X-Message-Number: 12404
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
Subject: Re: Religious Authority and Cryonics
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 15:24:47 +0100

Thanks, Ivan, for continuing this discussion. Your point:

> This is the crux of the matter - can a technique that may have the
> potential to benefit an individual take precedence of one that is of
> proven benefit to society.

is the crucial one. To understand this, it needs to be applied to the whole
of medicine. If we apply it to the whole of medicine, surely this conclusion
can be drawn:

It is easy to make new people, and not that expensive to educate them
compared to the cost of elaborate medical procedures such as transplant
surgery and aftercare (often on expensive drugs for life). Therefore isn't
the use of such surgical techniques, in the UK paid for by the country as a
whole rather than the individual concerned, benefiting the individual at the
expense of the collective?

We observe that such expensive transplant techniques are regarded as a
proper use of collective money. I don't think anyone would get very far
suggesting that people that badly sick should be executed to save the
country money. In the radio play "Bomber" (based upon interviews with people
who experienced the war) the German medical experiments on
seeing how long airmen could survive in frozen water was regarded as
unacceptable by some Germans who found out about it even though it may save
German airmen's lives. Yet this is denying the subjects of these experiments
their lives by applying a technique to them to benefit the society as a
whole. [Please note that the reference to WW2 is not supposed to be name
calling but a genuine attempt to understand the issues.]

Therefore I suggest that we will eventually observe that cryopreservation,
for those few who want it, will be permitted by law and not deliberately
thwarted on just the same moral grounds. Cryonics people are not asking the
state to spend money on them - they are prepared to use their own savings
they may otherwise have spent on fast cars or holidays - they just asked not
to be killed when too sick for modern medicine to help them. Instead they
want a trip on a "time ambulance" to where they can be cured.


--
Sincerely, John de Rivaz
my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, my singles club for
people in Cornwall, music, Inventors' report, an autobio and various other
projects:       http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JohndeR


Ivan Robinson <> wrote in message
news:7rd1ft$3qd$
> Dear Jeffrey
>
> Thanks for your recent posting, My comments are interpolated
>
> > Well, of course I would prefer that you abide by the wishes of
cryonicists
> > to have their brains cooled and frozen as rapidly as possible rather
than
> > dissected.  You don't lose much information by this, and it may turn out
> > to be the difference between life and death to the cryonicists.
>
> As yet this issue has not arisen in my UK practice - possibly it may in
the
> next few years as Europe is strongly influenced, for better and worse, by
US
> activities. In the UK the coroner can direct any doctor to perform an
> autopsy.  To prevent brain dissection  you need to change legislation and
> redraft the coroner's act.
>
> > Remember that it is perfectly possible that cryogenic preservation, as
> > practised _now_, may eventually allow reanimation.  A cryonicist
> > dying now doesn't have the option of waiting for further developments
> > in the technologies that may eventually allow reanimation in order to
> > demonstrate them to you.
> >
> This is the crux of the matter - can a technique that may have the
potential
> to benefit an individual take precedence of one that is of proven benefit
to
> society.  I am a histopathologist and not a moralist, legislator,
ethicist,
> philosopher or cryogeneticist and obviously my thoughts are strongly
> influenced by my perceived worth in society.
>
> > I see the value of autopsy, but I doubt that you would lose much
> > important information if everyone who objected to it for any reason
> > was always excluded.  Even if that lead to exclusion of half the
> > population, you would still get plenty of data points for all but the
> > rarest of illnesses.  For "the modern plagues", surely there are
> > plenty of cases where the patient hasn't explicitly objected to
> > autopsy?
>
> This may be true if each individual didn't have a unique response to their
> disease, the hospital consent autopsy rate not plummeting and coroner's
> autopsies allowed material research and education
>
>
> Regards
>
> Ivan
>
>
>
>
>

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