X-Message-Number: 12479
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: comments for Darwin and Skrecky
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 23:08:21 +1000 (EST)

Thanks to Doug Skrecky for his references, which I will look up and
evaluate myself.

I also note that he is leery of current fixation technology for similar
reasons to those which make me leery --- even if entire brains have been
fixed. I will say this: I think that the earliest technology to be used
in cryonics in a widespread way will be cryopreservation, that this will
be followed by the vitrification methods developed by 21st Century 
Medicine, and that someday we will have a fixative which preserves us 
without any need to keep the bodies especially cold. (Raising them to
a high temperature such as that for combustion, of course, still won't
be a good idea!). I'll also hazard the guess that by that time, we'll
be much more at home with space travel, and people could be preserved 
far away from the Sun (or any other star) at very low temperatures.

I also note that in his discussion Mike comes close to agreeing with me
about the need for more direct experiments before we have a better
knowledge of whether or not current vitrification methods will work.
I will also say that if Mike chooses to be suspended, by whatever means,
his choice by its nature cannot be science. Science concerns knowledge;
whenever we act, it helps to have knowledge, yes, but no action can
be proved to be successful beforehand. If we're just discussing
something, we're dealing with knowledge. If we actually do something,
not only can something go wrong that we think we know, but all kinds of
unrelated unexpected things might also go wrong. Knowledge and action 
are not and never will be the same. The two should not be confused.

And that's why it would be reasonable (if at all possible) to use the
current vitrification methods developed by 21st Century Medicine right now
for human cryonic suspension --- while we still don't have full KNOWLEDGE
that they will work.

			Best and long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson

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