X-Message-Number: 32385
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: cryonics terminology 
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 11:47:31 -0000

Lawyers claim a dead person is not a person, it is a corpse.

The idea that certain people are not people as defined by law has extensive
historical precedent. Slavery was justified because people who were being
enslaved were not regarded as being people in the law of the time. This idea
persisted well into the 19th century.

If a time comes when evidence based science can demonstrate that anyone who
had been cryopreserved in the 20th and 21st centuries could have been
restored to good health, any lawyer or other administrator who prevented
such an event will be regarded in the same way as a slave trader. I doubt
whether there are many people today who are proud of ancestors who were
slave traders.

It is difficult to say when the reanimation of cryopreserved people could
ever be possible. If it is unlikely to be within the lifetime of the present
generation of lawyers and administrators, then they may take comfort in
enjoying their power over cryopreserved people feeling sure that they will
never have to answer for their actions. Concern over their descendants is
very much less likely to influence their actions.

I would suspect that any lawyer or administrator interfering with a
cryopreservation has never given any serious thought as to whether
cryopreservation may work. If anything, he has probably relied on
authorities who, without giving it any thought, have said it won't work.
Unless some way can be found of making these people give it serious thought,
getting a specific individual cryopreserved is always going to be very
tricky. Some will get through -- many won't.

I think someone mentioned fairly recently that there are plenty of books and
papers that have been written saying why cryonics could work, but none
giving detailed reasoned argument as to why it could not possibly work. The
only remarks from people in positions of power stating the case against are
statements like "it is like turning a hamburger into a cow" or comparisons
with deep frozen fruits.

The only books against cryonics have really been against cryonics
practitioners, suggesting that they were making money offering nothing of
value in return. Of course this is not true - no one ever got rich out of
cryonics. Only time will tell whether the service they offer is of value. No
one can legitimately offer an opinion on that value today.

-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:  http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including
Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley
Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy,  Nomad .. and
more

----- Original Message ----- 
From: 
<del>
>From CI's website:
[Cryonicists make best efforts to minimize tissue deterioration to maximize
the future potential for life. For this reason, cryonicists refer to people
who have been cryopreserved as patients, rather than as corpses.]

>From Alcor's website:
[The cryopreservation phase of cryonics will not be reversible for a very
long time. But this still does not mean cryonics patients are dead.]

According to a court ruling in the state of Michigan a patient can not be a
corpse, and thus technically CI is guiltly of making a fraudulent claim. Any
unsympathetic bureaucrat could take CI to court and win the lawsuit.
Snipped from the web>
[A ruling however by the Michigan Court of Appeals determined that "because
a dead body is not a person, it is not protected under a statute that
protects patient abuse in nursing homes."]

<del>

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