X-Message-Number: 6418 From: Brian Wowk <> Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 00:39:31 -0500 Subject: Brain Cryopreservation On sci.cryonics Brad Templeton writes: >In article <>, Brian Wowk <> wrote: >>up. We can say to these researchers, look, here is X amount of >>dollars for ten years, see what you can do now for brains. They >>themselves might regard the project as, well... peculiar, but >>money talks. If cryonicists don't step in with some kind of >Hardly. Unless you belive in cryonics there is no purpose for brain >vitrification. Let's step back for a moment and look at this question from a broad perspective. This issue is going to come up again and again, so it should be carefully scrutinized. Cryonics requires a belief in meliorism and life extension. But there are LOTS of people who understand that technology slowly improves, and that life is valuable. So why aren't there more cryonicists? It's a question of degree. Cryonics can mean anything from straight freezing of long-dead bodies to (one day) true suspended animation of living people waiting for cures. 20 years ago there were only a few dozen cryonicists in the whole world. Now there are hundreds. Was this solely the result of "getting the word out" about cryonics? No. The very meaning of the word "cryonics" has changed during that time. The marriage of modern medical technology with cryonics that occured at Alcor during the 1980s was a primary moving factor in attracting the hundreds of people now signed up. In addition, it has also attracted the interest of medical science professionals-- doctors, nurses, scientists --who simply would not be here if the technology remained static. I *conservatively* predict that if a major initiative is launched to perfect brain cryopreservation, professional and lay interest in cryonics will rapidly increase by a full order of magnitude. The ethical debates about the research alone will create cryonics attention the likes of which has never been seen. Instead of just hundreds of people interested in cryonics, the numbers will swell to thousands. The number of scientists (especially neuroscientists and cryobiologists) interested in the work out of pure intellectual curiousity will number in the hundreds. The meaning of "cryonics" (if that's what this technology will even be called) will have changed yet again. We know this will happen because we have a historical model for it: The marriage of medical technology with cryonics ten years ago. >They may respond to money but if they believe the work >to be valueless where doing hearts will save lives today, it will take >a *lot* of money to get people to do brains rather than hearts. I personally know top-flight cryobiologists for which this is not the case. >In addition, I doubt you could match the money for hearts and livers etc. >People are willing to pay big bucks today for a way to get more of those >organs to those on waiting lists. I bet we can match the money. In fact, I'm betting my life on it. (And so are all cryonicists; they just don't realize it yet.) >Let's face it, cryonics is interesting, but I won't spend every dollar I >have on it or even close. A mere five percent would do. Five percent of the earnings of middle to upper-middle income cryonicists would almostly certainly give us true suspended animation of the central nervous system in ten years. >Almost nobody will. A challenge then: Match contributions at a 5% rate. Offer 5 cents for every dollar raised from other cryonicists for brain cryopreservation research. Scarcely a few thousand dollars a year are now spent on pure brain cryopreservation research. If you are right, then you are out perhaps a year's cable TV budget and Brian Wowk is left with egg all over his face. If you are wrong... your life expectancy increases by orders of magnitude, you will be acclaimed as a hero, and cryonics will never be the same again. (Note: Any such matching contributions are of course contigent upon your approval of final details of any project that materializes.) >However, if spending all >my money would get me a new heart when my old one is failing, with death >the alternative, I would spend it. We are talking about picking up a sledge hammer and knocking the block off the Grim Reaper-- a blow to Death so devastating that it would save your life if ANY organ ever failed without replacement. A blow that will resound through medicine for the next 100 years. C'mon Brad, step up to the plate and take your best swing with that hammer! Transform cryonics from something "interesting" to something definitive and irrefutable. Be one of the people that cures not heart disease or cancer, but death itself. I dare ya! *************************************************************************** Brian Wowk CryoCare Foundation 1-800-TOP-CARE President Human Cryopreservation Services http://www.cryocare.org/cryocare/ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6418