X-Message-Number: 19366 Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 08:45:55 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #19359 - #19365 Hi everyone! Some comments for Brett Bellmore: Cryonics is the practise of freezing (or otherwise preserving) those whose condition is so serious that otherwise they would die, because we presently do not know any way to repair them. If we look at cryonics in those terms, the very first conclusion is that it cannot EVER work in the sense that a medical procedure works. Yes, if we someday reach a state in which we know how to fix ALL POSSIBLE medical conditions, then cryonics can be said to work ... but it would also cease to be used. Nor are we taking any particular chances if we are suspended. If we come to be suspended, then the possible choices we have consist of guaranteed death or a possibility of life. In terms of chances, it seems to me that the possibility of life is far superior to guaranteed death. Nor is it easy to work out probabilities here: yes, it is certainly true that if not suspended you will die. Yet cryonics can involve storage for a very long time, up to thousands of years. Even if we revive some patients (because, of course, we worked out how to fix them) they will not form a good statistical sample for ALL patients because all the others would differ critically from them: we still don't know how to fix THEM. All of this means that much more than technology will be involved in any general acceptance of cryonics. At any given time, even if some people have been revived, those against it can always point to very large number of those who have NOT been revived, and decide (wrongly) that revival is of small enough probability that it's not worth spending much money for. That most of their money would be spent after their suspension would probably not affect such people. After all, we don't want to spend our money on worthless things, do we? I myself believe that cryonics WILL eventually be accepted by almost all people. But that acceptance will not come with any particular technical advance, but a general acceptance of the kind of reasons I have just explained. There IS a corollary to this argument, though: even though it's hard to do, it may be to the advantage of a cryonics society to keep membership dues as low as possible. It is dues which are payments which will not bring your own revival much closer, except indirectly and probably...with probability here actually making some sense (how much of dues go to administration and how much goes to work to improve the process?). Yes, I too understand that dues are going to be inevitable; this is just a point to keep in mind. Best wishes and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19366