X-Message-Number: 6711 From: Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 00:21:39 -0400 Subject: SCI. CRYONICS objectivity Mae says I am wasting my valuable time, and maybe she is right, but I'll take some more precious moments to try for a bit more clarification. 1. Brian Wowk says allocation of financial resources "within the cryonics community" should be 70% research and 30% operations, and that Prometheus will achieve this, whereas the present pitiful research allocation is only 5%. I don't know about the "community," and I don't think anyone does; but I do know something about the present possibilities within cryonics organizations, including potential donations based on experience. (Prometheus experience scarcely counts, since no one has put up a nickel of cash yet.) If any of the organizations providing physical services were now to allocate 70% of revenues to research, it would be bankrupt in jig time. As for CryoCare, I have never seen a financial statement, but as far as I know it is just a paperwork organization, with no physical plant and minimal overhead. That is an entirely different story. And again, it is NOT obvious that putting most available money into research is the best possible allocation. And this is NOT a peripheral issue, as Paul Wakfer says. And saying this does NOT make me an enemy of research or a saboteur. 2. Brian apparently roughed up Mrs. Visser through misguided loyalty to someone else, allowing his objectivity to lapse. His remarks were focused on side issues--her making claims in advance of publication, and her problems in arranging for publication. He took his eye off the ball. The IMPORTANT thing was simply that she claimed recovering fully functional rat hearts from liquid nitrogen--a major break-through, the biggest in fifty years, putting her at the FOREFRONT of cryobiological research, excepting no one. Brian says he didn't realize it might be applicable to larger organs, because he thought it required flash freezing. But he knows, first, that you can't "flash" freeze anything as large as a rat heart; and second, even if fast freezing was involved, he had no way of concluding that ONLY fast freezing would work. The crucial factor is the new cryoprotective agent. Cryonicists must keep cool, even if they are hot-blooded. 3. Paul Wakfer says that "Bob sees cryonics as it exists today as both necessary AND sufficient." This has NO basis in fact whatsoever. Possibly Paul is half-remembering that, in times past, I have said that POSSIBLY a full-fledged nanotech may be necessary and sufficient for the rescue of patients frozen by any of the current methods. That is still true, but obviously it does not detract from the advisability of using the best methods (other things equal) and of devising better methods. Again, the allocation of resources is NOT irrelevant to the Prometheus project. Our resources of money and energy (and of psychic resources or enthusiasm or hope, as Steve Bridge mentioned) are limited, and must be husbanded; we have seen lots of burn-outs. The patients' chances depend on the quality of suspension, but also on the reliability of storage; if we can't keep them stored, then the manner of suspension will matter not at all. The patient's chances also depend on the availability of timely treatment. Cryonics Institute is developing a network of cooperating funeral directors, using our (developing) methods, to do washout and perfusion QUICKLY (which our research suggests is more important than the details of procedure). Alcor uses a traveling team and local branches. These efforts also require resources, and are not of negligible importance. 4. Neither do all honest people believe that Prometheus, as presently conceived and administered, is necessarily our one best chance, nor is its success odds-on. Paul signs off his messages by saying "Reversible brain cryopreservation CAN be achieved in 10 years!!!!!" Of course, that is just standard advertising hype and hope; but if Paul wants readers to take what he says seriously and literally, and not as poetic license, the line between slogans and promises should not be blurred. And while "rally 'round the flag" is sometimes useful, in the long run it doesn't pay to say or imply that those who disagree must suffer either from stupidity or moral turpitude. Of course, at the end of 1997, the time Paul sees the actual implementation of Prometheus through formation of a corporation and sale of stock, things may look very different. There are bound to be interminable discussions on the details of the research plan and the business plan. Currently Prometheus is PAUL'S project, he being the only arbiter of suggestions; later the company will be run by a board of directors elected by shareholders, and Paul may or may not be CEO. The whole project may even be outdated by other developments. We'll just have to see. Cryonics divided itself into several organizations, and cryonics research will no doubt also branch out in several directions. That might or might not be the best outcome, but as long as there are different views and no clear, agreed proof of the superiority of any of them, that is what we can expect. Robert Ettinger Cryonics Institute Immortalist Society Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6711