X-Message-Number: 9787 Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 09:05:36 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #9779 - #9785 To Mike Darwin: I attended (and I think you did) the lecture by Peter Safar at the A4M meeting. At that lecture he very clearly talked about 10 minutes. I'm sure he's done much more in his lab, but he was talking to a different audience interested in what could be done with PEOPLE. I will add that I personally feel glad for the extra details about his work you have put up on Cryonet with your message. You do not actually contradict what I said, which was very brief. Since you are right in the middle of such research, and I am not, I cannot be surprised that you know lots more about it than I. I will contact you separately about nondisclosure agreements, though I will add that I'm most interested in things that I CAN disclose. (Remember, I'm acting as a medical reporter here --- though as a cryonicist I would still like to know what is going on). In any case, I believe my basic point --- that we can revive people now after significantly more than 5 minutes, still stands. I'm also happy that you're communicating with Safar --- even if your aims are ultimately different, I'm sure that you can help one another. I will add that you would be unlikely to be interested in any article I wrote on revival after ischemia because you were deep in the middle of that subject. Perhaps, though, some of what I say on other subjects may still be of interest. And remember that PERIASTRON cannot devote an entire issue to one subject, it must always condense and summarize heavily. (Otherwise it would quickly lose subscribers!). To Tom Mazanec: I've explained why I became a cryonicist several times on this forum, so I apologize for repetition to others. The main point, which all those people you list simply didn't catch on to, is that cryonics does not have to be proven to work in order to be the correct choice IF YOU ARE DYING. If you are dying, then your choices are very limited indeed: you can choose to be buried, and so totally destroyed; you can choose to be cremated, and so totally destroyed; you might choose other methods in other cultures, all of which mean that you will be totally destroyed. OR you can choose cryonic suspension, as uncertain as it may be. Certainly, no one can promise that you will be revived, but at least a precondition for revival will be there: you will NOT have been totally destroyed. Moreover, it would take great hubris to believe that the problem of revival, just because it seems impossible to doctors today, will not be solvable given the long times available. Not only that, but if you look into cryonics a bit more you will find discussions of just the kind of things that would be needed for revival --- not as things we have now, but as devices and ideas which we can develop over many years. No, that does not prove that you will be revived, but to wait for such proof when your real choice lies between total destruction and possible survival is idiotic, and remains idiotic even if you have a Nobel prize and an IQ of 300. Not only that, but right now cryonicists are trying to improve their methods (as they have been, on very low budgets, ever since cryonics began --- modulo various internal struggles, I will admit). In such a situation to stand by and complain that present methods don't "work" (whatever that may mean, given the choices available) does not seem logical. Either stop your complaining or contribute to the research, which is badly needed. When you say that you give money toward nanotechnology just why do you do so? So that you can have ever smaller computers? I will point out, as I have already, that without neuroscience too, nanotechnology will do nothing for us. Not only that, but a bit of study of cryobiology will tell you about vitrification and the serious possibility that we could reversibly preserve brains by vitrification --- after lots of research and money, but hardly as much even as a Tokamak. Of course, if you're simply not interested in living, then why not say so and d we can end this discussion. As for why so many have not joined, I will say this. I personally have spoken to "intelligent" people who have no problems believing that repair and revival of someone suspended today will someday become possible --- but they still refuse to join a cryonics society. There probably are people who simply believe that it won't work, so strongly that they have at once ceased to think about it. But very few people are willing to think about cryonics because they are thinking about their own death. And there is a real kicker behind cryonics, which makes it especially hard. Suppose that we DO revive someone and cure them of their illness. That tells nothing about whether or not we can ever cure YOU of YOUR illness: and so, in that situation, if you choose cryonics, you will know that you can be revived, sure, but only to the same dying condition you had when you were suspended. All else is quite unknown. That sounds to me like a really great choice; and I doubt that any single revival, or even a train of them, will at once cause lots of people to join. Cryonics by definition is the storage of people until their disease or condition, totally incurable at the time of their storage, can someday be cured. To ask first that the disease be curable is to miss the point entirely; and so it is now with "death", too. Best and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=9787