• Emerging markets for bodily material

• A Market for Human Cadavers in All but Name?

• The Body as Commodity  

• Signs of Traffic in Cadavers, Seen Raising Ethical Issues

• How To Start A Tissue Bank Business

• Case Studies of Existing Human Tissue Repositories

·  The Nasty Side of Organ Transplanting: Body Parts and Business

• ‘Cryonics An Historical Failure Analysis’ by Mike Darwin  Part I • Part II • Part III

• Cryonics is isolating itself from the world at large

 

“NO cryonics millionaire has left substantial cash flow or working capital to the "next generation" of cryonics activists [only] "perpetual trust" whereby cryonics millionnaires have legally tied up their estates” — Rick Potvin 

And whatever one makes of Potkin's broader conspiracism, not to mention: raving paranoid anti-Semitism, not only Mike Darwin as cited above, but Saul Kent himself, also bewails reclusion, lamenting of needlessly soured relations with the mainstream of cryobiology. (Incidentally, Potkin's worldviews notwithstanding: Despite being both Jewish and interested in Cryonics, I have yet to be invited into any secretive cabal of Jewish Cryonics! WTF?? LOL!!)

 

Integrated Recovery is a new business model seeking to amend the reclusion of Cryonics in a big way.

 

(Yes Potkin, I am advocating assimilation!)

 

If indeed the cryonics millionaires will never see reason and rally in solidarity within the Cryonics community in order to break reclusion, then other sources of capital, though scarcely any more readily accessible, must be cultivated via the proposed strategic alliances entailed in the institutionalization of Integrated Recovery.

 

The task will never be easy: Much as Environmentalism rose in urgency, from the crackpot margins to the top of the respectable global political agenda, likewise so too must Cryonics and Radical Life Extension. Indeed, the Mormon hospitals, charities and disaster relief, along with the famed Mormon Tabernacle Choir, for that matter, if somewhat less constructively, the multimillion dollar enterprises of Church of Scientology, like unto the vital commercial network and facilities of the Jews in Medieval Europe, all demonstrate how to become influential, indispensible and respectable even whilst remaining stigmatized. Rich and powerful institutions can also afford significant political lobbies. And this will be crucial given that the demands of Cryonics need to be facilitated by reformation of practices not only in repatriation of the dead, but also rescue, medical evacuation and more.

 

Inconvenience is another barrier in the market and to the consumer. If ordinary funeral arrangements are already a costly tribulation and distress, then Cryonics logistics are a discouraging exorbitant hurdle fraught with daunting stumbling blocks engendering hesitation and procrastination. Cryonics preparation cannot remain such a lonely test of committed responsibility and personal well organized preparedness unto oxymoronic Nietzschean Moralism. Smooth and reliable turn-key procedures must be realistically coordinated, implemented and made available to all ASAP. 

  

The secure broad acceptance of Cryonics remains a problem quite aside from technology, a challenge of the creation of enduring social institutions, even in the face of hostility. Solid corporate facilities are a major improvement in stability from the dicey garage operations of yore, too often so fraught with incompetence, fraud and scandal. But not nearly improved enough. There is legitimate concern that Cryonics providers in the United Sates will simply face bankruptcy when the Baby Boomers begin dying out. Whereas as far as KrioRus, I hardly need remind anyone how that organization operates at the margins of a fairly unstable developing nation, with matters by no means improved by ongoing international banking and monetary catastrophe.

 

Third party life insurance policies are the most common and recommended mechanism for financially securing Cryonic Suspension. But a good friend of mine in financial modeling suggested a far better idea: Insurance companies enhance their profits by using and reinvesting fees collected for years before ever paying out. A Cryonics company could benefit from the same flexibility by cutting out the middlemen by themselves doubling as an insurance provider. And the beneficiaries of insurance companies enjoy protection in case of corporate failure, that Cryonics patients do not. Indeed, Cryonics company could also enjoy all manner of protection from failure by obtaining permits and becoming its own bank.

 

Why, just imagine that Cryonicists might ever actually gain renown as the responsible conservative captains of finance, after all, in it for the long term! 

 

 

 

 

Cryonics and fresh perspective: Resolving needless conflicts of interest

      Hippocrates, The Doctor's Dilemma, Cryonics as a probortunity in the Medical Ethics of organ transplantation and more

The Hippocratic oath taken by all Medical Doctors is famously summarized to admonish: "First, do no harm." Of course, though howsoever the unforeseen exempts no responsibility within the well foreseeable, it remains really impossible to literally do no harm at all, because there are always tradeoffs and unforeseen consequences. Moreover, occasionally there is no other option except for such manifestly and seriously harmful procedures indeed, as surgery, even amputation, and not to mention radiation and Chemotherapy, after all ever with life at stake. So perhaps the famous howsoever derivation from the Hippocratic Oath should be better understood as admonition to realistically minimize and avoid doing harm, as much as possible, practical and practicable.

 

Moreover while the practice of medicine, as likewise with education, is not experiment, both remain, nevertheless, experimental, guided by fallible hypothesis, trial and error. Therefore responsibility demands the open embrace of the experimental nature of human endeavor. Demanding impossible guarantees, only guarantees disaster. Indeed, much as security constraints most generally, must never exceed the boundaries of liberty and the dignity of risk by curtailing pursuit of happiness and thwarting gratification of any range of salient human needs, tangible and intangible, callow and profound, the same above Hippocratic admonition should also apply to the regulation of health care practice. In the process of providing patient protection, regulation must strive to avoid collateral damage of depriving patients of possibly beneficial options, most especially when there is nothing to lose.

 

No medicine or therapy should ever been deemed unsafe, except by comparison to whatever other available treatment options if any, and including simply doing nothing at all, but only as at all tenable within hope whatsoever. To wit: The patronizing truth, that with years of study and practice of medicine, comes a superior understanding, and an inevitable communication gap with the panicked and grief stricken layperson in the heat of the moment. Continued efforts with no actual chance of success, then becomes tantamount to willful torture for all concerned, sustaining only false hope and denial. Therefore controversy rages over the contention that patient autonomy is not an absolute moral right and that health care professionals sworn to do no harm, are actually thereby not only permitted, but are sometimes morally obligated, instead even of abrogating better judgment and trying to beat the odds, instead to withhold and/or withdraw futile treatments even if the patient or the patient's surrogate request, even demand! that the treatments continue, because of medical futility and therefore wasted effort and resources and needless and pointless suffering. -Also, by any possible implication, because of protracted desperation of false hope, where surrender would be more merciful for everyone concerned. And this skirts disturbingly with "termination without request or consent." After all, even the best doctors can be wrong, fallible, ever more often jaded, arrogant, Moralistic and no less overworked and overwrought than anyone else.

 

Palliative care is extolled as the better alternative opened by recognition and acceptance of medical futility. In the alternative to abject surrender, fanciful religious delusion and worse coercion and manipulation, dubious comfort so often attendant upon palliative care, in the face of true medical futility, there should always be recourse to the ultimate heroic measure, Cryonics on standby. And this will be of tremendous help for best policy and decision making in regards to medical futility because: What more zealously stringent and concrete demarcation of medical futility might there be, but circumstances where continued support offers no hope of recovery and only worsens deterioration of the brain, thus ultimately undermining best Cryonic preservation? Cryonics provides a simple practical concrete benchmark for medical futility, as: the point where not only are the patient's chances of staying alive are veritably hopeless, but that their chances for recovery are actually improved by immediate cryonization. This would be the point where remaining alive any longer, not only provides extremely poor quality of life, but that keeping the patient alive actually only promotes ongoing deterioration of the brain. Thus, at such a point, would the patients chances be improved by immediate cryonization in order to protect the patient's brain pending recovery of the personality in the future, when feasible with more advanced medicine and technology.

 

How better then, to protect the interests of both desperately determined patients and/or proxies and of misunderstood compassionate doctors? Cryonics is the preservation, above all, of hope. And hope must never be squandered. We must no longer abandon our dead, much less the dying. If you really want us all to share a clinical attitude towards death, then at least provide clinical treatment for the dead.

 

Indeed, and as for Cryonics, what's the harm at all? The harm from Cryonics is nothing practical, but only to the peace of mind of squeamish sensibilities of Deathism being: whatever comfort of sour grapes taken in the morbid cultural glorification of death. The harm from the very idea of Cryonics therefore is a collateral damage from exercise of freedom of speech in the face of taboo. Which means that the solution is from greater freedom of speech, howsoever honest, straightforward, blatant and insensitive, or indeed approaching Deathism as a delicate Psychodynamic issue, Psychotherapeutically and Dialectically. And the Hippocratic Oath famously summarized as: "First do no harm" applies in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy as Freud's injunction against suggestion at all (let alone the devious manipulative conditionality and coercion intrinsic to Behavior Modification). And in the Psychodynamics of Deathism there is new hope in Public Relations via sensitive and effective counterpropaganda indeed as facilitated by all the appealing and pro-social aspects of Integrated Recovery in dealing with pervasive and pandemic societal survivor guilt complexes.

• gentle deflection of strong aversion

Of course, under actual current circumstances, via any conceivable arrangements of Integrated Recovery, it would be organ harvest that would mitigate not only onus but liability from cryostabilization, because a patient can hardly be deemed dead enough for organ donation, but not dead enough to be prepped for Cryonic Suspension! Nevertheless, as a matter of Medical Ethics, there is a great deal that integration with Cryonics might be able to accomplish for the sake of transplant medicine in order, as it where, to return the favor:

 

Controversial tough decisions deserve every sympathy and understanding towards the requisite hardnosed objectivity, but never exemption from equally tough criticism. Case in point, an even somewhat insidiously surreptitious and even needlessly mealy mouthed return to "non-heart beating" death criteria.

• The return to "non-heart beating" circulatory death criteria (scroll down to bottom of linked page)

• "Neither permanence nor irreversibility is an Empirical concept and cannot be Empirically determined."

• Death provides renewed life for some, but ethical hazards for transplant teams

• The 'cardiopulmonary death' controversy.

The dilemma is of how organ transplantation requires living viable organs for transplant, therefore the medical Ethics of organ donation seek definition of some demarcation for medical and legal death, but before the donor organs will become unsalvageably damaged. Even though coma patients have ever been known to awaken even after years, either on their own or with any new treatment breakthrough, statistically, the longer a patient remains comatose, the lower the chances ever of recovery and awakening. However, whereas, brain death is the distinct determination of observed diminished brainwave activity indicating cessation of higher brain function leaving only autonomic brain function for a patient sustained on life support and with diminishing distant little hope of recovery and resumption of higher brain function and consciousness, declaration of "non-heart beating" death upon claims of irreversible loss of circulatory and respiratory function, goes well beyond merely observation that at the given moment, for whatever reason, heart beat is no longer self sustaining necessitating life support to begin with. Hence, howsoever often even quite without actual brain death determination, 'Cardiopulmonary' or "non-heart beating" death is not actually a diagnosis at all, but a best prognosis of imminent death, a surrender of all hope for the donor patient in order to open the way for timely organ harvest. -Indeed, striving to establishing any workable boundary precisely because literal cardiac cessation of cardiac death is prevented by mechanical life support, and where allowed, would then preclude viable organ harvest, only at best any tissue and corneal donation. Hence given as often by convenience of accepted protocol, the custom of pronouncement of "non-heart beating" death simply premised upon whatever length of time on life support having not yet resulted in patient reconstitution to resume breathing independently, two taboo questions are begged that are then uncomfortably pressed by Cryonics, indeed much the self same legal conundrums that frequently jeopardize the practice Cryonics:

• How Dead is Dead Enough?

Firstly, it's no wonder how serious controversy over death criteria increasingly mounts as regards questions of adequate testing Methodology: What, the donor is not actually braindead yet?! Shouldn't anyone even double-check?! And secondly: If the donor is not clearly and definitively brain dead, then precisely what prevents independent respiration from resuming naturally, and how, even by whatever costly and elaborate unconventional heroic measures, might whatever underlying problem be aggressively treated in order best to facilitate the successful achievement of patient resuscitation? Answer: First by aggressive ongoing mechanical Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) with pure oxygen using a device called a heart-lung-resuscitator (HLR) under anesthetic medication to reduce the brain's need for oxygen and also to inhibit shivering, under temperature management, cooling down (but not freezing or suspending) the whole body intact rather than just the harvested organs. -In short by means of Induced Therapeutic Hypothermia AKA Cryonics Stabilization in order to buy more time for transport and surgery to locate and repair whatever damage or obstruction actually prevents resuscitation. Although, much as with transplantation surgery back during its infancy, a tragically low success rate might be expected, whereas instead the donor organs could far more reliably save far more other lives. Nevertheless, all such extra effort on the behalf of the patient, regardless if the patient is registered as a prospective donor, can only help allay fearful urban mythology that organ donors will be denied full treatment, in order to kill them in order to harvest their scarce organs! Moreover, in the long term, such means of life support also greatly extends the window of opportunity for viable organ harvest. So transplant may still remain a possibility, in case whatever circulatory problem continues to defy diagnosis and treatment, and only further decline seems likely.

So, all as above given, precisely how can Cryonics ever actually help extricate Transplant Medicine from so ghastly a classic Doctor's Dilemma, from dire moral quandary of triage, in climactic resolution beyond merely further unwelcome dramatic obstacle prolonging seemingly intractable moral complication even further?

Answer: Now, even if patients waiting on dry ice, are indeed often actually Cryonized hours or even days after often sudden and unexpected death, such is considered less than ideal, whereas, optimally, Cryonic Neurosuspension likewise seeks to harvest a different organ, the brain, likewise preferably in best condition as soon as possible, though for cryopreservation rather than say, taking the head for a precedent setting whole body transplantation (yes, an ambitious surgeon having retained facilities offshore, actually keeps a waiting list of adventuresome quadriplegics).

• Minimizing Ischemic Damage to Cryonics Patients

Hence, then, similarly the question will be of when to surrender diminishing hope in ongoing heroic effort at resuscitation and begin Integrated Recovery procedures. And thus the question now shifts from phony Epistemologically Methodologically and Ontologically dubious Faustian morally troubling procedural demarcations or indeed, to be more honest about it, hopeless prognosis of death in service of the pressingly real agonizing triage between the interests of donor candidates and those of waiting recipients, to instead merely deciding in best good faith, even however conjecturally and in doubt and with entirely enough second guessing and crushing core Existential despair nevertheless, in the best interests of the patient, which option best improves chances of long term recovery by minimizing deterioration of the brain, continued conventional life support in hopes of recovery, or cryonization in order to stave off iinformation-theoretic death, being the destruction of neural microstructures encoding memory, to such an extent that recovery of the original person is theoretically impossible by any physical means.

 

Thus, organ donation would remain a fortuitous byproduct as arising from misfortune, the metaphorical silver lining of the proverbial black cloud, and no longer a operant consideration of triage, while the glimmer of hope and meaning brightens in two fold new lease on life, for both neurocryonized donor and for grateful recipient. Moreover, under Integrated Recovery, with consequent legitimization for Cryonics in heroic preservation of life, medical institutions still howsoever derelict in the harvest of cadaverous donation from registered donors, will no longer merely be indirectly sealing the doom of some desperate and hapless unknowns at the bottom of the various recipient lists, but directly withholding vital treatment to the donors themselves as Cryonics patients. 

 

What a shame then, that neither blood transfusion nor transplant surgery much care to be associated with Cryonics. Alas, no respectable vampire or Frankenscientists cares to be seem with a poor vile Necromancer!

 

 

Expanding compassionate end of life choices and care along with the range of heroic measures

 

Various death rights proponents are also obvious strategic allies to Cryonics, but also, just perhaps, reproductive freedom activism, a common theme being the overthrow of biological destiny. Whereas, for example, in Russia hospitals cooperate fully with Cryonics, within the United States and the European Union, the expense alone of flying in specially trained and dedicated professional Cryonics standby teams can easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars. And not every locale around the world has local volunteer cryonics emergency teams trained and equipped. It might be best also if those few doctors, locally, and their professional networks and advocacies, courageous enough for the responsibility and legal jeopardy of assisted suicide, might be cost effectively enlisted also for Cryonics standby services of cryostabilization including not only temperature management and induced hypothermia but the administration to legally dead patients of drugs even in lethal dosage towards minimization of ischemic damage and indeed, actually in prevention of resuscitation which would be calamitous agony and pointless if the patient would still only be dying nevertheless. For there is indeed notoriously zealous precedent in a New York District Attorney Hell bent on seizing, thawing and autopsying the head of a defenseless Cryonics patient, by actually charging Saul Kent with euthanizing a patent via cryostabalization, his aged and sickly mother Dora Kent, already legally dead at the time! -Although, of course, organ harvesting is never similarly challenged or harassed, despite far more significant ethical ambiguities in current practice, as surrounding "non-heart beating" death.

 

For another matter: Any challenge of intractable ennui becomes especially pertinent, given that the threat of eventual sheer protracted boredom is perhaps still the most frequent and hoariest misanthropic cliché Deathist objection raised against radical life extension and the quest for practical immortality or: Emortalism. But frankly, this insults the intelligence. Death remains the Draconian solution to any suffering, given surrender of all other hope, but preemptively, by passively remaining mortal? Does any such recommendation of status quo, not smack of sour grapes? And who will really stick with aging and dying when Radical Life Extension becomes readily available? There are always those abiding in such dread of boredom or any moment's pause in reflection at all, indeed as to become thrill junkies ever hastening of their own demise. But you can have it! Time is ever among  desirable resources, not hindrance, towards fulfillment. And diminishing and negative returns from any one resource, only signal the demand for whatever other necessary complementary resources. Indeed, even the most miserable unhappiness accrues satisfaction in expression, understanding and sympathy, attention being, not only as in the words of Simone Wei, “the rarest and purest form of generosity” but after all, another function of engagement and the time invested. Indeed, under the law, metaphorically putting assisted suicide on the proverbial table, as in the state of Oregon, has been observed to bring the beneficial effect of forcing practitioners to understand, attend and rise to the needs of desperation and suffering of different kinds. Where there is life, there is hope. Lengthening healthy life lengthens hope. Death only ends despair where there is despair to begin with.

 

Medicine may soon be capable of selective removal or suppression of memories, on demand. Amnesia, if it could only be had, would spare one from the pain of loss, but memories may be all one has left of any past happiness! I will remember. Indeed death, the end of consciousness, is bereft even of thought at all. Phenomenologically, to live and to experience, is then to remember and to reflect, precisely as so demonized in Zen Mysticism. In the anime 'Cashern: Sins' when Death, in sojourn through the wastelands, at first as an amnesiac, amongst the living, finally recognizing the right to survive, even indefinitely, though condemning the desire as callow, departs the world, he warns darkly lest the dead may ever be forgot; for then he, Death, shall return to remind the world!

 

Any wish for death, immediate or eventual, or perhaps instead merely if not for amnesia, then sublime apathy, is sheer escapism, the yearning to end suffering which is natural. But the most radical pain management strategy of whatever mode of annihilation cannot be the preferred solution, despite the manifest efficiency and availability as ever the craven cynics are so quick to point out. Suicide and death, like rape and violence, are grand dramatic themes romanticized in fantasy spoiled by excessive realism. Deathism simply panders to the yearning for escape, generally a fantasy more safely and productively processed Psychodynamically than ever taken lightly and blithely enacted, even passively howsoever by simply allowing nature run its course into terminal aging.

 

In truth, what is attendant upon the appropriateness of grief, suffering that persists with whatever the injurious cause thereof, therefore valued as useful, even howsoever aversive, as often highly beneficial and meaningful motivation, is the impulse of expression, a desire no less that such relief cannot actually be called pleasurable. That and the yearning for understanding. There is no self salvation, no dignified exit. Barring intolerable suffering with no hope to give any reasonable point in delaying the inevitable, suicide only comes from dispirited self pity filling that void of yearned for expression met with understanding. And even the latter case of the worst suffering, may nevertheless actually be the more motivated by the sheer crushingly lonely sense of isolation because no one seems to comprehend their extreme plight, than by the relief from any other and more palpable adversity. Alas, death may often be a release more for onlookers who really can't be bothered, those malignant angels of death. For again, in the words of Simone Weil: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” Conditionality, alas, prevails. The same exploitative manipulation into soothing helplessness, which is the hallmark snare of the bogus support group, is deployed even at the death bed.

 

The slippery slope argument may be a notorious logical falsity to begin with. Alas, however, that hasn't stopped the Dutch euthanasia zealots from from sliding down that very slope with a moribund gusto! Perhaps most egregious are elderly and infirm actually made to live in trepidation of "termination without request or consent." Even the specter of Eugenic infanticide may be rearing it's ugly head again, if the Pro-Lifers are to be believed. And then there is the assisting in the suicide of all manner of non terminal cases deemed incurable, even legitimizing, permitting, facilitating if not, indeed, actually pandering to the self harming suicidal impulses of the mentally ill or extremely depressed, abused and neglected.

