly you're incapable of having any kind of an intellectual discussion without:
a)personalizing it; and
b)using language that tends to characterize both you and this 'project' in a most unflattering light.
So be it. You're the one who brought up religious customs, not that they have anything to do with this question, since, in the view of virtually all theistic religious thought, the eventual decomposition of the body is not a question of much theological interest.
You still haven't dealt with the single important question in this whole matter? How is this a question of human rights?
Anthony
5 years ago
"Cripes, I see a whole new branch of the profession opening up..."
Looks like you found your niche ;)
Alcibiades
5 years ago
There is, of course, no democratic reason to prevent you from pursuing this folly. Just as there was no legal reason for Ted Willams' family members to debate and litigate the decision to preserve the meat on and in the scull of the former baseball great after he had 'passed' on. Your own foolish wastefulness and, dare I say it, overly egoistic view of your own importance is entirely a matter for you and your family. However, to suggest that the way you waste your money and resources has anything to do with human rights is the crux of this issue, in my view.
The fact that you avoid that central question is, however, pretty interesting in itself.
Just because a thing can be done, does not mean that it should be. This is simply another in a long line of such 'human' actions which fall, in my opinion, into this category.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
nightbloom
clearly we need more lawyers and with the insurance industry paying for it all, how could one lose? I wonder what Plato would say?
Anthony
5 years ago
Alcibiades
Clearly you're incapable of having any kind of an intellectual discussion without:
a)ignoring the points I make and questions I ask that you cannot answer
b)reading my other posts - or indeed, beyond your own navel
c)you just "personalised" this "intellectual" discussion by writing me a list of how incapable I am.
As I pointed out: preventing me and anyone else from paying for an experimental cure is paternalistic at best.
"You're the one who brought up religious customs, not that they have anything to do with this question,"
I used them as an analogy with cryonics to highlight the human rights issue. Re-read my post.
"since, in the view of virtually all theistic religious thought, the eventual decomposition of the body is not a question of much theological interest."
Then why do Orthodox Jews want to be buried before they rot? Why have Xians, Hindus and Buddhists always been interested in their fellows who have not decomposed (known as "incorruptability")? Indeed, why do Xians insist that the Resurrection will make them whole (i.e. not looking like zomibes)?
Anyway, this is besides the point, but I hope you are edified.
"You still haven't dealt with the single important question in this whole matter? How is this a question of human rights?"
You are quite obtuse. I have already given you several answers. I'll try again:
People like Nightbloom like to insist that cryonics is just faith, a lot like religious faith. In some ways that is true, more so for those who find that cryonics is not incompatible with their religion. If you agree with nbloom in this case, then cryonics is a matter of freedom of religion, enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - among other places. This is why some cryonists have set up Venturism, which in the U.S. is recognised as a religious organisation. This is what cryonicists should do if B.C. will not repeal their bullshit law.
I could also argue that cryonics is a right under "security of person" if you accept that a legally dead body is still structurally (though not functionally) alive. However, I do not think it necessary to talk of cryonics as a human right, only that B.C. - the only province in the country - has passed an extremely dumb law. And for who's benefit!?
immortal
5 years ago
Alcibiades wrote:
If I believe that my dead body will be resuscitated at a future time (for example, upon the Second Coming of Jesus Christ) I cannot be buried in BC -- it will be against this law. It means I refused a certain service on the ground of my belief. I think it is a human right issue.
Anthony
5 years ago
"There is, of course, no democratic reason to prevent you from pursuing this folly."
Then the law should go.
"Your own foolish wastefulness"
You have yet to show me how cryonics is wasteful. See my question in bold above.
"and, dare I say it, overly egoistic view of your own importance is entirely a matter for you and your family."
Indeed. And you have yet to show how this decision is egoistic considering the benefits of success. See various posts above.
"However, to suggest that the way you waste your money and resources has anything to do with human rights is the crux of this issue, in my view."
Not in mine. Yet I answer you anyway - unlike yourself. See above.
"I wonder what Plato would say?"
He'd say "come and live in my autocracy - you sound like you'd like it"
Alcibiades
5 years ago
You still can't make it a human rights issue.
Anthony
5 years ago
"You still can't make it a human rights issue."
So what?
Alcibiades
5 years ago
I don't think people should be permitted to drive and talk on cell phones at the same time either. Other than that, I'm pretty liberal.
As I said above, purely my opinion - also clearly stated - you can do what you want with your money. I think it's both foolish and egotistical, but that's just me. We haven't got around to passing laws about stupidity yet either.
But, in issues of competing 'human' rights there should be no doubt that living people will always trump 'dead' ones - even if they're frozen. That is what I'm getting at, since you appear not to be able to reason out when a conflict between the two 'interests' might occur.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
You have to bend language beyond recognition to call dead bodies 'structurally alive' and it that kind of violence against language and meaning that I'm talking about.
Anthony
5 years ago
"That is what I'm getting at, since you appear not to be able to reason out when a conflict between the two 'interests' might occur."
Let me know how an officially dead person in a cryostat - who's will has also been executed - creates any conflict of interests with the living.
Perhaps someone can complain that the insurance should have gone to them and not C.I. or Alcor. If you feel so sorry for these people, may be you should take your complaint to the vastly greater number of dead people who also do not give their life insurance to their families.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Yes, Cryonics is a deracinated pseudo-scientific attempt to grapple with the visceral fears which our philosophic and religious heritage have already been grappling with for millennia. The impetus for one more crack at life, for eternal youth, for rebirth, divine insight, perpetuity, reunion with the eternal universe or with the primordial womb, etc. are ancient themes, driven by prehistoric passions and elemental and near-universal cognitive awakenings. The strings pulling this movement along have already been long in use, albeit with far greater socio-cultural relevance and benefit.
Anthony
5 years ago
"You have to bend language beyond recognition to call dead bodies 'structurally alive' and it that kind of violence against language and meaning that I'm talking about."
You need a medical lesson.
When a person is declared dead, modern medicine has failed to help them live any longer. That person does not immediately turn to ash - the vast majority of cells in the body are still alive. This is why you can transplant organs or resusitate someone. (Got your organs tagged for donation yet?).
This being a scientific fact means that - scientifically speaking - the structure is still alive. If the structure is still there, it could later be made to function. This is why you can transplant organs or resusitate someone. This is why cryonicists believe that if you freeze the process of decay, you have a chance of rescuing the person.
Anthony
5 years ago
"Cryonics is a deracinated pseudo-scientific attempt to grapple with the visceral fears which our philosophic and religious heritage have already been grappling with for millennia."
And what has done more damage to humanity? Cryonics or religion?
And I don't need to read how religion can motivate charity and kindness. I could charge these altruists with egoism too - after all, charity gets you into heaven right?
BTW, are you familiar with Ernest Becker (especially his "Denial of Death")or terror management theory? You might find them interesting considering your talk of death and religion.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
You need a lesson in language. Might I suggest a few Orwell essays.
Once again, I've said nothing about religion and very little about death - check it out!
Why is hanging onto life so important to you?
Alcibiades
5 years ago
By the way, I think you need to brush up on modern medicine too. I think you'll find that the process of decay and degradation frequently begins long before the so-called spark of life has left the organism.
Anthony
5 years ago
"You need a lesson in language. Might I suggest a few Orwell essays."
Is this how you respond to facts? What would Plato say!?
"Once again, I've said nothing about religion and very little about death - check it out!"
My comments in this regard are addressed at Nightbloom.
"Why is hanging onto life so important to you?"
Why do you go to hospital if you are seriously hurt or ill?
Anthony
5 years ago
"I think you'll find that the process of decay and degradation frequently begins long before the so-called spark of life has left the organism."
