X-Message-Number: 6629
Date:  Sat, 27 Jul 96 12:59:41 
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: re MelodieT

MelodieT, #6620, writes:

>Could someone recommend reading
>material that would explain in detail cryonics?

A good place to start, as Brian Wowk notes, is the Web and 
specifically, CryoCare's Web site, which also has pointers 
to other cryonics organizations. Alcor's Web site has useful 
information too: http://www.alcor.org

Three good references on cryonics are (1) *The Prospect of 
Immortality* by Robert Ettinger (Doubleday, 1964, old but 
still worth a read, and the book that largely started cryon-
ics); *Engines of Creation* by Eric Drexler (Doubleday, 
1986, all about nanotechnology but with a chapter on 
cryonics); and *Cryonics, Reaching for Tomorrow*, Al-
cor's reference work on cryonics. Two of these are now 
available on the Web:


*Engines of Creation*:

http://reality.sgi.com/whitaker/EnginesOfCreation/


*Cryonics, Reaching for Tomorrow*:

http://www.alcor.org/library.html


The other one, *The Prospect of Immortality*, is available 
in many libraries and also can be purchased from Alcor, 
along with other cryonics-related literature.

>Also, does anyone know if any space agencies have done 
>research on cryonics as a possible  answer to extended 
>space travel?

I think a lot of talk has been expended on this possibility, 
but very little action. Basically, until reversible suspended 
animation is demonstrated, it seems unlikely that govern-
mental or other big budgets will be committed to its possi-
ble use in space travel.

>What is the present law regarding the use of cryonics 
>while still alive? Has it been ever done? 

Premortem suspensions would fall under "assisted suicide," 
"euthanasia," or "aid-in-dying" as far as I am aware. (And 
this will continue until someone is resuscitated from a 
frozen state or evidence strong enough to convince bureau-
crats emerges that resuscitation is possible.) Presently there 
are attempts, in various jurisdictions around the world, to 
provide for aid-in-dying. (And in some places, e.g. Hol-
land, it is being practiced in technical violation of the law, 
but the law is not enforced.) So far, no premortem suspen-
sions as such have occurred, as far as I am aware, and 
probably none will until laws allowing them are more 
firmly in place.

Brian Wowk, #6621, writes to MelodieT:

>I'm very sorry to hear that you and your husband are
>both ill.  If it's any consolation, cryonics in its current
>state is still so crude and highly speculative that it's
>probably just as well that your last resources are being
>spent on medical care and comfort instead of cryonics.

I certainly share the sympathies Brian expresses regarding 
your and your husband's illness, Melodie, as I'm sure 
others here do too. My feeling about cryonics is that, while 
there are many uncertainties, it's worth a try, but so are 
other forms of preservation, particularly if cryonic suspen-
sion is not possible, e.g. for financial reasons or because of 
an accident that destroys the body before it can be frozen.

For myself, I have a cell sample stored at my cryonics 
organization (Alcor) with the understanding that, if I can't 
be suspended, I want DNA from this sample used, along 
with other surviving information, to construct a functioning 
duplicate of me, as far as possible. I want missing informa-
tion to be "filled in" using educated guesswork, and not 
just left missing. In this way, a complete individual should 
result, not just a "tabula rasa" clone or someone suffering 
severe amnesia. I feel that such a construction, done prop-
erly, would be "me" and not just a similar but different 
individual, for reasons involving many-worlds physics. (I'd 
be happy to discuss this further, but will stop now in the 
interest of brevity, except to note that I think cryonics is 
better, other factors being equal, but the alternative is not 
negligible.) The DNA option was not difficult or expensive 
to arrange, and I recommend it as a backup to more usual 
cryonics arrangements, or as a first choice if more expen-
sive arrangements are not possible.

I should say too, that there are other preservation possibili-
ties, intermediate in expense between DNA-plus-record 
storage and cryonic suspension. One is high-quality chemi-
cal preservation. Of course, it is unknown at this point how 
this would compare with cryonics--would memories in a 
chemopreserved brain be inferable, for instance? (Would 
they be inferable from a *frozen* brain? We still don't 
know.) But there are techniques of chemical preservation 
that are far better (for the brain especially, which is the 
important organ to preserve) than what is used in conven-
tional funerary embalming. Another possibility is chemo-
preservation plus subfreezing, high-temperature storage, as 
in permafrost, which should be cheaper, longterm, than 
liquid nitrogen storage.

Mostly, such possibilities have not had the attention that 
has been given to cryonics, and that in turn is not as much 
as we would like. This is a small movement and our re-
sources are limited. But at least I think there are things 
almost anyone could do, that would favor that person's 
survival after death, in some reasonable sense. Some of my 
opinions are controversial, even within cryonics--people 
must judge for themselves.

Mike Perry

http://www.alcor.org


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