Another Sports/Sci-Fi Short Story - The Return of the Splendid Splinter

[Hawg73]

The former racing journalist and now head of his own international religion known as "Rael".

Can you believe the get-up?

[pookie]

Originally posted by Hawg73
The former racing journalist and now head of his own international religion known as "Rael".

Can you believe the get-up?

Nice picture of George Carlin Hawg!

[Hawg73]

Originally posted by pookie
Nice picture of George Carlin Hawg!

He does look like him in this shot, but I have to believe that if Carlin ever ran into this clown he would kick the **** out of him.

Originally posted by Hawg73
There are about a million different belief systems in the world and Alcor has theirs, as implausible as it all sounds. If I could sum up that long-winded treatise on their website in a sentence it would be something like; "Hey, we don't know if it works, but it might" and you can't really prove them wrong.

Hawg:

Far be it from me to step on anyone’s religion. On the subject of religion I could go on for days but in the end I would be unable to save anyone from their own irrational belief system. (My personal system of belief is that we are all part of an enormously complex and multifaceted “ant” farm perched next to a signed photo of Elvis in Dennis Rodman’s basement.)

Regarding proving them wrong: I don't really know where to begin disproving it let's put it that way. It is fundamentally flawed on all levels. However, just because someone makes an irrational claim which is difficult to disprove does not validate it.

The Bengals will win the Super Bowl next year. Can I disprove it? No. Can I discredit it? Absolutely.

Will we someday have a different understanding of mortality? I personally do not believe so. And I would argue that there isn't even an inkling of anything to suggest that we should. Anyone seeking another definition for death does so for personal, cosmological reasons not for medical ones. The medical definition works just fine and isn't questioned by people who deal with life and death on a daily basis.

For the people at ALCOR to claim to “not know if it is possible…” that is one thing. However to attempt to establish the PREMISE that it is possible by developing illogical arguments using irrelevant "studies" and presenting their conclusions – that is fraud.

Cloning is another matter all together. They are not supporting claims of preserving DNA for future CLONING or they would be a far less profitable business. As you get older it is likely to be of little comfort to you that many hundreds of years after your death people will be using your DNA for cloning. A clone is not YOU, hence it does not have nearly the income generating potential that making up a word like “reanimation” does.

The simplest argument that they use is the example of people who drown in very cold water and are later revived. Yes, cold slows down metabolic processes on the cellular level. However, DUE to that fact, the person was never DEAD! The cellular requirement for oxygen is significantly reduced and the cells remain alive which is why they are able to “revive” them. Nothing magical happened – just exactly what would be possible under those unique circumstances. To use this to demonstrate that anything is possible other than what did happen demonstrates nothing. A person who died of a heart attack -- without the benefit of having their metabolic processes slowed by immersion in very cold water – is dead on a cellular level (brain dead) in a matter of seconds-- and more importantly DEAD. It is a non-linear conclusion.

Here’s an excerpt from another site about cryonics (emphasis added):

http://www.merkle.com/cryo/
A common misconception is that cryonics freezes the dead. As the definition of “death” “is a permanent cessation of all vital functions" the future ability to revive a patient preserved with today's technology implies the patient wasn't dead. Cryonics is actually based on the more plausible idea that present medical practice has erred in declaring a patient "dead." A second opinion from a future physician – one with access to a fundamentally better medical technology based on a mature nanotechnology – lets us avoid the unpleasant risk that we might bury someone alive.

“…lets us avoid the unpleasant risk that we might bury someone alive." Un-fn-believable! Ask a nurse, a doctor or a mortician ( I actually have an old high school friend who is one) what he thinks about the unfortunate possibility that we are BURYING PEOPLE ALIVE? He would take you to a back room and show you just how unlikely that is.

Who are you going to use this Mature Nanotechnology to revive? A cancer patient? A person who died from severe trauma sustained in a car accident? The fact is people do not just fall into a giant VAT of liquid nitrogen to die -- something KILLS them. Restoring life to someone would necessitate solving ALL of the problems that caused their death in the first place. I can say with certainty it just ain't happening, even with the MOST mature nanotechnology.

The only way that I will accept this as being "beyond our current understanding" is if the one thing that we really don’t have good grasp on is stupidity.

[Hawg73]

Originally posted by NoRespect
Hawg:

Far be it from me to step on anyone’s religion. On the subject of religion I could go on for days but in the end I would be unable to save anyone from their own irrational belief system. (My personal system of belief is that we are all part of an enormously complex and multifaceted “ant” farm perched next to a signed photo of Elvis in Dennis Rodman’s basement.)

.

Good line. I'm not saying that I'm buying what they are selling. Far from it. I'm just making the point that state of the art is a very temporary concept and we cannot possibly imagine what science can and will bring down around the bend apiece.

Shakespeare was apparently an Alcor believer.

The time has been
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there, an end. But now they rise again
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools.

Shakespeare --MacBeth, III:4

at least he didn't say push in our stools.

[Beaglebay]

Really brilliant and disturbing story, Hawg.

The irony of course is that Ted Williams doesn't need cryonics to be immortal or reanimated. There are newsreels and books aplenty for those of us who relate to and are inspired by excellence in athletic and other human achievement; Ted's greatness is evident upon seeing him take one graceful swing of his bat. His true immortality however, lies in the celebratory fire of appreciation and awe, which his deeds ignite in each of us.

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die"--Thomas Campbell