Of course, it is called aging or any number of diseases. But that is besides the point - and the facts.
immortal
5 years ago
The point is: much (if not all) of this decay and degradation as well as post-mortem degradation in few hours after the death and much of frozen damage can be reversed -- some by current medical technology, other by methods under development or at design stage.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Orwell is important because he addresses the degradation of language and meaning. Something you're pretty deeply mired in with such ideas as structurally alive. By the way, how about that human rights issue for dead meat? When are you going to deal with that - I'm waiting?
And I haven't even addressed the rationing of scarce resources or the importance of triage>
Anthony
5 years ago
"Orwell is important because he addresses the degradation of language and meaning. Something you're pretty deeply mired in with such ideas as structurally alive."
You accuse me of being Orwellian. I accuse you of ignoring facts about cellular life that you do not want to accept.
"By the way, how about that human rights issue for dead meat? When are you going to deal with that - I'm waiting?"
I've addressed this question. See above.
"And I haven't even addressed the rationing of scarce resources or the importance of triage"
You pay for your standby or you have a funeral director deal with it or you have fellow cryonicists volunteer to help - as the article informs you. Hospitals are not inconvienced by this.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
I don't accuse you of being anything - other than foolish - and unwilling to come to grips with an important human rights point. Orwell addresses violence to language, which, in my view you are committing.
You say hospitals are not inconvenienced, and in the United States where everything has a price and not all can afford it, you may well be correct. I can tell you the same is not true of Canada's medical institutions. Much of medicine today is a fine and careful balance between what is possible and what is affordable, with the taxpayer (living citizens), paying the freight. Set up a parallel medical infrastructure if you wish, on an island off the coast of Alaska or Hawaii, if that appeals to you, but do not pretend that your self-centeredness has no consequences for the rest of us.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
I do agree, however, with the observation - if that's what you're saying - that a world where dead meat in cold storage has some or all of the same rights as living, breathing and sentient human beings do, that it would than be an Orwellian world. Thank you.
Anthony
5 years ago
"I don't accuse you of being anything - other than foolish"
Who is more the fool? The fool, or he who talks hours and hours to the fool about how foolish he is?
"- and unwilling to come to grips with an important human rights point."
I've addressed it. If cryonics is a religion - which Nightbloom argues it is, which the Venturists in the U.S. have organised - then you have a right to whatever religious funeral your religion suggests.
if people do not have a right to have their bodies dealt with as they wish then - as I asked earlier - why aren't you smashing gravestones to prove a point?
"Much of medicine today is a fine and careful balance between what is possible and what is affordable, with the taxpayer (living citizens), paying the freight."
As I explained - to my knowledge - no medical staff are involved once the suspension tema/volunteers/funeral director takes over. If they are involved, it is only as much as they would be putting a person on ice so they can be embalmed or harvesting their organs.
"do not pretend that your self-centeredness has no consequences for the rest of us."
You have no convinced me that cryonics has a negative impact on hospitals, nor that cryonics is self-centred.
Cheerio.
Anthony
5 years ago
[B]Thanks to everyone who took time to discuss this with me. I would like to note that I do not represent the cryonics community in any way - my opinions are my own. There are plenty of religious cryonicists, despite my anti-religious tone. If you are interested in cryonics beyond this discussion, feel free to visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics
where an objective appraisal can be found, and a list of links to cryonics organisations.
Finally, even if you think cryonics is stupid, please consider how unfair the current law in B.C. is and write to Tom R. Aquiline at:
He is a member of the BPCPA Cemetery, Interment & Funeral Services Advisory Group and should have some influence in getting rid of this unfair and pointless law. Thanks.
nightbloom
5 years ago
At no point did I utter any such thing. I said the visceral impulses which seem to be motivating cryonics are some of the same deep-seated fears and anxieties which philosophers and theologians have been addressing for millennia...the fear of death, the desire for continuation of the Self after death, etc.
There is a big distinction between what I said and your interpretation. In no way does cryogenics meet the criteria of a religion, save that it relies on a leap of faith (hope) that it's ersatz-salvation will actually work. But there is no encounter with the Other, no metaphysics, no Eternal, no poetry, no culture, and no real salvation that any genuine believer can relate to.
Cryonics is not a faith tradition. It's a profoundly tragic marketing scam.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
I must admit you do 'go' on. Again, thanks for bringing it up. As to the human rights dilemma, I assume, since you've not covered the relative 'rights' of dead folks vs live ones that you have no valid reconciliation of the problem entailed therein. So, by all means, pursue your bliss in this somewhat unconventional way, but, when the interest of dead meat begind to infringe upon the needs and rights of live people don't be too surprised if the power gets turned off, so to speak.
Pleasant to find myself agreeing with you nightbloom, by the way.
And, I won't be writing any letters except to advise that things be left precisely as they are. We have enough crackpot religions now without adding a plethora of new ones.
Growlhisss
5 years ago
I regret even commenting on this article. THAT was a waste of resources.
Lysistrata
5 years ago
A moral argument which supports cryonics is the idea that life has intrinsic value at any age. Why must life have an expiration date? Simply because "it has always been that way?"
The famous American artist, Grandma Moses did not begin painting until she was 80 years old.
When does Nightbloom's value as an individual end? At age 25, 50, or 75? What if you could live a healthy, full life with meaningful work and satisfying relationships until you are 100 or 125 years old? Will you choose to die sooner just because the average human life span is around 74-77 years?
What if you are lucky enough to fall truly, deeply in love with a wonderful person. If the love of your life contracts a terminal illness, will you just let them go without putting up a fight? What if they could be placed in a cryonic state until a cure for their illness is discovered?
Cryonics is not a religion. Cryonics is a "speculative life support technology that seeks to preserve human life in a state that will be viable and treatable by future medicine." (Alcor.org)
A more complete moral argument for the elimination of "biologically programmed death" has been published by philosopher Nick Bostrom, The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant:
http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html
In closing, anyone who has the courage and fortitude to choose cryonics ought to have the legal right to have his or her arrangements honored.
"First they fight you, then they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then you win" -- Gandhi
Anthony
5 years ago
"As to the human rights dilemma, I assume, since you've not covered the relative 'rights' of dead folks vs live ones that you have no valid reconciliation of the problem entailed therein."
This is a dilemma of your making. You've insisted I defend the rights of the dead & tried to railroad me into this dumb argument. I have never proposed such a thing. I have delivered several cogent arguments with regards to the rights of the living to make choices regarding their deaths. Re-read and take note.
"I won't be writing any letters except to advise that things be left precisely as they are."
Then you are content for the government to pass whatever irrational and unnecessary laws that they wish - making you an enemy of rationality and freedom.
Anthony
5 years ago
"At no point did I utter any such thing."
No, but you implied it again and again.
"There is a big distinction between what I said and your interpretation. In no way does cryogenics"
Cryonics is not cryogenics. Do you even read my posts?
"meet the criteria of a religion, save that it relies on a leap of faith (hope) that it's ersatz-salvation will actually work."
And what is your ersatz salvation? Being immortalised in arrogant posts on the tyee? Or is that too "personal" a question?
"But there is no encounter with the Other, no metaphysics, no Eternal, no poetry, no culture, and no real salvation that any genuine believer can relate to."
Neither do such things occur in open heart surgery. As you say, cryonics is not a religion. As I say, it is an experiment.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
No, Anthony, it is a 'real' dilemma because by defending the illusion that the dead have 'human' rights at all you and others make an intrinsic value judgment as between the living and the dead. If these values are commensurate then the contest between them cannot be decided by anything other than random chance or, more likely, money. Such decisions will always, at some point, lead to conflict between the real rights of the living, qua human, and the imaginary or 'pseudo' rights of the dead.
It is possible to agree with Lysistrata about the intrinsic value of all life, at whatever age and in any state of health - and be willing to fight, as she puts it, for a loved one's survival. I think that nightbloom would agree with this.
