Some Chinese become Americans when they get old. Last year, the vice-chancellor of a university and the vice-president of an opera house, who had just left their jobs, died in the United States. Before the age of 60, he worked as an official in China, and after the age of 60, he went to the United States to retire, and this group first went to the United States to play the front station, and then gained a firm foothold, and the old leader retired and went to the United States. These people scolded the United States before they retired, and went to live in the United States after retirement, this is modernism, right?
Li Zehou, a famous thinker, philosopher and aesthete, lived in the United States in his later years and died in the United States in 2012 at the age of 91. Famous people like Li Zehou have all gone to the United States and died in the United States, and I don't know how big this group is. Of course, Li Zehou is a little different from the two people who died in the United States last year, but the final destination is the same.
Li Zehou passed away, and there was also a very American idea, saying in his will that "I hope that the brain will be cryopreserved after death for future research". On February 3, 2024, Li Zehou's friend Ma Qunlin in his later years published an article in "Scholar": Li Zehou's will "has been faithfully executed".
Li Zehou passed away due to illness on November 2, 2021 at his home in Boulder Township, Colorado, USA, and his son, Li Ai, notified the American "Alco Life Extension Foundation" (hereinafter referred to as "Alcor") to fulfill Mr. Li's living will, allowing Li Zehou to fulfill his future American dream.
Li Zehou once said: "I will not have an epitaph." But I'm going to leave my head in the future, freeze it, and take it out again in 300 or 500 years. ”
In order to realize this American dream, Li Zehou still needs to spend money. He donated $80,000 to "Alco" and paid a few hundred dollars a year in membership fees to fulfill this last wish. Finally, this last wish was fulfilled in the United States.
Why did Li Zehou freeze his head? First of all, Mr. Li Zehou himself put his body in the category of philosophy and culture. He said, "I want to prove whether culture has affected my brain, and whether it is possible to find the remnants of Chinese culture in my brain after a few hundred years to prove my accumulation theory." If it turns out to have an impact (culture affects the brain), I think it's more than all my books combined. ”
Secondly, in his later years, Li Zehou was not only a scientific person, but also a person who tended to be divine and spiritual. He subscribed to two magazines in the United States, one for Scientific American and one for Mind.
Li Zehou's idea of freezing his head can only be realized in the United States, and only Americans are willing to do research on the brain and cultural layers of people 500 years later.
Why would the United States do the thing of freezing the living dead?
American scientists believe that freezing the human brain makes sense: exploring the practice, challenges, and prospects for the future of cryonics. But we have to ask: Can the United States freeze Li Zehou's head 500 years from now? 500 years is a long process that will take many generations to complete. There is a generation that has given up this research on frozen human bodies, and Li Zehou's frozen skull has lost its meaning.
In 500 years, the United States will hold 125 presidential elections, and one president thinks that it is meaningless to freeze the human body, will such research be interrupted? The United States began to study cryonics in 1972, and they think that one day, these frozen people will be resurrected. When the disease of the cryonicist is overcome by science, they will be treated and become a contemporary person. American research seems to be absurd fiction, science fiction, and I wonder why the United States likes this kind of absurd research, and these scientists think that their research is meaningful.
A stainless steel tank that holds the body of the "patient".
American scientists believe that the purpose of freezing mankind is to achieve scientific and technological breakthroughs and thus serve mankind. They freeze human brains and bodies in preparation for future medical breakthroughs for humanity. When this research is applied to humans, humans can be resurrected. American scientists say it could take 100 years for humans to be frozen and resurrected, and it could also take up to 50 years. However, American scientists believe that their research "is not about creating something that does not exist in the first place, but about adapting it to the science that already exists and applying new technologies to practical applications."
Where will the funding come from for the United States' research on freezing mankind and resurrecting it? Who will pay the salaries of the researchers? Will the research institute run out of funds if it has not achieved results for decades or even hundreds of years?
Li Zehou's head has been frozen, and 500 years later, Li Zehou's frozen head will be part of the historical event, and the scientific and cultural information revealed in his skull will be historical information. I wonder if Mr. Li's head will be preserved after 500 years, and whether Chinese scholars will also participate in the study of Li Zehou's head.
In the early 90s of the last century, I wrote a novella "Frozen Cabinet", which was published in the journal "Contemporary Writers" of the Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House. At that time, I liked to write rhapsodicly, which was neither science fiction nor magic. I didn't expect that the fiction in my novella was really being studied by these scientists in the United States. And the head of the aesthete and philosopher Li Zehou has become a chain of research by American scientists, and when it is linked to that novella, I know that rhapsody novels are not far from reality.
I thought it was a little interesting to send out the first section of "Frozen Cabinet" and read it with this American frozen human body and brain.
