X-Message-Number: 11436
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: to Hawkeye: about death and cryonics
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 23:01:15 +1100 (EST)

To Hawkeye, whoever you are:

The main investment you make in cryonics is your yearly dues, which vary 
with the organization. NO cryonics organization I know of (and I know them
all) insists that you irrevocably write over your insurance policy(ies) to
them. Even when legally you must do that, they will happily execute a
document allowing you to get it back with no complaints or problems. (Yes,
some insurance companies insist that you go that far, but many do not).

As you might guess, the main aim of an insurance policy is to provide 
the money required for your suspension when you do not have enough to pay
for it already. Some people take out term policies and also start saving,
so that when they are old enough they have the necessary money. This
works, although (at least for Alcor) again you do not give them ANY of
this money until you need to be suspended. Basically you execute a trust
with you as trustee while you are alive. As trustee there is no
restriction on what you do with the money in the event that you learn that
you'll be immortal, or for any other reason. You are required, of course,
to keep your cryonics society aware at all times of whether or not the
money will go to them if you die. Otherwise you can do what you want with
it. 

(Among other things, one of my own current activities consists of working out 
a trust so that I can stop paying for a term policy; Alcor has
requirements which they will send to you if asked. In my case the problem
is made even more complex due to various Australian tax laws, irrelevant 
to you). 

Finally, you raise the issue of "death". There is a different way of
looking at cryonics and what we intend to do. Basically cryonicists have a
different DEFINITION OF DEATH than the common one, and intend to be 
suspended not after they have died (by their definition) but after they
have died by SOCIETY'S definition. Cryonicists believe that you are
not dead unless the information required to recreate you has been totally
and provably destroyed. The current definition of SOCIETY (which
periodically changes, a fact which should cause suspicion in itself!) is
that CURRENT methods of revival fail to revive you.

I will expand on these two definitions a bit, just to make the difference
clear. The first thing that happened, in the 1950's, was that doctor's
discovered that they could revive some people whose hearts and lungs had
stopped pumping, at normal temperature for as long as 3 minutes afterwards
and much longer if their temperature had gone down close to (but not
below) 0 C. Formerly someone was simply declared dead if they stopped
breathing. So the first change in society's definition of death came in
the 1950's. More recently there has been work (NOT by cryonicists, though
cryonicists have paid close attention --- and in fact in one cryonics
laboratory they've worked out how to do even better with dogs (and 
probably human beings)) which successfully revived people after over 10
minutes without heartbeat or breathing. This advance hasn't yet seeped
into many people's minds, but it is real. 

In at least one case, one scientist-doctor working in this field was
able to revive someone after ONE HOUR. He happened to be working in the
emergency room of his hospital when someone was brought in who had lost a
lot of blood, and by applying the methods he knew with animals he revived
this patient.

Naturally this means that one more set of people who might otherwise have
simply been declared dead will now be considered alive, and revived.

Given that we can be suspended for centuries, it does not seem to us
at all wise to depend on a definition of death which changes with time.
Note that our definition above aims to be ABSOLUTE: something which will
not change with time. It does not depend on just what drugs and technology
happens to be available at a particular time and place.

But don't misunderstand. Someone who has wasted away to a skeleton would
be considered "dead" by both society at large and by cryonicists. For
that matter, if their brain had somehow been destroyed completely, most
cryonicists would consider the person dead, too. Moreover, our definition,
in at least one class of cases, would say that someone is "dead" when
society might not: I refer to cases of severe brain damage due to 
accidents or brain tumors. It's not enough that the brain ceases to work;
it must cease to exist. But if you suffer such damage, then we would
consider you "dead", even if your heart continued to beat and you 
continued to breathe. (We would naturally want proof that your brain
no longer existed here).

Such cases nowadays often cause much confusion among relatives and even
doctors about what to do. They're still breathing, aren't they? 

So our definition of death does not coincide with society's definition, it
doesn't simply claim that all those thought to be dead are actually alive,
it also has a class of patients dead by our definition but not by 
society's.

There is finally another difference between cryonics ideas and society
at large. Cryonicists have a wide variety of opinions about just how badly
they might be damaged and still want revival. Those papers to arrange for
cryonic suspension which I have personally seen all allow YOU to decide
just how badly you may be damaged before the cryonics society decides 
not to suspend you. Seen in another way, it allows YOU to decide just 
when you are dead, NOT society. And your cryonics society will follow
your definition.

I hope that these comments clarify cryonics a bit for you.

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson

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