However, and speaking as someone who has seen several well loved people in my life die in the last few years, this does not mean according similar values to the husk of flesh remaining after life has fled. Again, in my opinion. Anyone who is so inclined can avail themselves of whatever science or alchemy seems appropriate to them to preserve what seems to me to be a futile illusion and evidence of a somewhat disordered set of priorities and expectations - that a loved one can be brought back to life. I think and believe this is a cruel waste of time, money and a foolish investment in false hope but, in so far as we live in a free society, individuals are 'free' to pursue whatever seems fit to them. Remembering, as I've tried to point out, that the 'right' to do this is not a human right and in a contest between the illusory rights of preserving dead flesh and the real needs of living people (be they the children of the dead or others) that such decisions must always favour the real human rights of real people. In the case of any (and there will inevitably be conflict) conflict, there can be no question as to the result; again, in my view.
Anthony
5 years ago
"No, Anthony, it is a 'real' dilemma because by defending the illusion that the dead have 'human' rights at all you and others make an intrinsic value judgment as between the living and the dead."
You are so dense! I'm beginning to believe you're some sort of pseudo-sophisticated troll.
Quote me where I defend the rights of the dead in the way you describe.
As I wrote "I have delivered several cogent arguments with regards to the rights of the living to make choices regarding their deaths." Read them - if you can bear the thought that people have this right.
You complain that I am being Orwellian. But rather - you are - in constantly insisting that I've adopted a position which I have not, a position that you so want to see someone defend because you want to it smash down. Will you be insisting that I said 2 plus 2 makes 5 next? You want to build strawmen? Do it elsewhere.
That said, I would argue that someone smashing up a cryostat and destroying the cryopreserved bodies therein is commiting a greater crime than desecrating a grave. A person in a grave is never going to be alive again. A person in a cryostat might be. Even for someone who believes in Xian resurrection, the crimes would not be on the same footing because God can resurrect you regardless of what state you are in. The only way I can see grave desecration as being worse than cryostat destruction was if you believed that disturbing holy ground is worse than disturbing a scientific experiment.
"Such decisions will always, at some point, lead to conflict between the real rights of the living, qua human, and the imaginary or 'pseudo' rights of the dead."
In a cryostat a person is legally dead, otherwise they would not be allowed in a cryostat. You've no need to worry about the legally dead. But if cryonicists are ever revived, then they are living, and enjoy the rights of the living. What problems that will cause regardings wills etc. I don't know, but cryonics shouldn't be "unplugged" just because of the potential for legal wranglings.
"this does not mean according similar values to the husk of flesh remaining after life has fled."
Who - other than yourself - are you arguing with here? Who and where was the argument made that the legally dead have living rights?
You are probably confused by the fact that when someone dies in hospital, doctors don't just give up "oh he's dead, he has no rights, why bother?" They keep trying to rescue the person until they cannot. Cryonicists believe that what we are doing is an extension of this method - though the medical establishment has given up and pronounced a person legally dead (& hence with no rights), cryonicists are still trying to rescue that dead person. The rescue attempt continues by storing the legally dead person so that the medical establishment might try to rescue them again later, technology permitting. Cryonicists try to preserve the legally dead as soon after they are officially dead because so much of them is still alive and structurally sound. No cryonicist has ever dug up a rotted corpse or skeleton to preserve that - there's no significant structure left. This is why cryonicists view our movement as a response to a medical emergency, rather than mere storage of corpses.
This does not mean a cryopreserved person has any rights, but it does mean that the cryonics experiment should be respected as an attempt to save lives. If you think it is misguided - so what? I think you are misguided in thinking cryonics misguided. If you think it is harmful - prove it. So far you have avoided all my questions with regards to proving that cryonics creates harm and waste.
Anthony
5 years ago
"Anyone who is so inclined can avail themselves of whatever science or alchemy seems appropriate to them to"
Right, we agree. Except in B.C. this is not the case. This law is the issue, not whether you like cryonics or not. As we agree, you should be against the law. Because you are not, you are a hypocrite.
"I think and believe this is a cruel waste of time, money and a foolish investment in false hope"
I think the same regarding the promises of religion, but I'm not stopping anyone from practicing their beliefs. The B.C. government is.
"but, in so far as we live in a free society, individuals are 'free' to pursue whatever seems fit to them."
Except cryonicists in B.C.
"Remembering, as I've tried to point out, that the 'right' to do this is not a human right"
Are you saying a living person does not have the right to decide what happens to their body when they die, or what kind of treatment they can receive in extremis?
Alcibiades
5 years ago
No anthony, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that when the disposal and storage of dead bodies comes into conflict with the rights and needs of real living people (that is ones who are alive and still have 'rights') that all such conflicts must be decided in favour of the living. How many times is it necessary for me to repeat this?
To have a human right one needs to be 'human' and one needs to be alive. Go ahead and have your relatives freeze your carcass when you die, as I clearly posted yesterday. But, when the continued use of resources like power, space and the like eventually come into conflict with the real needs of real people with real problems in the real world (or if your relatives go to court because they've changed their mind about how your decision is affecting them) then don't be too upset if your meat eventually starts to thaw out.
By the way, I think you're the hypocrite. Anyone who cares less about living breathing human beings than he does about the welfare of a dead sack of skin seems to me to be the very definition of hypocrisy.
freebear
5 years ago
Wow, what a volume of nonsense!
Anthony
5 years ago
"I'm saying that when the disposal and storage of dead bodies comes into conflict with the rights and needs of real living people that all such conflicts must be decided in favour of the living."
Of course, that has never been in dispute. Show me where I have disputed this. Also - I ask again - show me how the cryonicists currently in cryostats are causing conflict with the living.
"To have a human right one needs to be 'human' and one needs to be alive."
No shit. My post makes it clear I know this.
"But, when the continued use of resources like power, space and the like eventually come into conflict with the real needs of real people with real problems in the real world"
That is why cryonicists pay what they do. The money goes towards maintaining the cold storage. This is just the same as buying something when you are alive for it to persist after death. Or is that wrong?
"(or if your relatives go to court because they've changed their mind about how your decision is affecting them)"
This is not valid, in my opinion. Respecting my last wishes should be more important than any objection they might have.
"Anyone who cares less about living breathing human beings than he does about the welfare of a dead sack of skin seems to me to be the very definition of hypocrisy."
How have I shown I care less for the living than the dead? Is it because cryonics uses a tiny amount of power to keep people frozen as part of a potentially life-saving experiment? If you're concerned about wasting power, quit writing and turn off your computer.
Once again you have failed to adequately address any of my other points.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
And I'd say exactly the same thing about you - surprise! Instead of actually formulating your own ideas, you repeat my postings.
Obviously, I think the idea of life-saving after death is an Orwellian anachronism. I believe that any legal formulation which puts the pseudo-rights of the dead ahead of the living is morally, ethically and, from a human rights point of view, a dead letter.
You cannot seem to come to grips with the competing interests - even in respect of your own family members - that may be subsumed in a quagmire like this process: As, for example, in the case of Ted Williams' remains which I brought up yesterday and you totally ignored.
Anyway, this is a complete waste of time. As nightbloom put it yesterday, the whole idea is a marketers’ dream, a promoter’s paradise and you have obviously (likely out of fear of the finality of death) succumbed to another false promise of immortality - it has been happening and will continue to happen for centuries. The ranks of the gullible never want for volunteers. Alas, in my estimation.
So, go for it Anthony and waste your time an money on false hope. I'd have thought a relatively intelligent modern individual could find a better use for his time and treasure. I won't be spending any more effort trying to convince you how utterly deluded I think you are. Bonne chance.
Anthony
5 years ago
"And I'd say exactly the same thing about you - surprise!"
