because I anticipate that my family and close friends will have a harder time overcoming their grief if my body is not actually present at the funeral.
Would you mind discussing this more? I find it hard to believe that this could be your real reason for not doing it. For instance, if there were ways to display your body in some kind of cryocasket, wouldn’t that give them the funeral they wanted without destroying your brain simply for their satisfaction?
This is a personal disposition, but when I attended an open casket funeral for a good friend, seeing his corpse made it worse for me. I had something akin to the uncanny valley reaction, and had difficulty accepting that it was him. It didn’t help that he took two bullets to the face, but it still felt very wrong to be in that room with him. I don’t really see how people get any positive feelings from such a funeral.
I don’t really see how people get any positive feelings from such a funeral.
When my father died, my brother and I both went to the mortuary before the funeral and insisted on seeing the body. (Open caskets are not a Jewish custom.)
The morticians were extremely reluctant—there had been an autopsy, and he was cut open and etc., and they hadn’t prepared the body for viewing, yadda yadda yadda—but they eventually gave in.
I can’t speak for my brother, but for me there was a definite, and strong, release of emotional tension associated with seeing the body. I wouldn’t call it “positive,” exactly—I can’t imagine a positive experience at my father’s funeral—but I’m glad I did it.
Of course, none of that has anything to do with cryonics—we would have done exactly the same thing, with (I suspect) the same effect, had his brain been scooped out.
I’m not sure the effect would have been the same had his body been in a “cryocasket.” Maybe; maybe not.
Not that that’s a reason for him not to do it, either way.
Would you mind discussing this more? I find it hard to believe that this could be your real reason for not doing it. For instance, if there were ways to display your body in some kind of cryocasket, wouldn’t that give them the funeral they wanted without destroying your brain simply for their satisfaction?
This is a personal disposition, but when I attended an open casket funeral for a good friend, seeing his corpse made it worse for me. I had something akin to the uncanny valley reaction, and had difficulty accepting that it was him. It didn’t help that he took two bullets to the face, but it still felt very wrong to be in that room with him. I don’t really see how people get any positive feelings from such a funeral.
When my father died, my brother and I both went to the mortuary before the funeral and insisted on seeing the body. (Open caskets are not a Jewish custom.)
The morticians were extremely reluctant—there had been an autopsy, and he was cut open and etc., and they hadn’t prepared the body for viewing, yadda yadda yadda—but they eventually gave in.
I can’t speak for my brother, but for me there was a definite, and strong, release of emotional tension associated with seeing the body. I wouldn’t call it “positive,” exactly—I can’t imagine a positive experience at my father’s funeral—but I’m glad I did it.
Of course, none of that has anything to do with cryonics—we would have done exactly the same thing, with (I suspect) the same effect, had his brain been scooped out.
I’m not sure the effect would have been the same had his body been in a “cryocasket.” Maybe; maybe not.
Not that that’s a reason for him not to do it, either way.