PAPA 2024

Since 2020, I have been adding to my website Papa's Anthology of Paternal Advice (PAPA).  From listening to the audiobook First You Have to Row a Little Boat: Reflections on Life & Living by Richard Bode, I was inspired to go through my tips for living that I have been collecting in my notes over the last year and publish them to the PAPA website.  The new updates include the following:

• Maintain line-of-sight when supervising young children
• Drive safely for yourself and others on the road; you have no right to put the lives of others at risk without their consent
• The best way to learn is to teach
• Consider postponing a boat project until retirement
• Be wary of forming friendships or partnerships with the litigious
  
• Your spouse is your best friend
• Do not take on too many projects at the same time
• Have two of everything, but not three
• Simplify your life as you get older
• Consider self-publishing; when your message is being published by others, it might not be delivered the way you want it to be
• A little redundancy is a good thing
• Just before you open your next big box of rice, put it on your shopping list
• Keep a new pair of shoes in your closet for when you need them
• When you buy a new vehicle, consider holding onto your old one just in case

World Religions

I recently watched the presentation "The Ark Before Noah: A Great Adventure" by Irving Finkel.  When he described the extreme reaction of George Smith upon discovering that the story of Noah's Ark was an adaptation from a much older Babylonian mythology, I recalled how I had also immediately spotted the obvious similarities when I was first introduced to the Epic of Gilgamesh.  Dr. Finkel has a number of other good presentations on related subjects available on YouTube.

As a youth being raised as a Southern Baptist in a city which was said to have had the most churches per capita in the Bible Belt and in which all three of the universities in town represented different shades of Christianity, I was not cognizant of world religions.  The 1980 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) book Deities & Demigods, which included a section on the "Babylonian Mythos", might have been my first introduction to religions beyond Judeo-Christian.  When you are first introduced to the idea that many different peoples in many different places have had many different religions over many millennia, you start to realize that your assignment to the religion that you were taught to believe in as a child is a circumstance of when and where you were born.

I remember that the late Daniel Dennett, my favorite philosopher, proposed teaching world religions in public schools.  The Unitarian Universalists (UUs), which teach their children about different religions in Sunday school, recognized that their children, upon adulthood, often adopt the religion of their spouses rather than continuing on with UU.  The joke about this is that when the children are taught about the different varieties of religion outside of UU, they then think that they are expected to pick one.

It is clear to me that Dennett's proposal to teach world religions in taxpayer-funded schools, if enacted, would upset many parents.  My thinking on this has been influenced by my new understanding of Terror Management Theory from listening to the audiobook The Worm at the Core.  By providing entertaining illustrated books about ancient myths from other cultures, parents can inoculate their children against subjugation by modern myth-based religions.

Beacon

In a Christian church, deacons assist the pastor with the duties required to keep the church running.  They might not be paid but their status is recognized by the honorific "Deacon".

"Beacon" might be a recognizable title for the equivalent position in a Religious Humanist or Religious Transhumanist organization.  Since a beacon is a guide in the dark such as a lighthouse, this term fits nicely with the theme of the Brights, those who identify as having a naturalistic worldview free of supernatural or mystical elements.

Organs for Life

Since 2023 October, I have been helping out with the Organs for Life website.  This effort is sponsored by the non-profit Immortalist Society and championed by Joseph Kowalsky.  The goal of the project is to promote the advancement of an emerging medical technology that will enable donated organs to be preserved indefinitely until needed for transplantation.

Similar to the XPRIZE, Organs for Life is offering a cash award, a CryoPrize, for a successful implementation of the organ preservation technology.  As stated in the rules, this requires the successful demonstration of a cryopreservation, rewarming, and transplantation of an organ.  It might not be long before the CryoPrize is awarded as many researchers have been having recent success with nanowarming.

Sulfite Sensitivity

I want to warn everyone about sulfite sensitivity.  It is an allergy-like reaction to sulfites, also spelled sulphites, which are found in many foods and drinks.  Sulfite sensitivity affects about one percent of the population and is more prevalent in those with asthma.

In my twenties, I quickly learned that I did not do well with drinking beer but I tended to be just fine with mixed drinks.  As I got older, I started having unusually strong reactions to drinking red wine and hard cider.  I was also showing symptoms after eating certain foods such as shrimp but not consistently.

In my forties, I finally figured out that the problem was caused by sulfites.  Sulfites are sometimes used to preserve the coloring in foods.  It is also part of the process of creating beer, hard cider, and wine.

Margaritas are generally safe for me since sulfites are not present in distilled drinks such as tequila.  Once, however, I ordered a margarita at a restaurant and I started suffering the symptoms almost immediately.  I later learned that the restaurant had substituted the tequila in my margarita with tequila-flavored wine because of a legal restriction on serving hard liquor in that county.

