X-Message-Number: 11469
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: To Mike Perry, Gerry Wright, and Rafi Haftka
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 00:06:44 +1100 (EST)

Some comments:

1. To Mike Perry: It is FALSE that evolution works for the good of the
species. Evolution almost always (except in special situations which do
not apply to human beings) works for the good of INDIVIDUALS. The reason
we have death is that we now live in a society in which our technology
(and general behavior --- we don't have feuds with others, we go to the
courts) has gotten us to a point at which there was no PREVIOUS
evolutionary pressure for people to live any longer, because most people
will have died by that time. Only a short time ago 50 was thought to be
old. 

Since other factors made almost everyone die off, it was impossible for
us to evolve to a longer lifespan. This situation does not exist now.
(And incidentally, it says that even without any effort, after generations 
our descendants would end up living longer).

Incidentally, the only way I know of to escape evolution is to provide
means by which we design our children (and ourselves) from their genes on
up, rather than the current method of reproduction. This would put the
pressure of evolution onto the genes rather than the whole collection of
genes which forms an individual person. Each person would then be a 
CHANGEABLE collection of genes. The only thing that is happening NOW with
evolution is that the traits which are favored have changed from those
which were favored, say, in the Stone Age.

If you want a source for this, I'll give it to you. I did not invent
these ideas.... they come from a scientist by the name of GC Williams,
and were elaborated further by others. Darwinian evolution itself works
only on individuals. (Actually, you should be able to find a source in
my old Bibliography on Cryonics).

To Gerry Wright:

Pardon me, but we (and you) do everything out of selfishness. Yes, our
selfishness (because we are pretty advanced animals) often involves trade
and cooperation. There is also a KIND of altruism that we display towards
(say) our children, if we have children; basically what this means is
that the selfish purpose towards which we work is not always personal
survival. But if the children belonged to someone else quite unrelated,
their fate might well be ignored (that is, if doing anything for them
put you in danger).

Moreover we must think very carefully about the reasons why older people
may resist new ideas. Not only is such resistance not at all universal,
but there is another explanation which fits such behavior very well: 
when they resist new ideas they resist them not because they are 
chronologically old but because they are closer to death. We aim to fix
that problem: not only would older people no longer be close to death,
but their brain, so far as age modified its thinking ability, would
also be restored to a younger state --- without erasing memories. 

Naturally an elderly person, sick with diseases such as Alzheimer's,
will not react favorably to new ideas. If an old person is healthy, there
is very little evidence that they are against new ideas anyway --- it's
just that health goes down now as we age. If you wish to argue otherwise,
then ask me for reference to support my position and give your own 
references to support yours.

When you suggest that we will become different, you say something obvious
but seem to attach much more weight to it than it deserves. Just by 
finding a way to live indefinitely in good health we will certainly 
become different. And yes, eventually we may forget many things we thought
and did when we were youths of less than 100 years. And if we are
suspended and then restored to good health, we may well feel differently
about our situation. In the root sense that we would not be identical
to our previous selves, then we would have changed, but such changes 
hardly seem great enough to make us into different people entirely. We
would remain the same person in the same sense that we are the same
as the 15-year-olds we once were.

And if you are satisfied with the annihilation which otherwise awaits you,
perhaps that is simply your choice. Not Penrose, nor any other thinker,
will cause ME to choose such annihilation --- whether or not my sense
of existence is thought by some to be an illusion.

To Rafi Haftka:
OK. Here's how I got involved with cryonics. Years ago, I believe when
I was in college, I read Hermann Kahn's book THE YEAR 2000. (I'd read
his other book, ON THERMONUCLEAR WAR, before then). This was the first
reference I remember to the possibility of long term suspended animation.
I remember very clearly feeling quite interested and excited by that
prospect.

When I went on to grad school and worked on my PhD, I was wrapped up
in mathematics and paying little attention to anything else.

Afterwards, with my PhD, at the age of 24, I went off to a teaching
job in Australia, and my thoughts about the possibility of long life
through suspended animation started coming again. It was after I went to
New Guinea (I'd had an interest in anthropology as an undergraduate,
and read all of Malinowski and others) that it became clear to me, first,
that even 10,000 years difference did not mean that these people would
become insane at their first acquaintance with the 20th Century (I 
remember very clearly what they asked me, standing around me in their
loincloths and grass skirts. They wanted to know about the moon landing,
which had just happened a few months ago). And by inversion, seeing
these people, the Chimbu (in the mountains of New Guinea), I wanted even
more to see the future, even 10,000 years into the future.

I had been interested in suspended animation before then, but when I
came back I felt even more interested, and wrote to groups in the US.
Ultimately I set up a cryonics association in Australia. At that time,
before about 1975, no group offered suspension to anyone who did not
live in the US. In 1975 I had a sabbatical in the US, and BACS had been
formed (I was 31 on 1 January 1975, when I arrived back in the US).
I had been corresponding with BACS beforehand, and signed up for
suspension membership on the spot, right at the airport.

I hope that this account fits what you want. I will say that my first
acquaintance with cryonic suspension was as suspended animation, not
the same thing, and I did take some time to understand cryonics. I do
not remember any sudden conversion, just reading, thinking, and mulling
over the subject. (That I was already very interested in Kahn's version
of suspended animation probably helped a lot --- after all, I would
be awakened in a time at which our repair technology had advanced a lot,
after all). At some point in this process I did read Ettinger's book,
too.


			And long long life to everyone,

				Thomas Donaldson

PS: Even to Gerry Wright, if he wants it.

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