Anyone reading this exchange can see that I quote you extensively and address your concerns - no matter how many times you repeat them, no matter how often you make the same errors. You, however, have ignored vast tracts of my posts, regardless of how I highlight them, or insist you address them.
"Instead of actually formulating your own ideas, you repeat my postings."
Again, it should be clear to anyone else reading this that I address your points. But you do not address mine, even when I put them in bold.
"Obviously, I think the idea of life-saving after death is an Orwellian anachronism."
You mean doctors shouldn't bother trying to save dead patients? Or do you mean you reject the logical extension of this practice - cryonics? If the latter, then fine, don't do it. As you've failed to show how cryonics harms the living (except occasionally upsetting relatives who don't "get it" or who are tied to tradtional ideas), then I don't see why you keep whining and bitching.
"I believe that any legal formulation which puts the pseudo-rights of the dead ahead of the living is morally, ethically and, from a human rights point of view, a dead letter."
It is indeed. But why are you saying this? Who has argued in favour of it? Show me.
"You cannot seem to come to grips with the competing interests - even in respect of your own family members -"
I can come to grips, but I disagree that any traditionalist/squeemish objection to cryonics should not over-rule it. Let's say you want to be buried with your wife when you die, but your ex-girlfriend wants you to be buried with her and your best friend and your mother agree with your ex because they like her more. Who should decide - them or you?
"the case of Ted Williams' remains which I brought up yesterday and you totally ignored."
Ted made a decision in life - he had a right to decide where his money went. He chose Alcor. You have a problem with people making choices for themselves?
"As nightbloom put it yesterday, the whole idea is a marketers’ dream, a promoter’s paradise"
How is that when cryonics doesn't make you much money? (as I've already pointed out) nor is it very popular. Both you and s/he have a very slender understanding of anything to do with cryonics. This is why idiotic laws in B.C. get passed.
"you have obviously (likely out of fear of the finality of death) succumbed to another false promise of immortality -"
Rubbish. I hope cryonics will revive me and allow me to live again - but I don't expect ot live forever.
"I won't be spending any more effort trying to convince you how utterly deluded I think you are."
Thanks for being so concerned about my welfare. But if you were truly concerned about it, you'd fight against the law on principle because in your words "Anyone who is so inclined can avail themselves of whatever science or alchemy seems appropriate to them to." and "in so far as we live in a free society, individuals are 'free' to pursue whatever seems fit to them."
Truman Green
5 years ago
Oh cut it out, Alcibiades. It's just another kind of time capsule. In fact, it could be helpful for scientists a thousand years from now. Do you and nightbloom have to be such philosophical bigots? Is there no other way for you to express yourselves?
I wouldn't do it because I'm afraid of the amount of suffering that might occur if they try to put me back together again, and knowing how deranged, stupid and criminal present-day human beings are, I'm not sure there will be any advances in human integrity and intellectual honesty in the future.
But anyway, Anthony wins, 93 to 6, maybe 7. I'm ambivalent about one of your points.
Incidentally, the "positive control" (google it) is: how many other human activities are just as worthy of criticism as cryonics? And how many of these are you and nightbloom ranting and raving against?
G West
5 years ago
Truman
You're obviously off your meds. Read those posts again: Alcibiades 100 vs anthony nil. We can't look after the living adequately now. There is no moral or ethical reason for doing anything for the dead. Get over it/death is as much a part of the human experience as living - except for people like anthony who can't seem to cope with the idea that the world doesn't and shouldn't create special rules just for him. This crap is about as scientific as scientology and you know it. Even from an ethical humanist point of view the last thing we need is a bunch of disembodied heads stinking up the place long after they should have been put to their final rest.
Anthony
5 years ago
"It's just another kind of time capsule."
Correct - and this is how it was originally formulated by Professor Ettinger, the "father of cryonics".
If cryonics does not work, the people of the future have some interesting - perhaps ancient - corpses to look at.
If cryonics does work, the people of the future would have people from the past to speak to. Baseball fans might be especially pleased.
Both situations would be enlightening to any future person interested in humanity.
"I wouldn't do it because I'm afraid of the amount of suffering that might occur if they try to put me back together again,"
If resusitation failed, you would be put into cryopreservation once again, until the time that your chances were better.
"I'm not sure there will be any advances in human integrity and intellectual honesty in the future."
Perhaps not. It is possible one could wake to a nightmare - but why would people living in a dystopia even bother to bring you back? Chances are, if you return, it is to a better world - better tech., and probably a better society that supported tech. advancement and the will to revive dead people who have no way of paying for it themselves (if one needed to pay for medical treatment, which in an advanced society you probably wouldn't).
"But anyway, Anthony wins, 93 to 6, maybe 7. I'm ambivalent about one of your points."
Yes, I do feel like I made about 93 points to his repetative 6. I'm glad someone noticed the redundant obstinancy of, and attempted corralling by, "Alcibiades".
"And how many of these are you and nightbloom ranting and raving against?"
Cryonics attracts way more negative press than it should because it is non-tradtional (something Nightbloom seems to pour scorn on) & unusual/non-conformist. It is unfortunate that so many people lack the imagination to engage in even thinking about this experiment.
Anthony
5 years ago
"We can't look after the living adequately now."
Does this mean we should not support alternative life(death)styles? Or attempt ambitious experiments? I take it that you have renounced your worldly goods and delivered them all to Africa?
"There is no moral or ethical reason for doing anything for the dead."
Bullshit. Why, then, is it a crime to **** a corpse or desecrate a grave? Is it because the living want the dead to have some dignity? Isn't that why the bodies of vanquished enemies are "humiliated"? Isn't this why so many people find a frozen corpse a bit macabre? Is it because the living still care about the bodies of the dead? I would be sick if my wife were prevented from being cryopreserved upon death and instead had to rot in the ground.
The dead currently in cryostats are part of an experiment that could benefit the living. Show me - as Alcibiades nor Nightbloom couldn't - how cryonics harms the living and creates waste. Then look around to see if anyone else is pure enough to be casting stones.
"Get over it/death is as much a part of the human experience as living"
You do not experience death, only dying.
"anthony... can't seem to cope with the idea that the world doesn't and shouldn't create special rules just for him."
I have not asked for any special rules. Instead I would like to see an unnecessary and bigoted law repealled.
JensRabis
5 years ago
Hello everything. Here here is the German. You write a lot. I cannot translate it. It is too much text.
Nevertheless, I know what you write. It is always the same. Per and Against.
I know one: You will talk, until the fire comes or the worms. This is bad for You. 100% badly for You on the earth. The earth is our job, the universe our future! Who wants to die, may die humanly. Who does not want to die, should be preserved. It is easy. God is powerless on the earth. You do this Yes or the no on the earth. This is the divine play ... unique personality lives or dies! Unique personalities in the world, fights for You with us, the Cryons!
With the best greetings Jens Rabis
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Anthony
No. It means we should try a lot harder to look after the living before we waste money on the dead. I've told you before I'm trying not to personalize this so I'll ignore your question about me since it has nothing to do with this discussion.
There is no reason to do anything 'for' the dead. That's what I said. That's what I meant. I'd suggest what you're proposing isn't much different from necrophilia but have it as you will.
What one experiences when one dies is unknowable, period. Your faith in pseudo science and phony marketing notwithstanding. Death is still a common human experience and I trust it always will be - otherwise the greedy few will inherit the earth.
I think you are asking for special rules. You're also a very angry person apparently and someone with whom it's impossible to have a civil discussion without your getting crude. The normal sort of thing one expects from a defeated and frustrated interlocutor. Perhaps I should post back to you a few of the prize arguments – in the crude and angry style you appear determined to effect – you’ve advanced, you hypocrite.
Anthony
5 years ago
"It means we should try a lot harder to look after the living before we waste money on the dead."
$11 a month for my cryonic treament when I die is less than a music CD.