Now whenever I start to get a particular type of headache, I know to retrieve the food packaging for whatever I had just eaten.  Oftentimes I will find the warning "Contains sulfites" in bold print just below the list of ingredients.  Sometimes, however, I will have to scan the ingredients to find the sulfites included using one of many different terms:

• Calcium bisulfite
• Calcium sulfite
  
• Potassium bisulfite
• Potassium metabisulfite
• Potassium sulfite
  
• Sodium bisulfite
• Sodium metabisulfite
• Sodium sulfite
• Sulfiting agents 
  
• Sulfur dioxide

I have learned to check the ingredients before I buy a new food or drink.  Recently I have been disappointed to find sulfites in bottled lemon juice, canned fava beans, onion powder, and sushi.  Fortunately, I am able to find brands of frozen shrimp that do not contain sulfites.

It seems odd to me that food and drink distributors knowingly add a preservative which effectively acts as a poison against one percent of their customers.  I guess they assume that most of those with sulfite sensitivity both know that they have it and know to avoid consuming their products.  Obviously, I wish I had learned about my sulfite sensitivity decades earlier.

Odyssean Bargain

At a Church of Perpetual Life discussion, Cairn Erfreuliche Idun shared something pithy with us that she had originated.  She said she once ran it by B.F. Skinner and it resonated with him:

The better you understand the controls that control you,
 the better you can control the controls that control you.

It made me think of the "Odyssean bargain".  I read about this on the Web some years ago but when I search now I cannot find that phrase used in the same context that I remember.  Here is what it might mean:

In Greek mythology, sirens are man-eating monsters that entice sailors to their deaths through alluring song.  Odysseus wanted to be able to listen to the siren song without being drawn in and consumed.  He achieved this by having himself bound to a mast while the rest of the crew was protected by plugging their ears with beeswax.

So what he was doing here was taking steps while he was in control to prevent self-destructive behavior later when he knew he would be out of control.  I have heard that people who are addicted to a drug sometimes deliberately put themselves in a situation where they cannot possibly access the drug for many days so that they can make it through to the other side of withdrawal.  An example of this might be an addict throwing away their cigarettes just before launching for a sail across the Pacific.

There is a trend where people will motivate themselves by vowing to donate funds to an organization that they hate unless they achieve a goal by a given deadline.  These cases might not be Odyssean bargains because the actors are still in control, not out of control, as they are highly motivated to take steps to avoid the self-imposed negative consequences.  This will not work with sailors under the siren spell nor with addicts to whom all negative consequences are secondary.

Something else that sounds similar but is probably different is the advice that one should not go grocery shopping on an empty stomach.  If you postpone heading out until just after a meal, you are ensuring that you staying in control during the period of temptation instead of making it physically impossible to load your shopping cart with junk food.  An Odyssean bargain might instead be to choose to go to a health food store where that option is not available.

The word "bargain" implies that something is freely given in exchange for something else.  For the opportunity to hear the siren song, Odysseus made a conscious decision while he still had free will to restrict his freedom of movement in the future when he would not.  When I was finally able to quit smoking some decades ago after being bedridden for three days, that was more of a happy accident than a bargain struck.

Update 2024-04-29
Today I discovered the Wikipedia article Ulysses pact.

Baby Bella

Congratulations to my son Benjamin on the birth of his daughter Bella. Baby Bella and mother Courtney are doing well. Thank you for making me a grandfather.

 

Cryonics Community

W. Scott Badger, Ph.D, is the author of the research paper "An Exploratory Survey Examining the Familiarity with and Attitudes toward Cryonic Preservation" published in the 1999 Q1 issue of the Alcor magazine "Cryonics".  About two decades ago, he and I were discussing the possibility of a Cryonics Community website.  I registered a domain name back then for that purpose.

Today I finally got around to launching a website using that domain name CryonicsCommunity.org.  The website includes a link to a Google Groups discussion mailing list.  Please join the list if you want to help shape the future of the Cryonics Community website.

I think what we originally envisioned for the website was a forum where cryonauts associated with any cryonics organization could come together to discuss the topic.  I see that need being met today by the Cryosphere server on Discord.  I also know that there has been some discussion on the Cryosphere about forming local Meetup groups for face-to-face meetings.

I think the new website could instead focus on a different kind of "Cryonics Community".  R. Michael Perry, Ph.D, is the author of the article "A Look Back: Attempts to Establish a Cryonics Community" in the 2021 Q2 issue of "Cryonics".  Dr. Perry documents previous efforts to create places where cryonauts could live together to maximize their chances of a successful suspension.

