Followup to: Normal Cryonics

Yesterday I spoke of that cryonics gathering I recently attended, where travel by young cryonicists was fully subsidized, leading to extremely different demographics from conventions of self-funded activists. 34% female, half of those in couples, many couples with kids - THAT HAD BEEN SIGNED UP FOR CRYONICS FROM BIRTH LIKE A GODDAMNED SANE CIVILIZATION WOULD REQUIRE - 25% computer industry, 25% scientists, 15% entertainment industry at a rough estimate, and in most ways seeming (for smart people) pretty damned normal.

Except for one thing.

During one conversation, I said something about there being no magic in our universe.

And an ordinary-seeming woman responded, "But there are still lots of things science doesn't understand, right?"

Sigh. We all know how this conversation is going to go, right?

So I wearily replied with my usual, "If I'm ignorant about a phenomenon, that is a fact about my state of mind, not a fact about the phenomenon itself; a blank map does not correspond to a blank territory -"

"Oh," she interrupted excitedly, "so the concept of 'magic' isn't even consistent, then!"

Click.

She got it, just like that.

This was someone else's description of how she got involved in cryonics, as best I can remember it, and it was pretty much typical for the younger generation:

"When I was a very young girl, I was watching TV, and I saw something about cryonics, and it made sense to me - I didn't want to die - so I asked my mother about it. She was very dismissive, but tried to explain what I'd seen; and we talked about some of the other things that can happen to you after you die, like burial or cremation, and it seemed to me like cryonics was better than that. So my mother laughed and said that if I still felt that way when I was older, she wouldn't object. Later, when I was older and signing up for cryonics, she objected."

Click.

It's... kinda frustrating, actually.

There are manifold bad objections to cryonics that can be raised and countered, but the core logic really is simple enough that there's nothing implausible about getting it when you're eight years old (eleven years old, in my case).

Freezing damage? I could go on about modern cryoprotectants and how you can see under a microscope that the tissue is in great shape, and there are experiments underway to see if they can get spontaneous brai...

Karlo

Karlo

Karlo

Karlo