X-Message-Number: 9083 Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 01:02:44 -0800 From: Paul Wakfer <> Subject: Re: probability of revival References: <> In Cryomsg #9077, wrote: > It's probably wasting everbody's time--especially mine--but I can't resist a > small lecture. "Lecturing" is the last thing I need right now, from you or anyone else. :-) > Paul says he has not read my booklet on this topic, but then > proceeds to explain why it must be wrong anyway. This is a distortion of what I wrote. Specifically, I stated: >for the sake of argument I will completely accept whatever estimates of >revival of the 'corpus' of a currently frozen person are contained therein. Perhaps Bob is objecting to my use of the word "corpus". I used that word because unless Bob is now prepared to tell us that he understands how memories and the other essential attributes which define an individual's mind are encoded in the corpus of the brain better than do the "giants" of current neuroscience, then he can have no basis to estimate whether the information which constitutes the mind is being saved and certainly no basis to estimate whether it can ever be restored. This difference between us is rather ironic, because I have always been accused of being a starry-eyed optimist regarding cryonics and most other things. With regard to cryonics: 1. I am very optimistic about the resolve and the ability of cryonicists and most of the current organizations to keep their patients safely in storage for as long as necessary. 2. I am very optimistic about the future stability of our civilization and the future enlargement of our personal choices and freedoms. 3. I am very optimistic about the continued advance of science and technology, and specifically about the development of technologies which will enable restoration of even the most badly damaged patients (not nearly as early as some expect, but eventually for certain). 4. I am also totally optimistic that there will be people in the future who will apply those technologies to achieve the restoration of cryonics patients. What I am not optimistic about, however, because I see no basis upon which to make a judgment (which is what rational optimism is, IMO), is whether any of the patients that are being restored by current methods will, when revived, have any remembrance of what or who they were. I am also concerned that major areas of their personality and the modes of thinking and behaving learned throughout their lives may also be not restorable. This is why I have been beseeching cryonicists for the last 18 months that we desperately need to begin and carry forth a scientific effort to develop methods which we are sure *is* preserving those mental attributes. And, in the end, the only way to be sure they such methods work is to apply them to someone and then restore him. That has been the goal of the Prometheus Project. I believe that is now the long-term goal of 21CM's human cryopreservation effort. -- Paul -- Voice/Fax: 909-481-9620 Page: 800-805-2870 The Prometheus Project -- http://prometheus.morelife.org Perfected Suspended Animation for Patient Stabilization until Cures for Their Terminal Diseases are Available Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=9083