Or do you mean the cryonics companies themselves should be doing something else? I would suggest that there are much much bigger wastes of money occuring compared to the tiny cryonics movement. E.g. multi-million dollar movies. E.g. getting your ashes blasted off into space. E.g. growing and selling tobacco. Is this all worth more than a radical experiment? Harp on at them.
"I've told you before I'm trying not to personalize this"
I've told you before this is personal - you support the suppression of my right to chose how my body will be handled when I die.
"There is no reason to do anything 'for' the dead. That's what I said. That's what I meant."
I take it you threw your recently deceased loved ones into the garbage then?
"I'd suggest what you're proposing isn't much different from necrophilia but have it as you will."
Mere flamebait.
"What one experiences when one dies is unknowable, period."
Indeed. But I expect it will be just as void-like as the space god is suppose to inhabit. This is why I call myself an atheist you see.
"Your faith in pseudo science and phony marketing notwithstanding."
Show me an example of phony marketing by any of the cryonics companies. Then take it to consumer complaints.
"Death is still a common human experience"
No - dying is. We don't know if death is experienced - remember?
"otherwise the greedy few will inherit the earth"
How does this follow from knowing what death will be like? Are you trying to associate this radical medical experiment with greed again?
"I think you are asking for special rules."
Quote me. Show me where. You never do, because - once you've cast your aspersions - you can't.
"You're also a very angry person"
No, you make me angry, because your arguments are arrogant, authoritarian, and paternalistic, and you are a dick.
"and someone with whom it's impossible to have a civil discussion without your getting crude."
In the third sentance of your first post you write:
"The foolishness of idiots is unrestricted to particular age groups, as I know you're well aware."
If that isn't crude, it is rude.
And I don't give a monkey'scunt if you think I'm crude.
"The normal sort of thing one expects from a defeated and frustrated interlocutor."
Defeated? No. Frustrated - of course! I'm talking to a prick wall & I'm dealing with people who support dumbfuck laws like the one in B.C.
"Perhaps I should post back to you a few of the prize arguments – in the crude and angry style you appear determined to effect – you’ve advanced,"
Go ahead sweetcheeks.
"you hypocrite."
Prove this.
Anthony
5 years ago
Alcibiades - if you find me so terribly crude that you need to silence me, follow the instructions of this terribly liberal, swimming against the tide, cutting-edge type newspaper:
What do I do if I find a post objectionable, or am being personally targeted?
Please email
and
immediately, with your contact information, and a link to the comment in question.
Then read this
http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2005/02/02/CreatingCounterweightsBigMedia/
and laugh at the double-standard.
Alternatively, you can swear like a trooper and see if you can make me blush.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
More of the same I see.
My remark about idiots was addressed to nightbloom and dealt with his assessment of the boomer generation. If you calmed down and actually read what I've been writing you wouldn't make such obvious mistakes. If you see yourself as an idiot I can't help it. I think you've done your best to defend a very sticky wicket and if I were you I'd contact one of these enabling corporate entities and see if they'd be willing to pay you a commission. Maybe they are already.
Do you know how many children in Africa that your $11.00 a month would help feed clothe and educate? And, multiplied by the increasing numbers of gullible people who are willing to sell out to such commercial enterprises, I’m sure everyone can see the point – in my estimation.
You are a hypocrite simply because of the way you argue, if nothing else; you pretend to care about science and saving lives and yet you don’t recognize how hypocritical it is to avoid paying for available science which would – in the form of mosquito nets for African villagers, for example, go a long way to defeating malaria. Instead you’d see enormous funds channeled into preserving dead meat against the chance that it might one day be re-animated. How much more hypocritical could you be? I won't bother posting any of the kind of thing you are apparently incapable of not resorting to. You can find it just above sprinkled liberally among your own writing.
As for myself, go back to my posts and count the number of times I used qualifiers such as ‘in my view’ or ‘in my opinion’ in my writings. Apparently, using such a locution never occurred to someone as sure of his ground as you pretend to be.
Q.E.D.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Personally, I could care less how crude you are. And I’m philosophically opposed to any kind of censorship which, if you’d read much of what I’ve posted on other subjects, you’d already know.
I just think it detracts from what you're trying to say and, as I wrote above, shows you to be somewhat hypocritical. But, as I said, that's just me. Go for it if that's the way you like to live. It just makes my job of showing you up a lot easier. Those who can't make a case on the merits frequently resort to volume to assuage their impotence and frustration. Sorry, but there it is.
Anthony
5 years ago
"My remark about idiots was addressed to nightbloom and dealt with his
assessment of the boomer generation."
Fine - it can just serve as an exmaple of general rudeness. Here's an example aimed at cryonicists:
"It would, however, be quite interesting if some idiot did manage to
have his head re-animated only to discover that ... he could no longer
afford to buy the necessary 'headless' body upon which to re-attach
his pathetic skull."
I could find more scattered among your verbiage. However, I don't care if you're rude, but you can't complain about me being rude if you are. Perhaps I am more rude? But what does that have to do with the anti-cryonics law in B.C.?
"I'd contact one of these enabling corporate entities and see if
they'd be willing to pay you a commission. Maybe they are already."
They don't have enough money. As I've said - not much profit in it.
C.I. uses mainly volunteers. What can I say? I'm passionate about
defending my choices from paternalists like you.
"Do you know how many children in Africa that your $11.00 a month
would help feed clothe and educate?"
Do you know how much I give to charity? Am I suppose to give all of my spare cash to charity? Do you? Is it ok with you if I spend this small amount on something I think is valuable?
Of course, you won't answer my personal questions - instead you will just make assumptions.
"You are a hypocrite simply because of the way you argue, if nothing
else; you pretend to care about science and saving lives and yet you
don't recognize how hypocritical it is to avoid paying for available
science which would – in the form of mosquito nets for African
villagers, for example, go a long way to defeating malaria."
You have not proven I am a hypocrite, you have only assumed it. As you have no idea what kind of charitable donations I make, your "evidence" for my hypocrisy is very flimsy. You, however, have shown quite clearly on this very page your own hypocrisy.
"Instead you'd see enormous funds channeled into preserving dead meat"
Enormous compared to the cost of mosquito nets, but not enormous compared to blockbuster movies.
"As for myself, go back to my posts and count the number of times I
used qualifiers such as 'in my view' or 'in my opinion' in my
writings."
So what? You realise it is your opinion that makes you hypocritical?
"Apparently, using such a locution never occurred to someone as sure of his ground as you pretend to be."
I posted above about how I represent no cryonicist except myself. That is enough, I'm not going to qualify every sentence, that would be redundant.
Again - to drive home my point - I quote me quoting you to show your double-standards:
Me: "Thanks for being so concerned about my welfare. But if you were truly concerned about it, you'd fight against the law on principle because in your words:
You "Anyone who is so inclined can avail themselves of whatever science or alchemy seems appropriate to them to." and "in so far as we live in a free society, individuals are 'free' to pursue whatever seems fit to them."
Yet you still refuse to agree that the law should go.
Anthony
5 years ago
"Personally, I could care less how crude you are."
Then why did you complain about it? Do you like complaining?
"And I’m philosophically opposed to any kind of censorship which, if you’d read much of what I’ve posted on other subjects, you’d already know."
I have not read any of your other posts on other subjects and considering our dialogue, I'm not encouraged to do so.
"I just think it detracts from what you're trying to say"
Perhaps, but you remain stolidly unconvinced anyway - so what does it matter? When you're faced with a difficult question or argument you ignore it or invent excuses.
"and, as I wrote above, shows you to be somewhat hypocritical."
How does being crude mean that I don't care about human life or science?
"Go for it if that's the way you like to live."
So you give me licence to be crude but not for me to decide how my dead body will be treated?
"It just makes my job of showing you up a lot easier."
