X-Message-Number: 8919
Date: Mon, 08 Dec 1997 21:18:23 -0800
From: Paul Wakfer <>
Subject: Re: #8913 Donaldson on fixing patients

It was good to see Thomas' statements about the possible limitations of
*any* technology to restore currently cryopreserved
patients. That point has always been my major reason for insisting that
we must do research aimed at *perfecting* suspended
animation until either we reach it, or we are convince from advances in
neuroscience understanding of how the brain functions,
that we *are* saving the critical brain information which defines us as
individuals.

However, I do wish to respond to Thomas' additional statement that:

>  possibly undamaged bodies too (which would mean that aside from the
fact that
>  you're totally old and run down, have no immune system to speak of,
have
>  muscles so weak that you need a cane to walk across the room, and
suffer
>  from the mental deterioration which eventually comes on us all
(different
>  from Alzheimer's, thank heavens, but still there) --- despite such
problems,
>  you could be brought back in about the same condition as when you
were
>  suspended).

What Thomas' is missing here is the fact that now and into the
foreseeable future, the vast majority of people become terminal
from some specific condition long before they are so debilitated in
every way. Once suspended animation becomes perfected, it
will also become an elective medical procedure for any terminally ill
patient, not just for the very old and totally decrepit. *All*
that will be required to bring a specific person back, is to be able to
repair the *one* thing which made them terminal. Now that is, globally,
still a pretty big "all". But "locally" ie. for any particular terminal
disease condition, it is not. Once reasonable numbers of people are
electing perfected suspended animation, it will not likely be many years
before the terminal condition of *one* of them (actually a disease
category of them) can be cured. They will then be able to be restored to
normally anesthetized condition, cured of their terminal disease, and
sent home to recuperate with their now 5, 10, or 15 years older
relatives. As an example, imagine this happening for a child with
leukemia whose is healthy in every other way, with his or her whole life
still ahead! S/he might simply end up as a "younger" sibling to those
who were originally biologically younger, but no longer are.

-- Paul --

 Voice/Fax: 909-481-9620 Page: 800-805-2870
The Prometheus Project -- http://www.prometheus-project.org
Perfected Suspended Animation Within 20 Years

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