X-Message-Number: 27302
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 08:13:33 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Revival

The message from Francois and the preceding one from Tripper raise
lots of points relevant to how our brains work. Unfortunately there
seem to be a number of misconceptions floating around.

First of all, animals may not have the consciousness of people but
no one who deals with them, particularly with monkeys but even with
dogs and cats knows that they have consciousness. Yes, less than
that of human beings, but enough that if we used monkeys to test
the effect of our suspension and revival methods on them we'll have
good reason to believe that similar methods will revive us.

Second, it's most likely that those who suffered the least damage
on their suspension will be those who are revived faster. That in
turn means that no one now alive will be among those first 
revived: some other human being (who genuinely needed revival)
will be revived before us. If the means used were first tested on
monkeys, I see no reason to object to their test on humans.

The notion that revival methods may only be tested on humans just
doesn't look very strong.

As for the notion that we may someday revive those who are no
more than a skeleton, we're into a much more metaphysical form
of reasoning. The fundamental problem with bringing such people
back is not that we will fail utterly but that we will bring someone
back in a way that gives us many different versions of that
person. If we can't bring all of them back which one do we choose?

          Best wishes and long long life for all,

              Thomas Donaldson

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=27302