X-Message-Number: 29841
From: Mark Plus <>
Subject: Rudi Hoffman's article in "Free Inquiry"
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:17:06 -0700

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=fi&page=hoffman_dwd

PDF version:

http://www.box.net/shared/static/zz1kb4g948.pdf



Many Are Cold but Few Are Frozen: Cryonics Today
Rudi Hoffman
Port Orange, Florida



Rudi Hoffman is an independent Certified Financial Planner in Port Orange, 
Florida. He specializes in cryonics insurance and estate planning.


You and I have something in common. We are both careening headlong toward aging 
and death. That's the gorilla in the room that we try to ignore the impetus 
behind countless brands of superstition. But this is 2007, and there may be a 
more scientific and rational way for us to look at these issues. If control of 
the material world is rapidly advancing and human beings are part of the 
material world, then aging and death may soon become problems of medicine, not 
metaphysics.

What is Cryonics?

Cryonics is the science of cooling people immediately upon the pronouncement of 
legal death in the hope that, at some point, future technology may be able to 
resuscitate them. As such, it is a logical extension of the science of 
cryobiology, in which semen (which can be used almost indefinitely after cryo 
preservation), human eggs, human embryos, and other biological organisms and 
tissues are stored at very cold temperatures, typically in liquid nitrogen at 
-196 degrees Celsius.


The cryopreservation of human sperm and embryos is a mature technology to which 
thousands of men and women already owe their lives. Intestines, ovaries, blood 
vessels, and skin are among the many tissues that can be reversibly cryo 
preserved with current technology. Even brain slices are cryo preservable with 
normal function after rewarming. But the technology involved in cryogenically 
freezing and then successfully rewarming a complete, multicellular organism is 
much more complex. Cryonic suspension works today if by  works  we mean  
completely stops any further deterioration to the biological organism, whether 
for 30 or 300 years.  Once a biological organism has been cooled to cryogenic 
temperatures, further deterioration stops. Still, as of this writing, there is 
no documented example of a large, multicellular animal like a dog, cat, rat, or 
human cooled to cryogenic temperatures then successfully rewarmed with all 
functions intact.


But the people signing up for cryonic preservation today are not deterred by the
difficulties of cryopreserving whole people. There is scientific speculation 
that future technologies, like artificial general intelligence, biotechnology, 
and nanotechnology, may enable even imperfectly cryopreserved humans to be 
resuscitated with consciousness intact.


Just because this has yet to be done, it does not mean that it cannot be done. 
Legitimate cryonics protocols and concepts do not violate known laws of physics 
or biology, and there are many  proof of concept  examples, like reduced 
temperature surgery and operating-room resuscitation of people prematurely 
pronounced  dead. 


Numerous modern medical procedures, including heart transplants, cloning, stem 
cell research, and even anesthesia, were once considered science fiction. 
(Interestingly, religious conservatives denounced each such advance as  playing 
God. )


How many people are signed up for cryonic preservation? The first successfully 
cryopreserved person who has remained at low temperature is Dr. James Bedford. 
He entered suspension on January 12, 1967, soon after the publication of Robert 
Ettinger's seminal book, The Prospect of Immortality. Though the practice of 
cryonics is over forty years old, the number of people signed up for suspension 
remains small. According to the Web sites of the two existing cryonics 
organizations, only about a thousand people have signed up, with about 150 
already in liquid-nitrogen containers.

Why I Signed Up

In 1994, I read an article in Omni magazine about a cryonics organization, the 
Alcor Life Extension Foundation, now based in Scottsdale, Arizona. I was 
fascinated to find that there were at least two organizations providing human 
cryopreservation: Alcor and the Cryonics Institute, the latter based in 
Michigan. I had thought cryonics to be strictly science fiction, and I was 
thunderstruck to find that two real, solid organizations had been quietly 
cryopreserving people for decades.


At the time, Alcor's price for a full body suspension was $120,000. Due to 
inflation and improved protocols, it has now risen to $150,000. (The Cryonics 
Institute charges slightly less.) I was surprised to find that this entire cost 
can be paid by life insurance! By simply adding an extra policy naming Alcor as 
beneficiary, for a few bucks a day, I could be a part of this grand experiment.