• Physician-Assisted Suicide in Psychiatry: Developments in the Netherlands 

Paternalists, bent upon benevolent authority and coercion, argue correctly, that even the highest values of individual free choice, let alone, for that matter, such aggregate thereof as the fabled Invisible Hand of the Market, can never be inviolably sacrosanct, being after all, human, fallible and prone to incidental misjudgment, let alone disastrous subversion. That argues to protective intervention, even however forceful, on needful occasion. But just because some, ever, is good, hardly means that more is better, automatically. The question is of civilized responsible interaction and review, proportionate intervention and compromise, no less fallibly than individual decision or market results to begin with. And this applies no less to individual pleas and societal market demands, for assisted suicide.

 

So at what cost then, and to whom, must the deranged be protected from themselves and from no less unbalanced and misguided practitioners? Clearly, responsibility is not best served by the manifest social contradiction of thwarting everyone uniformly simply in order to protect a mentally incompetent minority, nor indeed, even for purposes of at all curtailing the over zealous mercy of actively homicidal "Angels of Death," a practice that must remain subject to criminal investigation and prosecution. -A serious international concern given trends not only only of legalization of assisted suicide but euthanasia outright, and even with neither request nor consent at that! With Pandora's deadly box open, is there even hope of feasible regulation at the bottom? But then, was it ever really so tightly closed at all? At the very least, physicians have long been pulling the plug on life support, withholding care to terminal patients, or increasing dosage of pain medication to dangerous levels when there is nothing to lose, all towards merciful hastening of the end. -Never mind the more clandestine actively homicidal "angels of death" ever at work entirely on their own initiative.

No, entirely believable, from the formal stance, the general concept of modern science, that things are what they are because of the way in which they are structured, or: Gestalt. All that is required is but the most crass materialism: Indeed, gentle reader, I will demonstrate that if you believe that everything is made of atoms, including people and our brains, you already believe in the feasibility of Cryonics and the prospect of delayed resuscitation and reanimation out from Cryonic Suspension.

Consider, for illustration's sake, the Science Fiction trope of teleportation, tearing objects and even people down in order learn how their atoms are put together, converting that structure into data, and then rebuilding them, atom by atom, somewhere else, afterwards, guided by the transmitted data in which the structure is recorded. Will that ever really be possible? That question of feasibility exceeds the scope of the current work, not to mention the knowledge of the author. But what might be called a poor man's teleportation is already on its way: Nowadays, from popular science infotainment, we all understand the wonders expected from nanotechnology, a technology still in its infancy. Nanotechnology will attain mastery in positioning atoms themselves, and thus the difference between all things and conditions of matter, including life, even the repair of dead tissue at all preserved and intact, back to life and function. Tiny cells are huge, from the perspective of a nanomachine, with plenty of room to get to work.

 

Whereas teleportation in Science Fiction is generally envisaged as nigh instantaneous, self replicating molecular scale robots, or: nanites, could, in theory, map microstructures at all more slowly (to avoid ignition from friction), but perhaps less destructively, and then use the data to copy whatever they have mapped. Or they could repair it. Or the data could be stored and then used in computer simulations. All of this is impossible, only if the potential of nanotechnology has been vastly overestimated. But it is by far more likely, just the opposite, that the ramifications of nanotechnology will exceed all expectations. And the expectation already exceed all that was even imaginable before the concept of nanotechnology. After all, life itself is only nature's own nanotechnology. And the wonders of technology only partake in the wonders of the universe as investigated by science, all that might even be physically possible.

• Nanotechnology and Cryonics

The other problem is that the best preservation possible today remains so imperfect, and damage will be so extensive. That means that to recover the personality from a cryopreserved brain, extensive reconstruction will be necessary. Within a certain threshold in damage, of recoverability, the exercise in principle, is much the same as recovering and reconstituting data from a crashed hard drive. And progress in the science and technology of data recovery and reconstruction, as applicable also to physical information (micro and even atomic structure of material objects), is truly amazing, and already exceeds naive expectations!

Another question is of how well microstructures in the brain are preserved by our current and frankly still primitive preservation technology. And the answer is, according the papers cited and linked from Scientists' Open Letter on Cryonics, that there is cause for hope.

Lastly, if the brain can be restored and brought back to life, what then? The answer is, by one means or another, to give them new bodies. In other words, more Science Fiction! But only choose from the different means of so doing as typically presented in Science Fiction: Those very technologies are less sophisticated than what will be needed in order to recover and restore the personality from a cryonized brain to begin with. But don't take my word for it. Be convinced by your own research. If we can already grow new teeth and soon limbs, we can clone entire bodies around the restored brains. If bionic prosthetic limbs will soon be better than the original, then so too will entire robot bodies under direct neural control. Indeed, data mapped out by those nanobots will be used in simulations as part of data recovery and reconstruction process. And a simulated brain could live in a simulated body in cyberspace! Many people already yearn to upload their consciousness onto computer networks. And that too will one day become possible, only given continued technological advance in the same directions already now under weigh. These are only the most obvious possibilities mentioned in passing. There are all manner of scenarios worked out in great detail. Technology is ultimately limited only by physical possibility, and these possibilities are indeed the least of what scientists and engineers, some of whom write Science Fiction, foresee. Because science is more than the strict Empiricism of the immediate and tangible: Science is extrapolation, hypothesis to be subject to critical preference and then tested against reality. And Science Fiction was invented for the dramatization and expression of the speculative element.  

Because what is truly unbelievable, is to expect things to remain generally the same. They never have. The world is changing at an accelerating rate of acceleration. If death can ever be understood as a matter of physical causality like anything else, and not supernatural, then is it realistic to expect that death will simply never be overcome? The point is: Just as skepticism about climate change defies scientific consensus in the reality of climate changer and global warming, not to mention the cause being human activity, similarly, those who still cannot fathom and don't believe in the feasibility of Cryonics and the prospect of delayed resuscitation and reanimation out from Cryonic Suspension, even in the face of all known evidence in support of theory, such is to disagree with the experts who know most about it. But perhaps some dissenter knows something the most respected expirers fail to regard. It happens all the time! So now it's my turn to press the naysayers with the question as to why. The ball is now back in their court. Remember that while there is a substantive body of published and peer reviewed science in support of the feasibility of delayed resuscitation and reanimation out from cryostasis, there is none in refutation. And one can only consider both sides, when there are at least two sides and they are both presented.

 

There do remain two further separate and important problems aside from science and physical possibility ever to be realized in technological progress: First of all, the prospect of delayed resuscitation and reanimation out from Cryonic Suspension, requires successful preservation in the interim, against every peril and pitfall of time, dissolution and neglect. And secondly, social progress into favorable social conditions will also be required. Just one gamble after another! All must and shall be rigorously addressed, for anyone who will remain open minded and put aside despair long enough. Nothing is easy. But with Cryonics, exactly what is there to lose?

 

Admittedly, the preceding in abbreviation of greater substance and complexity, therefore runs the risk of oversimplification. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details. But if the argument in principle is made clear and shown to be sound, in order thereby to mandate deeper investigation, then mission accomplished! The preceding serves merely as a kind of study guide for anyone actually at all interested, by which to understand the significance of the hyperlinked citations from the Scientists' Open Letter on Cryonics.

 

Ralph Merkle, Ph.D. on Nanotechnology and Cryonics goes into further detail and scope.

 

More hardcore Deathism, active disapproval and even most virulent hostility towards the very objective of practical immortality, will be dealt with in all that follows. But any of that would be of interest more to those with strong feelings on the question already, not just the skeptical incredulity truly only born of casual ignorance.

But the prospect of longevity, Radical Life Extension, the aging cure, the eradication of hitherto inevitable decline and natural death, rather than reducing stressful time pressures, instead is felt by Deathists as a threat, a matter of great urgency and alarm. Is the escape offered only by death secretly yearned for? Why else would practical immortality or: Emortality actually be dreaded as such a fearful trap? Such indeed is explicitly the irreplaceable desirability of death as extolled by Deathism. And how can such dire need of death as a naturally scheduled escape be claimed, without ambivalent condemnation of life that is all we can have, after all?

In Deathism, any prospect of Transhumanist future biotechnological transcendence and advent of the Posthuman, is never considered, even in sheer escapism. The question can only remain open, which of the two options, on the one hand, death, the annihilation of conscious being, and unprecedented advanced biotechnological transcendence of human intelligence and consciousness as we have ever known it, will present, Axiologically, the greater invasive threat to identity and integrity, thus the more senseless and Absurd, rendering the other the preferable or less disagreeably senseless and Absurd escape option or event. But I should only have just such worries! I only want the eternal luxury of just such lofty Existential conundrums! This is because if nothing else, I deem the life of such questions in and of itself worthy, philosophically.

 

Will even such extreme Socratic self examination of the very fundamentals of the human condition as afforded by standing and pondering at the threshold of Posthumanity, never be enough to render life worthy of living by a human being? For who so not, life in and of itself simply is not enough, in very principle. Just perhaps, whatever challenges and insights presented by whatever that personal truth of the Deathists, might possibly turn out at all more interesting, meaningful and worthy of serious discourse than their longstanding antisocial sophistries peddling passive mass agathusia. Too bad that Deathist misanthropy remains so popular, unexamined and legitimized.

In any case, with the number of patients from our times currently in cyosuspension, even if they all return successfully, that will still fall far short of the demand of historical and popular interest or even celebrity, amid a burgeoning human population. Indeed, it seems safe to predict that returning from the dead will remain an excellent career move for quite some time to come.

 

 

New under the sun?

“Although death cannot be experienced as being bad, we generally have good reason to prefer life over death, provided life is experienced as positive or has the potential to become positive. Although life extensionists would prefer to have stronger arguments against the Epicurean view on death, a preference for good experience over no experience can do the work just fine.”

 

— ‘Death is nothing to us’ by Aschwin de Wolf

 

Ecclesiastes would reject the ostensibly Socratic canard of terror management, really of effete Stoicism, that oblivion after death can be no worse than the oblivion preceding birth. -Or indeed as Epicurus insists, that "death is nothing to us," a contention handily refuted by considering, as G. E. Moore contends, how desires are not merely for subjective pleasure, but for whatever object or conditions, objectively as may be signified as pleasurable. Indeed, the abstract nature of desires transcends Pleasure Principle of individual Empirically immediate perceivable experienced gratification, particularly even such desires as altruistically pertain to consideration and anticipation of circumstances after one's own death, as in by writing a will. The supposed harmlessness of death, death being void and therefore painless, is Relativism, an argument from subjectivity exclusively. But the requisite innocence for such a narrow perspective, is vastly overrated: Indeed Ecclesiastes declares that who so increaseth wisdom increaseth sorrow. But this is no admonition in praise or recommendation of ignorance or craven extol of fool's paradise, but merely an observation that growth in sagacity brings to light cause for alarm that must be addressed. Thus Ecclesiastes calls attention the proverbial elephant in the room, as to declare that anyone who hasn't noticed certain squeamishly obvious universal problems in the human condition, quite simply can't have been paying much attention! To wit: Though subjectively, the dead know nothing, the living all know where we are bound: death. The point however being, as much a burden of responsibility as it may be to know it, that even did we not know, it would remain no less true, it would still be so, objectively. Thus, obviously, while people in stasis could never consciously experience harm subjectively, they could still come to harm, objectively. Dying may be unpleasant or not, but life has value, then death is real harm, especially irreversibly.

 

Indeed, without exactly such good cause, Ecclesiastes would hardly bother to dispense the pragmatic and psychological advice, respectively, of strength in numbers, strategically, along with solace in togetherness in the face of Existential despair, that is to say: as the meaning of an otherwise arduous and vexingly empty futility of Absurdly ephemeral life, let alone further proffering the Existential advice to eat drink and be merry, in confronting as does Ecclesiastes, such dreariness of travail as is most common in life, only all culminating in what has been since time immemorial, so unchangeable and certain: Impending death. -Or death and taxes, as so famously quips Ben Franklin!

Thus, true and comforting though it be that the dead at least no longer suffer, nevertheless would Ecclesiastes clearly reject as merely subjective, all ostensibly Socratic but really effete Stoical consolation that oblivion after death can be no worse than the oblivion preceding birth. -Or indeed as Epicurus insists, that "death is nothing to us," a contention handily refuted by considering, as G. E. Moore contends, how desires are not merely for subjective pleasure, but for whatever object or conditions, objectively as may be signified as pleasurable. Indeed, the abstract nature of desires transcends Pleasure Principle of individual Empirically immediate perceivable experienced gratification, particularly even such desires as altruistically pertain to consideration and anticipation of circumstances after one's own death, as in by writing a will. The supposed harmlessness of death, death being void and therefore painless, is Relativism, an argument from subjectivity exclusively. But the requisite innocence for such a narrow perspective, is vastly overrated, for objectively, the dead are robbed of everything, of conscious being itself, indeed even of sorrow, which is still something, and endurable within limits. For to love life, needs only to love life more greatly than yearning for release of death, and therefore by that very token, to fear death. Even the very hopes and wishes for joy, or even merely craving for the balm of companionable sympathy and understanding, attention “the rarest and purest form of generosity.” to quote Simone Weil, let alone any realization of desires and ambitions, are what really keep any of us alive and sane at all. Desires are neither true nor false, they are desires, as G. E. Moore observes. Desires are not in and of themselves rational. They can only be pursued, rationally. And in human consciousness, desires including aversions that are negative desires, desires not, are often sophisticated beyond mere Freudian Pleasure Principle. As G. E. Moore contends, desires are not merely for subjective pleasure, but for whatever object or conditions of pleasure, objectively. Pleasure and aversion are merely secondary qualities, indicators of whatever values.

 

And that goes for survival drives, including highly abstract integrity of identity and personal principles, even to neurotic and misguidedly inflexible excess. The love of/desire for life entails the fear and loathing that is aversion to death, and not merely to the transient sting of death throws, anyhow mercifully evaded by peaceful death, but deepest dread of the eternity of oblivion, yea even as cannot be experienced subjectivity, let alone as suffering. Indeed, what can be more terrifying than to be told that one simply will not wake up tomorrow morning? Only ignorance lends that mercy. Otherwise, even the mercy of forgoing suffering of death throws, only engenders all the greater helplessness. And that death be any less imminent, only blunts terror via procrastination. Phobia of oblivion is nothing rare or mysterious at all, but obvious and innate to the drive to survival, and therefore good despite being aversive. Eternal oblivion, not suffering of death throws, is the primary focus of terrified denial. Denial in religion or by whatever alternative rationalization, of death, is almost always either of the reality of annihilation of consciousness, or else of aversion to that prospect, or at least of the intensity thereof, and very seldom merely towards suffering painful death throws. Death is the greatest sum of all fears. Ecclesiastes condemns death as the ultimate in loneliness, “the first thing that God's eye nam'd not good.” according to John Milton. Quoth Sappho: “Death is evil, so the gods have judged, or they all would die!” All good depends upon life.

 

Ah, to be really lightened of the burden of impending death!

 

Mythic immortals indeed suffer an endless cycle of loss and bereavement. But the mythic solution comes when the immortal is allowed to share immortality with their loved ones. -indeed or even with everyone, in new a golden age... But Deathism, in rejection of all such obvious reasoning, maintains the embrace of what after any alternative, becomes merely a contrived artificial scarcity: death. Because death avails us to appreciate life. Just as amputation helps us appreciate our remaining limbs! Because that is what becoming mortal would feel like, to an immortal. And all that it takes to miss anything one has never had, is the forward looking imagination of anything better than things as they are now. Whereas instead to purposefully blacken every cloud and then to parade wearing and flaunting the silver lining, is rank irresponsibility: In no shortage of clichéd propaganda sophistries, all manner of loss and suffering, in and of themselves entirely unfortunate and intrinsically detrimental, are hailed and praised as inspirational for all manner of virtues. Indeed, it may even be true that adversity and even suffering outright, or perhaps better put: regret, can build character. But are there no other ways? Besides, surely the principle of diminishing and even negative returns applies: Just because some, even a minimum barest hint, may do any good, or teach important life lessons, does not automatically guarantee that ever more will be entirely better. Indeed, character building from regret, is perhaps a only a deeper learning from mistakes, the point being to correct them in future in order to minimize misfortune, not to celebrate it!

Much as the untestable hypothesis of Solipsism remains therefore and thereby both irrefutable and fruitless, similarly, all doubt, denial of sheer survival drive and of the abhorrence of annihilation of consciousness, is no more or less than Nihilistic value destruction, de-motivating and so easy to rationalize because of the arbitrary irrationality of desire and value to begin with, especially of survival drives, originating only in the happenstance of biology and evolution. In rejection of doctrinal faith being whatever imperatives of arbitrary belief, systematic doubt, rational skepticism, skepticism in whatever degree, remains forever crucial to science. But science deals in the investigation of external objective reality. By contrast, what does it profit, to cultivate doubt towards attitudinal faith, in rejection of hope and basic trust? Answer: Only the sacrifice of hope proportionately blunts despair. For Nirvana principle dictates that suffering is alleviated only in proportion if not radical entire elimination of desire or attachment, then whatever the more moderate reduction thereof by howsoever deemed realistic expectations, rationalizations and conditioning. A fine rebuttal comes in the words of George Bernard Shaw: “Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.” Because in confrontation with situations that any reasonable person would deem insurmountable, only the influence of unreasonable people can provide vision, experience and direction in order to restore hope. So what is the worse hubris, to embrace uncertainty, strive and live forever, or to hold back progress and die of complacent spite, cursing the darkness without lighting a single candle? The prospect of practical immortality is gloriously unreasonable, the very crown of freedom and autonomy! And ironically, eventually as fait accompli, practical immortality will become status quo and taken for granted by the most complacent. Because Radical Life Extension looms on the horizon. And as with space flight, the greatest obstacles currently to Cryonics and Radical Life Extension alike, remain socio-psychological. To wit: the ultimate in God fearing and conventional heteronomy, to which Emortalism, the Promethean striving for real physical liberation from death, ever stands in such dire Frankensteinian anathema! Ever in defense of status quo, Deathism is bio-Luddite heteronomy declaring: Identify as mortal. Know thy place and die! I confess some mystification as to the broad and enduring appeal, even now that real change for the better has become possible. Perhaps an adequate definition of psychiatric maladaptation may come in terms of the proverbial bird in the hand, as: even the coldest solace clung to at the expense of alleviation and wellbeing. Whereas by contrast, autonomy at all, only consisting in relative freedom from heteronymous decidophobia, entails the responsible capacity for risk in the face of uncertainty.

 

 

 

Why bother to live?

 

The excuse that the dead, cryonized included, are beyond harm and suffering, is puerile and offensive Sophistry. There is nothing to be so trivialized in the loss of life. With consciousness in suspension along with biological process, patients in cryonic suspension are indeed beyond suffering, subjectively, but not beyond harm, objectively, nor beyond benefit of the right kind of help, being: eventual restoration to life and health, and preservation until such time. Does compassion then demand preservation and eventual reanimation of the cryonized, strangers included, after that latter becomes possible? Obviously. The golden rule, to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, demands urgent assistance in life and death emergency. Is compassion then frustrated should preservation and reanimations fail? Certainly. Is compassion then thwarted simply because most of the dead simply are never cryonized at all to begin with? Does not compassion mandate the most vigorous research and development into Radical Life Extension, the aging cure, the eradication of natural death, just as hither to with Polio and other fatal pandemics? For is not compassion thwarted by death in the first place? Indeed compassion is offended on a massive scale! Cryonics should be wide scale and standard. Can the dead then, and not only the bereaved, be pitied? Absolutely. As Mark Twain said: “Funerals are for the living.” Nevertheless: We do not mourn only for ourselves as survivors! This alone should be enough to settle the argument in favor of Emortalism, Cryonics and Radical Life Extension, forever. We should jump at every chance! It is really that simple. As Joe Bob Brigs would say: "I'm surprised I have to explain these things."

 

Those who die young without benefit of Cryonic Suspension, on top of everything else, miss out on the best shot at living to benefit from medical and technological progress culminating in Radical Life Extension and practical immortality, already looming so ripe on the horizon. They are the worst cheated of all.

 

In my bereavement, my complicated grief, I dreamt of a lost loved one: The soil of the grave was transparent like glass, and I could look down into her eyes. She didn't like being dead. I could read in her eyes how she knew that she had really fucked things up, mismanaged her own life, this time! For in truth, her death truly had been needless and avoidable. -the cumulative result of bullying long unchecked. Of course I understand full well how in reality, being dead an no more, the light of her consciousness permanently extinguished, she could entertain no further opinion on the matter. But I knew her well, and my imagination readily spoke for her. The outcry of the dream, of course, is a metaphor. Objectively, the dead are robbed of everything, of conscious being itself, indeed even of sorrow, which is still something. Something endurable only with the wherewithal to fight back, which is the sign of life, and not in any other solace. She should have lived forever! While I am at all consoled that she can never discover how badly others had let her down, I cannot consider the ending of her life, as anything ever in her best interests. Not even for the escape afforded her from her own crushing bereavement in her family that dragged her down, defenseless.

