X-Message-Number: 5899
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: commercial cryonics and self-circuits
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 23:00:23 -0800 (PST)

Hi Hi!

To Mr. Templeton:

One distinction badly needing to be made is that (at least at present) NO
cryonics society CHARGES $50,000. Or $100,000. YOU make that amount available
to the cryonics society to provide the principal from which the income 
will pay for your suspension. The $50,000 figure is not even a price: it 
is a lower bound to the amount below which the cryonics society does not feel
that it will be possible to pay for your suspension indefinitely. If you wish
to provide more or even much more than that, the cryonics society will not
object. That is YOUR choice.

You do make points which might weigh heavily against any cryonic society which
tries to do cryonics as a BUSINESS. As a libertarian myself, I say this not
because I think commercial businesses are necessarily bad, but because I know
of no tenet of libertarian thought which REQUIRES everything we do to be a
business. It's possible, of course, for someone to set up a business to 
suspend people, and that's been done. But that is not essential to cryonics,
and cannot be argued against any more than a business which supplies the 
liquid nitrogen.

Given public ignorance, we may have a problem with this issue even if 
assisted suicide becomes legal. I first of all would hope not; and second I 
will say that by now, I hope you understand that cryonicists have CHOSEN to
be frozen, in almost all cases well before there was any thought that their
suspension might be imminent. Not only that, but cryonics societies are NOT
founded for profit: they consist of people who have chosen to be frozen and
are doing what they can to see that their choice is implemented when it 
becomes necessary. Alcor by now has grown enough to pay a few of its
officials to work fulltime on this implementation; even here, you can 
easily get an idea of just how much they're being paid. Steve Bridge gave up
a job as librarian which paid substantially more than his present position
as President of Alcor. And as a society of people all wanting to be frozen,
we do not have an interest in paying people any substantial sums. (Steve
may tell you more about this).

Since assisted suicide looks like it will become widely legal in a few 
years, we may have to test this issue. And yes, we're VERY much aware of
it.

To Bob Ettinger:

Actually, Bob, I didn't have you in mind. But I will say this: so far as I
can see now, whatever circuits in our brain give us our sense of awareness,
those circuits are the same for many people. (Whether they are the same
for EVERYONE is a different and interesting question). Since short of 
serious brain injury I see no way in which to alter your self-circuits to
be different from (say) mine, I would say that yes, in effect, we could
get the same result by cloning you.

If you want to say that losing all your DECLARATIVE memory would be OK,
but ALL your memory of ALL kinds would not, then of course we could not
simply clone you. We have different kinds of memory, each of which we
acquire from experience. And in that case a clone would not work.

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson


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