X-Message-Number: 22182 Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 13:12:25 -0400 (EDT) From: Subject: Nanogirl on Cryonics Gina Miller writes: Message #22180 From: "Gina Miller" <> Subject: New Cryonic Suspension Paper Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 21:34:08 -0700 Read a new paper The Bioethical Implications, Dilemmas And Questions Involved With Cryonic Suspension written May 31, 2003 by Gina Miller. --- Unfortunately, while the intentions are admirable, there are some problems with this text. It describes "Miles the Beagle" (a resuscitation experiment staged by Paul Segall) without mentioning the prior work by Cryovita which was far more ambitious and useful to cryonics. It provides a very incomplete description of the Dora Kent case. The work by Isamu Suda resuscitating cat brains is not adequately described. However, the most trouble aspect is that the text insists on describing cryonics as relying on future technology to reverse death. Gina Miller never once raises the issue of the definition of death, and does not suggest that today's cryonics patients are not dead (assuming they have been well treated) if we define death appropriately as irrevocable destruction of the brain on a cellular level. Indeed it was a key nanotechnology figure, Ralph Merkle, who (I think) coined the phrase "information theoretic death"; I'm surprised that a well-informed advocate of nanotech such as Gina Miller has not encountered this term. So long as we talk in terms of "reviving the dead" we are buying in to a misconception about the nature of death which permeates our society and is simply wrong. If a small child who falls into a snowdrift and exhibits no vital signs for more than two hours can be resuscitated, I believe that person was not "dead" in the usually intended sense. The same logic applies to cryopatients. We hope to resuscitate these patients. We do not hope to resurrect them. Only the Good Lord can do that, and I am hoping we won't need help of that kind. --Charles Platt Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22182