X-Message-Number: 5827
From: Ralph Merkle <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS New Scientist article from 1992
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 1996 11:50:27 PST

New Scientist published an article on cryonics in the
September 26, 1992 issue (No. 1840, page 36) titled
"Cold comfort at death's door."

One quote from the article:

"According to David Pegg, who was head of the Medical
Research Council's now disbanded Cryobiology Unit in Cambridge,
this a fantasy [sic].  He says cryonicists would first have
to learn how to freeze a live healthy mammal for a long
time, then thaw and revive it.  Then they would have to cure
whatever disease a would-be cryonaut had died of.  And they
would have to bring a dead person back to life."

A second quote from the New Scientist article (not of Pegg in
particular):

"Biologists do not believe that a person frozen by present
methods can be restored to life -- ever, by any technology."


Prior to publishing "The Technical Feasibility of Cryonics" (see
http://merkle.com/merkleDir/techFeas.html) I solicited comments
from various individuals, including several cryobiologists.
In general, the cryobiologists most critical of cryonics had little or
no knowledge of nanotechnology.  Pegg, in particular, responded to
my request for comments and in one letter to me said:  "It [cryonics]
is literally fantasy, which does not mean that it cannot happen...."
This is an intriguing usage of the term.

He also said: "You say, in your introduction [to the Technical
Feasibility of Cryonics], that you do not wish to consider the
feasibility of nanotechnology in this paper, but that really is the
crux of the problem.  It is obvious that once one has dispensed with
the idea of an intangible 'life force', and accepts that animals are
composed of no more than an appropriate assembly of atoms, it becomes
possible to conceive of the construction on[sic] an animal simply by
placing the atoms in the right positions.  Feasibility is the
fundamental issue."

He also said "As for your basic assumptions, there is no problem
with the first, but the second seems very dubious."  The "first"
is the assumption that cryonic suspension does not cause information
theoretic death, while the "second" is that the needed medical
technology will be developed and used.  As this second question
requires an understanding of nanotechnology before it can be
evaluated in any realistic way, and as Pegg has no acknowledged
expertise in this area (and, indeed, has apparently read none
of the relevant literature), then his opinion on this subject
can safely be ignored.


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