X-Message-Number: 5339
From:  (Brian Wowk)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: High Pressure Cryonics
Date: 4 Dec 95 20:45:10 GMT
Message-ID: <>

References: <49mesn$> <> 
<>

In <>  (Will Ware) writes:

>Brian Wowk () wrote:
>: Vitrification involves introducing cryoprotectants
>: and glass forming agents at a sufficiently high concentration that
>: ice formation is completely eliminated upon cooling.  We are
>: optimistic in cryonics that this technology will allow us to
>: perform reversible cryopreservation of the human brain within the next
>: decade.

>This sounds intriguing. Can you say a bit more about what that would
>look like? I've read about, and been quite impressed by, the successful
>efforts with dogs and baboons to go close to 0 celsius for a few hours.

>Ignoring issues of legality, I can imagine a situation where somebody was
>terminally ill (eg. late stages of AIDS) who would be willing to be
>chilled to well below freezing, thawed a few weeks or months later for
>memory testing and comparative psychological profiling, and then rechilled
>so that they could get their health fixed some time when their condition
>becomes repairable.

	In all likelihood, AIDS will be curable by the time we are
able to reversibly cryopreserve *whole people* (which is what you
describe above).  This is probably still ~40 years off, possibly
requiring some form of nanotech. 

	Reversible cryopreservation of brains is a much less
ambitious goal.  In fact, it's probably a several-million-dollar
"slam dunk" by conventional medical research standards.  What
will make it hard is that the only market for this technology
is cryonics, and only cryonicists are now funding this research.

	The great benefit of this technology will be that it
will leave *no doubt* that cryonics patients are still viable
people (even if their brain is the only organ that remains
viable).  Reversible brain cryopreservation could even form
the basis of legal challenge to give cryonics patients the
same rights and protections as living people.  Patients with
perfectly-cryopreserved brains will still have to wait many
decades for technologies of tissue/body regeneration to be
developed, but that wait will be in a much more friendly
legal, medical, and social environment than exists in cryonics
today.   
 
>On a nearly unrelated note (but pertaining to legality), what's the legal
>status of somebody who is cryopreserved in international waters? It's my
>understanding that the definition of clinical death in the U.S. precludes
>optimal preparation for cryopreservation. Are the laws more lenient at
>sea? (One imagines "cryo-cruises"; island-hop the Caribbean, then go into
>cryostasis on the way home.)

	Murder is murder, even in international waters.  Until active 
euthanasia is legalized in the U.S. (if it ever will be), refusal
of food and fluids may be the best way to get a good-quality timely
cryopreservation.  It's not comfortable, and it's not pretty, but
it works, and doesn't have the complications and expense of international
logistics.

---Brian Wowk 


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