X-Message-Number: 9082
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #9069 - #9076
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 00:37:33 -0800 (PST)

Hi again!

For John Pietrzak:

Unfortunately cryonics IS subject to feelings similar to those people have
about religion. Frankly I think that a lot of thinking on cryonet about 

nanotechnology (the kind I refer to as Nanotechnology rather than 
nanotechnology--- as you may have noticed) fits that role.

However that is not the whole of cryonics. Many of us have wanted to see more
research and done whatever we could for that. And if current plans work out we
really will start moving --- enough that we are applying science to our 

problems. If that happens no one could claim cryonics was religious, even if it
took some time for our research to succeed.

I will say, though, that I vehemently disagree with any claim (which I believe
you implied) that we get ourselves suspended out of faith. Suspension, by
DEFINITION, happens when no other possible means exists by which we can 
continue living. This is not the situation of someone going to church. We have
considered what the best thing to do if we find we are dying, based on 
everything we now know. The best thing to do --- the one which most increases
our chance of survival --- is to be cryonically suspended. This is no more
a matter of faith than someone reaching for a life preserver in the middle of
the ocean is acting out of faith. With a life preserver he might last a little
bit longer, and who knows what that time will produce. Without the life
preserver you will die more quickly, from exhaustion if nothing else. Nor 
should you wait for any scientific proof that life preservers work, or 
statistics on how many people survive using them versus those who survive
without them, or scientific studies of the best design for a life preserver.
Just grab it. Nor does it require any special faith.

Not only that, you don't even have to believe it will necessarily save you.
Just so that it helps. Something quite fundamental has happened to cryonicists,
and I hope it happens to you. WE no longer feel passive in response to death,
at any time and in any circumstances. And if all else fails, then we want to 
be frozen.

One other issue, very important. You ask how long "it will take". One major 
feature of cryopreservation is that it can literally continue for centuries.
The kinds of things which would interrupt it are such things as accidents,
mistakes, etc etc --- which may occur to ME while I am suspended but may not
occur to you (or vice versa). It is not even necessary for cryonicists to be
a large percentage of the population for this kind of survival to go on 
indefinitely. Yes, various political developments may slow it down, force
us to move patients elsewhere, etc. But then look at cloning: sure, there may
be laws forbidding it. But laws die with the legislators -- so long as someone
can benefit from cloning eventually it will be done. I would certainly LIKE
for cryonics to grow enough in this life for me to KNOW that when suspended
at least my self and memories would be preserved. As someone who has been 
following the science for 25 years, I'd say that this is quite certainly 
within scientific possibility. But I don't have to KNOW I can be revived for
suspension to be far preferable to death. 

And so long as I remain in suspension, the possibility of revival exists. Even 
in the worst cases, then even a very slow growth rate, or an interruption
of growth lasting centuries, could finally end with means for our revival. AS
for whether we can be revived, with whatever technology we produce in the 
future, it remains impossible to calculate that. We don't have the information
to make any estimate of probability at all.

I don't even know how old you are, or whether you have thought about these
matters personally at all. But it is a terrible error to consider cryonic
suspension as if you have any other choice that outright death. Many people
prefer not to think about their own death, and that is exactly what choosing
cryonics involves. No one can or will guarantee that the life preserver will
save you, but you aren't sitting safely at home. You've found yourself in 
the ocean miles away from land, and all those other issues mean nothing at
all. Grab the life preserver and maybe something will happen -- or else
just decide to drown. And I am flabbergasted that you and so many others
seem to think, when your thoughts are reduced to basics, that death is
preferable to freezing. 

			Best wishes, and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson

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