Death And A Download

I find it difficult first to remember, then to summarize, some of the complicated information that is presented in a highly condensed form in Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars Tetralogy, then find that I have done this already in any case, e.g.:

End And Beginning

Assimilating Memories

Download Guthrie answers a question that I asked recently in Interstellar Crossings. When a mind is downloaded before an interstellar crossing, the body is asleep and does not wake up. But that is the suicide option. Some people believe that suicide is a grave sin and some of us at least find it distasteful. But there are other options: either remain alive and awake and accept the approach of a sudden death in the planetary collision or pass into cold sleep shortly before the collision. In the latter case, you will, of course, die - that is inevitable - but you will not have taken your own life. To some of us, that makes a difference.