X-Message-Number: 7508 From: Brian Wowk <> Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 22:44:31 -0600 Subject: PR vs. Research If we define "PR" as the generic promotion of cryonics, then obviously there is no conflict between PR and research. But that is not the issue. The issue is the *kind* of PR that cryonics has traditionally engaged in, and how well that PR serves the health of cryonics. Let me be specific. The standard party line of cryonics for the past ten years (which I helped promulgate) has been: * Freezing is a way to stop biological time. * Freezing produces injuries that are not reversible today. * But future technology can fix injuries that are not reversible today, so cryonics is worth doing. * We also do (largely unspecified) research to improve the quality of freezing when we can. The most extreme version of this paradigm is the belief that nanotechnology is both "necessary and sufficient" for revival of cryonics patients. Or the belief that research is redundant because no significant advances are possible before nanotechnology comes. (These precise sentiments have been expressed publicly and privately by cryonics leaders in recent years.) Steve Bridge has indicated that research does not have a higher profile in cryonics because there is a shortage of researchers interested in cryonics. I submit that there is a shortage of researchers interested in cryonics BECAUSE research does not have a higher profile in cryonics. When our primary promotional angle is the information theoretic criterion for death, and the computational power of nanotechnology to infer correct structure, we should not be surprised that the ranks of cryonics become swelled with computer scientists and thin with biologists. For the next ten years, it would be interesting to try a strategy something like the following: * Deep cooling is a way to stop biological time. * Deep cooling without freezing is possible in theory (and may in fact be demonstrated on whole humans within the next year). * Perfecting this process for the central nervous system is a fascinating problem of chemistry/physiology that will have enormous impact on medicine in the 21st century. * As we continue to perfect suspended animation, we will make our best technologies available to dying patients who wish to speculate that nanotechnology might be able to make the process work for them. In short, I am suggesting that the whole paradigm of cryonics promotion be shifted from an emphasis on future technology to an emphasis on communicating the potential of making cryonics work TODAY. No more telling people to sign up (especially elderly and dying people) because nanotechnology might make cryonics work for them. No more telling people about the flawed worldview of cryobiologists and other biologists critical of cryonics. No more complaining that the rest of the world doesn't understand the future. None of this is in any way intended to diminish the invaluable contributions of people like Eric Drexler and Ralph Merkle in making cryonics more credible (or of Bob Ettinger for the powerful idea that unperfected cryonics is worth doing). However I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the intimate association between cryonics and esoteric future technology. The image of cryonics as speculation on way-out far-future technogy, instead of near-term goal-directed science, has cost us enormously in terms of respectability and appeal to biomedical scientists. By conventional standards of medical research funding, we are an infinitesimal distance away from having cryonics technologies that DEMONSTRABLY WORK. We need a greater emphasis on the specifics of why this is so, and to deliver these specifics with a flourish that will inspire the people and resources needed to get the job done. *************************************************************************** Brian Wowk CryoCare Foundation 1-800-TOP-CARE President Human Cryopreservation Services http://www.cryocare.org/cryocare/ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7508