X-Message-Number: 33197
References: <>
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2011 17:06:32 -0800 (PST)
From: 2Arcturus <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #33188 - #33193

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From: Gerald Monroe <>
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2011 05:33:01 -0600
Subject: Re: CryoNet #33183 - #33187

>>>I have seen comments here that if
we could bring back living breathing humans from cryonics then there would
STILL be a majority of the population who wouldn't want it.


I'm afraid I'm one of those people. I don't think demonstrated, reversible human
cryopreservation would change the situation much.
Consider a 90 year old man suffering from a little bit of everything - he 
doesn't want to be revived, he wants to be rejuvenated.
Consider a person eaten up with cancer - he doesn't want to be reanimated, he 
wants to be cured.
Reversible human cryopreservation by itself lacks the imminent appearance 
of cures or treatments for the things people normally die of, and rejuvenation 

that could add many years of quality life. And there are many other things that
could be crucial to making cryonics convincing to people, such as an enduring 
social milieu and economic prosperity for people with extreme longevity.

But of course, if all these things were present, then ironically cryonics would
also be in danger of being redundant, because most people wouldn't be in much 
fear of death. It is only at the historical moment when these things are not 
present, but are widely perceived to be imminent, that cryonics might have its 
strongest rationale - as no one would want to be (to rephrase Kerry) the last 
person to die of natural causes.

I especially think of how the medical community would probably find demonstrated
reversible human cryopreservation a classic 'solution in search of a problem.' 

If people are dying of something, it is because they cannot be cured of whatever

it is, so there is no point in suspending them, since why would you ever revive
them? Ethically, the medical community would not be comfortable suspending 
people on the unproven promise of future medical advances - how can you make 
promises you cannot keep? - plus, especially, why bother if your patients are 
perfectly happy 'going to heaven' and accepting their lot as the will of God? 

The only medical application of reversible human cryopreservation would probably

be in trauma units, e.g., battlefields, where you did have cures and treatments,
but simply insufficient time to do the treatment or get the patient to the 

proper medical facility. Even then, for trauma, very low temperatures would prob
not be helpful as they would interfere with treatment, and the time to reverse 
the cryopreservation (if it wasn't almost instantaneous) would prob defeat the 
purpose of gaining time to treat.



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