X-Message-Number: 6437
Date: 04 Jul 96 00:09:24 EDT
From: Paul Wakfer <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS The Prometheus Project
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Announcing: The Prometheus Project
The most significant fact to be reported here is that with 10 days of
solicitation via email within a group of 22 middle to upper-income
cryonicists, I have been able to elicit pledges of $102,000.00 per year, or
$1,020,000.00 payable over the 10 year life of the project which I proposed
to them. These pledges have been made by 1 foundation (not cryonics related)
and 13 individuals, one of them outside the original group. The project which
I proposed and which was greeted so enthusiastically and supported so
strongly was that same project that Brian Wowk has been talking about on this
forum for the past several days: The convincing demonstration of fully
reversible mammalian brain cryopreservation within 10 years and the peer
reviewed journal publication thereof. Because of its audacity and life-
providing purpose we have named it: The Prometheus Project. It will be
conducted by a for-profit corporation to be formed for this immediate purpose
and for the longer-range purpose of producing fully reversible whole-body
suspended animation. At this time only solid pledges of $1000.00 or more per
year for 10 years are requested. When a total of over $1,000,000.00 per year
has been pledged, a company will be formed, share purchase contracts will be
signed by all pledgers, the first year's payments will be collected and
shares issued, and the project will begin. In accordance with SEC
regulations, I must state that this announcement is not a solicitation for
the purpose of purchasing shares in any corporation.
Needless to say, it is my strong belief, and one I sincerely hope that
you will share with me after reading this report, that the most rewarding
aspect of the successful completion of The Prometheus Project will be the
almost certain opportunity for each of us to live vastly extended, healthy
lives. So read on dear friends and become as excited and as optimistic as I
and my follow pledgers are, at this entirely realistic chance to rid
ourselves of that which hangs over our heads from the day we come into
existence, which steals from us a lifetime of accumulated knowledge and
wisdom, and finally, which removes any chance for happiness by sending us all
into oblivion, that ultimate tyrant Death.
A Plea for Guidance and Help
Before, you read further I wish to make it abundantly clear, that while
the general purpose of The Prometheus Project is settled, the details of its
accomplishment and funding (and even its name, for that matter) are not cast
in stone. I very much need the help of all of you, your suggestions, your
ideas, and, of course, your pledges, in order to accomplish this "promethean"
goal which I and my associates have set for ourselves. Please, critique our
ideas by all means. Please, give us your brilliant new and better ideas to
replace them with, or even your not so brilliant but very wise and practical
ones. This project is an honest and very sincere non-partisan attempt to
accomplish what we all want, to find a realistic way to get the research done
which will virtually ensure that all of us will have the chance to see, to
enjoy, and to take part in the endless and unimaginable adventures which
await us in the world's future.
The Purpose of The Prometheus Project
The purpose of The Prometheus Project is to demonstrate by methods which
will be convincing to the public and will be published in a peer reviewed
scientific journal, the restoration to normal physiological and mental
functioning of a mammalian brain which has been preserved and stored at a
temperature below -140xC for at least 6 months.
Logical Necessity of The Prometheus Project for Those Who Wish to Stay Alive
The Problem:
1. Unless major scientific anti-aging advances are made, every one of us
faces the virtually certain inability of our body to sustain its life
within a period of 125 years minus our present age. If you are over 75
years old, the chance of major anti-aging and rejuvenating scientific
advances being made soon enough to allow you to live a vastly extended
healthy lifetime is virtually zero. If you are over 50 years old, the
chance of this is still extremely small. Even if you are only 25 years
old, the chance is marginal at best.
2. In order to continue to live, each of us needs a "time machine" to
transport him or her, at least mentally intact, into the future. At
present there is no method with the proven ability to do this. Burial,
and cremation ensure complete destruction of the body, brain and mind.
Even the best current methods of chemical or cryogenic preservation
result in massive damage to the body and brain from which any future
recovery is at best very uncertain.
3. Furthermore, it has not been proven, and may not even be true that the
brain structures which determine our memories, our personality and all
of our other precious individual mental attributes are being well
preserved through current agonal and cryopreservation processes.
4. The idea of cryonics has been around for 30 years now and the number of
people actually signed up has only grown to between 600 and 700.
5. Because of the length of time that it has been around, the publicity
which such a radical idea has received, and the plot/entertainment value
of such a sensational theme, the cryonics idea is now very widely known.
6. Yet cryonics as currently practiced, remains small and possibly unstable
over the long term. Therefore, even if our mental attributes are being
preserved through the current agonal and cryopreservation processes, and
*can* be fully restored, most people have little confidence that anyone
cryopreserved today will reach, still preserved, that possibly far
future time when advanced technology *will* be able to effect the
necessary restoration.
