X-Message-Number: 2183
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: cryonics: #2174-#2180
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 22:30:29 PDT

Hi.

Unfortunately for the idea of vitrifying everything in a whole body, it has
turned out that the ideal solutions and ideal cooling paths (ie. how the
organ is brought down to storage temperature) differ with organ. 

With this point alone, it's clear that cutting a chimp into slices won't help,
since the slices will contain parts of more than one organ. Furthermore, it
isn't currently possible to get the slices to grow together again anyway;
the spinal cord won't link up once cut. On the positive side, there actually
is considerable work going on to find out how to force cut or injured spinal
cords to heal together; that is an elaborate subject, much too involved for
a short message, but there are researchers who definitely do not think it
is hopeless to try. (What they are trying to do is to find out the reasons
why our spinal cords don't heal, while those of salamanders DO. When I wrote
my 1988 article in ANALOG ("24TH Century Medicine") I briefly discussed some
of this work, but there is a lot more).

Furthermore, the consensus in cryonics as I understand it is that we will 
understand these processes so well at time of revival that we can grow an
entire body from the head alone (a background for neuropreservation).

I will say even more. Yes, we are coming to understand DNA and how it works.
But there are even more common wonders that we remain very ignorant of:
how do humans grow from a single egg? Why can even human embryos, young enough,
completely repair damage which would cripple an adult --- including severe
brain damage? I personally cannot believe that these questions won't someday
have detailed solutions, and with those solutions our ability to repair 
damage from freezing (or anything else!) will become so far ahead of present
abilities that present doctors will seem as if they operate by firelight  
with roughly chipped stone axes.

As for my own case, though I had only a 20% chance of lasting for 5 years I've
turned out to be very lucky --- I'm still alive and fairly undamaged. But the
legal case failed on appeal. I'm not sorry I brought it because it needed to
be tried, and someday it will be won. It was a difficult case in several ways,
since what was really happening was that cryonicists have a definition of 
"death" which specified that suspension would NOT kill me, while to those who
were not cryonicists thought of it as one more euthanasia case. It wasn't.

As for Kevorkian, his right to practise medicine has been severely curtailed.
I understand that Michigan has also passed a law against assisting a suicide.
But bully for Kevorkian, he's not going to stop until they physically prevent
him---- though I personally think the entire "euthanasia" controversy is a
black mark on BOTH sides, for neither side can comprehend cryonics, which 
at least deserves attention for its contribution to this question. After all,
none of us are saying that suspension is good or fun, we are saying that it
can properly be thought of as a last resort, and should be considered for that
and that alone. So both sides in that controversy really want people to die;
they are just arguing about the details of exactly when and how painful it
should be. --- a bizarre controversy indeed.

				Best and long long life,
					Thomas

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