Posted 20 December 2004 - 01:12 AM
As much as your grandfather sounds like someone who's open-minded he may have already made his peace with death, even if he thinks that death may entail eternal oblivion. That peace with (and welcoming of) death may be the strongest conviction he has, so before I continue let me warn you that this may not work.
I don't know how much time he has left, but there are elaborate ways of easing him into cryonics. If you're willing to make the commitment I suppose you could form a personal bond with him, spending more time with him, perhaps going on a few fishing trips. While spending all this time with him, conversations may flow, and from there eventually the topic may lead into religious beliefs (or lack thereof) and then to death. The most critical part may come when he answers you as to whether he would like to live on as a healthy young individual if he could. From there I suppose in passing, you could refer to cryonics, or to a case of cryonics that you heard in the news and gauge his opinion. If he is inquisitive you could feed him more information as if you had learned about it through passing interest. Don't sound like a hard-core cryonicist, you'll probably push him away and lose his interest immediately.
LazarusLong says that you need sophisticated brain imaging along with cryonics to make the chance of re-animation that much higher. I don't believe we have been able to fully image the human brain yet, in fact I think we're still in the process of fully imaging a rat brain with 10% progress so far. Regardless current vitrification seems to have increased the chance of reanimation dramatically, but there are no guarantees.
Good luck elrond, in my situation most of my family members and relatives are deeply entrenched in their religion and worldviews.
