Re: RAW's "Thought for the Week"

Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
09 Sep 1997 10:07:36 +0200


Dan Fabulich <daniel.fabulich@yale.edu> writes:

> At 07:51 PM 9/8/97 -0700, Derek Strong wrote:
> >1) Can anyone explain to me what's going on psychologically with people
> >who are on death's door?
>
> Many people consider Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's _On Death and Dying_ some of
> the best accessible psychology in this arena... If you're interested, you
> might want to pick it up. Be forewarned, though, that it puts a lot of
> emphasis on how this is a perfectly natural and *inevitable* psychological
> process... Little extropian problem solving here.

Yes, and she is largely a deathist. On top of that, more recent studies
have shown that in real life people go through her phases in different
orders, and may even jump over some.

On a more ad hominem level (sorry), she has recently become convinced
about reincarnation (yes, she was apparently an Egyptian priestess;
how come so few remember their lives as indian farmers?) which suggests
that she is herself trying to come on terms with death. I suggest some
critical reading of her works (which after all *are* AFAIK one of the
major studies on terminal psychology).

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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