 

Whence derives my confidence in so judging as I do? I shall further expound: 

 

“To be, or not to be? That is the question” pondered by Shakespeare's Hamlet. Or less succinctly in the words of Albert Camus: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.” - a question only afforded fresh new relevance by the practice of Cryonics and by Radical Life Extension research, so promising towards the aging cure and the eradication of natural death, much as lethal pandemics the likes if Polio were eradicated, instead of continuing merely to treat the symptoms. But this question remains somewhat imprecise. Rather, it is a matter not of deciding only whether life is always worth living, generally speaking, but of judging whether life is ever worth living or not, whether, even in principle, life can be worth living at all or even endured temporarily, never mind, in all human frailty, limited resolve and finite endurance, preserved and extended indefinitely. As promised, the question of the value of life to begin with, cannot and will not be skirted herein.

 

All things being equal, if there can be found any reason to live at all in the first place, then it will serve as a reason to continue living. The question then is of indefinite endurance of any such a motivation. And the conviction that the Axiological validity of the will to live is transitory and somehow finite, is a qualified condemnation of life in all of its worldly imperfection, as undeserving and uninspiring of whatever it might be that simply not dying would express. -and that this will be so for everyone without possibility of variation, unchanging forever. Such is the sheer failure of imagination behind Deathism.

 

Thus for the Deathists, if there is no transcendent hereafter, then there can be nothing ever in mere fallible consciousness or reality and life as transpires temporally, to be found deserving of eternity. The worthiness of life can only be a halfhearted qualified worthiness, when the bar is still set to ideal perfection, even without overt religion anymore. The Deathists are so lonely without God's love, that they would die for Him, even though He does not exist and never answers! They yearn to die for the ideal, a fantasy nobler than any refutation thereof. Because God, after all, is the ideal, the purl beyond price, transcending existence. And to pine for Him unto death, is the most rapturous privilege! That must be what is just too awful for them to come out and just say. That must be why the Deathist are too suicidally malcontent in their collective death trance, simply to continue abiding amongst us, taking what comes as the future unfolds.

 

Nevertheless, the question of the worthiness of life, enduring, transitory or not at all, remains a question of human nature and circumstances, not mooted Theology. And Deathism is misanthropic. The hardest part of life is living, but most crushingly so for the disgusted introversion of Deathism. But that is no refutation of anything, and no condemnation of hope itself. However, as the question is psychological, the position does demand support instead of sheer presumption as an article of faith. The question deserves actual psychological research and investigation. But Deathism is dogmatic. Death is embraced as a rescue from that implicitly premised inadequacy of life within human nature. This makes the question of practical immortality indeed an inextricable extension of the primary Philosophical question of the worthiness of life to begin with. As long as there is any question of the worthiness of life, then the exploration thereof should be vibrantly reinvigorated by any hypothetical question of practical immortality, much less any actual prospect thereof in reality. And when a question thus so philosophically important as those raised by Emortalism is scorned, ridiculed, tabooed and crimestopped, ignored and marginalized, then Philosophy becomes effete and irrelevant, a pompous ritual of stuffy academicians at Thanotological symposiums.

 

It is only right and responsible to consider what circumstances may be dreaded as actually worse than death. Therefore, it is only right to and responsible to leave even the most draconian options open. But as Socrates famously said: "The unexamined life is not worth the living for a human being." The question of what makes life worth living in the first place, will not be skirted. In the words of Samuel Johnson: “Nothing [...] will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.” And that applies alike either to suicide or to survival measures. That life is endurable with anything positive to look forward to, should be enough to sustain survival necessary even to search for whatever might be better and more worthy to live for.

“Although death cannot be experienced as being bad, we generally have good reason to prefer life over death, provided life is experienced as positive or has the potential to become positive. Although life extensionists would prefer to have stronger arguments against the Epicurean view on death, a preference for good experience over no experience can do the work just fine.”

 

— ‘Death is nothing to us’ by Aschwin de Wolf

There are no guarantees of truly favorable circumstances, but perhaps any realistic hope thereof given progress. If all possible objections must be addressed, alas, no survival effort will ever be justified or implemented, any more than resolve to self salvation actively through any decisive, proactive and honest suicide. Likewise, if not every and all trepidation of death can be satisfactorily addressed and overcome, suicide will only remain the enduring fantasy of life's sorrows. But given that to die literally costs everything else, irreversibly, such extreme inhibition seems only an appropriate safeguard against death, though asymmetrically, not against continued survival, unless such in and of itself is already deemed so dreadful, as in the misanthropically pessimistic Nihilism of hardcore Deathism.

 

So: Is it necessary even to draw breath? Why, yes, in order to live. But is it necessary to live? Necessary to what end, unless the will to live be taken as a given? But why should it be? In the TV show 'Nurse Jackie', a drama exploring the struggle with self destruction, the character of young Charlie Cruz frankly and cheerfully explains that he enjoys experimenting with recreational pharmaceuticals so greatly as to become sanguine of soon paying the ultimate price, an inevitably fatal overdose. Jackie has no answer. No one can save Charlie who does no want to be saved. Living and dying on his own terms, does Charlie therefore win the argument?

 

In the words of Bill Maher: “Suicide is man's way of telling God, 'You can't fire me - I quit.'” Schopenhauer was not the first to deem that the tragedy is even being born! But does death then bring a happy ending to said tragedy? Death ends all suffering and evil in life, along with any good. Hence, if life is the problem, is death then the solution? Why should anyone desire to live at all, much less indefinitely? Indeed, there is no rational reason. After all, life is full of suffering, and for that matter, the Nihilists are right: Any value assigned to pleasure cannot be derived, logically, any more than life and survival. Value thus is arbitrary. For meaning resides nowhere in the external universe, but is created and assigned individually in consciousness and collectively in culture. Indeed, as G. E. Moore points out, desires are not rational, not even those of self preservation and survival, let alone anything further. Desires are neither true nor false, they are desires. And why is that any reason for Nihilistic despair? And how is Nihilistic despair any less arbitrary? Indeed, what is more Absurdly futile than the Zen quest for futility? Moreover, Freud's Pleasure Principle is a Reductionist oversimplification, and not the whole story at all. For, in accordance with the Axiology of G. E. Moore, just as pleasure is only the second order desire, an indicator pursuant to whatever perceived and understood good, likewise avoidance of pain is only the second order fear or aversive desire, an indicator pursuant to whatever perceived and understood evil, avoidance thereof being first order desire. Indeed, it would be a poor irrelevant self preservation drive, that only follows Pleasure Principle in avoiding painful experience, in dereliction of forestalling actual harm, no matter how painless. Axiology though abstract, must remain relevant to external objective conditions of reality.

 

Desires thus are meaningful, after all. Therefore, so is living life. Because, if the aversive emotion of boredom is, indeed, to quote Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy in ‘Anna Karenina,’ "the desire for desires," then in that case, what could be more meaningful, even than the worst boredom, let alone whatever heights of fulfillment! Indeed, boredom is so intensely value loaded, as to be most greatly meaningful. In the words of Gilbert K. Chesterton: "A yawn is a silent shout." For in the words of Leo Stein: “Boredom is an emptiness filled with insistence.” Death then may end boredom, but addresses none of the outcry of boredom.

 

Indeed, as for even to the worst suffering of death throes: Death itself, oblivion even intrinsically devoid of all suffering, remains the greater concern. "More than one hundred years ago, the American philosopher William James dubbed the knowledge that we must die “the worm at the core” of the human condition" motivating such pervasive denial simply in order to cope. A peaceful death is merely a consolation, not a remedy, to mortality. How so? People readily suffer in order to survive. Life even at its worst, is cherished and valued. We are not so ready to die, just to escape even the slightest suffering. The priorities are clear. Death, annihilation, oblivion, not just painful death throes, is the cause of Existential despair and futility, wherein is lamented the meaninglessness of life because life ends, not because life ends howsoever displeasurably. Indeed, clearly, the extreme displeasure is in anticipation of impending annihilation, being inherently undesirable! Ecclesiastes, after rejecting the words of the preacher: "All is vanity." concluding, indeed, that only isolation renders life so pointless and desperate, and this has remedy.

4:8 There is one alone, and there is not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother: yet is there no end of all his labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither saith he, For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good? This is also vanity, yea, it is a sore travail.

 

4:9 Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.

Ecclesiastes affirms life and condemns death:

9:4 For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion. 5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun. [...] there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

"More than one hundred years ago, the American philosopher William James dubbed the knowledge that we must die “the worm at the core” of the human condition" motivating such pervasive denial simply in order to cope, even like unto Stockholm syndrome. Life is all there is and all we have. What you can't know, experience, suffer, subjectively, will still hurt you objectively. For according to Ecclesiastes, death, the null situation, is the worst most fearful and extreme and permanent circumstance of loneliness being, to quote John Milton: “the first thing that God's eye nam'd not good.” And the recommendation of oblivion as harmless, as perhaps dubiously and apocryphally put into the mouth of Socrates to help wash down the hemlock, only advocates figuratively putting our proverbial heads in the metaphorical sand and kidding ourselves. Quoth Ecclesiastes in handy rebuttal, even though the dead cannot be conscious of anything, the living remain no less sanely cognizant of reality including that of impending death. And that it is better to live, even as (or like) a dog, than to be dead, even for a (literal or figurative) lion. Which is so much as to say that life, in all of its hardship, even that of Existential despair in the face of impending death, remains ever of dearest intrinsic value, and that therefore death can only be intrinsically undesirable and indeed the ultimate in pointlessness, only the more Absurd.

 

Just as companionship is the only meaningful redemption of life and its travail for Ecclesiastes, the condition of death is the ultimate lonely circumstance, the very worst to come. So perhaps in similarity in emphasis of Phenomenal comfort over Ontology and Axiology, objective reality and values, the propaganda invented Socrates at the end of 'The Apology' should be recognized as intellectual kin in sheer sophistry, to Plato's fictive Socrates of 'The Republic' extolling the "noble lie" and manufacture of fools paradise, praising oppression and exploitation as the very soul of enduring civic justice! So: Will the real Socrates please stand up? No, he can't, he's dead. And we all the poorer. Every death diminishes us all. It is impossible to love life, even despite every travail, without therefore fearing and loathing death, and impossible to yearn for death until hating living. The dread of such a horror as death is only part and parcel with the appropriateness of grief, even howsoever anticipatory and abstract. For at any given moment, to be alive is the obvious precondition for whatever meaning and value to be hoped for in living, none of which can be accessible at any moment after death. Life, then, is always a dear cost. A cost not to be cheapened by sophomoric rhetoric and sophistry to make light of such ultimate stakes as those of life and death.

 

Thus, clearly, dying peacefully, even with its obvious preference and advantages over agonizing death throes, cannot resolve the root of Existential despair, at least not for everyone, because you'll still be dead! So please stop adding such insult of my intelligence even to such injury as even that of mortality! Ecclesiastes, in his eternal vérités, seeing no new thing under the sun, even in such benign recommendation as that of good cheer, good times, good grooming, with gusto and effort in making the most of happy and productive though transitory life and relationships, entirely fails even to imagine anything so mew under the sun as unprecedented better conditions of life without natural death or fatal mishap. But Sappho does not. Sappho incisively compares human mortality to the conceivable alternative of its negation as imaginatively represented in mythology, and finds our circumstance much wanting by that comparison: “Death is evil, so the gods have judged, or they all would die!” Moreover, that Ecclesiastes deems life precious while had, in no way extols scarcity to increase value. That's bullshit!

 

There is no such thing as nothingness as an entity. Every concept, observation, abstraction or mathematical description, of any manner of ostensible nothingness as an entity, such as empty vacuum in space or even theoretical singularities and voids transcending space-time in modern Cosmology or hither to in Theology, are actually distinct hypotheses of howsoever ever existing conditions, that is to say: assertions concerning something at all. Whereas the word: 'nothing' refers only to the lack of contents characteristic of the empty set which does not have any members at all. Life is conscious being and afterwards death is nothingness. Nevertheless: We are time bound, which means we remember the past and anticipate the future, rather than merely experiencing the present moment without reflection as recommended by the Zen Mystics. We even form intimation of futuring scenarios, however vividly or abstractly, even such as that we never expect to experience personally. Indeed, though they well understand this to be oxymoronic, some even imagine, perhaps metaphorically, that in the nothingness and non existence of death, they would come to miss their own personal sense if identity! Which to say that in comprehension of death, in anticipatory reflection thereupon, many peopled find that they desire not to be dead and non existent, not ever, but rather to continue living, even indefinitely, barring anything actually worse than death. Therefore Deathism must go to such great lengths in looking the proverbial gift horse in metaphorical mouth, decrying not only current options of Cryonic Suspension, but the imminent prospect of Radical Life Extension.

 

Indeed, it would seem that the object of desire can indeed be even the more abstract still, and even rightly so. The more abstract the understanding and appreciation of consciousness and identity, consequently the more abstract all hitherto concrete survival imperative becomes. The only danger is of becoming lost in such abstraction as loses relevance to desired external outcomes, first of all, of survival. Such dangerous irrelevance results from introversion in the refinement of the efficiency of self intrapsychic process in search of solace, of dishonest denial and taboo, only undermining survival, much like Christian Science or Stockholm syndrome.

 

The glorification of abject surrender is characteristic of Nihilistic corruption of the instinctual will to power and survival exactly as bewailed by Nietzsche in ‘The Antichrist’. “I call an animal, a species, an individual corrupt, when it loses its instincts, when it chooses, when it prefers, what is injurious to it. [...] the values of decadence, of nihilism, now prevail under the holiest names.”

 

Rightly so, nevertheless, arising even beyond the imperative of continued physical survival and continued individual consciousness, there is the maintenance of individual integrity in any more subtle sense, indeed of principles and identity, the compromise any of whereof can even be the more threatening than death itself, even in all of its greatest indignity, death being a condition of nonexistence that at least cannot howsoever distort or pervert a living psyche. Indeed, even that an even howsoever invasively altered personality need not cause suffering, indeed may be the happier for it, is appealing only to some, while others fill with dread of any such a prospect as of futuristic bio-happiness or: Zen in a pill, and no less rightly so. Yet precisely here the danger arises, that should the survival imperative in preservation of self integrity become exaggerated or unclear and misguided, it will come to pass that so many fear change and growth at all. They fear life.

 

For that matter, baring physical pain or discomfort, the suffering of dying, like dementia, is from the aware perception of consciousness progressively disintegrating and identity slipping away.-of fearful and undignified regression into death. And yet even such suffering of fading away, such involuntary contemplation of manifest ultimate sorrow, is only the aversive second order indicator of an intrinsically undesirable circumstance and its horrible outcome. A quick death spares only the terror of experiencing slow death, but not the loss of life, of conscious existence itself, the latter being the object of said aversion, and quite rightly so.

 

All thus if one acknowledges individual consciousness and one understands annihilation much less more subtle violation or compromise, then innocence is lost: one apprehends what is death, emotionally mind boggling as that may be, not just any unpleasantly experienced dying process, quick or slow. And given such understanding, however abstract, that may evoke any range of emotion in response, innate or acquired, to death no less than to life, so that quite naturally, even the anticipation of death triggered by mortal danger, even the simple possibility, the risk at all times, can be, to say the least, alarming if not actually painful in and of itself. And Empirically, we know that to be the case for many people. Indeed. much of human consciousness privately, and human culture collectively, is dedicated to coping with, and often sheer denial of, death in and of itself, or else of the very problem abstractly, and not just whatever unpleasant dying process or death throes first actually experienced. Innate self preservation, though aversive, remains a valuable emotion, even a spur to constructive action. But more on this, later.

 

The mirror neurons for gaining skills by observation, make us identify with what we see others doing or undergoing, such even as to seem like ones own experience, likewise to be learned. Indeed, not to digress, it sometimes even seems that even animals can consider their own mortality, in whatever their dim apprehension that we may perhaps ever underestimate. When a dog sees another dog lying dead and inert, particularly a loved one and long companion, not only are they frightened, revolted and bereaved, but perhaps even a dog may dimly apprehend: That could be me!  

 

Time bound and self aware human weariness of life is engendered by travail and tragedy, but perhaps all the more by exhausting struggle of inner conflict, of the effort of bad faith and ever proliferating layers of reaction formation, of fraudulent identity fraying at the edges, of boredom with weighty decisions, and the loneliness that comes from bottling everything up inside so secretively. But the will to live, instead rises to the challenge of honesty. And the key to the will to continue living, really depends upon anything to live for, any vision of what you want, something better to yearn for, even in the striving and patience of longevity.

 

And so, it does no good to hide in the proverbial ivory tower, with no thought of real world implementation. And it does ever harm, to roll up our sleeves to toil with distain for abstract thinking, all in the name of practicality. Therefore, responsibility in the face of uncertainty, demands first of all, the willingness to speculate. The alternative is irresponsible paralysis, particularly in the long range. Not passive helplessness, nor staying the course in blind ideology, but provisional planning subject to ongoing revision as needed, is what is required. Practical Philosophy, violating heteronymous taboo by bridging the near and far in order to allow lofty abstract principle to guide down-to-earth practical planning, and likewise for the latter always to inform and to teather the former to any Empirical reality, becomes crucial.

 

Case in point: If indefinitely long youthful and healthy life, once attained by modern medicine, ever truly loses its savor the way cynical Deathism so confidently predicts, then let the individual in due course, choose how and when, if ever, to die. To remain mortal, with neither Radical Life Extension (the imminent cure for aging, bringing an end to natural death) nor provision for the interim fallback of Cryonics, is not a choice at all, but an abrogation of choice and responsibility, whilst waiting in passive despair of sullen boredom and stubborn cynicism, for every even remotely possible objection to be decisively addressed for you. Indeed, as shall be seen, Deathists argue that it is better to be free from the burdens of such weighty decision. 

 

For that matter, why should anyone desire to live at all, much less indefinitely? After all, life is full of suffering and frustration. Indeed, to reiterate, there is no rational reason. The tradition of suicide as honorable and redemptive, is clearly a concept of oppression and inward turning violence. But perhaps the opposite traditional view of suicide as the coward's way out, lacks compassion for escapism under extreme duress and suffering, particularly of helplessness and humiliation more than physical pain and discomfort. Maybe humiliation really does feel like dying!

 

Otherwise the realization must dawn, that self-respect demands we soldier on. Perhaps because perspective shows us the pettiness of our irritations, and life remain unaccountably precious. Because, as the saying goes, where there is life, there is hope. And what is there in human and even animal nature more irrational than basic trust, attitudinal faith, hope itself?

 

To follow Maslow's hierarchical approach to needs, under oppression, freedom takes precedent before all questions raised by freedom once attained, and likewise, under threat, survival takes precedent over all questions raised by survival once achieved. As G. E. Moore points out, desires are not rational, not even those of self preservation and survival, let alone anything further. Desires are neither true nor false, they are desires. What options of freedom, then, can there be to redeem life as worthy?

 

Which brings us to one answer, specifically, the central thrust of this very website, FoolQuest.com, being definition and strategic proposal of meeting the intrinsically motivating needs of authentic wellbeing in all that we truly live for.

 

To begin with, if nothing else, Philosophy being this very question of the meaning of life, is already in and of itself most worthy. For as Socrates famously admonishes, it is the unexamined life that is unfit for human beings. And there can be no solution finding without first any problem statement.

 

And all of this is why, as Camus recommends, I remain unreconciled with death. Indeed, going beyond mere Absurdist grand gesture to go down fighting, indeed quite sincerely, I am entirely reconciled with the fear of death. It is better to fear death, the loss of life, than to fear life itself. Both life and death are rightly terrifying. But one of those two polar fears must take priority, because one of the two conflicting desires, survival and escape, must be chosen over the other. Otherwise, what can be recommended of surrender to the snare of consuming ambivalence, let alone denial thereof? Is self preservation nothing but an inconvenient obstacle of evolutionary biology, to the only sensible course of action, being suicide? Does it make any sense, paraphrasing Augustine, to pray: God give me resolve to suicide, but not yet... ? Or doesn't Emortalism, the advocacy of Emortality, of practical immortality via Radical Life Extension research towards the aging cure and eradication of natural death, with Cryonics as interim stop gap to remain thereafter as contingency for death by mishap, make better sense? 

 

To quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt: "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself." Well, I am not afraid or ashamed to be so crass as to fear of ever losing my very life. I know and can accept who I am, at least to that extent of such the blindingly obvious. For many aversive emotions are nevertheless of tremendous value. What is so very wrong, so terribly crass, with looking both ways before crossing the street? Indeed, the fear of death is the most wonderful and sensible sign of vitality! Only a greater fear of life in bad faith and denial, then ever at all overwhelm the natural and wholesome survival instinct, desire to continue living, and entirely sensible dread of extinction and annihilation of individual consciousness, of death. Indeed, as we shall see, the only appeal of death, is escapism. So it is the fear of life that must be addressed: The fear of life is the fear of growth and of change, thus the embrace of stagnation and boredom, even unto a veritable living death. Only given simple fear of the unknown, the conceivable limits to life come only at the point of sheer failure of imagination regarding growth and change. And fear rises also at the boundaries of personal integrity and self concept, the most meaningfully abstract side of self preservation, being: clear desire and preference for survival and fearful aversion to any prospect of extinction and oblivion. Existential good faith, thus becoming essential to long term survival, requires that self image must also keep pace and evolve along with the person. A meaningful personal ideal is an eternal striving.

