X-Message-Number: 7526
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: addendum.to.last.response
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 1997 14:51:30 -0800 (PST)

Hi!

Ooops! I forgot one other point, related to the discussion about research.

I have been (so far as I could) an advocate of more research by and for 
cryonicists for a long time. I agree that we should try to raise money for
such research, and have pledged my own amount to Prometheus --- besides 
giving an equal amount to Alcor for that purpose.

However I would add that in ANY of the material used by cryonics societies
to promote themselves (with special reference to promoting research) or to
get those who can already do the needed research to help out, there is one
point essential to cryonics that we must never forget: cryonics is NOT just
suspended animation. It goes much deeper than that. WE are saying that 
people should not be destroyed so long as the information of which they 
consist shows any signs at all that it will someday be recoverable. In
doing this, we must inevitably bring in the idea that future medicine will
have capabilities far greater than present medicine, and among those will
be the capability to bring some of those now thought "dead" back to life.
And that capability also includes the ability to repair any damage from
freezing.

Promoting PROMETHEUS is a separate issue, and it's a good idea to keep
it separate. But cryonics remains more than anything Prometheus can 
promise. Yes, we ARE saying that people should be frozen on the hope of
future technology, with no other basis than that hope. That is the 
fundamental idea of cryonics. It's for that reason that people have been
frozen, or their brains have been frozen, with no cryoprotectant or
treatment AT ALL. We consider everyone so valuable that we'd rather
keep them in the hope that someday we can repair them rather than to
destroy them now because we see no way at all by which they can be 
repaired.

As for those who insist that we must show full repair before we promote
cryonics, they do not understand what we are saying. And any doctor who
denigrates cryonics as only promising something which MAY come at some
indefinite future time proves their heartlessness and lack of vision 
every time they write up a death certificate for one more of their patients.
 
			Long long life for all,

				Thomas Donaldson


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