X-Message-Number: 16641
From: "Trygve Bauge" <>
References: <>

Subject: Survey: Who on cryonet wants to be dug up and frozen if inadvertently 
burried? Please respond.
Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2001 13:05:16 +0200

To Robert Ettinger, the Chamberlains, and other cryonic providers.

I saw Robert's letter on Cryonet, where he in a paragraph mentioned that he
would not dig up/freeze anyone that has been burried. The same seems to
apply to the other large cryonics groups and the transit facility in
England.

Let me thus ask if that also applies to signed up members that inadvertently
or accidentially get burried before their cryonics provider gets notified of
their death?
Hypotethically even signed up members might die in the most unexpected
places, not be found or identified on time and be stored or even burried
before the cryonic provider gets notified.

If you die and are not found for a few weeks, the harm might be the same as
beeing burried.
Would any of the existing cryonics providers still accept and freeze such a
patient, if the patient was properly signed up and had prepaid or
prearranged the financing for his or her suspension??

If you would accept such a patient,
then why not even accept such post mortem cases?
(Such cases that are signed up post mortem.)
When the funding is there, and the next of kin want the suspension?
----
Second scenario:
In our life time it might be possible and legal even to clone DNA fragments
from dead tissue samples.
Am I the only one who favours that we then start to systematically dig up
the dead, take DNA samples, clone and raise the dead, and then give them the
option of paying back what it cost to raise them, much like people pay back
a student loan?

I am not speaking about just cloning dead geniuses, athletes and musicians
etc. I am speaking about good will towards all men, (including all dead
ones, whether they were intelligent or dumb, rich or poor) and the
philosophical concept that life is good and death is bad.
I am not speaking about charity or altruism either, but about organizing it
in a sound profitable way, rational egoism at its best so to speak.

At the existing cryonics providers there seem to be a prevailing attitude,
that if one can't freeze a person under the most ideal circumstances, then
one should rather let the person rot.

It seems to me, that if the existing cryonics providers won't accept us if
we inadvertently have been burried,
then we need to set up another cryonics provider.

I would love to survive as a 100% continuation of myself,
but when that is not an option I would like the highest degree of
continuation. And if that is as a clone, then that is far preferable to
being totally annihilated.

For years I have hoped that someone in the cryonics movement would buy a
freezer, set up a laboratory for tissue cultivation and offer to freeze live
cell samples, for future cloning.

As well as a databank for storing relevant mental content that later could
be taught to any clone through conventional teaching techniques.

It seems to me that the storage of live cells, the storage of dead cells,
and the storage of long dead corpses, all fall within the broader field of
life-extension.

Now, I would like to hear from like minded individuals,
so that we can write a venture plan and implement such a
full service provider.

The bottom line is that life-extension is not just a question of life and
death, but of the highest degree of continuation of oneself.

And to that end it might be of value to preserve even the long dead and long
burried corpses, and not just a cell sample.

Cryonics is basically in competition with the worlds religions. Religions
promise to restore dead corpses to their full vigour. Thus we are up against
a prevailing attitude that it is of value to preserve the whole corpse, and
it is the whole corpse that people want restored.

There is also the question that a person's sense of being oneself is based
on that persons total body, and that even if the mental content is lost,
one's sense of being oneself, one's basic awareness so to speak, would be
better preserved if one at least physically repaired the body's cells, even
if the mental content would have to be restored or recreated from other
sources than the corpse itself.

I am not just saying that the future might be able to restore more of what
is you and of your sense of being yourself, if they have your whole corpse
and not just a DNA sample.
E.g. they might be able to repair more of your cells, and even some mental
content, and have to restore the rest from other sources than your corpse.

I am also pointing out such mundane facts that DNA samples might get lost,
and the whole corpse might be the only way to recreate another DNA sample
from fragments.

Once again I call upon the existing cryonics groups to reconsider their
treatment of Elizabeth Kostadinova.
She apparently has the money to have her father frozen.
I call upon CI, Alcor, Trans Time etc. to use this opportunity to get the
funding for a new 4 person dewar.

In the mean time I am continuing to gather the necessary information to
establish a full service provider.

I have asked all the existing cryonics groups where they have bought their
dewars, and for the names of the sales reps. to contact.
And I call upon each to at least respond to that question.

Sincerely,

Trygve Bauge

Ps. To everyone that read this message: Please let me know if you want to be
dug up and frozen if you inadvertently had been burried, and someone close
to you wanted to dig you up and freeze you? Or would you rather be left to
rot?

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=16641