X-Message-Number: 32668
Subject: Re: Comments
From: David Stodolsky <>
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2010 10:35:07 +0200
References: <>

On 24 Jun 2010, at 11:00 AM, CryoNet wrote:

> Objections to chemical fixation : there's a huge problem with chemical
> fixation, and it has nothing to do with the technology.  In order for
> cryonics to be further developed and widely accepted, it must be based upon
> scientific principles.  We can't make further improvements if we don't have
> any practical way to evaluate the improvements, and we can't get the medical
> community to accept it if we don't have evidence and reasoned arguments.


I doubt whether acceptance has much, if anything to do with evidence and 
reasoned arguments.

> 
>  The catch is, we cannot produce the one thing that would silence all doubt
> - a revival of a human being - without technology that is many decades away.

This might silence some doubts, but it wouldn't mean acceptance of cryonics. 


> However, this isn't the end of the story.  If cryonics as a medical
> procedure put the human brain into a state that is demonstrably revivable -
> and then froze it in a way that did not significantly change the molecular
> structure of the brain - we could show using mathematics that all
> significant information needed to reverse the process back a few minutes
> still exists in the frozen brain.  Ultimately, the process could be proven
> mathematically to work.  Frozen patients could have samples removed from
> their brains and scanned, and the data could be used to prove that a
> particular patient was still alive.


I don't see that there is much, if any difference between frozen and plastic 
here. 

Removing samples from a suspendee might be frowned upon.

> 
>   None of this is possible with chemical fixation, and you cannot
> chemically fix living tissue and then revive it today like you can revive
> living organisms frozen in liquid nitrogen.  You don't really have a way to
> test your work.  It may actually be possible to remove samples from a
> suspended patient and to revive individual cells, producing real proof of
> viability.


Chemical fixation has the advantage that it is cheap and doesn't require 
constant care to maintain low temperatures. Given the socio-political risk, it 
could be argued that the plastic preservation is a better bet. 


dss



David Stodolsky
  Skype: davidstodolsky

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