"Frozen Cabinet"
Wang Junyi
1991 Novella Special Issue for Contemporary Writers
Professor West said, "Distinguished Cabinet officials, you have AIDS. "
Of all the troubling diseases in today's world, there is probably nothing more troubling than AIDS. No, not trouble, it's panic and despair, it's extreme grief, it's death giving you a check in advance, so that you can come to God in a few months or two years to receive the money of death.
All the cabinet officials of the Republic of Samanda are suffering from AIDS. The white-haired professor with gold-rimmed glasses at the Capital Medical College slowly and leisurely handed them the blue medical record card that symbolized the evergreen tree of life, just as they handed them a stack of waste paper and a stack of banknotes, which may or may not be valuable in itself.
The professor of medicine was a man who was almost cold, and his name was West. He had seen too much the terrifying and serene faces of others when they were dying, and he was accustomed to hearing poignant and moving last words. He made a man live briefly in the lair of death, but he did not make a man live forever. He never made a fuss about death, and his calm and cold face was frightening. West was born with a cold and melancholy face, his deeply sunken eye sockets filled with blue faint light, a few yellow eyelashes twitching in his eye sockets, and a high nose that left a dark shadow on one side of his face. His profession brought his facial expressions to the extreme, and even the wordless Samanda folk songs he hummed were a few gloomy and indifferent tunes.
His indifference did not deprive him of his profession, but his fame was so great that the mention of Professor West in the medical profession brought to mind the words sacred solemnity. Perhaps it was because of his indifference that he had his superb medical skills, or perhaps it was because of his superb medical skills that allowed him to be indifferent to everyone in Samanda, even the president.
He looked at the medical records of fifty-one cabinet members, and meticulously designed a desperate record of AIDS to perfection. Oh, these people who show up on TV every day, you're almost finished. Like the fisherman who came from the beach yesterday, like the beautiful prostitute the day before yesterday, they are ordinary AIDS patients.
Professor West folded fifty-one blue medical record cards on top of each other, flicking a few fingers and pinching them. The other hand tugged with pleasure, making a subtle, even sound, like a moan and sigh before the end of life.
All desperate patients come to West, and they see what little mercy he has after filling out his medical card. There is a gentle light in his eyes, and he looks at you pitifully from behind the lenses. After looking at the fifty-one of them, West chuckled faintly, and paced around the cabinet members with his hands crossed over his chest, his hard heels tapping against the floor in a series of sounds. The more he broke his steps, the more they felt the god of death hovering around them.
Fifty-one cabinet members, from president to minister, suddenly felt sore and dry in their mouths after an environmental protection meeting. The phobia of AIDS happened to be spreading in Samanda, and they looked at each other and then came to Professor West's for treatment.
Professor West paced in front of them, staring at them from time to time. He pulled the medical record cards from between his fingers and shook them before their eyes, and a blue cloud began to cloud the Cabinet officials' vision. The professor took out a sponge cloth, took off his glasses, wiped it, and said, "Distinguished cabinet officials, you have AIDS. "
He handed out the medical record cards to the officials he didn't admire, and his two thick lips squeezed out a sentence: "Life is like a glass, and the more carefully you protect him, the easier it is to break." "
The president and officials were panicked, then desperate, then melancholy, and finally showed their calm and calm strength as a Samanda man. President Ratzel scratched his head and asked, "Professor West, are none of us spared?"
Ratzel thought that if one of them had survived, the fluke might have fallen on his head. He has been president for two consecutive terms, and both times there was a lot of luck in it. "It's better to let me get away with it again. "Luck may have little effect on history and on the moral and cultural aspirations of Samanda, but it is beneficial to me as a person." "
Vester shook his head and told Ratzel: "Yes, there is not a constitution that says that your cabinet is free from AIDS, and there is not a medical provision that says the president will be spared. However, it is indeed a strange story that more than 50 people have been infected with AIDS en masse, and that as many journalists as flies are about to write stories that will cause a sensation in the Republic of Samanda and the world. "
Ratzel was disappointed, he was only forty-five years old. However, he still smiled gracefully at his subordinates, smiling at West: "Perhaps, we will resist, the doctrine of human will is the culmination of Samanda philosophy." "
"No!" said West, visibly agitated, warned Ratzel, "remember, Mr. President, that disease and science are ruthless and severe, and that he is not like our Samanda philosophy, full of sophistry and slick multidirectionality. Don't get your hopes up, Monsieur Ratzel, but don't be disappointed either. Hope and disappointment mean nothing to you. "
Professor West smiled at them one last time, and walked towards the cornflower. The light floral fragrance drove away his indifference and melancholy, and he finally hummed a light tone.