As a Certified Financial Planner, part of my business is implementing life 
insurance solutions for my clients. I determined that an extra permanent 
universal life-insurance policy was quite affordable even affordable enough to  
cost justify  to my wife, whose enthusiasm for this experiment was initially 
less than overwhelming.


Like many people who eventually sign up for cryonics, I had multiple questions. 
The Alcor staff answered them straightforwardly. There was a clear understanding
that cryonics is not a guaranteed ticket to the future, but is a  best efforts
proposal of dedicated and conscientious individuals. The multiple variables 
that could go wrong were clearly laid out for me, both in my conversations with 
Alcor staff and in the paperwork that they sent to me. I have since learned a 
great deal about the cryonics community. People who sign up for cryonics display
interesting demographics. Not surprisingly, many tend to be skeptical of the 
claims of religions. They are generally scientific, analytical, and academic by 
orientation. Until recently, they have been disproportionately software 
engineers and computer professionals.


Most of us are extremely aware of the variables that could make resuscitation 
unlikely. The circumstances surrounding one's  legal death  are obviously 
critical. Many of us have taken steps to reduce our personal risks for 
unexpected clinical death in order to maximize the likelihood that a cryonics 
team will be present at the time our heart stops. Coming  out of the closet  as 
a cryonicist with friends and family can be difficult, but it is obviously 
helpful to reduce the chance of delays or legal action near the time of 
cryopreservation.


Still, not all variables are uncontrollable. Two individuals signed up for 
cryonic suspension died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. In such
instances, proceeds of the insurance policy meant to fund cryonic suspension go
to a named secondary beneficiary such as a loved one or charity, just as with 
ordinary life insurance.


While I am not sanguine about the logistical and technological challenges that 
need to be met for cryonics to work, I am happy to say I feel very good about my
cryonics arrangement. It is a rationalist's way of coping with medical problems
for which there is no contemporary solution. While acknowledging that cryonics,
like other medical procedures, is always a  best efforts  intervention, being a
signed cryonicist makes me feel like I have at least taken advantage of the 
most recent developments in science and technology.

Ethical Considerations


The ethics of cryonics are certainly relevant to humanists who seek to live with
high integrity. Let me try to respond to some commonly expressed concerns.


In a world of scarce resources and overpopulation, should people try to preserve
and extend their lives? We've already answered this question, every one of us: 
of course we should! Any persons seriously convinced that human individuals 
cause more human problems than they solve would be ethically constrained to kill
themselves. Fortunately, most of us feel like we solve more problems than we 
create. While that may be self delusion on the part of some, I respectfully 
suggest that the world would be better if Albert Einstein, Robert G. Ingersoll, 
or Richard Feynman were still generating ideas or might do so in the future 
instead of being permanently and irretrievably dead.


What about the ethical aspects of paying for cryonics? Currently, society 
expends enormous resources to keep very old and frail people alive, though there
may be no chance of improvement in the quality of their lives. In contrast, 
cryonics is easily paid for with an extra life insurance policy, is paid using 
only private as opposed to public funds, and has the potential to restore 
individuals to a quality of life that could be astounding. How should we as a 
society treat patients who have run out of medical options? Should they be 
stabilized against the day when radically advanced medicine might render a 
second opinion, or shall we destroy them in our arrogant conviction that present
medicine has the last word on what is and isn't possible for all time?

Conclusion


While not for everyone, cryonics offers to some a reasonable, affordable, and 
ethical alternative when contemporary medicine fails. From the viewpoint of a 
person from 1907, only one hundred years ago, most Free Inquiry readers already 
lead science-fiction lifestyles. It is not a stretch of vision or imagination to
understand that cryonics, like cloning or heart surgery, will be mainstream 
technology in the future. This is the chance to take an ambulance ride to that 
future. 

Acknowledgment


Sincere thanks to Dr. Brian Wowk of 21st Century Medicine for assistance with 
this article.


_________________________________________________________________
Can you find the hidden words?  Take a break and play Seekadoo!
http://club.live.com/seekadoo.aspx?icid=seek_wlmailtextlink

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=29841