X-Message-Number: 9639
Date: Wed, 06 May 1998 10:59:14 -0700
From: "Christopher M. Rasch" <>
Subject: Thoughts on the failure of cryonics
References: <>

I'm a researcher at 21st Century Medicine; I'd like to offer a few
thoughts on the present state of cryonics.

	I first learned about cryonics after reading in Reason magazine about
Thomas Donaldson's court battle to have his brain frozen "pre-mortem",
before his brain cancer destroyed his memory and identity.  Before that
time, I had relegated cryonics to the realm of science fiction.  

	I sent for Alcor's booklet, Cryonics:  Reaching for Tomorrow.  I was
impressed by frankness of the writing, which included a detailed
accounting of cryonics costs, and discussion of the problems of
cryonics.  But I was most impressed by an appended essay, the
Cryobiological Case for Cryonics by Dr. Greg Fahy, which provided
scientific references to the cryobiological community, a field I didn't
even know existed.  After reading the essay and references, as well as
Drexler's Engines of Creation, I was quite optimistic about the
probability that nanotech would be able to fully recover identity and
memory from currently cryopreserved patients.

	Since then, I've helped with autopsies of dog's who've died under
conditions similar to those cryonics patients die, looked at electron
micrographs of rabbit brains perfused in ways analogous to current
cryonics methods, and looked at photos of humans before and after
they've been cryopreserved.

Now I'm not so optimistic.

	It's difficult to convey the magnitude of damage that occurs to
cryonics patients to those who have not perceived it firsthand.  The
negative evaluation of current cryonics methods by of long-time
activists such as Saul Kent, Mike Darwin and others may seem unduly
pessimistic.  Perhaps the following analogy will help make clear why
they feel those methods are so inadequate.

	Most cryonicists would agree that cremation destroys identity
permanently for all practical purposes.  Even nanotechnology would not
be sufficient to recover a cremated individual.  What if, instead of
burning from the outside-in, the brain burned inside-out, at a million
points spread randomly throughout the brain?  Imagine taking a blowtorch
to the Mona Lisa at random points until only 10-20% of the original
surface area of the painting remains.  You can still tell it's a
painting.  You might even be able to tell that it's a painting of a
woman.  But assuming that you have no prior photos of the painting, how
much of the original painting could you recover?  At what cost?  In what
time frame?

	Applying current cryonics techniques is like taking a micro-blowtorch
to the brain at a million different points.   It is for this is the
reason that many of the cryonics activists are so frantic to improve our
techniques via research.

	Moreover, under the current legal milieu, cryonics techniques cannot be
applied until after the patient is declared legally dead.  Most patients
don't die until well into their old age.  Often by this time, the brain
has already been  severely damaged by stroke, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's,
cancer, or the "natural" loss of neurons that occurs throughout
adulthood.  Can nanotechnology recover memories and identity that are
not there to begin with? Cryonics techniques will likely only be allowed
"pre-mortem" when it can be solidly demonstrated that the techniques do
little damage themselves.  This will require large amounts of research.
 
	Predicting when particular scientific advances will be achieved and
become widely available is a difficult art.  For example, the general
principle and crude prototypes of the fax machine have existed since
around 1900.  But it wasn't until the early 1980's that they became
ubiquitous pieces of office equipment.  Barring a world-wide cataclysm,
the probability that cryonics-ready nanotech will become available
someday is probably pretty high.  However, the probability that any
individual cryonics patient will remain cryopreserved long enough to
take advantage of it is....well, it's hard to say.

	But consider this.  Each year, every cryonics company faces a small,
but positive probability that they will lose some or all of their
patients.  Possible failure routes include but are not limited to:
government regulation, lawsuits, equipment failure,  theft of patient
care funds, earthquake, war, terrorist attack, financial mismanagement,
general economic collapse, and pre-mature revival attempts.   For
example, if we assume that each patient has a 1% chance of thawing each
year, then there is only  a 36% chance of surviving in the frozen state
for 100 years. The longer patient's are cryopreserved, the higher the
probability that they will become unthawed and unrecoverable.  Suppose
nanotechnology is sufficient to recover most of the identity of a person
cryopreserved with today's methods is developed; how many people will
remain cryopreserved long enough  to take advantage of it? 

