Whether we like it or not, the current reality is that every day 150,000 people die. And while I have no doubt that one day humanity will defeat death of old age, like anyone else, I am not guaranteed that I will be alive to benefit personally from such a radical development. And so, while I am hoping for the best, I am doing what I can to get ready for the worst. In my case this entails planning for a number of contingencies – such as death where my brain has been destroyed or not, and taking a number of pro-active steps such as writing a will and signing up for cryonics. In this context I thought it may be useful to bring in a guest who meets daily with death so that we can at least open up a conversation about a topic that is often considered a taboo in our sanitized society. While both me and Dr. Michael Fratkin have very strong personal biases as well as established thinking on the topic of death, I wanted to see if and what we can each take away from such a conversation so that we are both better off in the end. I have to say that I was not disappointed and I hope you will find something beneficial for you too.
Dr. Michael Fratkin is a palliative care physician and during my 2 hour conversation we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: his personal story, motivation and medical background; whether we are more than our physical form or not; palliative care, completing life and ResolutionCare; the definition of death; why he is a “presentist” rather than a futurist; the origins of my own personal biases against death; his take on cryonics; Zoltan Istvan‘s Transhumanist Wager and on-going presidential campaign…
You can watch the full video interview here: https://www.singularityweblog.com/dr-michael-fratkin-on-life-death-and-palliative-care/
