X-Message-Number: 12068 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: for G. Smith and others: yes, we can advance NOW. Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1999 23:03:20 +1000 (EST) Hi everyone! First of all, I've never accused Bob Ettinger of a religious approach to cryonics. I will stand firm that some cryonicists do have such an approach. The difference can be seen from behavior rather than what someone says. If someone is actually trying to improve the probability that current (or past) suspensions will someday be reversible, and doing so by scientific study or the support of scientific study, then that is not taking a religious approach at all. If some other person merely does lip service to the need for PRESENT research and puts all the burden of revival onto the future, THAT is a religious approach. Furthermore, anyone who looks into cryobiology and neuroscience will learn that we are not so totally ignorant that we can do nothing at all. Not only that, but they will discover lines of research that only cryonicists are likely to follow. For years now, little has come from scientifically published cryobiology, but a lot of work has been done in neuroscience. That work, if considered, sharpens our ideas about just what we need to do. Not only that, but more recently, even though it still remains unpublished, further cryobiological work supported by CRYONICISTS has come up with advances which deserve to be applied to suspension of human brains as fast as possible. Not only that, but work on neuroscience now gives us a far sharper set of ideas about the different kinds of memory and how they work than anyone had 10 years ago. And it begins to tell us concrete things about how our sense of awareness works, too. Both of these remain important not only for future suspensions but even for past suspensions, since if continued (and some questions won't be asked by anyone but cryonicists here, too) they may give us our best chance at someday reviving those frozen with older methods too. To say that we are totally ignorant on any of these questions is hardly helpful. And (sorry for the ad) if you really think that, perhaps you might benefit from reading the newsletter PERIASTRON, which I put out in which I specifically discuss scientific developments relevant to cryonics and its success. I myself remain VERY skeptical that ANY scientific development will solve the problem of revival for EVERYONE. The best we can hope for is to approach closer and closer to that goal as the centuries (yes, centuries) pass. Even so, I'd rather be suspended by the best methods known at the time of my suspension --- though life being as hard as it is, even if such methods are known, I may still be unlucky. And finding those best methods is exactly the job of any scientific research into cryonics. Finding them, learning how to apply them to as many as possible, and continuing to improve: that should be our major job. Best and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12068