X-Message-Number: 5739
From: John de Rivaz <>
Newsgroups: uk.legal,sci.cryonics,sci.life-extension
Subject: Re: Death (was Donaldson MR and Miss Hindley)
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 11:27:37 +0100
Message-ID: <>
References: <> <>

Thanks for these reasoned comments, but I do have some alternative 
arguments, which I have embedded:

In article: <>  Owen Lewis 
<> writes:
> 
> In article <>
>             "John de Rivaz" writes:
> 
> >In you comment that we should only go to lawyers when we have completed 
> >the freeze/thaw provess, you have missed the point. Cryonics relies on 
> >*future* science to revive people frozen by present science. It is not a 
> >"sure and certain knowledge" that they will be revived - no one in 
> >the cryonics movement offers that. But there is a logical extrapolation 
> >made from the science of people like Dr Minsky (whose work has a world wide 
> >reputation for excellence) to a technology that could revive people. 
> 
> Fine, John, I have no quarrel with what you say beyond this:
> 
> For the present and for the forseeable future it remains only a hypothesis
> that a man can be physically resuscitated years after having been frozen to 
> death. Even more problematic is the contention that, if physical life is 
> restored, memory must return with it.
> 

> By all means, let those who wish continue their quest. But be prepared to show
> a reliable technique for the resucitation of even rabbits before you expect 
> a sceptical world to focus on the possible consequences of the research.
> Were it otherwise, mankind would do nothing but chase started hares
> 

That is fair enough, except that *if* it works, and we wait until the 
*second half* of the reversible process (revival) is available, then all 
those who may have benefited now will be lost. 

Also, when a reversible process is available the revival technology will be 
able to cure most ills and there will be little further need for 
suspensions.

Please read the two above paragraphs again. They are very important, and 
some of the cornerstones of the cryonics argument. If you want to defeat 
cryonics, you have to defeat these arguments.

> >Being in cryonic suspension is the *second* worst thing that can happen to 
> >you. Being burned or rotted is the worst.
> 
> I don't think so. Try:
> 
> 	-	Awakening to find your mind wiped clean

You wouldn't know if it was wiped clean, would you :-)

> 
> 	-	Awakening to find massive cell damage
> 

You wouldn't awake then. Cell damage repair is what will be essential for 
revivals. No cell damage repair = no revivals.

> 	-	Awakening to find you wished you hadn't

That is open enough to be possible, but I would suggest that you then 
engage in a series of reckless activities which are also fun until you are 
exterminated.


I would ask other cryonicists to comment on these points. The fear of 
awakeing in an undesireable situation is probaly the main, if unstated, 
reason for the rejection of cryonics. People won't state it because 
government propaganda during the last war (on both sides) stops people 
admitting fears relating to pain and suffering, and its effects still exist 
to this day.

> 
> Your group really do have a hangup over 'rotting' don't you? Can't you 
> come to see it as a simple recycling process in which the physical
> entity of a man is recycled into other life?
> 

We are aware of that, but why should we be recycled into someone else? If 
that is such a good idea, why doesn't everyone go and comit suicide right 
now?

> >The legal profession ought not to deprive people of the freedom to take the 
> >chance that they can be revived from cryonic suspension. It ought to 
> >provide a *cheap and easy* means for them to make the financial provisions 
> >for this. None of us are asking for other people to spend their money on 
> >this chance, we are willing to use our own. But we are not happy to be in 
> >an environment where it is necessary to pay very large sums to 
> >professionals to ensure that our wishes are met and they are not set aside 
> >by so called "rights" of people that are given precedence over our attempt 
> >at extending our lives, **using our own money**. It is not as though we are 
> >asking the National Health for sponsorship. 
> 
> And there we agree, in so far as it goes. But you cannot expect the laws
> of property and inheritance to accommodate an indefinite contingency that 
> you will return to life unless and until the practicality of that 
> arrangement has been proved beyond doubt.
> 

I don't really see a problem here. If you make some personal bequests these 
are the same as gifts made during life. You can't expect them back when you 
recover from suspension. If you leave funds to the cryonics society with a 
view to their managing them as investments and you  collecting any surplus 
after you are revived then you should be allowed to do so. You should also 
be allowed to leave funds or property to the cryonics society and allow 
someone else the use of them. For example, your partner copuld live in your 
house and receive an income from the funds until death or suspension, when 
they then go to the cryonics society as investments to be managed on your 
behalf (or that of the partnership).