Your job is to "show me up"!?
"Those who can't make a case on the merits frequently resort to volume to assuage their impotence and frustration."
Well as you've been intending to show me up, haven't you expected and wanted me to get frustrated?
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Give me a break.
Are you an individual? You seem convinced you are and I certainly wouldn't deny it. As I clearly said you are perfectly free to pursue whatever seems fit to you. However, I, also an individual, think your ideas - to which you are entitled - are selfish and damaging to the idea of universal human rights for living persons. How can I be any more plain than that?
It would be entirely hypocritical of me, in my view, to support something with which I profoundly disagree. Therefore, the battle to change this law, which I suspect is of almost no interest to anyone except yourself and a few other cultists (sorry, but that's how I view people more concerned with the disposition of their dead bodies than with the welfare of needy and suffering living human beings) is your battle, not mine. As a matter of fact, and this is still a free country and province, I'll do everything I can to oppose any change in the law. You have, apparently, found jurisdictions where your survivors can avail themselves of the 'services' for your body which you are determined to access. By all means move there before the time comes and access them - with my blessings.
In conclusion, I bear you no ill will. Would that you were less of a proselytizer and you might realize that fact. You are certainly free to try and have the law in BC changed. Given the generally compromised character of politics in this province I think you'll have little difficulty but don't expect me to wish you well in a project for which I have neither intellectual nor moral confidence.
gardensnake
5 years ago
My, my, nothing like a discussion on immortality to bring out the (philosophically-minded) fatalists.
I would address one major problem with this whole cryogenics project. What is the incentive for people in the future to bring back to life these people, who will have very little to offer (most likely), even if the technology does develop? As the world will be facing population pressure like we can't even imagine doesn't keeping people alive indefinetly begin to ring a few warning bells?
And even if people are brought back, we should consider the issues around property more closely. If they "die" all of their assests will be dissolved. But if they are revived, then doing so would be paramount to theft. In any case, will they have some sort of hedge fund if they're revived? That seems very precarious looking into the future. If it's still a capitalist society that they awaken in, how will they pay for their revival? Will they still have the same legal rights as a person who hasn't died?
On a technical side, I'm curious to what degree a person's brain can be preserved by this technique...
There are so many issues with this... I feel very nervous about any move towards developing any "immortality" technology. We have to consider very carefully about the ramifications of technologies on an already fragile world.
Anthony
5 years ago
"I would address one major problem with this whole cryogenics project."
Cryogenics is a branch of physics (or engineering) that studies the production of very low temperatures (below –150 °C, –238 °F or 123 K) and the behavior of materials at those temperatures. Cryogenics is also a popular misnomer for cryonics.
"What is the incentive for people in the future to bring back to life these people,"
Some ideas:
They are relatives, perhaps decendants or old friends.
They are historians or social scientists.
They are cryonicists who support the resusitation.
They are philanthropists.
It is done because it is easy.
"who will have very little to offer (most likely),"
Why do you say that? As Danelle Egan reports: "Cryonicists -- many of them scientists, doctors, PhDs, high-tech industry workers and Mensa members". Perhaps the knowledge and education of cryonicists will be outdated, but our experiences will still be of interest to a future interested in the human past.
"As the world will be facing population pressure"
Perhaps - 11 million is a scary number. But it seems to me that the problem is not population, but the injust and irrational apportioning of resources - the world-wide growth in the rich poor gap and the 20 years difference in life-expectancy between rich and poor attest to that.
"keeping people alive indefinetly begin to ring a few warning bells?"
Cryonics isn't about indefinate life, but about being around - bodily present - at a time when tech/medicine can help you. Though some cryonicists are expecting great things from the future, which might include immortality.
"And even if people are brought back, we should consider the issues around property more closely. If they "die" all of their assests will be dissolved."
Sure. A person's will is part of the last thing they ask for - most people expect their wishes regarding what happens to their bodies and their possessions to be respected....
G West
5 years ago
Try 11 billion!
Most people, in the penultimate hours before death, I'd suggest, don't care about what happens with or to their worn out/ disease ridden/ broken/ pain racked bodies.
And thats as it should be, a quite normal response.
Anthony
5 years ago
"And even if people are brought back, we should consider the issues around property more closely. If they "die" all of their assests will be dissolved. But if they are revived, then doing so would be paramount to theft. In any case, will they have some sort of hedge fund if they're revived?"
There are lots of ideas - try googling "economics and cryonics" and you'll see that there are articles and posts from cryonicists across the political spectrum about economics.
But of course no-one knows how this issue will ultimately be resolved, and it could be an issue which (permanently?) prevents cryonics patients from being resuscitated.
"That seems very precarious looking into the future. If it's still a capitalist society that they awaken in, how will they pay for their revival? Will they still have the same legal rights as a person who hasn't died?"
Interesting questions. I don't know how other cryonicists might answer, but I expect that the more fair and wealthy in natural resources and technology a society is, the more evenly resources will be distributed, that far fewer people will wastefully die of diseases that could so easily be prevented or cured (the mosquito nets Alcibiades mentions above, the negative economic impact on African countries of patenting of HIV medicine & illegitimate colonial debts, dirty water, etc.), that less wars would kill people and destroy property. Capitalism may still exist, and it might make for a more equitable and sustainable use of resources. A future where people live longer and healthier lives with less chance of being killed by violence or accident is the kind I'd like to see my children living in and myself being resuscitated in. It seems that the most likely scenario in which cryonicists would be resuscitated is a more just and altruistic society. A "dark future" of the kind that thrills Hollywood would either find the cryonicists decayed and lost, or maintained by fellow cryonicists - perhaps even illegally. (In the past, people have frozen loved ones without the aid or knowledge of the main cryonics companies, using crude techniques like large freezers or dry ice:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4814540.stm
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D07E2DD1739F932A25750C0A9649C8B63)
Crude experiments with cryonics are attempts by desperate people who want to preserve a loved one, but do not have access to, or knowledge of, proper cryostats in which patients are cryopreserved.)
Anthony
5 years ago
"On a technical side, I'm curious to what degree a person's brain can be preserved by this technique..."
The technical side fascinates many of the cryonicists I've met, myself included. This is a good place to start looking into brain-freezing:
http://www.alcor.org/sciencefaq.htm
and
Pichugin,Fahy,Morin (April 2006). "Cryopreservation of rat hippocampal slices by vitrification". CRYOBIOLOGY 52
Scientific endorsement of cryonics can be found here:
http://www.cryoletter.org/
"There are so many issues with this... "
That is why I keep coming back to discussions like these. The experiment really interests me - not least because cryobiology has so many interesting applications. For exmaple, Isamu Suda and colleagues at Kobe University in Japan in the 1960s, worked with the brains of cats. In one experiment, an anesthetized brain was cryoprotected with a glycerol solution and stored for more than 200 days at –20°C; well below the freezing point of water. On re-warming and reperfusion with blood, the brains produced recognizable brain waves, indicating coordinated neural activity.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=5970120&dopt=Abstract
In the last few years people suffering cardiac arrest have had their bodies cooled to induce a state of mild hypothermia, which reduces the brain's need for oxygen. This has improved the patients' chances of survival and their odds of avoiding brain damage as a result of brain ischemia. There are also ongoing experiments in healing brain damage caused by strokes and injuries by using ice packs or threading freezing catheters through patients' veins. The American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has funded research on low temperature suspended animation during the space race with the Soviets. (The exploration of space is considered to be too limited by human lifespan, because of the vast distances which must be traversed.)
