X-Message-Number: 10360
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 20:12:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: Hamburger

On Sun, 30 Aug 1998, Bob Ettinger wrote:


> First, Arthur Rowe's notorious sound bite about reviving a frozen person being
> as difficult as turning hamburger back into a cow: As I have pointed out
> before, this is a plain and conscious lie. Many lower animals have been
> revived after freezing, none after grinding.

With all due respect, Bob, I find your statement more misleading than
Rowe's "hamburger" statement. First of all, he was clearly talking about
people, not highly specialized animals that have adapted to subzero
temperatures. Second, as you will know, no whole animals of any kind have
been revived after freezing in liquid nitrogen, which is what Arthur Rowe
was talking about. And having seen photomicrographs of brain tissue frozen
using the cryonics procedures that were in use at the time Rowe made his
statement, I find the "hamburger" analogy not too far from the truth.
Certainly, the structure was "ground up" in many cases. 

Thus Rowe certainly did NOT lie, consciously or unconsciously, so far as I
can see. Fortunately there has been some progress away from the
"hamburger"  condition, and we can look forward to progress in the future.
If Rowe becomes aware of this, and still sticks to his original statement,
then we may be able to accuse him of, perhaps, willful blindness to the
facts. 

--Charles Platt

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