X-Message-Number: 6753
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Vitrification, Cryonics, and Suspended Animation
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 10:12:41 -0700 (PDT)

 i

Hi again!

1. One point. When Prometheus was first suggested, I don't believe Olga Visser
   had published her own ideas in a way accessible to those on Cryonet. That
   is why I suggested and believed in vitrification. I will add that I have
   asked Ms Visser to send me details of her procedure; presently it is far too
   unspecified for me to suggest that Prometheus choose it rather than 
   vitrification. I await her details with eagerness.   

2. CRYONICS IS NOT SUSPENDED ANIMATION!

   This is a message for those who are waiting until the procedure is
   "perfected". Paul's message, unfortunately, did not make the distinction 
   very clear. So here it is: the basic idea behind cryonics is not that we
   should freeze you when you die. The basic idea is much deeper and for many
   apparently harder to understand. It is that we should store as much as we
   can of you even if current medicine has no cure for your problem, in the
   hope that someday future medicine will be able to fix you.

   When someone is "terminally ill" that is just what happens, if they have
   made provisions for cryonics suspension. They are "terminally ill" because
   nobody knows how to cure their illness (whatever it may be, including
   simple aging) and our current best method of storage is to suspend them
   (a bit better than simple freezing). If we knew how to fix someone who
   was going into suspension, what is the point of suspending them???

   The medicine we have now, and EVEN THE MEDICINE WE CAN NOW IMAGINE, will
   probably fall short of what will someday become possible. Cryonic suspension
   is a way to take advantage of that future medicine, whatever it may be.

   Some people may be waiting until the suspension method itself is improved.
   If they are young enough, and free of serious disease, there is even some
   rationality in this, though I would very strongly urge them to take out
   enough life insurance to pay for their suspension and also disability 
   insurance to help them pay the bills if they someday get a serious illness
   which does not kill them outright but just makes it hard for them to work.
   (And the younger this is done, the cheaper it will be). Those whom cryonics
   societies suspend NOW were not in their position: they had no option of
   waiting until the methods had improved. Yes, current methods do cause 
   damage, which we can just imagine how to fix; but that is once more the
   same problem as that for which they were suspended.

   Of course, if you are free of serious illness, and if you have life 
   insurance and disability insurance, then on a purely selfish basis you're
   decision not to join is rational. The more people who join (or otherwise
   contribute, as to Prometheus (hoping it will get off the ground)) the faster
   a day will come when you will feel that the procedure is improved "enough".
   But by waiting you also are simply hoping for future medicine, and that 
   may not work for you. By its nature, cryonics can never be improved enough
   to PROMISE you a cure. It isn't even meant for that. And that situation will
   remain true regardless of progress in suspended animation.

   And many have problems with "death". When a doctor gives up is when he 
   writes out that "Death Certificate" and ceases effort in trying to keep
   you alive. That is, he has admitted he has no way to cure your problem,
   or even mitigate it. (Check this out ... seriously). That is what a 
   Declaration of Death in a hospital means: once more, the doctors of 
   today give up because they see no way to fix you. And exactly that is what
   happens in many cases. Doctors do not KNOW that you cannot be revived
   after 30 minutes without heartbeat or respiration at room temperature;
   they just don't know how to do it. Nor do they KNOW you could not be 
   revived after 6 hours; they don't know how to do it.

   It's been said before, and deserves repetition: when a doctor gives up
   and writes out a Death Certificate, he commits an act of stunning,
   amazing hubris: that his little meed of knowledge, on this small planet,
   in the midst of a vast Galaxy and still vaster Universe, which will go
   on for millions of years into the future, he has decided that AT NO TIME 
   IN THE ENTIRE FUTURE OF MANKIND AND OUR SUCCESSORS will we EVER know how 
   to fix you. Cryonicists, however, suggest that we store you as best we 
   know how and hope that someday a cure will come.

   And note: the Declaration of Death does not occur as a consequence of
   suspending you. It says that what is wrong with you cannot be fixed,
   regardless. These are the people we decide to suspend, if they have
   made provision for it. So even if there is damage, just what is the
   difference? Someday you, too, will face this situation, as a patient and
   not as a doctor. This is not just suspended animation at all. 

   And yes, it can be hard to wrap your mind around this concept: that
   we, with all our gleaming modern tools, our x-rays, our MRIs, our PET
   scans, our drugs designed by the latest biotechnology, our modified
   viruses, ... and in future, even with all our nanotechnology, will 
   someday be felt to be as primitive as Cro-Magnons making their stone
   tools and proudly showing them to their wives. But that is what we
   are saying. 

   Sure, means for suspended animation will help, in those cases in which
   your brain is healthy enough to use it. Every medical advance helps,
   though some more than others. But do not be confused. When you need
   suspension, you will by definition face a problem for which no one has
   an answer... yet. And you, and those who suspend you, will do so with
   the same kind of hope as done with patients now. 

			Long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson


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