Many kinds of animal, typically those with simple cell structures, have been frozen, stored and revived, like the nematode worm for example. In the natural world, there are examples of revival following prolonged exposure to subfreezing temperatures. The common wood frog, Rana sylvatica, spends its winters in cold sleep when temperatures drop below freezing. The frog’s metabolism slows to a near halt, so that its cells can survive on small amounts of oxygen and energy. The liver then begins to create an antifreeze made of glucose that keeps most of the water inside the frog’s cells from solidifying into damaging ice crystals. The frog’s animation and brain functions are virtually suspended until springtime when it revives. Another example is the NASA discovery of an Earthly species of bacteria that had been frozen in ice for 32,000 years. Amazingly, these simple organisms were revived after this very long cryopreservation. It is clear that long term cryopreservation can be naturally initiated and survived, hinting at clues which might be used to improve our medicine.
Science is learning from natural examples and advances in freezing and reviving life show an increasing body of cryobiological knowledge that could lead to the success of the cryonics experiment; success which would mean a new and healthy life for those who are currently cryopreserved.
Anthony
5 years ago
"I feel very nervous about any move towards developing any "immortality" technology. We have to consider very carefully about the ramifications of technologies on an already fragile world."
I agree, but I also feel more optimistic. I'm by no means involved on the cutting edge of technologies that can be used for humanistic purposes, but I like to keep up with the latest developments, human rights issues, and social scientific research. People are developing insights all over the place, and if 11 billion people can be well fed and free to think for themselves and to think of each other, then we have a lot of intelligent activity of the kind that can safeguard widespread happiness and sustain our environment. I think that medicine that extends life is a good thing - people generally want to live long and happy lives and take care of each other, which is why we have medical science and which is why you go to the hospital when you're seriously sick or injured.
Anthony
5 years ago
G West wrote:
"Most people, in the penultimate hours before death, I'd suggest, don't care about what happens with or to their worn out/ disease ridden/ broken/ pain racked bodies. And thats as it should be, a quite normal response."
Take a look at the following well respect books by medical and psychology doctors:
Kastenbaum, R. (1992). The Psychology of Death (2nd ed.). NY: Springer.
and
How We Die : Reflections on Life's Final Chapter by Sherwin B. Nuland
You'll see that your suggestion is off the mark - many people are keen for their dead bodies to be treated in all kinds of ways for a variety of reasons - these wisges are expressed in wills and on death-bed. Cryonicists are no different in this, except they are giving their bodies up for a medical experiment which they hope will work.
G West
5 years ago
Actually, Anthony, I've read a number of tomes on death and dying - including Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's. I also happen to have read a recent biography of that lady and was fascinated to learn of the sexual high jinks that were behind much of her later work and its attempts to contact the spirits of the dead. So, often what starts out as a good idea turns out very badly, I find.
As to my suggestion about people's preferences around their own death and the disposition of their remains, I admit to it being entirely personal - gleaned from observations surrounding the death of a number of close friends and relatives. However, since seeing this article in the Tyee, I have also questioned a good number of my other acquaintances - all of us organ donors by the way - and found 100% agreement with my sentiments expressed above. A number of these people also happen to be lawyers and although some of them have extensive experience in crafting wills and other testamentary documents, not one of them said they had any clients who were in the slightest concerned about the disposition of their ashes, corpse, what have you – most, in fact, simply left the matter in the hands of their family and provided sufficient funds for whatever decision was eventually arrived at. I realize this is far from scientific but it is my experience, for what it's worth.
Truman Green
5 years ago
Jeez Al, the guy wants his body frozen after he's dead. So big deal. How come he's a hypocrite for spending eleven bucks a month. Kids starving in Africa owe their plight to an unbalanced global economic system where the greedy, powerful and rich live in luxury and the weak starve. A few thousand frozen bodies are not going to affect human greed.
Shucks, I walk down the highway and see all these 30 or 40 thousand dollar cars tailing each other and in a few seconds I can count hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stupid consumerism.
I do carpentry work in houses worth millions with two or three people living in them, and the residents plotting how they can stuff more cash into their bank accounts and more putrid food into their bellies.
So Anthony wants to have his body frozen as a medical experiment. Who knows? He might end up being the guinea pig that will save thousands of lives.
You see, nobody really knows what will happen. As I said, personally, I have no faith in human decency or intelligence, so I wouldn't take a chance. (Most of the world's people are so stupid that they actually believe that a harmless viral particle with 9 genes can destroy the human immune system) Anthony might just end up as a new kind of "oncomouse," a transgenic cancer product. For the uninitiated in human cruelty, "oncomouse" is a line of mice which have been transgenically altered to provide a tumour platform for research scientists. They are for sale and are bought and sold just like any other kind of lab product, and researchers can have their way with them.
Now, knowing what our predominately criminal species is capable of I'd be afraid that I could end up in a zoo or a museum and with my new infinite geriatric status, being subjected to thousands of years of psychic torture, because if I've learned anything about human beings, it is that they are capable of any kind of atrocity as long as they can find some kind of authority to approve their behaviour.
So, Anthony, all the best to you, and I'd like to apologize for these rather degenerate philosophers.
Be careful, though. Immortality just might not be all it's cracked up to be.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Truman,
You do me wrong. I'm as upset with excessive consumerism as you are. Maybe more, truth to tell, and I can't get my plumbing contractor to come back and finish the job he started 3 weeks ago either. Any suggestions?
Anthony kept bringing up contributions to charity - I only responded to him and said personal decisions should have nothing to do with this debate, period.
I could care less what he does with his carcass. I seriously doubt much will ever come of this stuff and I’d really rather the cash go to keeping living people alive but you know me, I’d something of a softie for living folks and I pretty much ignore the dead once they’re planted, or otherwise recombined with the elements, which is, according to my simple philosophy, as it should be. Memories, ah that’s another thing entirely.
My only point was that the disposition, care and nurturing of dead bodies was, in my opinion, a foolish waste of time and, more importantly, that such activities should not, in my view, ever restrict or in any way affect the lives and human rights of living people. That's all.
Read back over the exchange, mon ami, and I think you'll find this little summary is pretty accurate. Except for a flippant dig at nightbloom for his attack on boomers, which you already noted, I had very little to say apart from the above.
How you doing anyway?
Anthony
5 years ago
"I have no faith in human decency or intelligence, so I wouldn't take a chance."
It does take a certain optimism to opt for cryonics.
"Anthony might just end up as a new kind of "oncomouse," a transgenic cancer product."
What a thought!
"Immortality just might not be all it's cracked up to be."
I'm not expecting nor hoping for immortality. But I do hope that this experiment will work and provide me with more decades of life. You're right to be cautious, and these fears (in addition to waking in a future which might be bereft of friends and family) are why some people recognise cryonicists as brave.
Danielle E
5 years ago
Now we have people in their 80s diagnosed with cancer. Some might not even be feeling sick. The doc says we should do chemo and radiation, it might kill you but maybe it's worth the crack. How does that get in the way with the quality of your last days or potentially years, physically and emotionally? Science and medicine have already changed the way we approach life and death and the quality of our lives for better or worse, it's a crapshot. yet we're given the option for chemo but docs at hospitals will say no to sticking someone in an ice bath and injecting them with heparin? funeral directors will gladly embalm for $ so you look pretty in the casket for your loved ones. what's the difference between someone who wants to visit a grave or know that their loved-one is housed in a cryochamber? this is just as much about the living and the people left behind as anything else.
Anthony
5 years ago
"I'm as upset with excessive consumerism as you are... I can't get my plumbing contractor to come back and finish the job he started... Any suggestions?"
Sell your house with all of its modern frills (e.g. indoor plumbing), then you won't need to worry about the plumber, or any excessive consumerism based around a modern kitchen. Remember to give any profit you make to charity.
"I... said personal decisions should have nothing to do with this debate, period."
And you failed each time you said this to note that - for me at least - the discussion is automatically personal because it impacts of how cryonicists want their bodies treated upon legal death.
Your wish to avoid any direct self-reflection on this issue makes it seem like you are uncomfortable actually applying your "insights" to real life.