7. In spite of the multitude of deathist memes in our society (I'll have
had enough; over-crowding of the planet; make a place for the young
ones; I'll live on in my children; necessary to insure creativity; it's
natural; want to be reincarnated; want to go to heaven; etc. etc. etc.),
there are still 100's of thousands if not 10's of millions of people in
North America who truly love life and would very much like to have a lot
more of it so long as they could remain mentally and physically healthy.
8. The vast majority of even those who have not accepted the deathist memes
will never sign-up for nor support cryonics while they remain relatively
healthy, because, being small and unproven it has so little chance of
saving them. Instead, they prefer to put any "extra" money into anti-
aging methods and research aimed at extending their first "life cycle",
giving little thought to the possibility of a *second* "life cycle".
The Solution:
1. There does exist a method which has been shown to allow the preservation
of a complex organ with no freezing injury at all. With this method,
viable rabbit kidney's have been recovered from temperatures as low as
-40xC, with recovery from much colder temperatures expected soon. This
method is called vitrification. It involves turning the organ to be
preserved into a glassy substance, cooling it to cryogenic temperatures,
and keeping it stored at those temperatures until such time as we wish
to recover it for use. Just as glass is fluid at high temperatures and
becomes solid as it is cooled to lower temperatures without any
crystallization occurring, so too biological tissue by having its
internal water largely replaced with a special solution, can be made to
behave like glass and incur no disruptive crystalline formation when it
is cooled, even to the temperature of -140xC. (This temperature will be
used because it is almost universally agreed by the cryobiological
science community that it is sufficiently low to allow storage for
several hundred years if necessary with negligible deterioration.) The
trick is, however, to use a solution and a method of water removal which
does not in itself irreversibly damage the biological tissue.
2. Because this vitrification protocol is organ specific, the protocol for
kidneys will not work for many other organs. Therefore, if we are ever
to achieve suspended animation of the whole human body, we must proceed
to make it work for other organs. The most important human organ and
therefore the logical starting point, of course, is the brain.
3. The scientist who has developed this method of preservation for rabbit
kidneys has stated that he does not see any technical reason why this
method, with suitable modifications should not be applicable to any
mammalian organ including the brain. Furthermore, he has estimated that
for any particular organ, the necessary modifications should be able to
be discovered and perfected within a time-span of 10 years and with a
project budget of under a million dollars per year.
4. Neuroscience developments and techniques for assessing brain function
directly should allow us to convincingly demonstrate the mental
attributes of an isolated or in-situ mammalian brain.
5. If we can produce a method by which first a mammalian and then a human
brain can be placed in long-term biological stasis and recovered with
its functionality including all mental attributes unquestionably alive
and complete, we will have the proof that death can be defeated - that
in principal, a life can be extended indefinitely. Once convincingly
demonstrable, fully reversible, long-term preservation of the brain has
been achieved, the mainstream medical and scientific community will
accept the scientific validity of the cryonics idea. Major public and
private money will be spent to develop methods of providing a body for a
restored brain, and to perfect whole-body long-term suspended animation,
if possible. The practice of preserving the brain, and later the whole-
body, if possible, will become an optional standard medical procedure
for the terminally ill and the laws will be changed to accommodate this
new paradigm.
The Logic of The Prometheus Project Funding Method
1. Those persons who have a great desire for vastly extended life *will*
sincerely pledge major amounts to a demonstrably fully reversible brain
cryopreservation project if they are convinced that it is necessary,
that it has sound planning which will enable it to succeed if it is
funded, and if their pledges are not due until it *does* have sound
planning and *is* fully funded.
2. Most of those with incomes over $50K per year (and certainly all of
those with incomes over $100K per year) should be able to afford to
forgo the present spending of $5-10K per year (at least if tax
deductible) without degrading their life-style in any way detrimental to
their health and longevity.
3. Within the cryonics and life-extension community, there are well over
200 people who fit this category. Hence, there are a more than
sufficient number of people to fund a project which will scientifically
demonstrate that long-term reversible brain preservation will work, and
therefore, that will be virtually certain to vastly increase the chance
of their lives having the potential of immortality.
4. The Prometheus Project defined here is an attainable and fundable goal.
It is realistic to expect to obtain between 100 and 200 pledges of
amounts between $5,000.00 per year and $10,000.00 per year each for 10
years. And this has now been proven by the test case described herein.
Organization of the Collection of the Pledges
As founder of The Prometheus Project, I, Paul Wakfer, one of the
$10,000.00 per year pledgers, will be the person who accepts the pledges and
will be founder and the interim president of the corporation which is formed
once the necessary total of one million dollars per year for 10 years is
reached until The Prometheus Project officially begins.
