X-Message-Number: 6978
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: To Mr. Lambert, again
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 15:00:48 -0700 (PDT)

Hi again!

To Mr. Lambert, one point needs understanding here. And it has nothing to do

with anyone's dreams or selfishness, it is a point about our present understand-
ing of just what happens with freezing.

Fundamentally, freezing (with or without cryoprotectants) is a radical change
in itself. It is sily not possible to reach the goal (say) of liquid nitrogen
temperatures by going down gradually: you have to deal with the changes to the
tissue and the solution which happen when freezing occurs and spreads. Deal 
with that, and you're home free; fail to deal with it, and you're just as far
from preserving brains or whole persons at -40 C as you would be at +25 C.
(-40 C is the lowest anyone has taken an organ without cryoprotectants and
without freezing).

You seem to believe that it would be a better research strategy to be
incremental: that is, once you get to -35 C, try going to -40 C, then to 
-45 C, etc. It just doesn't work that way, and if you seriously read about
the cryobiology which has already been done and published you will understand.
(Some people are going to disagree here, but I believe this is generally 
accepted not just among cryonicists). The best strategy turns out to be two
pronged: try to understand what happens at that transition, and try to find
ways to mitigate it. For instance, vitrification has a good chance of providing
such a way: the solution containing your body or your brain never actually
freezes.

The second point is also simple, and Brian discussed it a bit, but I will 
add my own comments, too. We want to preserve brains first of all because
we are in our brains, and we want to preserve our Self. And yes, once that
is assured, given the alternative (no one wants to be frozen unless their
physical and medical condition is VERY bad, leading to complete dissolution
if they are NOT frozen) we have chosen to wait until somehow our brains may
be provided with a body. But you should not think that problem to be impossible
at all, or even one which requires some far off radical nanotechnology which
humans will only develop after 1000 years. You grew from a single cell; we
all did, and a lot of study goes on right now which aims at understanding
this process. With understanding will come control: and so they will (besides
growing new limbs for those whose limbs have been severed, and new organs
for those who lose one or more) know how to make your head grow another 
body. (With all the self-congratulation about our understanding of how 
genes work, it's often forgotten that we have only just begun to understand
how genes can guide development of an entire new creature).

Of course, if you want to be suspended in a situation in which you can be
instantly revived afterwards, we can't provide that. And I promise you that
if you ever really need cryonic suspension, you WILL NOT WANT to be instantly
revived afterwards. For that matter, if knowledge of how to make heads grow
new bodies comes fast enough, there may never be suspended animation at all:
why take along all that extra baggage when it can be easily regenerated at
the destination?

And if you are going to talk about incremental advances, work on freezing 
brains is exactly that: a strategy of incremental advance. Yes, we did choose
brains rather than livers, or kidneys, or hearts, because we were "selfish",
whatever that means. It must still be said that if we can do brains, the
other organs will come easily afterwards, for those who want their liver to
be preserved rather than their brain. So if you think we should try to 
work incrementally, that's exactly what we're doing --- you just aren't 
looking in the right place.

			Best wishes, and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson


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