"I’d really rather the cash go to keeping living people alive"
So before heart-transplants became possible, you'd have refused research money towards it because it wasn't directly benefiting the living (& would not do so until research reached the point of success).
"I pretty much ignore the dead once they’re planted, or otherwise recombined with the elements, which is, according to my simple philosophy, as it should be."
Your philosophy is not mine.
"My only point was that the disposition, care and nurturing of dead bodies"
As I've pointed out before, there is no nurturing. You have still not pointed out exactly what cryonics wastes and how it burdens the living.
"such activities should not, in my view, ever restrict or in any way affect the lives and human rights of living people."
All arrangments of this kind affect the living, regardless of your preference to see the dead vanish without a ripple - graveyards & crematoriums take up space, funerals make funeral directors money, the rituals gives some people comfort. Similar things can be said of cryonics.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
The plumbing contractor is doing a job with me, not for me - but, my remarks were meant for Truman Green, not you.
As I said many times, if you can't make the case for your program logically, which I'd say you can't, then personal matters ought to have nothing to do with it. A case that can't stand on its own will not be made weaker or stronger by personalized appeals.
I still think you don't get the point I've been trying to advance.
I'm not enamored with the fact that some people get comfort from drinking too much either - that doesn't mean I'm prepared to support prohibition. As I said innumerable times, do what you will with your cash and hopes. I'm pretty confident that the vast majority of Canadians are not so fearful of the prospect of death that they'll ever follow your lead.
As long as you aren't using public resources, denying or restricting their access, in any way, to living breathing humans - then I have no problem with you indulging yourself. I still think it's a waste of time but no more than any other form of public recreation such as golf.
I think people should bury their loved ones in the back yard, by the way.
Anthony
5 years ago
"my remarks were meant for Truman Green, not you"
Your remarks are on a public discussion board - anyone can answer. Unless you want to take up my offer of censoring me?
"As I said many times, if you can't make the case for your program logically... then personal matters ought to have nothing to do with it."
You should know that personal decisions -many decisions - are not undertaken logically - including normal funerals.
"A case that can't stand on its own will not be made weaker or stronger by personalized appeals."
The case is simple: people are legally empowered to make arrangements with funeral directors for how they'll be treated, as well as wills, life-insurance, burial plots, cryostats, a sapling tree... all in accord with their beliefs.
"As I said innumerable times, do what you will with your cash and hopes."
Not possible for cryonicists in B.C. because of a law you refuse to condemn.
I do not agree with you anyway - I don't think anyone can do what they like with their cash. But I do think people can choose to make reasonable arrangments for their bodies after death. IMO cryonics is the most reasonable because it is useful. If i thoguht cryonics was going to be a total failure, I'd still give my body up for medical experimentation.
"I'm pretty confident that the vast majority of Canadians are not so fearful of the prospect of death that they'll ever follow your lead."
Fear of death is a defining human force - everyone is afraid of death. What the vast majority of people do is deny death through participation in world-views that support their self-esteem (in a nutshell). For more on this, refer to Terror Management Theory and Ernest Becker.
"As long as you aren't using public resources, denying or restricting their access, in any way, to living breathing humans - then I have no problem with you indulging yourself."
You took a long time admitting this, moving from claiming cryonics is a waste, to a more reasonable view.
"I think people should bury their loved ones in the back yard, by the way."
This would bring down the value of their home. Plus it is up to them and the wishes of their dead what they do.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Simply, and demosntrably untrue.
Don't misrepresent what I wrote.n I still think cryonics is a waste. Further, I've never written that free people shouldn't be free to indulge themselves in whatever wasteful nonsense they see fit.
All I've ever objected to was making it a human rights issue. Read again.
Of course it's a public forum. And what I said to Truman had nothing whatever to do with the point I made to you about personalizing our discussion. It still doesn't - except that you tried to make a cheap point about something I said to him which you, naturally, didn't understand. Much the same thing happened the other day when you tried to apply what I'd written in response to nightbloom to our discussion.
Anthony
5 years ago
Me "everyone is afraid of death."
Ab "Simply, and demosntrably untrue."
You may change your mind if ever you read the findings of terror management theory. As you have not, I will reject your assertion in kind.
"I still think cryonics is a waste."
And you have still failed to demostrate how.
"All I've ever objected to was making it a human rights issue. Read again."
Below is a link to a perfectly legal will for cryonicists:
http://keithlynch.net/les/will.html
Most people agree that the disposition of human remains should be handled with care, dignity, and respect. No-one is suggesting that this should trump the rights of the living. This is why, in desperate circumstance, the dead are left in piles to rot by people trying to live, rather than people driving themselves on to do what they can regardless. I would also expect cryonicists would rot if ever Western society started to collapse.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Therefore, as long as you don't assert that the rights of the dead should ever trump the rights of the living - which you've finally acknowledged above - I have little to argue with you about since that human rights issue was at the core of everything I wrote. You now seem to agree with such a codicil and I think that's a good thing; that you've done it, finally, without the kind of personalized attack you began with is also commendable.
I do think cryonics is a waste of time, money and hope - as I've pointed out numerous times. In the end, such things are matters of belief, a lot like religion and you, apparently, are a believer. So much the poorer you, I'd say, but, go for it if it pleases you. Nothing you've written has been the least bit persuasive to me but you are entitled to your opinions - as am I. So, let's drop it at that.
Anthony
5 years ago
"as long as you don't assert that the rights of the dead should ever trump the rights of the living - which you've finally acknowledged above - I have little to argue with you about since that human rights issue was at the core of everything I wrote."
I quote from (way) above my initial response to this question:
"People like Nightbloom insist that cryonics is just faith, a lot like religious faith. In some ways that is true, more so for those who find that cryonics is not incompatible with their religion. If you agree with Nbloom in this case, then cryonics is a matter of freedom of religion, enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - among other places. This is why some cryonists have set up Venturism, which in the U.S. is recognised as a religious organisation. This is what cryonicists should do if B.C. will not repeal their bullshit law."
I also believe cryonicists would have a case for the disposition of their remains as being a human right covered by other rights too. Of course, such a right would not trump living rights, but you've never shown me a realistic scenario where this would be at issue anyway.
"You now seem to agree with such a codicil and I think that's a good thing; that you've done it, finally, without the kind of personalized attack you began with is also commendable."
You memory of our dialogue is poor. Not only have I been repeating myself all this time, but I've needed to remind you of your "personalized attacks" also. (e.g. cryonicists are all fools).
Now that you're ready to drop this debate and everyone elses' interest has dropped off, I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to read the article and engage with me. Even though many people find cryonics doubtable, this is a useful experience for cryonicists like myself. Hopefully future dialogues will be yet more valuable.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
You definitely have been repeating yourself - as you admit above.
That is one thing I can agree with.
I'd say your memory is full of holes - except where it was full of the kind of personal attacks that actually got me started. You might want to roll back up the thread and refresh your memory instead of contantly reposting something someone else wrote.
A complete waste of time, in my view. But good luck with your little enterprise. I think the vast majority of people will find cryonics as 'dubious' as most other cult practices are as the reality of actually living their lives in a meaningful way occupies both their time and their thinking.
Anthony
5 years ago
"You definitely have been repeating yourself - as you admit above."
We'll leave it to any interested readers to decide why this is.
"That is one thing I can agree with."
You mean you still don't agree that people should be able to choose the disposition of their remains without being blocked by unjustified laws?
"I think the vast majority of people will find cryonics as 'dubious'"
It doesn't matter. What does matter is that cryonicists not be stopped from understaking our radical experiment. I welcome your scepticism and I examine my own. But the possibilities and potential benefits will keep many of us moving forwards, even if we see the chances as very low. Thanks again for attempting to consider a very difficult subject.