wedrifid comments on Cryonics Wants To Be Big - Less Wrong

28 Post author: lsparrish 05 July 2010 07:50AM

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Comment author: lsparrish 06 July 2010 04:24:35PM *  2 points [-]

Some of my favorite authors are Mormon. Orson Scott Card, Brandon Sanderson, and Howard Tayler. Somehow they seem to go to greater extremes in their fiction than non-Mormons on average. And they have no qualms about literally turning a character into God (given that Mormon theology includes this eventually happening to the faithful anyway). There's a kind of balance of creepiness/weirdness and old-fashioned family values, which is in itself perhaps more disturbing in a way.

I think it has to do with how success of a meme seems to have a lot to do with its power to resolve cognitive dissonance -- but what this implies is that the cognitive dissonance must exist to begin with. When they encounter the creep factor of cryonics, most people resolve cognitive dissonance by ignoring it, downplaying its chances of success, or imagining fantastic reasons it would not work. Cryonicists themselves might resolve the dissonance factors by reassuring themselves that it's the only sane thing to do in face of inevitable deanimation, reading up on the facts, and hoping for improvements in the process before they die. But that sort of thing takes a lot of activity in the logical areas of the brain.

Mormons seem to resolve the cognitive dissonance factors of their religion (and the weirder aspects of life in general) by turning to a focus on human relationships -- family, romance, etc. Perhaps the cognitive functions involved in this are easier to stimulate in a group that is highly inclusive of women and children.

Comment author: wedrifid 08 July 2010 06:13:24AM 1 point [-]

Perhaps the cognitive functions involved in this are easier to stimulate in a group that is highly inclusive of women and children.

... per household?