 

Willfully positive thinking and emotion to the exclusion of all aversive caution, only amounts to proverbially keeping ones head metaphorically in the sand. Every positive right depends upon its corollary as a negative right. The freedom to walk outside at night, and to do so safely, is entirely contingent upon securing the negative right simply not to get mugged. Indeed therefore, just as Mysticism such as the Zen so bitterly complains:

“From the dear comes grief;
From the dear comes fear.
If you're freed from the dear
You'll have no grief, let alone fear.”
— Anonymous, The Dhammapada

Zen cessation in quest of futility, promises liberation and deliverance from fear, only via abject surrender to despair. But that seems somewhat Draconian sour grapes. Indeed, pessimism in protection from disappointment, the surrender to despair, does at first bring relief from the dystress of struggle, but soon depression begins ever deepening. Therefore the seduction of Zen Nihilism might best be greeted with skeptical caution. It makes perfect sense, that every positive desire entails therefore a desire of avoidance, an aversive desire to avoid, a fear of pain and loss. What's wrong with that?

 

Socrates famously hails Philosophy as the next best thing to being dead. Why fear death? How can the non existence after death be any more painful than the non existence before birth? Answer: It's the wrong question. Again, it would be a poor irrelevant self preservation drive, that only follows Pleasure Principle in avoiding painful experience, in dereliction of forestalling actual harm, no matter how painless. The question then, should be of real harm. How, then, is the oblivion before birth, any less tragic than death, afterwards? Because life is lost when life ends in death. Unless time is actually running backwards from how we perceive, as in the Teleological Science Fiction novel 'Cryptozoic' by Brian Aldiss, life is not lost, retroactively, from the first infantile glimmer of consciousness! Even in Axiology, the inescapability of the subjective, in no way invalidates applicable objective considerations. Axiology though abstract, must remain relevant to external objective conditions of reality.

 

And yet it is still argued that only the very death throes, suffering in the experience of dying, is of any harm or fear. Thus can the very will to live be trivialized and rationalized away. But this is effete. To quote Nietzsche: “Mystical explanations are considered profound. The truth is that they are not even superficial.” Freud's shallow Pleasure Principle, even demystified, is not the whole story. For, in accordance with the observations of G. E. Moore, just as pleasure is only the second order desire pursuant to whatever perceived and understood good, likewise avoidance of pain is only the second order fear or aversive desire pursuant to whatever perceived and understood evil, avoidance thereof being first order desire. Because, emphatically, it would be a poor irrelevant self preservation drive, that only follows Pleasure Principle in avoiding painful experience, in dereliction of forestalling actual harm, no matter how painless.

 

Truth is correspondence to reality as can be asserted. But what are the intellectual mechanics of such correspondence? Arguably, all comprehension, indeed for that matter perception to begin with, is via metaphor and abstraction of one kind or degree or another. And this applies no less to death. The prospect of oblivion, non existence having ceased to be, is chilling to the bone, indeed, all the more for so boggling the imagination! Any discrepancy of imagination of death with reality as best literally understood, is in turn accepted as metaphor. Thus there is no misconception in need of intellectualizing remedy or denial of the grim truth, corresponding to reality as it already does, perfectly well. We need to stop talking ourselves to death and rise to action!

 

The painlessness of being dead is therefore quite irrelevant sophistry, indeed most slippery Nihilistic value-destruction! Such sophistry may even be deemed Psychotic in character, in seeking to replace and deny emotion, in this case the desire for continued life and therefore the entirely beneficial though aversive repugnance of death, all named: self preservation, with abstraction, in this case rationalizing away the very will to live. While controlling anxiety and granting any inner peace in the short term, the end result of such abject surrender, can only be the deepening of depression and (Existential) despair with passive aggressive suicidal thinking. Worse, such sophistry readily lends itself to fanaticism, in that by ignoring Empirically observable human nature, the hypothesis thereby becomes untestable and unshakable. Worst of all, the position can become Zen Moralistic, as ever masquerading under the banner of Stoical pragmatism, by decrying rudimentary self preservation as error or vice, and implicit recommendation of said to be corrected by embrace and Behavioral conditioning instead, into the correct attitude, how one ought to feel, never mind how one does feel. But to quote G. E. Moore: "You can't get an is from an ought."

 

People are known to risk and suffer greatly in hopes of survival. The fictional character in the Science Fiction movie 'The Abyss' would actually drown, excruciatingly, in a desperate gambit in hopes to be rescued safe and sound and survive, rather than to actually die no matter how peacefully and painlessly fading away in the euphoria of anoxia. Thus the reality of death, no matter how abstractly apprehended, can easily be even more undesirable than the worst transitory suffering associated with the mere pain and discomfort of dying or surviving or living at all. Ontology trumps Phenomena. So it would be a poor irrelevant self preservation drive, that only follows Pleasure Principle in avoiding painful experience, in dereliction of forestalling actual harm, no matter how painless.

 

Indeed, the siren song of sacrifice was likely placed into the mouth of Socrates, in masterful propaganda, after his followers, is such disarray, failed even to bribe the guard and save their master Socrates from execution. -something of a tradition in Athens at the time. Thus instead of being sensible and escaping, surviving and waiting for the madness of war to blow over, is the threadbare independent autonomous free thinking Socrates presented so oddly out of character: dying as an anal retentive goody two-shoes, enduring a rash, petty and unjust death sentence, simply in abidance to the letter of the law, and in a colossal gesture of suicidal passive aggression, getting his posthumous I-told-you-so when the citizens of Athens soon came to remorse for their rash and impulsive decision. Indeed, though there was only one dose of hemlock on hand at the time, prefiguring the likes of the Reverend Jim Jones, Socrates is depicted as urging his beloved disciples to follow him at their earliest convenience! Even without the glorification of war, the Mystical Pacifist romanticization of death remains pernicious. And what worse example for loved ones, can there be than suicidal passive aggression? What more dysfunctional betrayal?

 

At the mass suicide in Jones Town, the Reverend Jim Jones assured his flock that the children would not suffer, as he urged parents to share the cyanide Kool-Aid with their families. When a commentator accuses the Reverend Jim Jones of thereby rhetorically shifting ground, that is so much as to say that death in and of itself is obviously the greater concern, and survival a priority, not just Pleasure Principle of avoiding pain. Indeed, to this day, "drinking the Kool-Aid" remains somewhat contemptuous euphemism for all such weak minded submission to all such dubious ideas as Christian Science & Stockholm syndrome, or mass agathusia and passive suicide.

 

 

What are the real downsides of survival?

Insurmountable opportunity

 

 

What then, is the worst that can befall from Cryonic Suspension? If reanimation does not come about, then the patient is still no more dead than had they gone to meaty rot instead. Another concern is of finding oneself alone in a future in a world with everyone one has ever known, long dead. But the optimal solution to that, is to encourage ones loved ones to make similar provisions in order to share the future. Besides, some may live long enough to benefit from Radical Life Extension. Yes, the first to become emortal will always abide in bereavement for the dead uncryonized and lost forever (barring time travel). Thereby, even in such terrible suffering and loss, still we honor that love. For one would not choose instead to forget, to trade cherished memories for peace and ease. But at least there will be no further bereavement in a world without any more deaths. And in the meantime, Cryonics offer the hope that, if all goes well, separation will be temporary instead of eternal. Moreover, it may be hoped for that many alive today may survive long enough to benefit from the impending advent of Radical Life Extensions, the aging cure and end to natural death.

 

That only leaves sheer futureshock, a Luddite terror of the unknown future. A common fear is of awakening to some sort of dystopia. This fear should be readily allayed as somewhat unlikely, because of the required confluence of favorable conditions for reanimation: Delayed resuscitation out from Cryonics, actually the recovery of the personality out from preserved but extremely damaged brain tissue, will require significant progress, scientific and technological, for the wherewithal in neuroscience to know what we are doing, nanotechnology for the recovery of neural microstructures, and the sheer computing power to run the necessary simulations for complex reconstruction. But the social conditions also have to be right. That probably means that things have to be fairly good in the world. Because really bad conditions might tend to thwart reanimation, at least temporarily or even permanently if cryostorage is disrupted.

 

What does the medium range future hold? It seems nigh impossible that conditions will simply remain much the same. Likely, the rate of change will continue to accelerate at an accelerating rate of acceleration. The current futuring scenario is a likely if not inevitable projection, barring interim catastrophe. The above and the following, in the preponderance of evidence, all merely follow well established trends, wherein the proverbial genie, well out from the metaphorical bottle, won't be stuffed back inside again. As we shall see, interim survival, collectively and individually, may at least as likely as not, to be well be worth the trouble.

 

It seems likely that every tribulation notwithstanding, social and technological progress will continue to advance. And there is always choice how to prioritize allocation of ever increasing resources in technological advance and economic growth. It seems likely that every tribulation notwithstanding, that standards of living will continue to rise, and violent death rates per capita will continue to decline. This is particularly important, because every social good seems connected, for practical purposes, to standards of living. Merely installing electrical utilities to an impoverished village, immediately reduced the birth rate, alleviating overpopulation and shortages. The destitute poor in the world, pollute worse even than the stinking rich. Crime and terror are likewise nurtured by desperate poverty and oppression. And those who can afford education, are that much less supportive of ignorant barbaric practices and injustice. Democracy flowers from rising affluence in free markets. And so on.

 

Geological history teaches us that catastrophic impact with the Earth, is not a question of 'if,' but 'when.' And a planet killer size asteroid contains more mineral wealth than has ever been used in the entirety of human history. Furthermore, the technology for deflecting asteroids that threaten the Earth, is the same as for safely capturing near Earth passing asteroids into stable orbits, for exploitation of their incalculable bounty. Moreover, among so many other engineering advantages of micro-gravity, solar energy in outer space, unfiltered by the Earth's atmosphere, is nigh limitless. As the cost to orbit continues going down, the vast resources of the solar system become available. As heavy industry transfers into orbit, environmental pollution and the scarcities which drive war, come to an end on Earth. The Space Age has begun in earnest. The wonders of the solar system, and the deep oceans too, open to tourism. The outward expansion of humanity will not be subject to the limitations of new planets, to be discovered or teraformed. Rather, the future belongs to the populous proliferation of space habitats, vast inside out garden spots, spheres and cylinders, even hollowed out asteroids, spinning gently for centrifugal force, artificial gravity, within. -Nothing like the confining and oppressive submarine interiors with which we are currently familiar... In prosperity and plenty of life in outer space, planet bound life will cone to be viewed as an impoverished subsistence existence. Nanotechnology and bioengineering too, will continue advancing.

 

Perhaps most immediately, with the advent of rapid prototyping for the home, the so-called 3-D printer, the means of production, as with the home computer and the means of communication, will shift increasingly into the hands of the individual citizen consumer end-user.

 

 

 

Resistance

 

As we shall see, Deathism is more than a mere cultural curiosity, but an increasing hazard to public health and safety. The adage: "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" might best be amended with the caveat: All things being equal. Because, unlike the precious trained falcon in the hand as referenced in the medieval adage, as regards Deathism, and to mix metaphorical animals, that dog don't hunt!/cock won't fight/isn't a runner! -metaphorical aphorism denotative of a plan or theory that simply won't work...

 

"More than one hundred years ago, the American philosopher William James dubbed the knowledge that we must die “the worm at the core” of the human condition" motivating such pervasive denial simply in order to cope. Roen Horn expounds upon the vivid parallels between Deathism & Stockholm syndrome. Indeed, whatever fallacious solace in trenchant denial provided by Deathism, however securely available, has become too costly and dangerous, undermining as it does, human survival, always fraught with uncertainty, in that, much as the religion of Christian Science enjoins by taboo its adherents from modern medicine, even in life and death illness or injury, similarly Deathism pacifies and obstructs available treatment and care, the only possibility, ultimately, for survival, for the clinically dead, being the ultimate heroic measure that is Cryonics in hopes of eventual future technological advance in order ever to make reanimation possible. Deathism also manifests in such lukewarm market resistance against research towards Radical Life Extension, the sought for aging cure, closer within reach than ever before, to modern science. Aging which is one hundred percent fatal, need not merely be treated and endured in advancing years, but can be eradicated much as have so many life threatening infectious diseases and plagues that once ravaged the world. But Deathism engenders willful blindness, inaction and underfunding.

 

Cryonics, going it alone instead of becoming better integrated with available infrastructure, and perhaps also Radical Life Extension research to reverse aging and eradicate natural death, currently function within the restraints produced by Deathism in society. Just as with other kinds of bigotry, practice of Deathism retreats beneath the surface, as bigotry becomes less palatable in society. No one protests: "But my best friends are Emortalists!" Never the less, time and again, initial friendly support, mysteriously dissipates in business connectivity for Cryonics. Follow ups never materialize. Calls and emails are no longer answered. Thus, no one need admit squeamishness and then account for the sly backhanded disrespect of their aggression. Cryonics is widely despised. People are squeamish whether they show it or not. People, even Atheists, will only go so far, in tolerance of Atheism, even their own Atheism in their own minds: It's one thing to embrace reason, outgrow and forgo the empty promise of faith and the hereafter, but its another thing to rise to the challenge and try to do something about it. The offer of help via cryonics, for the terminal or the bereaved, the unique compassion in the very idea of just going as far as it will take to ameliorate profound tragedy, may even be warmly appreciated, but nevertheless rejected. It's just too much, too good for mere mortals so heteronymously enjoined to accept our fate like sheeple to the slaughter.

 

Tact and pity demand deference to helplessness and comforting fairy tales, whether of religion and the hereafter or such as is dished up in secular Deathist apologetics, nonsensical abstraction and all around travesty of genuine Philosophy. Real hope will only enliven despair. And breaching the monopoly of religion and secular Deathism with disturbingly real alternatives hopes, is just unconscionable in such thinking, even nowadays that the possibility of morality without God is commonly acknowledged, indeed it's improvement upon all pious piffle and intolerance. And yet the loss of comfort in Deathism, to the individual and to society, remains more deeply feared, even than death itself. As we shall see, that enduring yearned for comfort is heteronomy, the terrified enemy of autonomy.

 

All of this, again, is why pervasive and ubiquitous Deathism is more than merely a cultural curiosity, but a very serious hazard today. Deathism, in entrenched bigotry against Cryonics and also against Radical Life Extension, remains subtle and insidious, taking the form of squeamishness and obstruction by passive aggressive non cooperation. Even initial seeming friendly good will, that somehow quickly fade away into calls and emails no longer returned. For, actually only the most vulgar and marginal are openly hostile. Only the most hysterical plot obstruction. And so, our frustration remains with sheer inertia, societally. Cryonics is not taken seriously, and trying to get anything done can be frustrating and lonely.

 

Social support in any endeavor, as ever may remain amongst the foremost predicate of success, hence deficiency or mismatch to whatever actual needs, of social support, the very recipe for failure. Cryonics still is not integrated into the mainstream of care, thus denied crucially needed infrastructure. Indeed in quest of logistics, the most straightforward of business arrangements and relationships, even initially promising, tend mysteriously to stall and pitter out stillborn. Ironically, it often seems that it is Cryonics itself that displays suspended animation! Saul Kent, no less, has put forth that is self inflicted on the part of the Cryonic community ourselves, by retreating from the main stream and seeking to go it alone. We in the Cryonics community, have not been team players! Integrated Recovery is a new business model seeking to amend the despised reclusion of Cryonics in a big way.

 

Inevitably, every solution brings new problems. One only hopes that the proverbial cure won't be worse than whatever metaphorical malady, and certainly not actual fate worse than death! Indeed, prolonging life often raises exactly such issues of quality of life, the prolonging only of suffering such as to inspire the yearning for release in death. But Cryonics has no impact upon quality of life, except to offer even rational individuals, the consoling hope that death can be temporary. And Radical Life Extension, the aging cure, will vastly improve quality of life. As we shall see, from a practical standpoint over all improvement can be predicted, while the new problems are less severe than those solved and generally surmountable.

 

Indeed, for the most part, the problems raised by overcoming death, either by Cryonics, Radical Life Extension, or the former as it will serve as a fallback for the latter, are entirely Existential. Because clearly, both life and death are fraught with Existential conundrum. So, by what rationale should life even in good health and in comfort, at any point in time, be anticipated to become more terrifying than irreversible death? Therefore, the real question is, by what Axiological measure can whatever Existential issues actually be deemed worse than death, death in all the terror not only of its most obvious and tangible ramifications but also notoriously, Existentially? There are also predictive questions, Psychologically and Sociologically, in the foretelling of any suffering before deeming said suffering actually worse than death. All in all, the morbid doomsayers seem, as the expression goes, at the same time both too serious and not serious enough. All in all, Deathism seems incomprehensible to non Deathists. What can it be that taboo ridden Deathists withhold and refuse to explain plainly? Or are they just as crazy as they seem?

 

Perhaps the fear of unending life, is the fear of an eternity of life's anxiety, with no anticipation of final rest and release. Thus the remedy for fear of life, is better optimism in the prospect of growth and resolution of anxieties at all. The fear of practical immortality, then, is the fear of inevitable and needed change, of responsible autonomy. And all the rhetorical apologetics shielding this truth is nothing more than dishonest Existential bad faith.

 

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”

— Anaïs Nin

 

Psychodynamically, most of the kind of people to whatever degree actually finding themselves veritably hanging on by their proverbial fingernails, teeth clenched only waiting for death, adamantly refuse to be honest with themselves about their dismal life strategy. For such abide so shamefully, the loneliness of pent up bad faith and denial eating away at them. And death will only rob them of any last chance for the only release, that of expression met with understanding, that anyone truly needs in order to more wholeheartedly press on and appreciate life. -And of autonomy. There is no self salvation, no dignified exit. Barring intolerable suffering with no hope to give any reasonable point in delaying the inevitable, suicide only comes from dispirited self pity filling that void of yearned for expression met with understanding. And even in case of the worst suffering, may nevertheless actually be the more motivated by the sheer crushingly lonely sense of isolation because no one seems to comprehend their extreme plight, than by the relief from any other and more palpable adversity or even the most searing physical pain.

 

 

 

 

The sheer heteronomy of Deathism: Emortalism as inextricable with autonomy

For what Deathism as any other decidophobic manifestation of heteronomy so fears, is nothing less than the Existential burden of freedom. Deathism extolling definition in human mortality, is simply Agoraphobia along the axis of time.

 

“The nature of a novel is that it has no opinions, only the dialectic of contrary views, some of which, all of which, may be untenable and even silly.”

 — Anthony Burgess  

 

Practical Immortality cannot bring with it certain guarantees that Deathism demands of it. Quite the contrary, Practical Immortality brings worthy challenges, affording more time, nothing being more precious than time, in meeting the challenges of life. But Deathism, the ultimate in heteronomy, contends that only time pressure makes anyone philosophical, and that Emortals will be irredeemably callow. Thus Deathism secretly dreads the yearned for recover of innocence as the very loss of their souls into eternal living death! But as we shall see, they fear the opposite outcome all the more. The paralytic ambivalence of heteronomy generally and Deathism most particularly, is positively omni-directional! Such pervasive ambivalence after all, is really nothing less than fear of life.

 

Of course there are heroes who lay down their very lives. But this they do in extreme exigency, with specific objectives and priorities, never in sheer effete principle of routine selflessness! That makes all the difference in the example which is noble and sterling, versus the example that is simply toxic and self destructive! 

Heteronomy, mindless loyalty, ideology and dogmatism, are all collective panic response, metaphorically circling the proverbial wagons in times of crisis. But then crisis is perpetuated. The true perpetual Existential crisis has always been death impending. And denial only makes matters worse. Only take death and infirmity off the table, and what will be the ramifications to human consciousness? What does the sheer heteronomy of Deathism really so dread? Peace of mind, the removal of stress and fear, undermines the great crutch of status quo order. More time opens more options which are the very bane of decidophobia. Imagine: Emmortals may finally be able to hear themselves think! The horror, the horror...

If instinctual self preservation alone will not suffice, nor even the yearning for love to endure, then any motivating enthusiasm for whatever prospect of Radical Life Extension must be predicated upon some or other hope for progress and betterment of one kind or another, preferably free from the decline of aging. For example: Unfolding wonderment in the world of tomorrow. Or more tangibly, rising standards of living. Or perhaps most meaningfully, whatever manner of self improvement and personal evolution.

 

Perhaps the true protagonist of the movie ‘TMNT’ AKA ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV’ is Yaotl, the world's worst person, an evil sorcerer and merciless conquering warlord, a regular Hyperborean Hitler/Genghis Khan, who has since those mythic ancient days, subsequently grown into perhaps the world's best and most noble person, now living as corporate mogul Max Winters. And it is made explicit, that this transformation, otherwise too great and quite impossible, has been accomplish only by living for thousands of years! And yet, now he must now sacrifice his immortal life, in order to redeem himself and save the world from dire consequences of his own prior schemes unraveling and come back to haunt him.