	Despite multiple appearances on popular national audience television
programs (Tonight Show, Donahue, Larry King Live) and large amounts of
free print, radio, and television publicity,  there are fewer than 800
people either cryopreserved or signed up to be cryopreserved.  If we
round up and double the number to take into account the "strong
sympathizers" (people who will likely get signed up, but haven't yet),
there are about 2000 people in the cryonics community.  This represents
approximately 0.0007% of the 270 million people in the U.S.  Expressed
as new cryonicists/year, over the past 30 years, the cryonics community
has grown by about 70 people/year.  To give some idea of how slow this
growth has been, if growth continues linearly at this rate, it will take
about 110 years to reach  10,000 members, the population of my hometown
of Jerome, Idaho.  (I think we are on the rather long tail of a
sigmoidal "S" curve, rather than a linear curve; however, whatever the
shape of the curve,  I would like to see the slope rise as soon as
possible)

	Although there are a number of reasons why people don't sign up, I
would argue that a principal reason is because we have been classified
as largely benign "kooks" by most media, just like the UFOologists, New
Age homeopaths, and astrologers. 
 
	People only have a limited amount of   time, energy, and "brain space"
to consider new ideas.  In order to cope with the enormous amount of
information each of us must deal with on a day to day basis, we use
mental shortcuts to decide whether to believe something or not.  One of
those shortcuts is to trust authority figures in deciding whether
something is worth considering or not  For most people that means
newspaper and TV news reports.   For most people, the word "cryonics"
pushes the "kook" button in their brain, and they decide that it's not
for them. .  (For a superb presentation of the research on persuasion
and influence, read Influence by Robert Cialdini, 3rd edition, Harper
Collins, 1993)

	Why do reporters put the "benign/sinister kooks" spin on cryonics
reports rather than "exciting, new technology" spin?   Because when they
call their contacts within cryobiology community, the cryobiologists
call us quacks, and body freezers. 

	Who does a patient look to determine if a new medical procedure is 
appropriate?  The same people they look to determine if any other
medical procedures are acceptable:  primarily, their doctors.  Who do
the doctor's look to?  The cryobiology researchers, through the research
literature.  What do the cryobiology researchers find acceptable? 
Procedures that have been performed and documented in a scientific
manner, and published in peer-reviewed journals.  

	Even many of those who take the time to consider cryonics seriously,
don't sign up because they believe that the probability that they will
be revived 50-100 years from now is too small and uncertain to be worth
giving up their time and money now. 

	Those who argue that we need publicity to grow are right.  But will we
get the kind of publicity we want and need to grow quickly, if we
haven't persuaded the scientific community that we have a medical
procedure that will work?  I would suggest that those who want to
publicize cryonics most effectively will support research
wholeheartedly.

How can one support research? 

1) Invest in companies focused on organ cryopreservation work, like
21CM.
2) Urge your cryonics organization to set up a prize(s) for the
achievement of milestones leading toward successful long-term suspended
animation.
3) Urge your cryonics organization to include a "research fee" in the
price of cryopreservation to be set aside strictly for research.
4) If you're in a scientific field, direct your research toward areas
which advance the state of the art in organ cryopreservation.
5) Donate money to non-profit foundations, such as the Institute for
Neural Cryobiology, which support organ cryopreservation research.
6) Offer to help cryonics organizations raise money for research by
making phone calls, writing fundraising letters.
7) Urge your cryonics provider to publicize how much of their funding
goes to pay for salaries, overhead, LN2, equipment, and research.  If
their research funding seems to be less than you want, urge them to
increase it.

Although I'm pessimistic about the current state of the art, I'm
extremely optimistic about what can be achieved with relatively little
investment.  I look forward to seeing what the cryonics community will
achieve in the next few years.  

Chris Rasch
21st Century Medicine

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