X-Message-Number: 5532
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 22:33:32 -0500 (EST)
From: Robin Helweg-Larsen <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet 5462; Rob Michels

I've only picked up my CryoNet for the last couple of weeks, so I'm way 
behind.  Merry New Year, everyone!

First, I am shocked by Rob Michels' death.  I only met him a 
couple of times, but I really liked him.  He didn't live far from me.  
And I am *really* upset by the Chapel Hill police, if that's who disposed 
of his brain.

Steve, are you looking for suggestions for what to do with the insurance 
money?  1)  Spend it trying to get hold of whatever bit of his brain is 
in Chapel Hill.  If there's anything left over, then 2) exhume his body 
in California and collect whatever is left in the skull.  And then, 3), 
(or else number 1), SUE THE SOCKS OFF WHOEVER DISPOSED OF HIS BRAIN!

As I understand it, you don't have any choice but to do 1) and 2).  
There's a major point here: the whole of Cryonics is predicated on the 
assumption that humans will be able to do in the future things that we 
can't do now.

Maybe there is so much brilliantly structured or random redundancy in the 
brain that even 1% of it will ULTIMATELY, in the far, far future, allow 
the reconstruction of the entire person.  

Ten thousand years ago, who would have been able to guess that by 
drilling holes in ice we could determine the weather of previous 
millennia?  That a trace of something in a bone would allow the 
reconstruction of the whole animal?  That by looking at moving images on 
a glass object, we could see what was happening anywhere in the world?  Such 
concepts were fantasy, fairy tales, magic.  There was no conceivable 
mechanism for them.  

What will be possible in five hundred, let alone ten thousand years?  Who 
can know?  Therefore, if Rob left money for you to preserve any part of his 
brain at all, in no matter what condition, you MUST do it: because he *may 
be all there*.

And for myself, as someone in the slow process of joining Alcor, I want 
the certainty of knowing that you will do the same for me.  Promise?

And if there's money left over, I want you to sue the hell out of anyone 
who has knowingly or unknowingly violated the legal provisions that we 
are all spending so many years putting in place.  

I don't *CARE* if it's the Police Department of the most responsive 
community in the state.  Don't they know that "Ignorance of the Law is no 
excuse"?  Essentially, to my mind it's murder.  Maybe we can't get them 
(yet) for murder of a clinically dead person, then we have to get them on 
anything we can, even if it comes down to religious freedoms or whatever.

Maybe (I offer this point for discussion) the best thing we could do for 
Cryonics would be to have a Scopes Monkey Trial (speak up, Darwin!).  We 
don't have to win it, in order to have a major impact on public 
awareness, understanding, and acceptance of cryonics.

I am really, really angry - and there's probably a lot of fear and 
frustration about my own fate tied up in it.  Talking to my wife and 
friends I can be calm and detached and philosophical about Rob's death, 
the pointlessness of life, with self-deprecating comments about the 
unlikelihood of cryonics working and humorous acknowledgement of the 
strangeness of my beliefs.  But writing this letter I got very angry.

> 
>      Mrs. Michels told the police of his suspension arrangements and
> asked the police to phone Alcor at the number on Rob's bracelet.  (Rob
> had chosen neurosuspension.)  Unfortunately, the police officers in
> charge decided on their own that the body was too far decomposed for
> cryonics and *did not call us.*  The M.E. also did not call us.  (None
> of these people knew that a legal anatomical donation was involved in
> cryonics.)
> 
>      In fact, we did not find out about Rob's death until Tuesday
> night, November 21st, when his ex-wife called to tell us she had just
> returned from Rob's *funeral.*  We were stunned that no one had
> informed us early on; but we began investigating the next morning.
> The Medical Examiner told us that the body was severely decomposed,
> and that the brain was almost completely so.  What remained of the
> brain had been removed, examined, and *destroyed,* except for a small
> sample, which had been chemically fixed  and retained.
> 
>      Further investigation told us that Rob's body had been shipped
> back to California in a sealed casket and that he had been buried
> without any embalming at all.  This left us with few options.  Rob's
> default decisions in his paperwork asked us to preserve any part of
> his "brain tissue" that we were able to recover, regardless of the
> damage done to it.  We have considered requesting a temporary
> disinterment; but our legal authority appears vague, and the chance of
> finding any useful brain tissue seems vanishingly small.  We are still
> negotiating with the state of North Carolina to get access to that
> brain sample; but it is clear that the neural information that made up
> Rob Michels is gone.
> 
(snip) 
>      It will be many years, perhaps decades, before a practical
> understanding of cryonics becomes a standard part of police and court
> procedures.  Until then, it will be up to you to better inform the
> people around you, who may be your only voice in an emergency.
> 
> Steve Bridge, President
> Alcor Life Extension Foundation
> 

Comments and suggestions please!!

Always optimistically,

Robin Helweg-Larsen


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