Another perspective on cryonics

In the wee hours of this morning I made a post about a Wall Street Journal article regarding cryonics - the freezing of dead individuals in the hope that they may be someday "revived" - and how some people choosing to have this procedure done upon their deaths are arranging for their present finances to be awaiting them upon their anticipated return. I also shared some of my thoughts on the subject, which for the most part stems from my belief that our identities are more than the flesh we inhabit: that death is just one stage of our spiritual growth into what God intends for us to become.

A little while ago Mark Plus, a gentleman who works with one of people interviewed in the article and who is himself planning to receive cryonics treatment, made a comment to my original post. Although I may not necessarily agree with cryonics personally, I was genuinely impressed by the passion and sincerity that Mark has toward the subject, enough so that I have to respect the strength of his faith in this procedure, despite my own thoughts about it.

In the interest of fairness and discussion, because he is personally involved with the original Wall Street Journal story and because a lot of people are probably going to be interested in this, I invite you to check out Mark Plus's blog supersurvival needs, for another perspective on the subject of cryonics. And I'd like to sincerely thank Mark for not only finding this blog and my thoughts on this issue, but also taking the time to present his side of the subject.

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The morning after...

So they won't go to the Super Bowl this year... they're still the best young franchise in the league.

Congratulations on a good run, Panthers!

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Video: Mexican army invades American turf

Marc at the Bmovies blog is pointing everyone to video footage of soldiers from the Mexican army crossing over into Arizona, in what can only be described as the most flagrant violation of the U.S./Mexican border since Pancho Villa woke up feeling pokey one morning in 1916. Head over to Marc's blog for more (and also 'cuz Marc is a really cool guy :-)

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Freezing some assets: A mini-thanatopsis

Interesting article at the Wall Street Journal site about how some people are planning to be financially secure after coming back from the dead. Believers in cryonics (i.e. freezing the body or decapitated head of the dearly departed in the hopes that future technology can restore life) want to ensure that what they've gained in this life will still be waiting for them when they return...

You can't take it with you. So Arizona resort operator David Pizer has a plan to come back and get it.

Like some 1,000 other members of the "cryonics" movement, Mr. Pizer has made arrangements to have his body frozen in liquid nitrogen as soon as possible after he dies. In this way, Mr. Pizer, a heavy-set, philosophical man who is 64 years old, hopes to be revived sometime in the future when medicine has advanced far beyond where it stands today.

And because Mr. Pizer doesn't wish to return a pauper, he's taken an additional step: He's left his money to himself.

With the help of an estate planner, Mr. Pizer has created legal arrangements for a financial trust that will manage his roughly $10 million in land and stock holdings until he is re-animated. Mr. Pizer says that with his money earning interest while he is frozen, he could wake up in 100 years the "richest man in the world"...

At least a dozen wealthy American and foreign businessmen are testing unfamiliar legal territory by creating so-called personal revival trusts designed to allow them to reclaim their riches hundreds, or even thousands, of years into the future.

Such financial arrangements, which tie up money that might otherwise go to heirs or charities, are "more widespread than I originally thought," says A. Christopher Sega, an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University and a trusts and estates attorney at Venable LLP, in Washington. Mr. Sega says he's created three revival trusts in the last year...

Okay, here's my take on this: trying to gain immortality like this is a horribly wrong thing to do. For one thing, I don't believe this is ever going to work. Even if technology is going to be discovered that might "resuscitate" a cryogenically-frozen corpse, the odds of this future technology bringing back someone who's been frozen prior to this point in time are extremely low. Current "freezing" is going to be considered crude and ineffective: whoever has received this treatment is going to be damaged beyond hope. Not to mention that this technology is probably so far off that the chances are rather slim that any corpsicles existing today are going to still be around tomorrow: most if not all will be lost to accidents, financial failures of cryonics firms, etc.

But the real reason why I think this is wrong is that cryonics is based on the notion that life is bound by the parameters of this physical world. If cryonics does work for a "patient" once, could it be guaranteed that it would work a second time, or a third, or an infinite number of times into eternity? Would such a person really want to go on with life neverending? I don't think so, and this goes back to something that took me a long, long time to understand: that death is not really a bad thing like we are used to thinking it is. It's just one more stage of growth in this life that we have. We just can't see what it's growing into from this side of things. If there were no death, we would each be cursed to live a life bereft of any change: utter stagnation would be our lot. There would be no real meaning to life if it was given the assurance of never having to end or change. Why would anyone want that?

