X-Message-Number: 6970
Date: 24 Sep 96 02:56:05 EDT
From: Paul Wakfer <>
Subject: Re: A Suggestion

In reply to Terry Lambert,

     Please don't try to paint all cryonicists the same color. There are many
differences of opinion about what is the "best" road to potential
immortality. Else why do you suppose we argue so much? What you call "the
safety net" has many aspects to it: quality, speed and method of above 0'C
cooling, including amount of ischemia; quality, type and concentration of CPA
perfusion; quality, and speed of cryogenic cooling; funding and safety of
long-term care; size, strength and dedication of cryonics organization and
the quality of its leadership; size, finances and political clout of the
entire cryonics community. In turn, each of these has many different
bifurcations and evaluations by each cryonicist.

     Yes, it is probably true that some cryonicists accentuate the safety net
to the exclusion of reversible suspended animation, and maybe those are who
you have obtained your initial ideas from. I believe that many do this
because they can not imagine the possibility of suspended animation without
nanotechnology and at the same time they believe that nanotechnology will
easily repair *any* damage which has been done. But please don't count Brian
or I among them. Personally, even if my critical brain information is
captured by current cryonics procedures, I see the chance of getting revived
in the future if frozen by cryonics in its current state and if its growth
rate and research quality and quantity remain as they have been during the
last 30 years, as equivalent to a safety net composed of one tree branch per
square mile when I am falling from 20,000 feet up. Even so I am signed up for
cryopreservation since *any* chance is better than none.

     The current minuscule chance of revival, more than anything else, is why
I have been working full time in cryonics for the last 4.5 years and why I
started the Prometheus Project. It is merely the first step necessary to gain
scientific credibility for the research that must be done to really assure
our life in the future. The accomplishment of convincingly demonstrated brain
cryopreservation will both give us a better immediate safety net and at the
same time allow us to raise the 10's of millions of dollars per year that a
realistic whole-body suspended animation project (a very secure safety net)
will require. Once reversible brain cryopreservation has provided the proof-
in-principle that suspended animation is achievable, such research *will* be
acceptable to, and funded by mainstream biomedical venture capital sources
because its goal will be the same as standard medical research "to enable
those with incurable conditions to be cured and continue to live in health to
the end of their natural lives".

     Suspended animation has always been the ultimate goal of the Prometheus
Project. We just haven't stressed it because people are often turned off if a
goal looks too grandiose and unattainable. However, your viewpoint shows once
again that whatever one does, one cannot please everybody. Which is a good
thing, of course, since more variety of ideas and opinions leads to a better
world. (As long as people don't continually bicker, squabble and fight :)


-- 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 909-481-9620 800-805-2870
Canada: 238 Davenport Rd #240, Toronto, ON M5R 1J6 416-968-6291 416-446-9461
(Currently in California)


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