X-Message-Number: 117
From arpa!A.ISI.EDU!TKD Wed Jul 12 08:28:21 EDT 1989
Date: Wed 12 Jul 89 08:28:21-EDT
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Re: CRYONICS #116 - Re: Risks, AIDS, Perpetuities
To: 
In-Reply-To: Message from "" of Tue 11 Jul 89 22:05:52-EDT
Message-ID: <>

David:

The current state of research on low-temperature nonfrozen preservation, in
which cryonicists LEAD, can achieve a preservation time of about 6 hours
for dogs and so probably for human beings.

As for your political comments, I suppose I agree with what you say as a 
longterm statement, but it has very little practicality that I can see
shortterm. That is, say, for the next 5 years. One point you make I very
much disagree with, and that is that "public support" is needed for
longterm stability. Many groups have persisted for centuries without 
any support from the peoples among whom they lived. The call for public
support smells very like a request for approval from some group whose 
opinion the speaker thinks well, it is not anything practical.

If we look at your strategy as a research strategy in cryobiology
rather than politics (the science precedes politics) then you are 
proposing extensive research into long term high temperature preservation.
This technique is certain to be far more cumbersome and expensive than 
cryonic suspension.......

It's only my opinion, but the cryobiological problems of such 
preservation look muich HARDER than those for solid-state storage. Among
the first such problems is that fact that patients would still be 
metabolizing. They will need food (energy) input. Since they are not
biologically designed to function for long times at these temperatures,
their metabolism will already be very much out of whack.

			Thomas Donaldson
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