 

The very premise embodies the entire gamut of ever mounting Existential ambivalence in our society today, as expressed in popular culture and entertainment, upon any prospect of Radical Life Extension, and indeed, the very value of life itself at all to begin with. Immortality, more life and therefore life itself at all in the first place, is so dramatically presented as: a blessing, a curse, a miracle, and unnatural tampering demanding price of atonement, all at once!

 

Going at all more High Brow, the salient underappreciated Morality Play of the notable and truly forward looking Science Fiction movie 'Vanilla Sky' is subtle in subversion of hoariest cliché: The expectation is built up for yet another cliché Sci-Fi B-movie sermon about how man was never meant to play God. But then no hint thereof ever materializes between interacting characters after all populating a future setting wherein the technological overthrow of mortality, far from hubris, is already common place. Indeed, the very thought never so much as occurs! For in the famous words of Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr: "The more things change, the more they remain the same." To wit: The hardest part of life is living. Indeed, as it turns out, removing the dreadful prospect of death is without secondary Existential ramification, unless of course quite simply, one fears life even more than death. Maybe it makes some sense to fear life more than death. Life is risk, while death is beyond harm. Still, you can have it.

 

In the words of André Gide: “What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told.” Therefore dramatists must ever quest for some downside at all, even to freedom from death. And hack Deathist trope and cliché are easiest and fall most readily within reach. Whereas meaningful Existential exploration is by far the higher dramatic aspiration. And what 'Vanilla Sky' so brilliantly accomplishes is to vindicate the worthiness not so much of life's rewards, as first of all, of life's problems. It is indeed the Philosophical person most suited to rise to the prospect of Emortality: Freud sought to transform extreme neurotic suffering into ordinary unhappiness. A wistful melancholy as the protagonist David Aames arrives to instead of any dire ennui, well qualifies. For while the depths of ennui are long reputed as interminable and dark, the sweet melancholy of even David's saddest might have beens still touch eternity by evocation of hope and value, so that he can confidently choose to continue living and to strive in pursuit of happiness, or at least in rebellion against the Absurd, with the entire richness and range of human emotion, from hope and opportunity to the appropriateness of grief, even given every caveat of all of life's vicissitudes, yes, even indefinably into a mysterious and uncharted future. In the words of R.M. Perry, Ph.D.: “The individual ought to endure - for a life rightly lived is never rightly ended.” 

 

Father of Existentialism Albert Camus writes that "it is essential to die unreconciled and not of one's own free will". Does that mean that it is first of all, essential to die? Or would that just be quoting out of context? After all, how could Camus deem it essential to die? Camus only denied intrinsic external meaning to discover, in favor of meaningful human experience to express, as by love, adventure or the arts. For to deem dying essential, would that not constitute reconciliation with death? No: Rather one must be reconciled with the natural fear of death. Survival instinct is good. In like rebellion against the Absurd, Groucho Marx declared “I intend to live forever, or die trying.” And that has become motto for Emortalism. How Absurd a rebellion against the Absurd, an empty insincere griping in collapse under its own weight of pretensions, then to balk as practical immortality actually looms into feasibility! Far better to extend rebellion against the Absurd, fearlessly and indefinitely! If futility in the face of the Absurd should never deter us from unrelenting struggle, then unprecedented new opportunity ought likewise to be embraced undaunted. There can be little excuse for sheer failure of imagination.

 

As Kathy muses in ‘Never Let Me Go’ (2010) from the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro: “Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.” Perhaps the humility of Deathism is actually squeamishness at the prospect of the eternal and therefore boundless inadequacy of the immortal nebbish, therefore cherishing the extinction of thereby finite individual fallibility. Indeed, Existential inadequacy from comparing so poorly to God and Divine perfection, is actually a common complaint. Again, the hardest part of life is living.

 

In truth, what is attendant upon the appropriateness of grief, suffering that persists with whatever the injurious cause thereof, therefore valued as useful, even howsoever aversive, as often highly beneficial and meaningful motivation, is the impulse of expression and the yearning for understanding, a desire no less that such relief from expression, indeed the reliving of unresolved suffering, cannot actually be called pleasurable. Indeed, such exactly may be all that the suicide seeks to protect themselves from being overwhelmed and from the very catharsis that may ever bring any Psychiatric relief. Therefore, perhaps the fear of unending life, is the fear of an eternity of life's anxiety, with no anticipation of final rest and release. Thus the remedy for fear of life, is better optimism in the prospect of growth and resolution of anxieties at all. The fear of practical immortality, then, is the fear of inevitable and needed change, upon which all true hope resides. And all the rhetorical apologetics shielding this truth is nothing more than dishonest Existential bad faith. Transhumanism, instead, celebrates the nigh inevitability of the most dizzyingly drastic changes in the human condition, nigh inevitable in the face of technological progress and cultural evolution, even as anticipated in the grandest Science Fiction.

 

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”

— Anaïs Nin

 

Again, Psychodynamically, most of the kind of people to whatever degree actually finding themselves veritably hanging on by their proverbial fingernails, teeth clenched only waiting for death, adamantly refuse to be honest with themselves about their dismal life strategy. For such abide so shamefully, the loneliness of pent up bad faith and denial eating away at them. And death will only rob them of any last chance for the only release, that of expression met with understanding, that anyone truly needs in order to more wholeheartedly press on and appreciate life. There is no self salvation, no dignified exit. Barring intolerable suffering with no hope to give any reasonable point in delaying the inevitable, suicide only comes from dispirited self pity filling that void of yearned for expression met with understanding. And even in case of the worst suffering, may nevertheless actually be the more motivated by the sheer crushingly lonely sense of isolation because no one seems to comprehend their extreme plight, than by the relief from any other and more palpable adversity or even the most searing physical pain.

 

Alas, death may often come as a release more for onlookers who really can't be bothered, those malignant angels of death. For again, in the words of Simone Weil: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” 

 

In Augustine's famous prayer: “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet” he makes ironic confession of what he condemns as his own weakness in such dividedness, in contrast to the blithe ambivalence of Deathism in likewise putting off, essentially, suicide. For such is eventual natural or circumstantial death by whatever avowed preference, sour grapes not withstanding. And many have taken Psychodynamic, Existential and Situational inventory of sexuality, taken opposition to shame and guilt, embracing Eros and Agape both, ideals of Hedonistic sexual liberation and dignity in harmony with the quest for meaningful intimacy. Alas, however, survivor guilt remains even the more intractable and concealed, than frustration with anti-sex!

Perhaps the flimsiest and most gloomy amongst tropes of Deathist apologetics, not to mention patronizing beyond belief, remains the implication that too squeamish for suicide, we need natural aging and death, randomly timed but generally on schedule, in order to relieve us all of just such weighty decisions for us, just as the Pro-Lifers similarly contend that nature must be allowed to take its course in procreation, because without the cycle of nature, people by themselves are simply without autonomy, aimless and bereft of initiative in charting our own destiny or rising to any other opportunities in life as may ever present themselves, let alone family. But this is true only of heteronomy. And heteronomy is learned not innate. Bioconservatism, be as manifest in Pro-Life doctrine or as in Deathist sensibility, simply romanticizes decidophoia. And in truth, life or death is all the same to decidophobia, so long the outcomes are already selected for us. For the decidophobe responsibility in the face of change and the unknown, is actually more frightful than death, and hence the allure of heteronomy.

“The hostility of many people towards cryonics cannot be explained if people categorically believe that meaningful resuscitation (revival) is impossible. It is the prospect that cryonics may actually work that induces severe anxiety. If the antinatalists are correct in their assessment that coming into existence is always a harm, the unpopularity of cryonics might be indirect evidence for their position.”  

 

— ‘Non-existence is hard to do’ by Aschwin de Wolf

 

 

Indeed, judging whether life ever can be worth living, and perhaps even under what abstractly possible or conceivable conditions of practical implementation, might even be deemed the most central of all questions to the human condition. And hope for life worth living is either actively vested in the quest for honest integrity together with the pursuit of happiness and functional relationship or else Nihilistically rejected and condemned as by Zen Mysticism that is rightly so often called out as a cowardly religion, being after all so loath even to risk living life unadulteratedly burdened by the human condition of ego and often even morbid Phenomenal inner reflection, conscience that makes cowards of us all ever dwelling upon suffering from misfortunes occurring in external reality, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

There are indeed those who at whatever level, actually cling with adamantine desperation not even to sheer fantasies of blissful afterlife, but in anticipation of annihilation and release into oblivion, in order to render the burden of life at all tolerable in the interim. Such being the case however, why do they put it off at all? It does rather seem somewhat ambivalent. But then, it is often adversity rather than calm and comfort that spurs the very stubborn will to live that is both so celebrated and so denounced. Alas, some rain must fall into any life, of course. Nevertheless, rejecting all variously and dismally lowered expectations, what conditions, be they of pursuit of excellence, liberating play, or anything else, might ever remain in balance engagingly pleasurable and meaningful enough to finally quell any serious temptation of suicide, even passively? And how long need one live and endure in order ever to discover and attain true fulfillment?

It is often preached that only death gives life meaning so that there must be some vague chronological cut off point to the value of living. How so? Countable or measurable goods are subject to diminishing returns at any given moment, but life is a supply over time. There is never any excess from the standpoint of sheer survival instinct. One moment of life covers one moment of time exactly. And diminishing returns from any one ingredient assumes fixed supplies of whatever other ingredients. In the ongoing struggle against boredom and loneliness, fulfillment essential to human flourishing, is transitory but renewable. That is the only meaningful natural cycle that intrinsically defines the human condition. Otherwise, exactly what value will be exhausted in too long an entirely healthy life? Beyond any healthy dose of sheer gregarious superficial Hedonism, all that longer healthy lives will truly demand at any given moment, will be the hope of a longer meaning thereto, achievable only in rejection of the near and far taboo. Yes, perhaps, like Yaotl/Max Winters, the ever growing and self improving deathless person must indeed become more contemplative and philosophical, but like David Ames and unlike Yaotl/Max Winters, finding the wherewithal to live rather than the resolve to die.

Even with all that is so clearly corroborated and well known, people continue to take up smoking tobacco, indeed endangering their lives for low quality mass market tobacco at that, and not even in any trade off for whatever real pleasure or gourmet experience. Worse, mass market cigarettes are laced with ammonia in order to hasten nicotine uptake, the more addictively. The history of just all what it took simply to garner public support in order to make safety belts standard in automobiles, is truly mind staggering. And even today, so many people piss and moan, refusing to buckle up. Worst, the drivers who refuses to buckle up, endangers not only themselves. And of course, we all know full well, about the lethality of second hand smoke. The prevailing answers to human mortality are denial that rationalizes despair and acquiescence, and equanimity that is nothing but denial. It is fair to ask, then: Is there some prevailing death wish?! Little wonder, therefore, that the causes of cryonics and radical life extension research, are such an uphill struggle. Alas that those purportedly not wishing to live forever, seem so determined to hold back those of us who do. An aging cure with a fall back to cryonic suspension in the worst mishap, ought to be readily available to everyone and anyone.

 

 

The philosopher's revenge

Better than we deserve

“Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.” — Bertrand Russell

 

 

 

Imagine no more dying
 And no more aging too
 No more fear to escape from
 And no one left behind
 
Imagine all the people
 Thinking for themselves
 Uh huh

 

You may tell me that death unites us

 Lest we wander in our souls

 Towards whatever unknown horizon

 Would that really be quite so bad at all?

Imagine no more virtue

 Of self sacrifice

 No more Moralism

 Or austerity

     

Imagine strides of progress

 Each and every day

 Yay hay

 

Imagine automation

 Freeing us from toil

 Time and wealth for the having

 And sex appeal too!

 

But would I even notice?

 Would you notice me?

 He he

 

Now we see what remains important

 When distractions are improved

 The true currency of humanity

  The attention economy

 

Heteronomy, mindless loyalty, ideology and dogmatism, are all collective panic response of terror management, metaphorically circling the proverbial wagons in times of crisis. But then crisis is perpetuated. But behind it all, the true perpetual Existential crisis has always been death impending. And denial only makes matters worse. Only take death and infirmity off the table, and what will be the ramifications to human consciousness? What does the sheer heteronomy of Deathism really so dread? Peace of mind, the removal of stress and fear, undermines the great crutch of status quo order. More time opens more options which are the very bane of decidophobia. Imagine: Emmortals may finally be able to hear themselves think!

 

In the world of tomorrow, making people do anything they don't want to do, becomes ever more difficult, as liberating automation improves and affluence becomes increasingly secure for all. Ever more resources become available as an ageless undying population seeks arête in worthy occupation to fill increased leisure. The travail of busywork will be abolished. Nevertheless, the prospect of an indefinitely vast future remains intimidating. We are all emotionally dystressed, mentally ill, to some degree. The individual and social psychiatric adaptations, meant only to endure for one natural lifetime at very most, inevitably fray at the edges and begin to break down. The future then, the heyday of psychotherapy for the masses of the worried well, as less extreme psychiatric patients are sometimes called. Because the only real problems with living forever in good health and prosperously comfortable standards of living, appear to be entirely Existential. The future, then, of similar necessity, is a golden age of Philosophy. Existential conundrum is fundamental to the human condition as we know it. The hardest part of life is living. The embrace of Emortality, of practical immortality, signifies the respect to cherish that most Philosophical of quests, the struggle with Existential conundrum and anxiety, as meaningfully valuable and significant, yes, perhaps even forever. Death is no answer, death only silences abruptly, the very discourse. Death is a tyrant, not a sage!

 

As the saying goes, long childhoods are natural, and very long childhoods are civilized. And as shall be seen, the same might be said of adolescence! For the overthrow of biological destiny has scarcely begun: In the near future, eradication of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease is complete. Health is secure, and prospective parents must first agree before naturally conceiving. Moreover, aging and metabolic problems such as obesity and all of its complications, will also be things of the past. In the future, everyone is forever young, slim and fuckable! But sex or perhaps more properly: Eros, as any part of life as we know it, can never be safe from the greatest motivating fantasy of all, the greatest yearning, temptation and stark terror of the human condition, which are all one and the same: the emotions and experience of intimacy. Thus, in the vastness of centuries unfolding, there will be no escaping real character development and growth. Or at the risk of becoming mawkish, to quote the Robert Heinlein book title: 'Time Enough for Love.'

 

And growth may be regrettably perceived as threatening to integrity. We self identify not only with our highest virtues and values, but alas, all too often with so many flaws and limitations, even the most silly and superficial of eccentricities, and just such delusion of ingrained low self esteem can hold us back from overcoming them, even when opportunity arises. Clinging to self identification as mortal, even in the dawning of better options, is only an example of exactly such self destruction.

 

Vocational Rehabilitation grounded in Theatrical Coaching, must not only circumvent, Behaviorally, but at all address, Psychodynamically, just such identity fixations. Facetious as it may sound, clients are encouraged to think of themselves not as stutterers, but as perfectly eloquent speakers who stutter, not as poor people, but as millionaires without their fortunes, and so on. In this way, it is hoped that progress in overcoming their problems will then harmonize egosyntonically and cease to be egodystonic, clashing with self image and ideals. And in our times, amid the ongoing overthrow of biological destiny, there may be found good reason even for identifying as Transhuman and perceiving ourselves as futuristic immortals burdened with a congenital affliction of throwbacks, to whit: aging, soon fatal if not properly treated. From that standpoint, Radical Life Extension research, with Cryonics as interim fall back, no longer seems half so weird at all, but indeed, the most obvious common sense and long overdue. 

 

The quest for truth, like progress, is never ending. Likewise, we ourselves are perpetually unfinished, always in need of more time. Leonardo da Vinci said: "Art is never finished, only abandoned." Life however, consisting of the greatest of arts, Philosophy and self-work, that can never finish, nevertheless must never simply be abandoned, either. Life, for the individual no less than the entire civilization, is not being but becoming, and therefore requires no conclusion in death. Not anymore than time itself must yearn for definition by finally ever running out. Nothing can be more natural than eternity itself. Immortality then, is nothing unnatural, but actually perpetuation of the greatest conceivable harmony with nature which is nothing more or less than the global condition of incessant relentless evolution.

 

Society will also continue to reorganize itself to better address individual social needs in combating boredom and loneliness. Four project proposals to such ends are presented here on FoolQuest.com: Creativity Should be Social strives to address creativity as a neglected and underserved social impulse, Planet Frolic explores more playful and stimulating alternative to dreary modern mass market recreation, Automated Network Sociometry advocates sophisticated profiling and matching for bringing together and better socially embedding highly compatible people, both in personal connections and relationships and in social circles and groups, while CliqueBusters offers the most radical known though non violent approach to combat pandemic bullying, most malignant among stumbling blocks in the pursuit of happiness.

 

 

 

Why will the future want us back?

Why such pessimism?

 

Will the Cryonics community fade from history? Will the cryonaughts really have no advocates? If we could actually recover time travelling refugees from our own history, wouldn't we jump at the chance? (-much as we would, to contact alien life or awaken sapience in animals or machines...) Let us hope for a future that understands that we are all only as strong as our weakest link, and that this is why a society is to be judged by how they treat the most helpless strangers. It won't be expensive in Robotopia, the automated and affluent leisure society where everything will be free! When Cryonic Suspension is standard in emergency escape procedures, will they actually discriminate against the pioneers thereof?

 

Culture shock worse than death? Really? If indeed such a terrible disorientation will be anticipated for the returnees to life, and their reanimation is therefore put off for a while so as to take the time in order better to smooth their path, that might not be so terrible. What need of Draconian remedies? Why expect the worst? What support thereof, except 1) the most cynical expectations of human nature, even into the future, and 2) the most cynical assessment of our own enduring worth, to wit: survivor guilt? In the words of Samuel Johnson: “Nothing [...] will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.” What is there in such effete cynicism as under consideration here, that actually deserves serious consideration? For one thing, that not enough has been done to assure the best future. But it never has been. And that not enough is being done in the crafting of lasting institutions, in order to establish and secure the practice of Cryonics. And this is the primary concern of the present work. At any rate, a society that chooses to rescue and reanimate the cryonozed patients, will be a decent and evolved society that values life and respects the individual. And there are just such optimistic futuring scenarios actually supportable by science and the analysis of trends. 

 

 

 

Fear based? terror management

Are such gloomy Deathist predictions of eternal ennui testable and scientific? What would be the conditions of refutation? Obviously, there are too many variables. There is no guarantee of happiness or unhappiness alike, in life, even for the moment, much less enduring indefinitely. Paradoxically, it is not uncommon simultaneously to have too much time on ones hands, and yet never enough time. Time weighing upon the individual, passes. But time running out, only ends forever. Better too much than too little! in the famous words of Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr: "The more things change, the more they remain the same." To wit: The hardest part of life is living. That will remain constant, even without death. Happiness and quality of life are enduringly great and worthy challenges, and the primary focus of FoolQuest.com Deathism is just cowardly and Draconian. Yet they find the temerity to denigrate Cryonics as fear-based! But what does that even mean?

 

As Ecclesiastes observes even in antiquity, despite how the dead cannot suffer, mortality remains a tremendous and incessant suffering and horror. "More than one hundred years ago, the American philosopher William James dubbed the knowledge that we must die “the worm at the core” of the human condition" motivating such pervasive denial simply in order to cope with Existential terror and anxiety. Sigmund Freud, the founder of Psychoanalysis, classified religion under “obsessional neurosis”, suggesting that a belief in a God was the result of an “immature infantile helplessness” to then seek comfort in the fantasy of an omnipotent protector. All manner of individual and cultural coping mechanisms are catalogued as motivated by terror management. The terror referenced in the very appellation: terror management, is specifically the terror of death. But people individually and in concert can be similarly panicked by far lesser threats, especially to cultural survival or other coping methods and legacy beyond individual death. So many circumstances can even loom as fearful as death itself. According to terror management theory, sublimation of the debilitating inner conflict between the drive to survive with the knowledge of mortality, shapes all human cultures, character and endeavor in quest of meaning, value and self-esteem. Shared denial is reassuring and attractive, while variation thereof raises threatening doubt. Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon and Tom Pyszczynski, the grandfathers of terror management theory, have experimentally corroborated how reminders of death, more overt or more subliminal, increase both Xenophobia and Moralism in expression and behavior. Indeed experimentally, conscious and unconscious bigoted aversion, both Xenophobia and prudish Moralism, can be triggered by the elicitation of thoughts of mortality. But as shall be seen, values of reason, tolerance and democracy drastically help abate intolerance, and even the more so in the face of death.

