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From att!A.ISI.EDU!TKD Mon Aug 13 08:16:08 1990
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Date: Mon 13 Aug 90 08:10:42-EDT
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Re: cryonics #206 - Neuro Option Information Wanted
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If I looked back through previous issues of CRYONICS I could find some
articles advocating neuropreservation by Mike Darwin. (CRYONICS has no 
index). However I would say myself the following: 

I too have arranged for neuropreservation. I do NOT believe that I would
receive a cloned body with my head attached to it. Right now, we can't
Another alternative exists which I think is much better. Another body
would be made to grow from my head. I would be unconscious while this happened
and would awake normally. The differences I might notice would be, say,
that some scars and birthmarks I used to have were no longer there.

Right now we are nowhere near to understanding the whole process of growth
and development. How does it happen that a single cell can grow
into a human being? If we understood that process and could control it 
completely, then we could not only grow new limbs or new eyes but even
grow an entire body from a head.

Besides its cost advantages, neuropreservation also has security advantages.
In the Dora Kent case, her head could be hidden from the Coroner's agents
until a judge ruled that they had no right to it in the first place. A
whole body would have been easily seized. We unfortunately have no reason
to believe that people in America will remain friendly to cryonics. Heads
can be easily smuggled over international borders, etc.

Finally in its support I'd point out that we KNOW (because one patient, not
a patient of Alcor's, had to be converted to neuropreservation for financial
reasons, and we could examine her body) that freezing a whole body sets up
physical stresses which cause the spinal cord to crack through in at least
two places. Of course we believe this can someday be fixed. But I mention it
to point out that even if you are frozen as a whole body you will essentially
be decapitated anyway. (Incidentally, repair of spinal cords is right now
a subject of intensive research, a very early sign of the kind of total
control of growth and development I'm suggesting. There's a lot of optimism
among neurologists that something can be done).

			Best
				Thomas Donaldson
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