In discussions with a friend, who expressed great discomfort in talking about cryonics, I finally extracted the confession that he had no emotional or social basis for considering cryonics. None of his friends or family had done it, it was not part of any of the accepted rituals that he had grown up with—there was an emotional void around it that placed it outside of the range of options that he was able to think about. It was “other”, alien, of such a nature that merely rational evaluation could not be applied.
He’s in his 70′s, so this issue is more than just academic. He understands that by rejecting cryonics he is embracing his own death. He does not believe in an afterlife. He becomes emotionally perturbed when I discuss cryonics precisely because I am persuasive about its technical feasibility.
Perhaps this observation isn’t germane to the present thread, as this seems an emotional response rather than a response driven by “no belief.” But perhaps “no belief” has an emotional component, as in “I don’t want to have a belief. If I had a belief, then I’d have to take an unpleasant action.”
In discussions with a friend, who expressed great discomfort in talking about cryonics, I finally extracted the confession that he had no emotional or social basis for considering cryonics. None of his friends or family had done it, it was not part of any of the accepted rituals that he had grown up with—there was an emotional void around it that placed it outside of the range of options that he was able to think about. It was “other”, alien, of such a nature that merely rational evaluation could not be applied.
He’s in his 70′s, so this issue is more than just academic. He understands that by rejecting cryonics he is embracing his own death. He does not believe in an afterlife. He becomes emotionally perturbed when I discuss cryonics precisely because I am persuasive about its technical feasibility.
Perhaps this observation isn’t germane to the present thread, as this seems an emotional response rather than a response driven by “no belief.” But perhaps “no belief” has an emotional component, as in “I don’t want to have a belief. If I had a belief, then I’d have to take an unpleasant action.”