[extropy-chat] frozen in fire

spike spike66 at comcast.net
Sun Jan 21 04:44:18 UTC 2007


> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] frozen in fire
> 
> 
> spike wrote:
...
> 
> The emotional bond aspect is interesting. Do you think the emotional bond
> has an ethical value on its own?

Excellent question.  I do not know the answer, nor can I offer any real
insight.  My instinct is to protect that bond from any possible damage.  I
would not question my instinct for a nanosecond, nor would I expect any
second thought afterwards had I to allowed a thousand frozen embryos perish
to save one breathing child.

I have a hard time understanding the bioconservative, but this brings up an
interesting and uncomfortable aspect of cryonics.  I am concerned that after
sufficient time, there will be no one alive who is emotionally bonded to the
cryonauts.  Then perhaps there would be little drive to resurrect them.

This notion actually came up when you and Greg Burch were at my humble abode
a few years ago.  You may recall my family picture wall.  I observed while
pointing out a photo of my great great grandfather that I would likely be
unwilling to put significant resources into bringing him back today.  But my
grandfather, with whom I bonded emotionally in many ways more than with my
own parents, I would put my every last dollar into bringing him back to
life.  But I doubt my son would be interested in him, having never met him.

...
> 
> The last one is cheating in a philosophical gedanken ... Anders Sandberg,

Ja thanks.  Shelly pointed out that I also ignored the notion that many of
the frembryos might have been generated by mothers who are no longer
fertile, so that this frembryo is her only chance to have her own biological
offspring, which is of greater value than I can ever understand.  It is not
surprising that she would think of that immediately, having been thru the
whole fertility clinic nightmare.

spike










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