X-Message-Number: 8889
From:  (Ken Stone)
Subject: Re: Donated bodies research
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 1997 17:55:54 GMT

Stephen Bridge notes:
 
>One problem seems to be that people who are much interested in cryonics
>research want to be frozen for *future revival*, not as a subject to be
>frozen, tested, and discarded.  On the other hand, people who are NOT
>interested in cryonics, but who want to donate their bodies to science,
>generally want their anatomical donation to go for medical schools or
>other "humanitarian" purposes.  They fail to see the "humanitarian" nature
>of cryonics (at least partly because we all advertise cryonics as a "save
>YOUR ass" proposition, not "save someone else's life").  Selfishness is
>good for some purposes, not so good for others.

I've got a suggestion.  It's a rather brutal one, perhaps, but it seems
to make a lot of sense.  Imagine that someone is nearing the end of their
life.  They're interested in being cryonically preserved, as they're 
dying and cryonics is their only hope, but they don't have the funding in
place to afford it.  Normally, cryonics organizations would have to 
(perhaps reluctantly) turn them away, as the money just doesn't exist
for charity.  But.  Money *does* exist for research, and research from 
human models would obviously be of enormous benefit.  Let's say that
this potential patient makes a wager- they sign up for the anatomical
donation with the understanding that they will receive the best
cryopreservation technically feasible.  The catch is, after that,
the 'dice' are rolled.  Depending on the outcome, the patient is either 
(to put it most bluntly) used as a human guinea pig, or preserved for 
future revival.

Sick?  Arguably.  There are some enormous ethical questions to be resolved 
when it comes to negotiating the odds of that die roll- the market value 
of a suspension is already pre-established, but assigning a worth to 
someone's continued existence when you have them over a barrel is a 
different matter entirely.  Perhaps these potential patients could 
even 'buy down' the odds, if they have some assets to contribute 
towards offsetting the cost of their suspension (thus lowering the 
financial risk to the organization conducting said research.)  
Presumably, research organizations would pre-establish what they're 
willing to pay/gamble for a human model *before* each individual 
case presents itself, which would allow at least some level of 
reasoned semi-detachment in the face of a horrific situation.  (This
isn't the sort of thing that should be haggled over at the last second.)

As Steve pointed out, the emotional toll may well be high on the 
researchers who will have the odious task of dissecting the bodies
of real people who wanted to keep on living.   

Yet as unpleasant as this all is, the scheme offers two extremely important 
benefits that otherwise would not exist at all: the most legitimate 
kind of feedback imaginable on the validity of cryopreservation/revival
techniques, and perhaps even more importantly, hope.  Hope for a few 
dying individuals.  Not as much hope as we might wish to be able to 
extend gratis, if economics allowed us to, but a hope which over time 
might grow, paid for by the bodies of those who went before in a very
mean lottery.

Ken Stone


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