These communities could include retirement homes where members could check on each other daily such as at mealtimes.  Nearby there could be a cryonics suspension and storage service, a hospice, and maybe even a transhumanist church.  Ideally the communities would also be in places where cryothanasia is legal.

To support these efforts, the website could list local Meetup groups where those interested in forming such a community could connect.  Another idea is that website members could opt into a service in which other members would check on them if they suddenly stop logging in.  Online job listings could encourage migration.

Eventually the website might evolve into a non-profit corporation.  The mission of the non-profit might include encouraging the growth of related for-profit ventures such as real estate development and monitoring services.  A goal might be to establish a cryonics community in every major metropolitan area.

Pinkerton-Croft

Congratulations to my son Thomas Edward Croft and my new daughter-in-law Katherine "Kate" Ann Pinkerton on their marriage last month.

Optihumanist Principles 2023

This year I updated the "Life is Limitless" section of my Optihumanist Principles to state the following:

We invent and innovate to make aging and death optional.

Speaking of death as an option, today I launched a new website, cryothanasia.org.  The site provides a list of articles about the practice of euthanasia followed immediately by cryonic suspension.

Transhumanist Church

In mid-2003, I launched the Transhumanist Church website to announce my intent to create a Religious Transhumanist organization.  The goal was to combine elements of the Society for Venturism with the spirit of early twentieth century American Religious Humanism.  Religious Humanism does not exist as an independent movement today as the bulk of it morphed into secular humanism while the religious remnant was eventually absorbed into Unitarian Universalism.

Depending on the context, the term "Church" either means a Christian organization or any religious organization in general, whether Christian or non-Christian.  To disambiguate, you might use the alternative term "Fellowship" for an organization that is religious but maybe not exclusively Christian.  The term "Society" feels similar to "Fellowship" but maybe more secular.

The Society for Venturism was originally known as the Church of Venturism.  After a founding member of the Society for Venturism joined the Transhumanist Church, the members voted to change the name of their organization to the Society for Universal Immortalism (SfUI).  After that, the Transhumanist Church domain name was no longer used.

Although I am no longer actively involved with the SfUI, I have found a new home with the Church of Perpetual Life.  Along the way, I looked into alternatives such as the Terasem Movement Transreligion and the Mormon Transhumanist Association.  I also started my own personal micro-church which I am calling the Optihumanist Fellowship.  

On my Cryonics Industry Consortium (CrInCo) website,  I have a directory of cryonics organizations providing services in the United States.  It recently dawned on me that I could create a similar website listing Transhumanist religious organizations.  To promote growth in this area, I have relaunched the Transhumanist Church website.

Worm at the Core

A few months ago I was in a conversation in which someone asked what happened to the soul when someone went into cryonic suspension.  I remember having a conversation with my Christian father some decades ago that touched on something like this.  He had replied that God knows when you are really dead.

I think this is a good response for those who believe in the supernatural soul.  You could try to tell them that there is no such thing as the supernatural but that would just trigger their defenses against mortal terror.  It is probably best to just get them signed up for cryonics with their current worldview intact and then maybe only later try to persuade them otherwise when they emerge from their baptism in liquid nitrogen.

Recently I finished listening for a second time to an audiobook on the subject of Terror Management Theory entitled The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death.  It explains how our Denial of Death drives many of our defensive behaviors including religion and war.  It makes me wonder how human culture might change for the better when future medical technology makes us effectively immortal.

The Worm at the Core helped me make yet another connection between an Old Testament story and an earlier Sumerian myth.  In the Epic of Gilgamesh, after Gilgamesh acquired a plant that would make old men young, a serpent stole the plant and consumed it.  The serpent then shed its old skin, becoming young again, leaving Gilgamesh to realize the inevitable.

The serpent from the Epic of Gilgamesh reappears in the Garden of Eden to teach Eve the same lesson.  The authors of The Worm at the Core assert that one of the ways we attempt to distinguish ourselves from animals without immortal souls is to clothe and decorate our bodies.  When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, they became aware that they were naked.

The consequence of their eating from the Tree of Knowledge was not their deaths but rather the knowledge of their deaths.  Before the serpent tempted Eve with the gift of foresight, Adam and Eve could simply gather fruit from the trees of the Garden whenever they were hungry, blissfully ignorant of what would happen when the fruit went out of season.  Afterwards, they became aware of their fate in a way that non-human animals cannot.

The curse laid upon Eve for her transgression was the knowledge that the only existing route to immortality is through the pain of childbirth.  The curse for Adam was the knowledge that only through the pain of his labors to till the soil in the present could they reap a potential harvest to permit them to survive in the future.  The same foresight that pushes us into denial and paralysis can also drive us to labor today to conquer death tomorrow.