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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=13783