X-Message-Number: 23581
Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 11:36:45 -0800
From: James Swayze <>
Subject: Introducing cryonics via CWD/HS
References: <>

>
>Message #23576
>Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2004 14:30:29 -0500 (EST)
>From: Charles Platt <>
>Subject: hypothermia, revised
>  
>
<snip>

>
>Often I have used such stories about children as a way of
>evaluating the skepticism of the person to whom I am talking.
>If the person says, "I don't believe it, that's impossible,"
>I know I am going to have some difficulty presenting the case
>for cryonics.
>  
>
I do much the same. But as was mentioned, perhaps by you Charles, some 
people won't respond even to logic and reason when the stark and 
overwhelming evidence stares them in the face and dares them to change 
their minds. For example I like to link HS (hypothermic surgery) with 
CWD (cold water drowning) stories and provide at the end of a logical 
progression that anyone should be able to follow a logical 
comparison/question for they themselves to evaluate. I've had mixed 
results but even people that admit to agree with me still have not said, 
"James, where do I sign up?". It goes like this.

After telling of several examples of CWD and then also carefully 
explaining in laymen's terms the short version of highlights only of HS 
[having explained to them the spontaneous revival of bodily functions 
after the persons temperature reaches high enough for their natural 
electrical system to begin again to power the heart and the brain, IOW 
they sort of "reboot" at some point when warmed carefully and slowly], I 
ask or present the following. "If we consider the survival of people in 
cold water drowning events and hypothermia incidents and couple that 
with the planned and controlled case of hypothermic surgery, and 
supposing that a cryonics patient is in the future medically treated via 
something advanced where all their diseased and/or freezing damaged 
cells are repaired to pristine state, can you see any difference between 
these cryonics patients and those awaking from hypothermic surgery or 
revived after cold water drowning? Of course, if they are clever enough 
their mind has already filled in the gaps such as, the cryonics patient 
should be in even better shape than these other examples and under much 
more advanced and finely controlled procedures. Then I wait for the 
light to go on.

Sadly, it rarely does.

>I once talked to a biologist who refused to believe Suda's
>cat brain experiment even after I showed him a photocopy of
>the original paper in Nature. (I had obtained the photocopy
>from a medical library.)
>
That's incredible! It just goes to show how deeply ingrained the 
deathist meme is and in this case also the attitude of "real scientists" 
(quotes for emphasis of my facetiousness) toward cryonics, even real 
evidence is refused.

James


-- 
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