brainpreservation101--->


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JCjfl5O0NZc&t=79s
Implications of Ancient Preserved Brains

There is a video out there. I posted a link to the article on the cryonet email list and the Facebook page called 'We Are Cryocists'. I wanted to talk about the implications of the article, which was from Cosmos magazine or something like that. It is an article saying that there is more ancient preserved brain matter than people realize. I do not remember the exact number, but there was a lot of ancient preserved brain tissue, and the article showed pictures of them. Some were intact and some were not. The oldest one they had is 12,000 years old, which is really old.

I think that this idea—that there are dozens or hundreds of ancient preserved brains out there—is something that we cryocists and brain preservationists need to consider. I am signed up for cryocists, but I am also a brain preservationist. If you are signed up for cryonics or if you advocate or support cryonics, then you are a brain preservationist, because cryonics is a subset of brain preservation. I want to talk about what lesson this article has for us.

The Future of Revival and Science
It does not suggest in the article that these people could be revived; they just kind of leave it sort of ambiguous and say that we can learn a lot about life and death from these brains. They do not suggest that the brains could be emulated or revived. I do not think we cryocists necessarily have to say that these brains could be revived, but I am telling you right now they could be. I do not know that they could be, but they could be. There is a lot the smartest cryocist on Earth does not know. I do not know what the science of a thousand years from now is capable of. Not one person on Earth has any idea what the human race and our artificially intelligent robots of the year 3,000 or 4,000 can do. Maybe they can revive these ancient brains, maybe they cannot, but there is still a lesson here.

Cryonics as Preservation, Not Science
Cryocists get caught up in the idea that cryonics is a science. It is not a science. We are in the process of preserving brains. I do not know for how long we can preserve them—maybe 100 years, 500 years, 10,000 years, or maybe forever. Science is really a lot like funeral home embalming. It really is a lot like it. They are preserving the body for a while; it is going to rot, but they are making a point of fighting back against decay. That is all we are doing. Our 'while' is a lot longer than their 'while', and it is a lot more complete, pervasive, and powerful, but we are similar. We are just like embalming on steroids. Embalming is not a science, and funeral homes do not go around saying their work is a science. We should not pretend to be scientists. That might impress people like us, but there are very few people like us in this world. Stop trying to impress people like us; try to impress people who are not like us, because there are a whole lot more of those people.

Engaging with the General Public
We need to have a bigger, more expansive vision. We need to use our imagination. There is an idea in this article, a mystery in there, and we need to understand that people relate a lot more to non-explicit, implicit ideas than science. People know that science is powerful and cannot be stopped, but they do not make science their religion like we do. You have to be a student of human moves if you are going to sell brain preservation. Biological science at this point in time is not able to provide the proof that we need to push brain preservation and cryonics. Look at the comments on the Tom Scott video about cryonics; they are overwhelmingly negative, 99% plus, and the objections are not based on logic, science, or rationality. They are instinctive, visceral reactions.
Shifting the Narrative
There is something deeply rooted in the adult psyche that reacts to the idea of brain preservation. By the time you reach adulthood, you are against the idea instinctively. I taught a lesson plan to seventh graders in 1995, and the boys were far more open to it than adults. The male is evolved to be the explorer, breaking new ground. I have talked to close to 100 adults, and I did not get one single positive reaction; they were stunned into silence or scared. Younger people are more open to new ideas, and that is who we need to sell to. We cannot do it through biology or science, because that proof is probably hundreds of years away. Don't live in the future; live in the now.

We need to look at this from a long-term point of view. We need to stop saying that revival is just around the corner, because it is not. Anyone who thinks we are going to be revived 100 years from now is living in a fantasy world. A thousand years is much more likely. If a normal person thinks about being revived 100 years from now, I do not know that it is something they want, because one life is enough and life is sorrow. People want to be revived in a benevolent, heavenly future. A thousand years from now, life will be radically changed. We will be engineered and evolved to be in a place where we are almost like angels. That is the kind of vision we need to sell. Sell the sizzle, not the steak, because we do not have any steak to sell.