Pledges will be made for the purpose of purchasing shares in a yet to be
formed for-profit corporation over a 10 year period at a fixed price of
$100.00 per share with the requirement that an equal amount must be pledged
for each of the 10 years. Pledges will not be due until the entire $1M per
year has been pledged and the pledgers have approved the scientific plan of
the project and the business plan of the corporation. Any pledger who does
not approve of these plans may withdraw his pledge before The Prometheus
Project begins. The signification of approval to proceed will be done by each
pledger signing a legally binding Share Purchase Agreement. This is necessary
to insure that the required funding will be forthcoming each year after the
project begins.
Pledgers who wish to have a tax deduction for the amount of their
contribution are encouraged to make arrangements with one of the cryonics
organizations or life extension societies which have the ability to issue tax
deductible receipts for charitable donations. After The Prometheus Project
has begun, those organizations will then use the donated moneys to purchase
shares under the same terms as other individual or corporate purchasers.
Cryonics organizations which have this capability (or will soon) are:
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
American Cryonics Society
CryoCare Foundation
The Immortalist Society
Earlier today all cryonics organizations were contacted and sent an advance
copy of this announcement. I have asked each of them for their help in
promoting the success of The Prometheus Project and have invited and
encouraged each of them to invest in, and to support this project which will
be so beneficial for themselves, their members and their cryonics patients.
In addition, The Life Extension Foundation has agreed to accept donations, to
issue tax deductible receipts, and to make share purchases under the
contractual terms necessary for funding The Prometheus Project.
The Prometheus Project will be delighted to accept any pledge of more
than $1000.00 per year, but for administrative and share purchase purposes
requires that all pledges be made in units of $100.00 per year. Again it
should be noted that all pledges must be for the same amount per year for all
10 years. Pledges will be organized into the following categories, with
certificates and possibly some other form of acknowledgement issued for each
category.
$50,000 a year Platinum
10,000 a year Gold
5,000 a year Silver
1,000 a year Bronze
Of the 14 pledges received so far:
8 are for $10,000.00 per year for 10 years
4 are for $5,000.00 per year for 10 years
2 are for $1,000.00 per year for 10 years
The total is $102,000.00 per year for 10 years! That is over 10% of the total
funding needed for the entire project from only 14 cryonicists, and these
people are not even the high rollers of the cryonics movement. Are you going
to sit there and let them prove to everyone by their actions, that they value
their lives more than *you* value yours?
While pledges are being received and are building to the total of $1M
per year required, the scientific plan of The Prometheus Project and the
business plan of the corporation which will execute it, will be developed and
prepared. Any help that can be contributed to this part of the project (or
any other part) is very much welcomed. I plan to publish these on this forum
even in unfinished form as they are developed and prepared.
I'm going to end this installment here and continue with second and
possibly third postings of the initial ideas. This project is very much a
boot-strap process. For many reasons, I believe that is the *best* way to
accomplish it. I look forward to your questions and suggestions and you can
be sure that if the ideas are worthy, they *will* be incorporated into the
developing project plans. Before I end, however, I wish to leave you with
some thoughts.
For several weeks now, I have been putting a lot of thought toward what
I am now calling "The Prometheus Project" and I very strongly believe that
each of us who really wants to live should begin pushing this project
constantly and continuously with all the time, money and life-force which he
or she can afford without degrading his or her current life below a certainly
minimum acceptable quality (which granted will be different for each
individual). I have become convinced that if any of us are to survive long-
term, one way or the other, this project *must* be accomplished. I believe
that The Prometheus Project must be non-partisan and strongly supported by
all organizations because it is much too big for any one cryonics
organization. We need all the ideas and help we can get from any source
whatever and *I* pledge to design and discuss it with absolutely no
negativity, innuendo or bias with regard to any particular organizations or
individuals. I expect each organization and each cryonicist to understand why
it will be beneficial for them to strongly support the project. We must
perform the discussion of this project on the internet and in all our
communications and continue it non-stop, and relentlessly until we have
achieved the funding goal. I ask every one of you to include it with every
thing you write, hammering away at the idea incessantly, never letting up for
a moment until we have done it.
The Prometheus Project is not a *charity* for which I am begging you to
give up part of your life for some purpose exterior to you which *I* happen
to think is important. No! What I am asking is nothing more nor less than
that you honor *yourself*, that exquisite individual consciousness which is
yours alone.
-- Paul --
!!!!! REVERSIBLE BRAIN CRYOPRESERVATION *CAN* BE ACHIEVED IN 10 YEARS !!!!!
Paul Wakfer email: Voice/Fax: Pager:
US: 1220 E Washington St #24, Colton, CA 92324 909-481-4433 800-805-2870
Canada: 238 Davenport Rd #240, Toronto, ON M5R 1J6 416-968-6291 416-446-9461
(currently in Canada)
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