 

The future as well as the past, is even conceived of as belonging to an eternal now, beyond transience and duration, wherein space-time abides as a seamless whole. The concept originates in a certain Mystically expansive sense of the timeless, of Eternity being an enduring theme of divination with origins in Mystical and religious experiences often as achieved in meditation and prayer by the inwardly focused suppression of spatiotemporal coordination in the superior parietal lobe, a strategy of innate terror management, a neurological denial and coping mechanism evolved in defense from the dreadful eventuality of death and consciousness irreversibly extinguished. Indeed, it was the ambient preconscious timelessness of the mythic Astral Plane that gave rise in the fertile mind of Science Fiction pioneer HG Wells, instead, to the revolutionary Ontology of time frame as an actual fourth physical dimension, for Einstein later to build upon the paradoxical Lorenz Equations, and even, though not to digress, the very concept of time travel.

Most rudimentary of terror management strategies arises from sheer conflict aversion, not just to interpersonal conflict, but conflict with uncongenial circumstances and even with ambivalence, inner conflict. Thence the most rudimental tactics of just putting on blinders, are procrastination, putting out of mind what is still distant, followed by resignation to what has slowly become imminent. In short: suicidal depression. It doesn't help for very long, but then, it doesn't have to. Such irrelevant refinements of lying to oneself in dishonest subjective coping at the expense of objectively real survival, is an example in psychology, of the integrative yet declining terminal normative phase in the lifecycle of all manner of complex systems, ending in death without rebirth.

 

We know what happens when culturally reinforced self deception is allowed to compromise the very will to live: Scapegoating is the inevitable result. Reminders of mortality among other threats, increase susceptibility to anxiety, and therefore also in-group support and worldview defense. Terror management, the syndromes of coping with dread of mortality so foundational to all human culture, inspire approval towards the likeminded who bolster the sense of membership in communal terror management, and resentment of outsiders whose sense of membership in conflicting communal terror management, challenges, casts doubt upon and threatens ones own sense of membership in communal terror management. No wonder then, that shameful survivor guilt ridden terror management strategies of Existential bad faith and denial, bring thoughts of death to inspire such punitive prudish judgmental Moralism and irrationally virulent Xenophobia.

 

But membership in communal terror management also demands adherence to values which can include compassion, tolerance, democracy and even Eros that is the quest for completion and transformation via the oft frustrated desire for connection, liberating union with alien difference, all counteracting fearful intolerance against those who think differently. Either way, because of innate survival drives and the love of life, it is really death which is actually so abhorrent.

 

One might turn in hope, to terror management theory, in order to explode all manner of dangerous comforting myths. But only up to a point. Alas, there is an implication in subtext, of terror management strategy, even in the very rhetoric of terror management theory itself: This is because terror management is deemed the prime motive of sublimation behind all of human culture, activity and values, the good and the bad. This is classic trope of Deathist apologetics, the suggestion that death is what drives us and hence is indispensible, and worse, the deeper cynical implication being that nothing else in life can stir us. Bah, humbug!

 

Heteronomy, mindless loyalty, ideology and dogmatism, are all collective panic response of terror management, metaphorically circling the proverbial wagons in times of crisis. But then crisis is perpetuated. But behind it all, the true perpetual Existential crisis has always been death impending. And denial only makes matters worse. Only take death and infirmity off the table, and what will be the ramifications to human consciousness? What does the sheer heteronomy of Deathism really so dread? Peace of mind, the removal of stress and fear, undermines the great crutch of status quo order. More time opens more options which are the very bane of decidophobia. Imagine: Emmortals may finally be able to hear themselves think!

 

In fairness however, to terror management theory and the claim that all human culture and activity is rooted in terror management, sublimation motivated by the dread of looming oblivion, indeed even Emortalism comes in response to mortality. Emortalism is a plea for sweet reason, compassion and tolerance in the name of proactive survival, because death is what we quite rightly revile and the true enemy of life. And with modern technological advance, we can finally do something about it, if only we can find the courage to overcome thousands of years of coping superstition and finally pull our heads out of the sand.

 

Anything constructive in the paper thin defense of sublimation cannot long endure the agitation of mortality emerging into consciousness. Honest threat and rage in the face of death are only part of Existential honesty, sensemaking and the appropriateness of grief. It's all about who we truly are: The reason why thoughts of death can instead motivate compassion and thence generosity is exactly because the vulnerability arousing from the primal fear of death together with human comprehension of mortality, is corollary to love and the appreciation of life. We owe this not to death, but to the will to live. What then is there more noble and sublime, than the aversion to death and the yearning to bring forth good out of tragedy, indeed optimally? Why endure more than we must? It is important to plan for the worst and for the inevitable. Why taboo and repress when we can take prudent action? Why shy away? Shouldn't we at least investigate?

 

Group membership co-validates similar terror management strategy and promises cultural survival, while different competing terror management strategies cast doubt and are therefore reciprocally threatening. And then inflated confidence and denial from lying to oneself inevitably called into question, elicits dystress as the bubble bursts. And to begin with, Cryonics is perhaps the smallest minority view. Even Radical Life Extension research, already has its virulent enemies. But Cryonics is like some alien invader, into our society and culture of terror management. Cryonics is indeed rates very poorly by the traditional infaliblist standards of terror management, because it is the very opposite of traditional terror management. The rationalistic materialism of Cryonics implicitly challenges all denial and Existential bad faith, particularly supernatural claims as of religion, doctrine and delusions of the hereafter. Cryonics implicitly challenges all other such sophistry of Deathism as cataloged and deconstructed herein. And terror management is not just psychological, but a vast and significant social enterprise, challenged by Cryonics even more so than by Radical Life Extension. Cryonics begins from Existential good faith, in the embrace of that synergy of animal terror of death together with human comprehension and time bound anticipation of the future, so unique to the human condition. -and the root of all culture, according to terror management theory... Emortalism is humanistic and tolerant of all in the desire to survive, that so often meets with such approbation as unnaturally selfish. Cryonics is rational proactive investigation and implementation towards survival. Cryonics is a long shot of tantalizing engineering feasibility, with no false assurance of certainty. And that is what demands real hope and attitudinal faith, not doctrine. Take a chance! It's better than none.

 

What then is there that is not howsoever fear based? At least in principle, just as every circumstance while true bars other contradictory circumstances simultaneously, similarly every desire for one thing entails aversion, desire against, towards its contradiction, and conversely, reciprocally, every aversion engenders some desire of some or other range of conceivably contradictory possible states of affairs. Thus, again in principle, the assertion that any plan is fear based, seems nigh tautological Ad Hominem failure of relevance. However, in actuality, impulsive desires and overwhelming terrors alike, often do impair judgment. Nevertheless, judgment is characteristic of people and their decisions, and in action subject to Empirical observation, not intrinsic to motivating objects of desire and aversion. Thus, in Ad Hominem, much as an assertion can only be stupid only in so far as that only a stupid person would believe it, Cryonics be fear based only in so far as people interested or involved may ever fear. And likewise, this will hardly constitute any damning criticism except in so far as whatever howsoever fearfully impaired individual judgment, strategically. Why else fear to be afraid?

 

The fear of death can also provoke proactive effort towards survival, to forestall death, and not just passive coping strategies of denial or bad judgment and risk taking.

 

Integrated Recovery and the promise of real progress in the evolution of terror management.

 

There is no validity for a priori dismissal. Like any other desire or aversion, the wisdom of self preservation can motivate prudent or imprudent judgment and action alike, to be considered case by case. Judgment is over assessment of cost and risk over opportunity and benefit. And Integrated Recovery in particular, is a proposal towards minimizing the cost to the individual for the benefits of cryonics' services, while maximizing benefit to society. Thus there can be no emotion psychologically intrinsic to Cryonics whereby it may be dismissed, a priori. Logistics as can and have been applied to Cryonics, may be relatively sound or unsound as with any other undertaking pr project. Logistical soundness or unsoundness is not intrinsic to the very idea of Clinics in and of itself. Rather, it is bigotry of any sort, regarding Cryonics or anything else, which is intrinsically unserious. Beyond such jaundiced and puerile dismissal, there remains every possibility of Empirical observation in earnest, sociologically and psychologically. But more to the point, it will be only prudent to put aside intellectually and emotionally lazy squeamishness in order to deliberate seriously upon the desirability and feasibility of Cryonics and of Radical Life Extension, as well as whatever ramifications. 

Besides, returning to the question of Cryonics being fear based, and for that matter, fear of what? -of death, presumably, and whatever that means, by contrast, who is berated for hating oppression? Only perpetrators and sympathizers for whatever brand of oppression condemn the love of freedom and autonomy. As for example, the authorities and apologists in formal education as we know it. But I digress again. What then, is so damnable about fearing death, given simply that one does freely prefer to live after all? How is that any different? It isn't, really. For indeed, it is likewise only the perpetrators and sympathizers of natural status quo, that condemn all struggle in overthrow of biological destiny. Indeed, it only seems sensible, even beneficial, to shrink from annihilation, individually and as a species. And all of this is why, as Camus recommends, let us remain unreconciled with death and indeed, reconciled with the fear of death. There can be no robust love of life, without, as entirely appropriate corollary, an aversion to death called: self preservation. Thrill seekers need to seek out danger in order to feel fully alive. Better not to become so jaded in the first place, but to remain in touch with mortal terror and well motivated to survival, compassion and the eradication of death. All manner of entirely appropriate negative emotions are still of protective value, being as they are, aversive to all manner of harm. Fear of death is the most wonderful thing! Three cheers for the fear of death!

 

Or else if Emortalism is accused of being fearful of anything other than death, that, again, would devolve into an Empirical question about any given person or persons interested or involved, and not intrinsic to an idea or to a procedure. Still a fairly silly dismissal!

 

 

Can people actually become too miserably ashamed to go on living?

The Existential crisis of survivor guilt: morbid and unnaturally selfish?

Practical immortality, or: Emortality is a profoundly subversive idea: Objection to Cryonics is frequently predicated upon the risk and the expense, but also cynical doubt as regards to progress in very principle, and fear of all that the future may bring. As Mike Darwin points out in Part I of ‘Cryonics An Historical Failure Analysis’, Cryonics and the tantalizing though uncertain prospects of delayed resuscitation and reanimation, by the very hope offered, extend the strain and dystress of uncertainty and anxiety over life threatening illness into that of cryonic suspension, eliminating the closure and finality of death (of course barring, if ever, whatever any conceivable future prospect of retrograde time travel).

• ‘Cryonics An Historical Failure Analysis’ by Mike Darwin  Part I • Part II • Part III

Even beyond terror management to begin with, there is good reason here, for the heteronymous fear of upsetting the social order: Cryonics disrupts every conventional cultural and psychological defense mechanism in the face of impending bereavement. Moreover, unlike the dead and buried beyond all further harm, helpless and vulnerable cryonized corpsicles, like unto the mummified Pharaohs of antiquity, require indefinite care, vigilance and protection, and as history shows, very possibly ultimately unreliable. The logistical challenges and responsibilities therefore must be fulfilled in order to achieve any safety at all of true practicality and real hope out from sheer engineering feasibility in principle.

• Techniques of Suspense plotting

And perhaps worst of all, those who act and make the needed preparations in order to save themselves, may reflect in even consuming remorse and Existential despair, upon their failure to act sooner and more aggressively in order to save loved ones already dead without benefit of cryopreservation. But then, rightly or wrongly, we already feel much that same remorse, collectively, over the long overdue elimination of deadly oppression, war and famine, don't we? - feelings that we all hold in check, all the time. Not to mention how the overthrow of biological destiny as manifest in reproductive choice, has already promoted such great cultural upheaval, never mind what is to come from Radical Life Extension, the eradication of aging and natural death into the space age!

 

It is hoped that the new business model of Integrated Recovery could be just the thing to address syndromes of anxiety, Existential despair and survivor guilt, and finally get more people off the fence about both Cryonics and post mortem cadaverous donation!

 

In the time honored tradition of all patronizing and pandering propagandistic Gothic Morality Play of monster movies and the like, no good ever comes from the hubris of defying death! "Know thy place" -obey and die!- is the imperative of heteronomy, assuaging the burden freedom, as it is called, being no less than Existential envy of God because of such excruciating inadequacy in very principle with human imperfection, decidophobia, the terror less of risk in and of itself, or even of opportunity, than of responsibility at all in the face of uncertainty. The remoteness of survival via future technology, to so many just makes any distant opportunity for Emortality seem a small sacrifice to ward off such acute personal agony of decidophobia in the short term. Hence, conversely, the very notion of practical immortality achieved by technological advance, may serve as the crux of personal Existential reevaluation and improved autonomy. Deathism, the set of attitudes with or without supporting beliefs, such as that glorifies or at least accepts death and rejects or even despises immortality, typically argues that the elimination of death is impossible, unnecessary because of the hereafter (religion), and otherwise anyhow not so bad, even wonderfully good. Admittedly, death is indeed natural, but what of it? Absurd shit happens! Nature is Hobbesian: All manner of terrible events that we seek to prevent or to remedy are after all, only natural. What of it?

 

Procreation and memoirs are among the commonly extolled alternatives to simply not dying. All fine things as those may be in each their own right, obviously such are just not actually equivalent to survival of individual consciousness, but somewhat patronizingly transparent bait-and-switch. The drive for procreation and the notion of living on through ones offspring, are often referenced for implying by unsubstantiated invited inference but not valid logical inference, of the twisted purported moral but actually only Moralistic imperative of dying in order to make way for the next generation, without question or critical evaluation of in actuality whatever necessity (incidentally quite refutable), indeed as further implied by implication in turn, that procreation quite naturally and so completely satisfies survival, as quite to obviate individual personal survival drives, or more pointedly but even less explicitly, that it somehow ought to. But all of that seems scarcely any kinder or more rational than defending violence and oppression as, after all, natural impulses.

 

“I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.”  — Woody Allen 

 

So perhaps it is the seeming sheer individualistic selfishness of self preservation against nature, misguided Deathist exhortation to veritable passive mass agathusia (benevolent suicide) that brands both Cryonics and Radical Life Extension as so odious in the often Ludite and heteronymous public perception, all as endemic to the Moralistic formula of mortification embracing both the putative virtue of self sacrifice and the impulse to blame and punish others, along with the pervasive failure of imagination that accepts the current limitations of artificial scarcity of resources and ignores better non zero-sum alternatives.

 

The last ditch strategy towards the self-loathing and misguidedly yearned for but impossible and unattainable return to innocence and a clean slate, requires not only successive generations of the newborn, but the investment of self sacrifice and ultimate measure of heteronymous faith and devotion manifest in aging, fading away, perishing and making way for successive new generations, the hope of the future. -Indeed, an ultimate self sacrifice coming actually at no real additional sacrifice, but only given sour grapes and resignation to aging and death as natural and inevitable. After all, any prejudice such as Racism or Sexism never stands out but actually fades from notice within the bigoted milieu or setting, and it is much the same with Deathism here and now. Indeed, the uncertain and anxiety of personal autonomy at all is typically made to seem a small sacrifice in exchange for whatever peace of mind promised by heteronomy whereby at the same time, every effort is made to assure continuity and tradition, even in perpetuation of the fatalistic terminal fanaticism that is Deathism. So much, then, for innocence and a fresh start! This is sheer ambivalence and needs to be acknowledged as such in order ever to restore autonomy.

 

So one can see then, how any prospect of Practical Immortality by Radical Life Extension, let alone actually reversing even clinical death itself by means of delayed resuscitation and reanimation out from Cryonic Suspension, might tend to threaten and upset the entire carefully constructed rationalization and adaption of reaction formation. Therefore the proposed strategy of optional universal coverage for Cryonic Neurosuspension under Integrated Recovery, re-appropriates the same redemptive formula in a manner that instead resolves its core ambivalence.

 

The most common indictment against the prospect of Radical Life extension and the prospect of eliminating death from aging, is as likewise against Cryonics, of unnatural selfishness in the face of limited resources to be shared by all.

 

But actually, it is aging that already presents such a tremendous drain upon the resources of society. And it is getting worse, as the aging population grows. Indeed, the massive population of the baby boomers is entering into old age, and the imminent projected logistical and economic burden will be significant to put it mildly. Therefore, in truth, far from a burden upon scarce resources due to the increased population, in the eradication of aging, the sooner the better, is actually projected tremendous healthcare and other savings, especial as currently incurred during the final year or so, of the most awful, medically expensive and generally wretched suffering declining years of life into the looming ever nearer horror of death. Research is so underfunded, but finally there is any glimmer of serious funding because at long last, consciousness is rising, that the best way to treat all the various different maladies and infirmities symptomic of the epidemic pervasive degenerative condition called: aging, perhaps even Alzheimer's, will be actually once and for all, to reach to the root of the problem and treat aging itself.

 

Moreover, the problem of resources to begin with, remains that of vast inefficiency of so many kinds, not of demand to begin with. And with or without a regular death rate, as per what Thomas Malthus actually said, the aim of population control remains that of simply restraining the rate of population increase to remain within the rate of production increase. And the most effective means thereof has actually been in raising the standards of living. Indeed, with the extension and even perpetuation of youth, productivity, health and fertility, many people will naturally and responsibly tend to put off procreation first in favor of other desires and ambitions and also in order first to optimize circumstances for planned parenthood and best child rearing.

 

Aside from logistical misunderstanding of the threat of overpopulation, other even more feeble arguments against Cryonics and Radical Life Extension often begin from current medical and technological limitations of the very kind that will obviously have been overcome long before delayed resuscitation and reanimation out from Cryonic Suspension will ever come to pass. For prime example, the pointlessness of reviving and curing the terminally decrepit, doomed to suffer and quickly die all over again. But the Tithonus Error makes for a silly retort, typically impatient and deaf to all explanation that Radical Life Extension and the aging cure, looming as it does upon the horizon of current scientific progress, is after all far closer to realization than delayed resuscitation and reanimation out from Cryonic Suspension. Therefore, obviously, just as, if all goes well, reanimation would be for purposes of then curing whatever killed the patient to begin with, likewise a cryonized patient would be returned not only to life, but to full youthful vigor rather than merely resuming decrepitude and decline, even eternally.

 

In all fairness, there is simply no comparing the ordinary and reasonable selfishness any understandable and sympathetic human fear or desire with, for example, and despite nigh exponential inequality to begin with, the level of sheer amoral cleptocratic greed and fraud on such a scale as to continually undermine and threaten global finance. Indeed even such blatant greed aside, there is all manner of outrageous and endemic bureaucratic, military and other wasteful inefficiency on the most massive scale, routinely. Indeed, Buckminster Fuller famously estimated, if anything perhaps too generously, that the world is running fifteen percent efficient. And that's assuming only limited Terrestrial resources and ignoring the vast untapped riches off world and in the deep oceans. Therefore, demonizing Cryonics and even Radical Life Extension, hysteria over the burden of the resources to be consumed by an individual at all less than eager simply to simply roll over, die and make way, is surely as hypocritical, bigoted and intolerant as blaming the sick, the poor and the unemployed!

 

If anything would highlight the obvious desirability of contingencies of Cryonic Suspension, let alone provision of Radical Life Extension, imagine in a Science Fiction story set in a world where either are common place and available to all, the plight of an individual barred from either as any sort of a punishment or discrimination or howsoever whatever unfortunate circumstances or situation.

 

Indeed, the true anxiety of uncertainty regarding Cryonics, is not in scientific validity of engineering feasibility, but in the building of trust with the rest of humanity to see things through and follow up on behalf of the helpless corpsicles, ironically, the age old fear, all the more, of becoming forever forgotten after death and disappearing completely. Indeed, will the future want us, no matter what one has to contribute, especially to history? After all, our planet, still skirting the edge of ecological disaster, remains embroiled in genocidal oppression and destitution even amid unprecedented affluence. All of which makes raising awareness of the prospect of cheep access to outer space not as some cultural luxury, but crucial to our survival and prosperity, most urgent. But Radical Life Extension research labors in obscurity and Cryonics isn't even on the radar as a priority at all!

 

Yet we may yet choose to embrace reality not in despair, but as a spur to understand the logistical challenge and striving of Cryonics as inextricable from humanism and the effort towards a kinder and more rational world, an extra nice place where policies of brutal and draconian triage are no longer perpetuated in normalization of deviance, and no one is ever simply abandoned helpless to their fate while their is still recourse. And Integrated Recovery is a proposed implementation strategy from that desire.

 

“Fear's job is to enhance my preparedness, not stop my progress.”  — Steve Maraboli

 

Therefore while it remains all the more disheartening to witness such blithely ubiquitous disrespect towards the individualism and responsible autonomy demonstrated even in looking into Cryonics for oneself and ones loved ones, nevertheless, embrace of the values of reciprocity, give and take, the ideals of social entrepreneurship: doing well by doing good, all as epitomized in the concept of Integrated Recovery, which also addresses the the financial and logistical barriers and inconvenience, can be no less welcome. Therefore, let the dire Necromancy of Cryonics, after all the only true hope of resurrection barring time travel technology, join with our routine vampirism of blood transfusion and the sheer commonplace Frankenscience of organ transplantation, in the respectability of good will and reciprocity within the human family

 

 

 

 

Nihilism and Patronizing Moralistic Sour Grapes

 

Of course, if our fable as according to the above Science Fiction plotline, where instead to be themed as typical contrived and sentimental hack Deathist pandering propaganda, then one might well expect to be exhorted to believe how the protagonist comes to appreciate death, and thereby rises spiritually above the healthy long-lived Utopia now standing unmasked as an unnatural and effete Dystopia! 

