X-Message-Number: 25955 Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 08:38:51 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: for James Clement re legal form To James Clement: Among the conditions in which you wish to be kept alive I found "persistent vegetative state". While the state of your brain should be verified by PET scans and possibly even a biopsy, when you're in a persistent vegetative state your brain is quite likely to have turned to mush. Yes, the centers in your lower brain that control your stomach, your lungs, etc may still be active but you're GONE. That's the one serious problem I can see with your proposed legal document. One thing to keep very firmly in mind is that OUR cryonicist notion of death IS NOT THE SAME as the usual notion of death among most people (including most doctors). In the case of brain conditions, this becomes particularly important for us because we want suspension while we still exist (ie are alive in OUR sense) and conditions such as persistent vegetative states (and others such as Alzheimer's and various brain diseases) are those in which society believes we're alive, and therefore cannot undergo suspension (so long as it's only allowed for "officially dead" people). We, of course, believe that we've died. Terri Schiavo did not die yesterday. She died over 10 years ago, and various agencies have kept around an empty shell that is no more her than a portrait would be. Best wishes and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25955