X-Message-Number: 1292
Date: 11 Oct 92 02:09:56 EDT
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Re: cryonics: #1244

Hi Brian!

I know I'm a bit late on this particular debate, but it's a subject
I've thought about for some time. Basically, I've already given my
arguments to Keith Henson on this subject: I don't believe that the need
for long term storage of patients (which we now do with freezing, but 
may not do with freezing forever) will EVER disappear. Sure, there will
be a peak in the number of patients suspended per year, followed by a 
slow decline. But the number will never actually go to zero.

Why? Because we are NEVER going to understand ALL possible injuries so
well that we can immediately repair them or even state that they will be
repairable. Certainly, we will someday completely understand all lthe
PRESENT kinds of injuries, including ischemic brain injury --- but that's
not the point. As we go into space and take up new styles of life, new
inventions, and so forth, there will always be the rare fiendish accident
which messes someone up in a way we can't even specify right now (since
after all we haven't YET taken up thos new styles of life, etc etc).

Certainly we might keep copies of ourselves in places which we BELIEVE
are safe. We can do lots of things. That merely decreases the probability
without taking it to zero. 

And there is a sting at the tail of this decrease in probability, too.
Remember that (unlike the present) we will then think of ourselves as 
having lifespans of millenia, tens or hundreds of thousands of years; 
and so events which we would now simply shrug about (asteroid impacts on
the Earth, the aging of the Sun, etc etc) become real problems to us as
we try to live for our "allotted 10 million year lifespan". So the rarity
of a need for long term storage will be measured not against our lifespans
of today but against those of tomorrow: and that may not even seem very
rare at all.
			Best
				Thomas Donaldsn

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=1292