 

“The nature of a novel is that it has no opinions, only the dialectic of contrary views, some of which, all of which, may be untenable and even silly.”

 — Anthony Burgess  

 

Though in the Hebrew Testament, is it so lovely writ, how Abraham died, satiated with days. And not to be outdone, various fictional characters in tropic Deathist propaganda pandering, have committed suicide or submitted themselves to euthanasia, right on schedule, brimming with life satisfaction! In reality however, rising expectations in health care, in life span, in sheer yearning for invulnerability, have continually raised expectations. Yes, even while strictly Hedonic pleasure fully met may be known to result in satiation, rising expectations fuel even the will to continue living. How frustrating! -For Deathist apologetics.

 

If indeed happiness is contentment, then no moment of truly excellent circumstances could ever become burdensome, much less terminally so, even extended unto eternity, or for that matter, unworthy of pursuit. Because, actually, happiness is not contentment: The creative stimulus of fully engaged challenge is the remedy to boredom amid all too quickly familiar, accustomed and habituated modern safety and comfort free from the suffering of violence and danger.

 

Nirvana Principle dictates the reduction of needs and desires in order to reduce suffering, but to the contrary, there can be no fulfillment without appetite, and unfulfillment tends to be dystressfull. In truth, Nihilism is itself futile, only the more Absurd. But if nothing matters, then how can anything be upsetting? Well, maybe it oughtn't, abstractly, but as G. E. Moore said: "You can't get an is from an ought." Actually, psychologically, not ataraxia (ἀταραξία), the tranquility of detached (or: nonattached) sublime apathy, but mounting and severe depression, soon accrues from just giving up. Any relief from surrender is transitory. Or to put it succinctly, Nihilism is only a rationalizing expression of severe depression. After all, apathy is really no less arbitrary than any desire or aversion. The Nihilistic value-destruction of Deathism, argues that life doesn’t matter, or life matters only while one lives and cares about anything, and therefore death doesn't matter, long term survival doesn't matter (or is "unnecessary"), species and cultural survival don't matter: The prospect of extinction "is not tragic". All of this just doesn't sound bleak, it is. 
 

Actually in opposition to Emortalism advocating and striving for practical immortality, Deathism, again, is the name given to the morbid glorification of death as actually something necessary, not so bad, or even very good. So good we gotta share! The condemnation of practical immortality is at least a qualified condemnation of life. But such qualification is ultimately disingenuous. For in order so to condemn life, one must condemn the human condition, either situationally or by condemning human nature, or else resolve that human character and circumstances are always intrinsically and irresolvable mismatched, for everyone, and always will be. Indeed, in order to reject practical immortality, without utterly and openly condemning life to begin with, it must be resolved both that no value endures, and that there is nowhere to go from there. -both eternal verité and progress must be discredited forever. And if that is not Nihilism, then what is?

Struggle with adversity is an aspect of human nature. Any struggle may be impractical and untenable, but only ambivalence is inherently futile. Respect for human dignity inevitably glorifies struggle, as adversity is nigh universal, situationally. Whereas, hardcore Nihilism condemns even hope itself. Hope is the trust that change for the better is even conceivable, that progress, observable historically and even in current events, may continue and flourish. And there is Camus recommendation in confronting the Absurd.

But if the blame is to be placed upon human nature, no matter how much better conditions of life have become or ever will, there is still bio-happiness, the optimistic condemnation of human nature, embracing the prospect of even subtly changing the very brain as needed in order thereby to secure bio-happiness without obvious significant tradeoffs in function and sanity! The irony is whether bio-happiness will be threatening as invasive to individual integrity of identity, remains an Axiological question. The Bio-Utopian defense of bio-happiness is that with future medicine, capable intervention, both subtle and balanced, will respect and preserve identity. The sustained objection to bio-happiness arises from the unforeseeability of consequences of intervention in complex systems, and also from affirmation of human nature, rejecting instead the Nihilistic value-destruction inherent to the myth of Endogeny. -Instead embracing the appropriateness of grief. Because happiness is a reactive state variable to changeable circumstances that can be improved. As G. E. Moore contends, pleasure is only the second order desire, an indicator pursuant to whatever perceived and understood good, attainment or achievement whereof being the first order desire, and likewise avoidance of pain is only the second order fear or aversive desire, an indicator pursuant to whatever perceived and understood evil, avoidance thereof being first order desire.

 

Intervention in to the brain is therefore not appropriate indicated treatment. But if indeed Nihilistic neurochemical Reductionism ever turns out to be true, and reactive happiness is inherently impossible, then perhaps bio-happiness may be proffered as any less Draconian in treatment for the human condition than death.

• In defense of the Hedonic treadmill How raised expectations promote the will to continue living

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH - and leave us not forget: Death is glorious Life Eternal! The first rule of propaganda pandering, is that anything can most readily be either glamorized or vilified, formulaically, so that vivid illustration will seem like convincing demonstration. After all, seeing is believing, as the old platitude goes, but ultimately, it is the mind and not the eye that sees. Never mind what history really teaches us. In the vivid pandering of unfettered propaganda fantasy that pretends all manner of daring and provocative perspective, slaves can be happy, totalitarianism efficient and even wild sex a real drag, until the protagonist finds God! Even life and survival can be made wearisome and disgusting, heightened and ecstatic only by the thrill of self destruction, so that death itself may be extolled as transcendent and beatific release from all cares and woe, indeed in ultimate crowning fulfillment of the Zen Mystic's quest for futility, committed sacrifice making way for return to innocence in generations to come.

 

Epicurus insists, that "death is nothing to us," a contention handily refuted by considering, as G. E. Moore contends, how desires are not merely for subjective pleasure, but for whatever object or conditions, objectively as may be signified as pleasurable. Indeed, the abstract nature of desires transcends Pleasure Principle of individual Empirically immediate perceivable experienced gratification, particularly even such desires as altruistically pertain to consideration and anticipation of circumstances after one's own death, as in by writing a will. The supposed harmlessness of death, death being void and therefore painless, is Relativism, an argument from subjectivity exclusively. But the requisite innocence for such a narrow perspective, is vastly overrated. Indeed, when Socrates famously muses that the oblivion after death can be no worse after all, than the oblivion before birth, even Mystical overtimes aside, such is merely rationalizing attachment disordered Psychotic pragmatism in bad faith denial of emotional motivation, via the Nihilistic value destruction that is Nirvana Principle, being the misanthropic ideal of the reduction or elimination of human needs and drives, all ubiquitous themes also of Zen Ecclesiastical futility. We are to be consoled that the proverbial glass is metaphorically half full rather than half empty, or as Kurt Vonnegut Jr. would have it, take gratitude because most mud never got to sit up! But sour grapes and Deathist rationalization for resignation and satisfice be damned! Indeed, it's likely that the entire narrative of the last day of Socrates was just artful propaganda to salvage the reputation and credibility of the routed followers of Socrates who failed even to rescue their esteemed and beloved mentor from execution.

 

Yet the very prospect of living longer, may even be seen to escalate the very problem of suffering, dissatisfaction and lonely unhappiness, and of ever setting any limits of sheer endurance thereto, the ultimate worthiness of life and the comfort of an eventual release in death. For in rejection of nature's reliable and Draconian remedy, can there truly never be any more desirable alternative? It is argued that death provides definition, the very sort of predictable boundaries from which the randomness of gambling pastimes are extolled as Existential remedy. In truth, neither irresponsible recommendation is any less decidiphobic of fateful free choice and the perceived burden of liberty. Life is enough of a gamble within boundaries, no matter what. And no moment of truly excellent circumstances could ever become burdensome, even extended unto eternity, or unworthy of pursuit. In the words of R.M. Perry, Ph.D.: “The individual ought to endure - for a life rightly lived is never rightly ended.”  

 

"More than one hundred years ago, the American philosopher William James dubbed the knowledge that we must die “the worm at the core” of the human condition" motivating such pervasive denial simply in order to cope. The trite observation of movement in cycles, the transitory nature of all phenomena, that death is natural, is narrow-minded popular platitude du jour, as if everything natural is therefore good or fixed and unchangeable, or that the long and leisurely geological cycles and the quick life in a day of a mayfly, are all much the same in consequence and personal desirability. Mortality of course, is neither good nor fixed. Deathism, then, is cowardly luzerly closed minded and stubborn and depressive failure of imagination that insults the intelligence! -As Nietzsche might say: Nothing so profound, indeed not even shallow! In truth, can the myriad conceivable alternatives even be listed exhaustively? Outside of myth and fable, looking to mortality for consolation is no trade that anyone ever really agreed to in advance, but merely the kneejerk of making graceful virtue of necessity afterwards; indeed the ironic ultimate in sour grapes, considering the oppressive morbid sense of Ecclesiastical futility that looming death has always inspired in the first place. Indeed, even though death is well recognized among the roots of Existential depression in the human condition, nevertheless death itself is still generally simply accepted as inevitable while the practice of Cryonics and research into Radical Life Extension, either no matter how rational, remain not merely uncertain, expensive and inconvenient, but perhaps worse: abstract and intangible.

 

Although, in the alternative, what remains so popular are the most nebulous abstraction of sophistry in place of the outright Fairy Tales of Mysticism, religion and the hereafter! And yet, in truth, only continued individual survival by whatever means can bring the otherwise somewhat abstract and selflessly altruistic promise of future generations within personal reach, by sharing rather than vacating the world of tomorrow. Immortality meaningless? Sour grapes indeed!  Survivor guilt remains the true obstacle. And Integrated Recovery is the answer.

 

In truth, what is attendant upon the appropriateness of grief, suffering that persists with whatever the injurious cause thereof, therefore valued as useful, even howsoever aversive, as often highly beneficial and meaningful motivation, is the impulse of expression, a desire no less that such relief cannot actually be called pleasurable. That and the yearning for understanding. Psychodynamically, most of the kind of people to whatever degree actually finding themselves veritably hanging on by their proverbial fingernails, teeth clenched only waiting for death, adamantly refuse to be honest with themselves about their dismal life strategy. For such abide so shamefully pent up in denial, and death will only rob them of any last chance for the only release they truly need in order to more wholeheartedly pursue anything better, that of expression met with understanding. There is no self salvation, no dignified exit. Barring intolerable suffering with no hope to give any reasonable point in delaying the inevitable, suicide only comes from dispirited self pity filling that void of yearned for expression met with understanding. And even the latter case of the worst suffering, may nevertheless actually be the more motivated by the sheer crushingly lonely sense of isolation because no one seems to comprehend their extreme plight, than by the relief from any other and more palpable adversity. Alas, death may often be a release more for onlookers who really can't be bothered, those malignant angels of death. For again, in the words of Simone Weil: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” 

 

Perhaps the fear of unending life, is the fear of an eternity of life's anxiety, with no anticipation of final rest and release. Thus the remedy for fear of life, is better optimism in the prospect of growth and resolution of anxieties at all. The fear of practical immortality, then, is the fear of inevitable and needed change. And all the rhetorical apologetics shielding this truth is nothing more than dishonest Existential bad faith.

 

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”

— Anaïs Nin

 

The phrase: "sour grapes" is an expression originating from 'The Fox and the Grapes,' one of Aesop's Fables, and refers to the strategy of denial and even howsoever thinly masking of frustration and disappointment, by the evincing of unconcern for anything actually desired but lacking or even unattainable and just out of reach, much like those proverbial grapes so irksomely tantalizing the fox. Ironically, the habitual guile of the fox here is futile, and we must imagine, of slim consolation even to him. A common tragic theme in real life no less than in drama, is failure to attain ones heart's desire, for fear of even trying and failing or meeting with rejection or perhaps worse, eliciting the envious scorn and retribution of controlling bullies for reaching beyond ones station in life or dating out of your league. -And therefore even worse, denial and suppression of the very motivating desire, for fear of the sadness and frustration, or of standing out and never fitting in.

 

And indeed such rationalized defeat, though once understandable given the formerly intractable human condition of inevitable mortality from time immemorial, may, indeed all to often does, even remain entrenched and ingrained beyond whatever initiating circumstances of such long standing frustration and disappointment. Consider that were gasoline introduced nowadays as a new technology, it would most certainly be rejected flatly as explosively unsafe, let alone environmentally unfriendly. But as things stand, internal combustion technology has long been grandfathered to us, so to speak. In Engineering, all such as above learned helplessness into sins of omission wherein malfunctions simply become accepted, is called: normalization of deviance. Any prejudice such as Racism or Sexism never stands out but actually fades from notice within the bigoted milieu or setting, and it is much the same with Deathism here and now. The Challenger disaster well demonstrated the fools paradise of lowered expectations in the face of standing problems, the unflaggingly exuberant Zen extol of exactly such coping strategies not withstanding. Let us therefore compare different instances sour grapes and consequent normalization of deviance:

 

Everything that it never occurred to you to ask about

Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein

 

Obviously, the following is neither peer reviewed nor journal of record. But supporting reference to such is cited by hyperlink, either directly or via other articles and resources online. Many include bibliography with hyperlinks. So the source information is valid and represents consensus among the pertinent experts, notwithstanding the unfortunate obscurity within science and medicine more widely. Think of this that you read now, as an opening salvo in a vitally important and long neglected public discourse, all from public information, peer reviewed science though unaccountably remaining so little known.

 

The intrinsic irresponsibility in the very mandate of the Food and Drug Administration in the United States and similar regulatory agencies around the world notwithstanding, of course caution even towards approved therapies, let alone those as yet unapproved, is only good sense. So how then is the case of Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein so completely different? It is hoped that this will become clear to the reader who comes to understand not only the amazing uniqueness of Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein, but the astounding full implications.

 

Clearly I am unqualified. Yet whenever I step into the hospital, I remain painfully aware that I am the most knowledgeable person in the entire place, about Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein, a breakthrough central integrative discovery, that should have rewritten all the text books and yet remains so obscure. I have nowhere to turn for better information, much less help in order to secure the life changing benefits of any Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein therapeutic. This is unacceptable! And as ever, what is the most dangerous, remains the ignorance and complacency of the sheeple, especially of those drones in healthcare.

 

 

• “In labs, we've cured obesity and diabetes in mice hundreds of times” 
•    Turn Fat People Into Mice blog

Elevation in production of Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein and consequent weight loss are associated with both nicotine and diabetes. Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein was discovered in runaway overproduction by cancer tumors, thus revealed as the cause for cancer cachxia and rapid wasting away, according to CEO Phil Speros, treatable with Halsa Pharmaceutical's Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein blocker, also still so long perpetually suspended in preclinical limbo. Another byproduct of oncology research, angiogenesis inhibitors also seemed promising in weight loss and management, because both cancer tumors and fat deposits trigger the development of new immature blood vessels. Thus, angiogenesis inhibition helps to shrink both tumors and beer bellies alike, similarly vampiric, by starving them of their blood supply. Alas, 60% of patients treated suffer increased hypertension from angiogenesis inhibitors, each different angiogenesis inhibitor drug, interviewing at a different point in a long and complicated chain of precursors, therefore prone to unexpected side effects. -Although, interestingly enough, angiogenesis inhibitors do not interfere with wound healing. Of course, Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein actually down regulates blood pressure. So why are we messing around with anything else?

 

By contrast with any other treatment options, the remarkable lack of undesirable side effects of therapeutic Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein supplementation, acting far more directly it seems, is but one of its amazing features of the novel multidisciplinary protein. Undesirable side effects and adverse tradeoffs are seemingly inevitable in all treatment, yes, including diet and exercise. This is because all treatments only at all approximate any conceivable ideal treatment. They fit only so imperfectly. For such is life! And the more inventive the therapy, the more irritating if not actually dangerous, the unintended results. But not a corrected level of Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein, which will fit with such unusual perfection, because correcting levels of Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein is not any sort of invention at all, but a major discovery of exactly what so many of us are missing, so badly needed. This alone is unique. Precious little in life, indeed few treatments and medicines even over the counter, let alone by prescription, are ever anything near as risk free as Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein supplementation is known to be, for an external intervention so precisely targeted that it actually restores internal harmony, thereby transcending the categories of Allopathy and Homiopathy.

 

Actuaries may work for insurance companies and consulting firms, the government, employee benefits departments of large corporations, hospitals, banks and investment firms, or most generally, in any businesses prudently seeking to manage financial risk. An actuary is an arithmetically competent and inclined business professional who analyzes the financial consequences of risk versus benefit, by the application of mathematics, statistics, and financial theory in order to study uncertain future events, especially those of concern to insurance and pension programs. Consider for example by way of illustration, the pros and cons of electronic cigarettes, invented as a pleasurable and hoped to be more effective means of assistance in overcoming tobacco addiction, in alternative to the nicotine patch. Alas, as it turns out, electronic cigarettes pose new health hazards all their own, including addiction. There is no question of waiting for conclusive evidence of their safety. The responsible question of risk versus opportunity, is whether electronic cigarettes pose more harm at greater risk, or offer more helpful benefit and safety, and under what circumstances. And that is the responsible question for any option or decision whatsoever. Whereas the question is so difficult and the answer elusive when posed in regard to electronic cigarettes, with Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein the same question indeed becomes rhetorical, the answer being all too obvious. Who then might one suppose would get better odds of good health and long life, from a Los Vegas bookmaker or any capable actuary? -An overweight patient with access to therapeutic Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein supplementation, or the control subject without?

 

But stalled progress towards safe accessibility of Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein supplementation is only an unfortunately obscure and important special case of a far more pervasive and systemic obstruction. Indeed, for a less obscure example, there is far greater public awareness of the cases of children dying while waiting for access to different forms of medical marijuana. But all sensible and responsible questions in fallibly confronting uncertainty when making decisions, are routinely sidestepped by heteronymous appeal to authority and procedure, sheer inertia whereof quashing all rational doubt and sense of alarm. Thus all that is well known is systematically ignored because of all that is not deemed conclusively certain. Epistemological and Methodological standards of experimentally conclusive results for testable hypotheses with clear and specific conditions of refutation, remain ever indispensible in keeping science honest and relevant. But as a matter of practicality and conscience in the actuary's estimation of foreseeable outcomes, the responsible question remains how best to proceed in the interim until consensus upon conclusive results by whatever standard, even in the face of inevitable uncertainty no matter what. The irresponsibility Reactionary answer currently embraced in medical regulation, is paralysis and obstruction. But responsibility is response-ability, autonomy and the capacity for considered action honestly informed by circumstances. Whereas, irresponsibility is response-inability, an incapacity for considered action honestly informed by circumstances.

 

Alas, in typical colossal and flagrantly irresponsible miscarriage of regulatory public safety, we are all kept in the dark and restricted from access to life changing therapeutic Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein supplementation, because, despite the lack of any sign of risk in all these years of research, the safety of therapeutic Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein supplementation has not been deemed conclusively determined. The actuaries should be up in arms! In terms of sheer decidophobic boneheaded failure to compare the advantages and disadvantages of all available options, this is almost as bad as waiting to be sure that Cryonics will work out, and dying in the meantime without any such contingency! Worse, it seems that human trials for Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein remain indefinitely stalled. Thus we are left to the hazards of conventional treatment, including dangerous amphetamine derivatives, toxic diabetes medicine, the medieval torture device that is CPAP, and mutilating surgery to the intestines, the jaw bone, or any other body part the disfiguration of which might be deemed an acceptable loss. You can even get a scratchy irritating plastic patch sewn into your tongue, to kill the flavor and pleasure of eating! How barbaric. The nineteenth century operations to cure men of masturbation, inspiring such pathetic gratitude, and the hysterectomy for frustrated women, cannot but spring to mind. Heroin is also very effective for weight loss. It's illegal, but so what? Narcotics are plentiful and easily available. In all of the passive hostility of ubiquitous bureaucracy, I am only effectively overprotected from the medicine that would actually help me!

 

Surely guilt free and healthy gluttony and gusto, is no less important in the overthrow of tyrannical biological destiny, than sex without shame and adverse health consequences. Of course metabolic problems of obesity impact health and longevity. Disposition to obesity increases with age, as levels of ZA2G production decline. Obesity is an indicator of relative ZA2G deficiency!

 

Zinc alpha-2-glycoprotein is secreted by epithelial cells, both normal and malignant, with over expression by tumors implicated in cancer cachexia, wasting away. So perhaps reduced production over time, is a result of cellular aging. Indeed, among many benefits, ZA2G is even cited as anti-inflammatory, which has often been the "code-word" for when cautious hopes are raised of counteracting aging in and of itself. (Only recently has the FDA officially recognized a new category of anti-aging treatments.) Indeed, ZA2G supplementation back to more youthful and slimmer more obesity resistant levels of ZA2G, essentially restoring nature, may offer the ideal adaptation to modern living that has so reversed the natural order by making food plentiful and exercise scarce, so that older people, once so much less able to fend for themselves and survive, no longer need better fat retention.

