X-Message-Number: 5797
From:  (Keith F. Lynch)
Newsgroups: uk.legal,sci.cryonics,sci.life-extension
Subject: Re: Death (was Donaldson MR and Miss Hindley)
Date: 22 Feb 1996 00:16:23 -0500
Message-ID: <4ggu77$>

Marshall Rice <> wrote:
> I simply think that it is and always will be impossible to reverse
> cellular death.

What do you mean by cellular death?  The term is usually used to mean
damage which is irreversible with today's technology (which, on the
cellular level, is almost no technology at all).  A cell that's dead
by today's standards may be alive by tomorrows'.

> The degree of entropy is simply too great.

It's not a matter of entropy, but of information.  If the information
as to a healthy state of that cell still exists or can be deduced, then
a technology capable of moving indivual atoms would be able to repair
that cell and restore it to health.  We are on the verge of having that
technology.

However, a person is not their cells.  Any or all of your cells could
be replaced with similar cells, and you'd still be the same person.
This happens continuously during life.  Similarly, molecules within
each cell are replaced with similar molecules.

Conversely, if all of your cells were to be teased apart and placed
in a nutrient bath, they would be quite healthy.  Maybe even healthier
than they ever could be in your body.  However, you would be dead.

> It may be possible to create a new cell from the remains of the
> old, but in no sense would they, or could they, be identical on the
> molecular level,

They could, since cryopreservation freezes every molecule into place.
However, this is not important.  If it was, you would cease being you
from one instant to the next, as the molecules in all of your cells
are replaced with other molecules in the normal course of metabolism.

> and that is the degree of organisation which you would need to
> duplicate to restore a brain.

I don't agree.  Probably all that's necessary is that healthy neurons
be linked together in the same way as the old neurons were.  However,
cryonics will almost certainy preserve the old neurons so they can be
repaired and reused, similarly with the molecules in those neurons.
Someone who was frozen for 30 years will be *more* the "same person"
as before than someone who was active for those 30 years.

> The problem lies in re-establishing the neural pathways, not the
> neurons and synapses themselves.

Right.

> The fact that there are more potential neural pathways in a human
> brain than atoms in the solar system, gives some idea of the scale
> of the problem.

There are more potential newsgroup postings of this size than atoms in
the whole universe.  Combinatorics is like that.  It shows that it's
exceedingly unlikely to get all the neural pathways in a brain right
just by randomly guessing, or to duplicate this posting by hitting the
keys at random.  But nobody is proposing doing either.

> ... although you may be able to duplicate the personality, emotions
> and memories of an individual, in no sense would they be the same
> person.

I don't agree.  Why do you think that?

> Imagine, then, the process taking place simultaneously with all of
> the books in a library containing more volumes than there are atoms
> in the solar system (as there are potential neural pathways in the
> human brain)......

There's a lot of information in a brain, but nowhere near *that* much.
You're conflating the number of objects (books) with the number of
ways of arranging or connecting objects (neural pathways).

> What I object to is the taking of money to freeze dead meat, on the
> pretence that it may somehow, some day, some way, become 'you' again.

This is the only reason I'm replying.  I'm not interested in selling
cryonics to you.  I'm not a salesman.  I do not work for any cryonics
organization.

What I am interested in is having cryonics available to *me*.  I am of
sound mind and body, and am well educated in physics, chemistry, math,
history, economics, and biology.  I work in medical quality assurance
software which oversees doctors.  I am a productive person.  I am not
easily swindled.  I have met with, and extensively talked with the
presidents of the two largest cryonics organizations, and with many
other cryonics providers and cryonics customers.  I have rigorously
studied their publications, read and pondered all 7000+ Cryonet
messages, talked with experts including physicists, doctors, and
cryobiologists, and given this *years* of careful thought.  I do not
currently have a wife, children, or anyone else who is dependent on
me in any way.

All I ask is to be allowed to quietly use a small percentage of my
own savings to arrange for my own cryopreservation, without misguided
people attempting to protect me -- protecting me to *death*.  If I
am not free to spend my own money as I choose, then I might as well
already be dead, since I am then not able to live my own life, but
merely a life which self-appointed "experts" have planned out for me,
complete with a state-sanctioned funeral and burial at the end of it.
These are "experts" who often make serious mistakes, and who often
show considerable ignorance of science and technology.  But even if
they were more knowledgable than me, it's my money and my life.
-- 
Keith Lynch, 
http://www.access.digex.net/~kfl/


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