Actually I think legal arrangements are possible on these lines, but they 
are not available at present at manegable costs except to the above 
average rich. There would also be problems with real estate (houses) 
situated in the UK as the government may confiscate them in lieu of death 
taxes on the funds placed overseas (and out of reach) with the cryonics 
society.

Death taxes can also be avoided by relinquishing the assets more than seven 
years before death and not receiving any benefit from them. (ie you can't 
put your house in the ownership of the cryonics society and continue to 
live in it, or your investments and receive an income.)

Death taxes (current termed Inheritance Tax in the UK) are probably what 
people are worrying about when they post re the legal difficulties of 
revivals. These are extortions by government, not gifts, and a revival 
obviously negates the taxable event. It could give rise to a claim for 
repayment with interest. However as governments have absolute dictatorial 
power (even as an elected dictatorship) they can easily pass a law saying 
that death taxes are not repayable in the event of a cryonic revival. 
Revived people will be in a minority, and, as the tax-gathering political 
parties know it is politically very easy to tax minority groups.

> >Alright, some of you on uk.legal are by now saying that the family members 
> >of the deceased have a "right" to these funds which exceeds the "right" of 
> >the individual to chose cryonics (which by the statement made above cannot 
> >be proved effective until after the event). But if you accept this, then 
> >you are already on the Hitlerian grounds of saying: Well, Granny can't have 
> >medical treatment because *her* funds are better spent on *the* young, or 
> >even *her* young. No medical treatment is guaranteed, every operation is an 
> >experiment. (Otherwise the first patient to die puts the surgeon out of 
> >business.) Therefore if you disallow cryonics, then by implication you 
> >disallow every attempt by the sick and elderly to improve their health.
> 
> John, what you propose has never been sucessfully demonstrated and
> as far as I know is without parallel. Show that it works, even on
> rabbits, and then expect the law to accomodate the major shift in
> the course of events that you will have achieved.
> 
> Until the cryonics organisations can show that what they claim works and 
> safely, in my view they should not take people's money for inflicting a 
> process on them which may either be useless or even inflict irreversible 
> damage.
> 

Isn't buring or rotting, the alternative to suspension, irreversible 
damage?

How can you inflict irreversible damage on someone whom the medical 
profession has given up for dead? If the process is useless, what has the 
client lost as being annihilated he can have no more use from his money.

The legal profession (and politicians) should make it possible for 
cryonicists' money or other assets to pass without problem at the point of 
death (no uncertainties delays and possible injustices) without them having 
reduced access to the use of the property or interest/dividends or capital 
growth whilst alive.

The only possible loss of value to the cryonics client is in the loss of 
value to his assets because of his obeying the laws of inheritance etc., 
not because of their ultimate use for cryonics.

> >Are you willing to hinder people trying 
> >to save their lives just because the method is outside a cartel?
> 
> No. Just because there is no evidence that it will work, now or ever.
> 
> -- 
> 
>                                -= Owen Lewis =-
>                                       @
>      Tele/fax  +44-(0)1794-301731   ELOKA   Consultancy & Project Management
>                             
>                         pgp 2.x public key on request
> 

Thanks again for your part in the debate. I hope that you will continue to 
contribute.
 
-- 
Sincerely,     ****************************************       
               * Publisher of        Longevity Report *
John de Rivaz  *                     Fractal Report   *
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