[Nessuss]

I hope he had a cryonics contract.

....

In reading the above, some people might think it insensitive to 'peddle' this here, and I almost censored myself because of that.

But that's not helpful at all.

People are dying unnecessarily because they don't understand physics, cognitive neuroscience, and the possibilities the future allows.

May he live again conditional on him being cryo-preserved. Otherwise, it is sad news that yet another human has been annihilated.

[Udo]

I agree with your sentiment - it is, however, questionable to bring this up in threads like these where the community is still reeling from a loss. While I believe cryo preservation is a good idea in general, you must know that most people don't do this and are in fact strongly opposed to the idea. That means you are unlikely to convince people who are not already in favor of the concept. Also in this special case please keep in mind that the guy committed suicide, so talk about cryonics is just about the opposite of what is needed right now.

Saving people from destruction includes much more mundane things, such as getting timely and competent help when mental health problems arise - and, just as importantly, striving to keep a community friendly and supportive. Clinical depression is often a chronic and idiopathic illness, but crises can still be triggered by external influences and social support does play a critical role in the way an afflicted person deals with their problems. And that is something we should be working on.

[karlzt]

>> Also in this special case please keep in mind that the guy committed suicide

from the article:

"The cause of death is currently unconfirmed."

[_THE_PLAGUE]

With due respect, cryonics won't work. Why? Because "I am a strange loop" as Hofstadter would put it. We are NOT the code. We are the code execution. Think of the human subject as a really complicated, recursive sort of while(1) loop. When the program ends, we end. You can freeze the source code all you want - possibly even restart it but there is no reason I know of to think that such a restarted program would be "me", more like a fascmile of "me". I could be wrong, but not sure why I would be.

[khafra]

When I save the state of RAM to nonvolatile storage, then later put it back into RAM and continue executing, there are senses in which you could legitimately say it's not the same program. But they're not the senses I care about.

[mannicken]

So DNA would be 'the code', and our environment would be 'the input' and we would be the code processing the input? Cool.

[billpatrianakos]

You should've censored yourself anyway. That is insensitive. What if it was your mother and some stranger said that? Come on, that's something you talk about when a person is alive, not when people are grieving. No one wants to learn about the science or pseudoscience of cronies when in mourning. Just, come on.... Really?!

I shouldn't have responded to this. Should've let it die and get buried but that kind of upset me.

[pjscott]

If cryonics does work out, then bringing it up at inappropriate times could save lives. Please don't be angry at an honest attempt to prevent some people from dying.

[Nessuss]

This isn't the funeral for the fella.

Being able to discuss taboo subjects is what makes it great to be an intellectual after all - why are they taboo? is the reason a good or illogical?

In this case, death is bad, very bad. Something to resist with all our might, and cryonics is one just one tool in saving lives (yes, you are not dead until your actual neurons irrecoverably die). No need to go into the details of information theoretic death, just look into it yourself.

The point is, people deal with the concept of death in ways to prevent the unpleasant thought that you WILL die. One of these ways is to celebrate what a great life this person had, how sad it is that they have died but they had a good life. It's slightly more obvious that this person did not in fact have a good life (he only had 21 years), but the argument applies to all ages.

It's precisely why I decided to not self-censor here. I wanted to point out that we shouldn't celebrate death. Don't let death become something slightly more inevitable in your mind, fight it!