So if anyone asks, I'm letting it be known here and now that I don't wish to be cryonically frozen when my time comes. Let me leave this world the way I've tried to live in it: dignified, but with humor. Just cremate my body while it's wearing my Jedi Knight costume and I'll be happy :-)

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The West Wing gets cancelled

NBC giving it the axe after seven seasons. I never watched a single episode, so I don't know anything about how this may or may not be a big deal. Anyone want to chime in and say what this show's been like?

We did get in three more episodes from the Lost Season 1 DVD set today, finishing up with "Numbers", which is Hurley's episode... which was a HECK of a lot of fun to watch.

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Just one reason why I'm no longer a Republican

The Republican National Committee is endorsing President Bush's "guest worker" program.

No party that turns a blind eye to the problem this country is having with illegal immigration is something that I wish to associate with.

I never left the Democrats: they left me. Ten years later the Republicans abandoned me too. And neither one is giving me a reason why I should turn back to look... but the GOP is giving me a helluva lot more reason to keep on walkin'.

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When the criminal and the insane are rulers of countries

You know, I don't hate the Iranian people. And I seriously doubt that most of the Iranian people hate me. I wonder if the Israelis and the Palestinians seriously hate each others's guts en masse. Did the people of Russia really want to destroy us Americans twenty years ago? Did we want to destroy them? I mean, why were we supposed to hate each other the way we did? It wasn't as if anything had been done to us personally, was it?

No, it's not the people of most countries in this world that do things like start wars and preach hatred of those in foreign lands... it's our leaders. With damned few exceptions, none of them are the least bit interested in serving the people that they are supposed to "lead". They follow their own appetites instead, and consider their people to be mere pawns in the games that they play. This world... and this country especially... is so screwed up because we've allowed too many narcissistic sociopaths to take the wheel. I mean, it's not like they've a brilliant record of management, is it?

No, I don't hate anyone in Iran. I've no reason to. Most of the people in America have no personal beef with them. That still won't stop the warhawks from beating the drums as they have lately (which I am more and more inclined to believe has to do with Iran's move on the oil industry rather than their nuclear research). Is Iran's head guy nuts? Yeah, definitely... even more than anyone I know of in the Western Hemisphere. And it's his fault too that a lot of his countrymen are probably going to get killed.

You see what I'm trying to say here? Us, the British, the Iranians, the Palestinians, the Russians under the Soviet regime... all of us and more have "been had" by a very small group of insane individuals that in a rational world should have been imprisoned at the least, and maybe shot for good measure, for the sake of everyone.

Well, I could say more about this, but there's a really good article by Michael S. Rozeff called "When Rulers Err" that says it a helluva lot better than I can. From his article...

...The higher-ups or rulers who have power produce the big crises and wars. Their subjects, few of whom benefit from them, do not. The masses are not irrelevant, but their impact on major events is secondary. The Iranian people are not making the decisions about nuclear power. They are not issuing threats, and neither are the American and European peoples.

Rulers are men accustomed to gaining and using power. This implies they possess an above average dose of certain characteristics. Benign philosopher-kings don’t become rulers. Those who rule tend to be overly aggressive, rapacious, hard-nosed, opportunistic, pragmatic, cruel, violent, and manipulative. Even if these tendencies are not abundantly present, their power allows freer reign to their worse instincts. Rulers are hawks, not doves. Their number includes more than its share of troublemakers.

Rulers talk to and make deals with other rulers. They aim to maintain and boost their positions by exchanges that give them advantages. These interactions are complex and often for high stakes. Rulers often gamble the lives and fortunes of the peoples they rule...

Common folk, which include most of us, our families and in-laws, working acquaintances, schoolmates, townspeople, those whom we have done business with, etc., do not ordinarily engage in the tactics rulers are accustomed to. Although movies and soaps feature many conniving people, it’s possible that a good many viewers do not think of their rulers being like that and worse. They still do not have a deep realization that their rulers do not have the same ethics that they do. They think of them as acting like ordinary people. Rulers would like the masses to revere their position and power while simultaneously thinking of them as being just men of the people...

Mash down here for more.

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