When does cryonics work? (was Re: Our friend Sasha Chislenko is dead)

From: Brent Allsop (allsop@fc.hp.com)
Date: Thu May 11 2000 - 20:57:45 MDT


Tanya,

        Thank you for this very informative post about cryonics!

        My view is that the better one is preserved, the sooner they
will be fully recovered. There really can be no hard this one made it
and that one didn't. Tippler, Moravec, and others have theorized
about various ways our children will eventually be able to perfectly
restore all of us. You say it is to late for Sasha, but I think we
can always hold on to hope, even if it's only a slim hope, that some
day, some way, our children will be able to recover all of us. In our
current state of ignorance, can we really ever honestly say absolutely
never!? I don't think so.

        For example, I've completely forgotten many things that
occured, and many ways that I was, early in my life. Even if I was
perfectly preserved and restored to my current state, this part of me
would still be lost and forgotten. This part of me is now dead. Is
it now to late for this part of me? Future historians will eternally
get better at knowing more about the past, hopefully eventually,
including the ability to restore to my consciousness such lost or dead
memories and parts of me right?

> For Sasha, it is too late, and I will mourn for a long time to come.

        "for a long time to come"? Even if any of us forget him,
again, hopefully such memories will be recovered some day. Until we
can completely restore him too, we must forever morn, strive, and
never give up hope right? Why would anyone want to live and strive
for something for a billion years anyway, unless it was to finally get
the chance to achieve the ability to meet and be with Sasha, and all
of our parents, so we can thank them and pay them back for what
they've done and for being our literal creators having given us
everything we started with right?

        I don't trust it's origins, but I like the Mormon
scripture which states:

        "And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises
        made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn
        to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be
        utterly wasted."

                Brent Allsop



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