 

Indeed, the novel multidisciplinary protein ZA2G should be an obvious ingredient to be included in the hoped for anti-aging medicinal cocktail, that latter-day elixir of perpetual youth, quested for by Radical Life Extension research and anti-aging medicine. For by down regulating lipid uptake into adipose tissue, keeping all that fat in the blood stream, ZA2G supplementation producing increased lipolysis, lipid mobilization and utilization, thereby rendered overfed laboratory mice not only slim and svelte but actually more energetic! ZA2G even increases skeletal muscle mass, without any of the harmful side effects of steroids, lowers urinary glucose and increases insulin sensitivity among other benefits.

 

"Similarities have been drawn between the onset of diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, leading some to consider the two to be interrelated. Could Alzheimer’s be treated as another type of diabetes?"

 

Food For Thought: Is diet-induced Alzheimer’s Disease Type 3 Diabetes?

 

Considering how the novel multidisciplinary protein ZA2G even helps to clear grit that builds up in the kidneys over time as ZA2G production declines with aging, I wonder how a supplemental ZA2G therapeutic might likewise effect plaque buildup in the brain, as associated with Alzheimer's and Parkson's.

 

Any sensible person is rightly leery of any as yet unapproved medication, despite being fully cognizant of the worst failures of food and drug regulation, allowing the most unsafe treatments while at the same time obstructing and delaying vital lifesaving medicines, as most notoriously with AIDS. But in the case of Zink Alpha 2 Glycoprotein particularly, even among all other myriad completely effective treatments for obesity in laboratory mice, there are salient and particular reason to be skeptical of all the enduring red tape:

 

1) In the decades of foot dragging towards approval, no hint of adverse side effects has been found, only further different beneficial and healthful functions of the novel multidisciplinary protein. - indeed, "a disconcerting range of biological activities, which collectively are difficult to reconcile with the action of a single molecule [...], and therefore need to be sorted out." [Lipolysis is altered in MHC class I zinc-α2-glycoprotein deficient mice] It's all good! 2) To reiterate, even diet and exercise actually appears to be more dangerous! 3) If you now understand the hazards, frustrations and dangerously real metabolic dilemmas of diet and exercise, in contrast to the remarkably efficacious and unusually harmless cost effective ease of applying a supplemental Zinc Alpha 2 Glycoprotein therapeutic, and perhaps even more amazing absence of any downside with therapeutic ZA2G supplementation, being sik precisely what is needed, then you should be entirely dissatisfied the current state of affairs! 4) Even still after all the decades of needless delay, and still no human trials, nevertheless a human test group has already long existed in nature, because those skinny people who can eat whatever they want without gaining an ounce, that's simply because their bodies continue to produce higher levels of Zink Alpha 2 Glycoprotein, rendering them obesity resistant. The rest of us remain obesity prone, worsening with age as Zink Alpha 2 Glycoprotein production and therefore obesity resistance in our bodies, declines.

 

There are no known hypotheses in regards to any possible or conceivable adverse effects whatsoever of any supplemental ZA2G therapeutic, in order to guide research in discovering any unsuspected hazards. But the first search for adverse effects of Zink Alpha 2 Glycoprotein, in homo sapiens, that somehow haven't turned up in laboratory animals such as mice, despite how evolutionarily, all simians inherit metabolism from rodents, might be guided by an examination of negative side effects associated with being naturally slim with a higher metabolism, obesity resistant, as we now know, due to naturally higher levels of Zink Alpha 2 Glycoprotein production if our existing human test group in the wild.

 

Ah, but might there be other differences between those naturally skinny folk who can eat as much of whatever the want, without gaining an ounce, and the rest of us? -such that supplemental Zink Alpha 2 Glycoprotein might pose some unforeseen danger? Answer: It sounds plausible, but there is no particular reason so to suspect, much less known evidence, or even any coherent hypothesis. Whereas even still pending unconscionably the long awaiting human trials, the continued dangers from withholding the benefits Zink Alpha 2 Glycoprotein therapy are manifest. Are there then any negative side effects associated with being naturally slim with a higher metabolism? Please post to the Kriosgrad blog for this webpage on KrioRus.ru or email if you are aware of any such.

 

Socio-psychological deconstruction?

 

What might it be that lends the directly above somewhat undue catastrophism such likewise undue sense of plausibility for so many? Why does it seemingly make sense to so strongly suspect that there just must be some catch, even while investigation remains so tentative or else actually deep dark secret? If the encouraging results already published, despite all mounting corroboration, even in the long ongoing the timid state of current published research, are still to be deemed inconclusive, then why all the hesitation towards conclusive experiment in the light of day? Is this question perhaps cultural and psychological? Returning then to theme: Is whatever the real problem, still howsoever related to Deathist squeamishness and taboo?

 

But precisely how so? Answer: To elaborate, if gluttony and sloth are sin, then gluttony and sloth without consequence is immoral. Indeed, by such misanthropy, the body beautiful reflects the virtue entailed in its achievement in ennobling resistance to the fallen state of humanity as manifest in ongoing corruption of body and spirit, with admiration and sexual opportunity the rightful reward, undeserved by the unworthy who require and deserve only motivational chastisement. Physical fitness after all, is deemed by this stinking thinking, the manifestation of Darwinian reproductive fitness. And thus, by such witless Reactionary anxiety, whatever might so effortlessly level the playing field, risks undermining not only longstanding social order, but thus the very biological integrity of the human species that society exist in order to protect! For such is the hysteria and racket of vested interest and the fear of all change, embracing, manipulatively exploiting and preserving a conveniently natural sex economy.

 

Indeed, some actually even do so Moralistically decry that effortless weight loss and management facilitated in the advent of the Thin Pill, even in the face of perpetually ecstatic gluttony, all without effort and sacrifice, would by such worldliness, eliminate the virtuous discipline and character building derived from the self chastisement of arduous exercise and diet under the natural punishment for unnecessarily consuming food; food, for shame! so desperately needed for immediate survival by the masses of those inescapably trapped in impending sickness and death by ongoing famine, starvation and malnutrition. But at least no one seriously predicts the moral downfall of modern society from the improved per capita mass market sex appeal as resulting from an on average vastly slimmer citizenry, the way they so often do population explosion as somewhat erroneously projected consequence from indefinite youth and life via Radical Life Extension!

 

True, it is, indeed, manifestly unfair, how the rich, but not the poor who starve, can pay inflated prices for food during crop failures. Moralism dwells upon that aspect of the problem to the exclusion of all practicality, entirely ignoring how even the most virtuous diet and exercise, transmit not so much as one calorie of food to the hungry. In the end, Moralism, angry judgment and sacrifice without compassion or generosity, is as heartless as it is irrational and impractical. Rather, Hedonism is what inspires sympathy for any who suffer, and efficiency is what drives solutions to all wont.

 

Regrettably, it is true, for prime example, that greater sexual freedom is indeed often experienced as pressure by those who are squeamish and ambivalent about sexuality. Therefore sexual freedoms are so often obstructed, curtailed and even persecuted, all in the name of propriety or for appearances sake, whatever any of that really means, by "Pro-Lifers" so-called, controlling bullying prudish culture warriors actingout in whatever abuse of power and unwilling to own whatever their own motivations of irrational and cognitively dissonant hostility.

 

Therefore, should better and easier treatment of obesity be likewise suppressed in order not to insensitively pressure and offend fat accepters? Actually, what is the current state of the art in metabolic disorder treatment practice, but a craven conservative embrace of status quo? And is it impolite, by ones own insensitive example of skepticism and resistance to mortality, to agitate and discomfort the complacent resignation of the sheeple to the slaughter? Because why else the logistical nightmare in cadaverous donation, much less Cryonics, all best addressed by Integrated Recovery? Is is right to stifle progress and value for everyone, out of the sheer squeamish Reactionary Nihilism of, if you will, death acceptance?

 

In the famous Isaac Asimov novel 'Bicentennial Man' adapted into a movie starring the late Robin Williams, a robot makes himself human and then to complete the process, sheds his immortality, embracing natural death simply in order to win the approval and acceptance of humanity at large, all just to fit in at long last. The irony is in how just such desperate approval seeking is both so robotic and so human, not to mention so calamitous and even fatal. Indeed, given how the masses revile even the seekers of Emortality, how much more might they resent it's achievement? Nevertheless, there can be hope that they might become at all the less motivated by even homicidal jealousy at least, once Emortality becomes available to all. Bioludditry will then evaporate!

 

In the words of James Arthur Baldwin: “Sex is like air. It's not important unless you aren't getting any. Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did.” And in the overthrow tyrannical biological destiny, the eradication of hunger into gluttony made safe, is a related imperative of transhuman progress in the facilitation of authentic wellbeing. All likewise, with Emortality achieved, Existential despair of Ecclesiastical futility over looming death might haunt us ever any less, as death is eradicated.

 

In most every important way, any modern day vagrant sleeping in the back of their car, lives better than an 18th century French nobleman in their palace. With technological advance, all standards of living rise to unprecedented new heights. Moreover, in the imminent future, everyone will be young, fit and suitably fuckable indefinitely! -minds ay long last liberated from the tyranny of biological destiny, scarcity and wont, unfettered by such privations and anxieties of the human condition as ever we have known it. Can it then simply be unbidden thought and pent up emotion that is actually what is so frightening, unknown and taboo? After all, what is Deathism but the prime manifestation of heteronomy? Perhaps there are greater real dangers, responsibilities and and secret terrors to confront, than in the callow misanthropic scenario of becoming blasé and ennuied as per all such dread to be stirred and conjured up in all of that inane Nihilistic Luddite propaganda of sheer anticipatory ingratitude!

• In defense of the Hedonic treadmill  How, far from terminal ennui, raised expectations promote the will to continue living

Yes, even in the struggle for continued survival at all and over all, let alone any lesser related priority in its own right such as weight management, realistic actuarial cost-benefit equation must first be pondered responsibly without hysterical catastrophism and taboo!

 

 

Weak praise in favor, yet such virulent hostility in defense, of death

 

“To die, and to be dead, that must be glorious!”  — Count Dracula

 

The worst of of all are not the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, regarding humanity as a blighting cancer upon the face of the Earth to be eradicated lest we migrate into Outer Space and contaminate the Universe! Alas how much public sympathy for any such misanthropy. No, the most extreme are the suicide martyrs of course. But there are less direct means of self annihilation, dragging others down with you. And they too are showered in praise by their ideological comrades, and more socially acceptable.

Anything can change the context for anything else, and lend it new meaning. Therefore anything gives meaning to anything else. And conversely, so does any absence thereof. Hence, indeed, it is trivially true, that death gives meaning to life. So the eradication of death will profoundly change whatever meaning that we each assign to living. The implication remains that only death gives meaning to life. And this can only be true if life in and of itself, is inherently meaningless and futile. And this is Nihilism. It is also trivially true, because there is no inherent meaning because meaning is constructed, assigned by individuals and shared in societies. Nihilism, after all, is less an Ontology than a depressive strategy of terror management, a malaise of Existential despair in consequence of mortality that will be much relieved by the eradication of death, obviously something to celebrate.

 

And such is ‘The Meaning That Immortality Gives to Life’

 

Bio-Luddite oppression: Alas that Deathists are not always content simply to go quietly into that dark night A Nest of Vipers

As Eliezer Yudkowsky concludes upon death and character building “Only things unvirtuous of themselves, must be excused by philosophizing them into excuses for virtue.”

 

Indeed, no inspiration is ever truly intrinsic to the source, but to the individual. And should it ever really be the case, anyone that actually needs death in order to appreciate life, may indeed find themselves that much more prone even to passive self harm, and would be far better off to discover any other, better, saner, generally safer Existential adaptation.

 

For ostensibly spiritual longing, indeed the appreciation of death, is often actually predicated upon the extol of virtue and sacrifice under adversity that amounts to an admiration of drama ever heightened by raising the stakes, which mortality indeed accomplishes to the utmost.

 

But all of this is entirely forgetful that what makes for good drama in fiction are what would be in reality adverse circumstance and suffering. Bad decisions make good stories, and martyrdom is not to be sought for.

 

After all, it is the same issue of mortality that has always fueled the no less dramatic questing for immortality. And the attainment of true practical super longevity and the conquest of death, is hope for a happy ending, the outcome in doubt being necessary in Technique of Suspense plotting.

 

“[Ray Bradbury] opposed vast extension of the human life span not because it would result in stagnation, or social injustice, but rather because it would lead to the diminution or termination of those elements of human suffering and weakness he considered essential to being human. Without death, and forgetting and constantly being “reset” to that fraction of our libraries each human generation might be able to absorb before, in turn, being extinguished, there could be no pathos of the kind that was Bradbury’s stock and trade. Bradbury saw, quite clearly, that practical biological immortality would transform man into something fundamentally different, alien even, from his current state of being and he was deeply repulsed by that. To be human is to be mortal and to suffer and to die and to live out a history of error and folly over and over, indefinitely. A history that would recede into the dim mists of living memory. A history that required the storyteller to shape the critical parables for mankind to live (and die) by. A history that required men like Ray Bradbury. His final remark in our conversation was that he would have immortality through his books which was the only kind of immortality to which men were entitled.”

 

‘Ray Bradbury: When the Writer Mistakes His Books for Himself’ by Mike Darwin

 

But the emortal person, however growing in Philosophical sagacity, nevertheless must remain fallible. And the same story tellers are ever reshaping their parables anew for the same people in different times and life passages, never mind only to successive forgetful generations. The Transhuman will only present fresh new demand for culture throughout the long road ahead before any true dawning of the Post Human. And even the Post Human, however advanced, strange and unrecognizable, will be shaped by evolution of whatever their own unprecedented and hither to alien motivation and necessity.

 

The very notion of deliberate preservation and institution of death, even after death can be eradicated, all simply as a cynical strategy of artificial scarcity in order to prevent inflation of the value of plentiful life, seems an amazingly farfetched, fraudulent and misanthropic sham. And it will never happen. Not all pathos is equal: Resignation by preference, is neither heroic nor dramatic but merely Post Modern and depressing. Senseless vicissitude is mere melodrama. Practical immortality will open new chapters in human adventure. The future is not doomed to indolence. Even with the elimination of adversities of privation, fresh drama awaits in the striving towards new challenges. What is better? The mortality, the eventual extinction, of humanity ourselves, by even willful failure to adapt? Or else the mortality merely howsoever and to whatever extent, of the human condition in the limited frame thereof as we have known it, simply because of progress, growth into any way of life at all truly new under the sun?

 

In the end, it will be history and the changing needs of the author's public, that brings the values of Literature into synthesis with those of Science Fiction. And can any of that truly become so boring and irrelevant for capable and incisive creative writers and commentators? - that, perish the thought! they might some day confront an audience at all the less naive and therefore the more worthy of the author's respect? How insufferably patronizing!

 

 

• Iminst Wiki entry upon Deathism

• The illogic of Deathism

• Deconstructing Deathism 

  • Is That What Love is? The Hostile Wife Phenomenon in Cryonics (blogged: this)

                           And here I thought that trashing hubby's comix collection was belligerent!

 

Is Reactionary Deathism, after all, truly so fearful of stagnation, 

                               or indeed, rather, of reflection and progress?

 

“If man were immortal he could be perfectly sure of seeing the day when everything in which he had trusted should betray his trust, and, in short, of coming eventually to hopeless misery. He would break down, at last, as every good fortune, as every dynasty, as every civilization does. In place of this we have death.”

 

— Charles Sanders Peirce

 

But stagnation is not a factor of time alone, of long life, but rather of various circumstances that can be addressed in order to sustain even intense engagement of meaningful breadth and depth of individual human character growth, learning, autonomy and progress, not to mention just havin' fun, so that death remains the most absurdly Draconian solution given any other viable options.

 

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”

— Anaïs Nin

 

 

Indeed, jadedness ever for fresh novelty, seems the best protection from future shock! Not everyone is in such a rut, or at least not so completely and irrevocably. And not everyone indeed in a rut, even knows it or suffers therefrom, certainly not suicidally!

 

Indeed, in the famous words of George Santayana: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." And longevity is an effective safeguard for progress against short memory, as attested by calamitous historical repetition, generationally, with the loss of living memory and lessons of the past learned only by the survivors. Must we nevertheless all then abide by the suicide pact of the Bio-Luddites, regardless? Is not any conceivably wider range of option the more desirable?  

 

In truth, the greater problem is nothing so trifling or abstract as any purported specter of perpetually adolescent ennui: It is suffering and tragedy that so builds and mounts in life to crush the spirit so. The bane of mythical immortals has always been ever renewed bereavement outliving their loved ones again and again. But not if only they are permitted to share their gift! And that exactly is what the future holds for those who will only live to see it. Generations to come will never experienxe the loss of bereavement. That is the only feasible realization of the yearned for mythic return to innocence for humankind, and without deception and oppression in heteronymously stupefied preservation of naivety. The elimination of bereavement will redefine the very human condition even no less than individual practical immortality in and of itself.

 

The true Morality Play of ThunderCats 2011 Episode 4 - ‘Song of the Petalars,’ an entertaining rendition of the romanticized thematic trope of ephemeral life, remains no less elusive to many who miss the real point of how Lion-O, the young and brashly impressionable Lord of the Thundercats, enchanted and beguiled by the earnestly optimistic fatalism of the Petalar Emerick, then very nearly leads his comrades into a desperate, grand and hopeless  last stand against their enemies; all but for the deus ex machina that they are conveniently rescued in the very precious nick of time, by the older, wiser and far more experienced Panthro, with all the preparedness a real survivor, embracing technological novelty and making his grand entrance in the Thundertank, thus routing the enemy.

 

For even howsoever valid priority of quality over quantity or duration, how well one has lived rather than merely how long, exactly as so beatifically extolled by the quickly wilting Petalar, Emrick, may often tend to be anything of a false dilemma somewhat arbitrarily ruling out both at once.

 

Indeed, Sturgeon's Law states that: "90% of everything is shit." Therefore, quality is often a function, first of all, of quantity from which to choose, the wheat sifted from the chafe. By trial and error, quality must often be ferreted out out from sheer quantity, which takes more time. For sagacity accrues from experience, not naivety. Indeed, as Kathy muses in ‘Never Let Me Go’ (2010) from the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro: “Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.”

 

And yet, there endures the distorted romantic nostalgia for the adventuresome life quick, merry and bold. Indeed, Parkinson's Law which states that the work expands to fill the time allotted, has actually been speciously advanced to contend, without supporting evidence, that longer life and health only accrues further procrastination instead of greater productivity. Need that be dignified with response? There is even the implicit misanthropic Moralism to the effect that mounting decrepitude is constructive as a necessary punishment for the callow false invulnerability of youth! This of course devalues experience in its own right. Lastly, there is the canard of immortality and ennui, even doctrine to the effect that life and worldliness is intrinsically dull eventually necessitating drastic escape.

 

Why, just imagine all the people: Historically, the entertainments of affluent culture was actually invented in order to stave off the boredom of peace and plenty sans the adaptive stimulation from violence, suffering and the struggle for survival. Imagine, then, if per chance practical immortality will similarly spur human culture by producing the effect of raising the stakes and therefore sharpening the focused priority of ongoing fulfillment and richer true to life drama of greater and better free choice and autonomy in order to nurture, sustain and intensify experience of meaningful breadth and depth of individual human character growth and progress, moment by moment even indefinitely into the vastness of the looming future, an immortal ocean of time with no far shore, into at long last replacing the long standing passive reliance upon the Deathist melodramatically decidophoic coward's way out, then all the world will be as one, in the same proverbial boat, stewing in the lonely boredom of underserved needs and desires from frustrated intrinsic motivation.

 

“Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.”  — Susan Ertz

 

“Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it, the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom.”

 

— Bertrand Russell

 

Imagine an unprecedented new era ensuing, not only of comfort and affluence, but of expanding human fulfillment. So can the playing out of so plainly happier a futuring scenario truly be what anyone is so desperate to avoid? In a word: yes. Indeed, what could be more dreadful from the vantage point of anti-intellectualism? Because, it is children of any age, who get set in their ways. In time enough, they must set childish things behind them. And if neither simple Hedonism nor blithe complacency cannot sustain perpetual superficiality, then Radical Life Extension will eradicate the unexamined life once and for all!

 

“The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy.” 

 

— Oscar Wilde

 

For stagnation is not inevitable, ultimately only reflection, the waning of innocence and growth into sagacity. Only change itself remains constant. Whether for people or for societies, time is the cure for stagnation. Only annihilation forestalls further change. Under any circumstances, mass ennui may be among the most fruitful motivating challenges ever to confront humanity throughout history, and well into the foreseeable future. Competition within the species first drove evolution of engorged human cerebrality well beyond the needs of environmental adaptation, resulting in the motivating intrinsic human stimulus needs and thence struggle with boredom. That was the first loss of innocence, mourned as the mythic fall from grace and celebrated as the mythic theft of fire. Again, what Deathism as any other decidophobic manifestation of heteronomy so fears, is nothing less than the Existential burden of freedom. Deathism extolling definition in human mortality, is simply Agoraphobia along the axis of time.