X-Message-Number: 13783
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 08:07:27 -0600
From: Fred Chamberlain <>
Subject: Getting Reanimated; Response to Scott Badger

Date:      5/25/2000
From:      Fred Chamberlain ()
Re:          Getting Reanimated; Response to Scott Badger



>My mother has Alzheimers and is little more than a vegetable these days, but 
>they struggle to keep her alive year after painful year. Why? Lots of 
>reasons. Three examples (not necessarily in order of importance to the 
>medical community) would be:

>1. It's the moral thing to do, 
>2. They make money by keeping her alive, and 
>3 They risk being sued and losing their licenses if they don't.

Over a decade ago, a LifePact video interview was conducted for a lady (now
suspended) who was in deep Alzheimers.  Her husband prompted her and evoked
many sharply focused (but brief) memories.  This videotape is evidence of both
the persistence of sharply focused memories in Alzheimers, and (more
importantly) it is probably going to be very important data for reanimation
teams in assessing (in the light of better knowledge) the degree of
progression
of the disease and how to optimize the recovery of this lady's identity in the
most effective way.


>As soon as one person is reanimated from cryonic suspension, the whole
>medical community will be forced to regard the others as "alive".

The first person "out" will probably be a perfect vitrification subject, like
an astronaut (cryonaut), demonstrating feasibility only after a long series of
successful animal work.  He or she will be studied at length, other trial
subjects will follow.

When someone with 30 minutes ischemia but an otherwise perfect
vitrification is
recovered, then those with this level of damage will be considered recoverable
also, but doubts will be expressed for others.  Walking backwards to persons
suspended by today's technology will be a long trek, but eventually I think we
will be able to characterize the "chances" of everyone placed in a state of
cryostasis, along a scale of the degree to which memory and identity are
recovered, thus differentiating such people from genetic twins.  This will be
an evolutionary, gradual process.  As I point out again and again, by the time
we have moved from today's "one in a million" with arrangements, to a point
where prearrangements are "commonplace" (I use one in a hundred as an example
of what "commonplace" might mean), we will have grown by a factor of 10,000
(four orders of magnitude).  If this takes place over a period of four
decades,
it means an average of an order of magnitude per decade.

Alcor's immediately past decade shows a 400% growth, far less than an order of
magnitude.  Growth will follow an irregular course, and there will be periods
when growth will be steeper than an order of magnitude per decade, if the
above
scenario plays out.  It's everyone's guess as to what nanotechnology and
better
tools of observation will show, over the next several decades, as to the
extent
of neurostructural preservation achieved by readily applicable cryorescue
techniques, but if the results of this are optimistic, and if it takes awhile
to fully contain aging and equip people with life-preservation adjuncts
such as
Robert A. Freitas Jr.'s respirocytes, then perhaps four decades from now we
really *might* have participation by prearrangement by one person (or more) in
each hundred.  If this turns out to be the case, the "order of magnitude per
decade" growth rate will have been a reality.

For a glimpse of a very different "reanimation scenario", have a look at
<http://www.alcor.org/lifeqst4.htm>http://www.alcor.org/lifeqst4.htm, a story
from a decade ago, just after the emergence of nanotechnology, about someone
who wakes up in the future.  This story is also linked from the Foresight
Institute's new "Slash Server" at
<http://216.240.168.216/>http://216.240.168.216/ which is also worth a glance,
for those of you who wish to follow what's taking place dynamically at
Foresight and the Molecular Manufacturing Institute.

  
Fred Chamberlain, President/CEO ()
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
Non-profit cryonic suspension services since 1972.
7895 E. Acoma Dr., Suite 110, Scottsdale AZ 85260-6916
Phone (602) 922-9013  (800) 367-2228   FAX (602) 922-9027
 for general requests
<http://www.alcor.org/>http://www.alcor.org

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