X-Message-Number: 17786
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: guesswork in cryonics
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 12:45:53 +0100

----- Original Message -----
> Message #17782
> Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 10:49:16 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Charles Platt <>
> Subject: guesswork in cryonics
> David, so long as you are not doing your lab work with whole human beings,
> and so long as none of your patients can be resuscitated, I think you must
> agree that you will be involved in "guesswork" like everyone else. You
> will certainly be extrapolating from your animal results.

I didn't take David Pascal's message to be anything more than a statement to
the effect that CI tries to get a little way beyond "guesswork". I didn't
take it to mean CI had come all the way to certainty, which as Charles Platt
intimates could only be demonstrated by *repeatable* procedures that revive
cryopreserved people - and is a long way off for all organisations.

This is an important difference between cryonics and religion inasmuch as
religion claims certainty, whereas cryonics does not. It may not give its
adherents "sure and certain knowledge of a life hereafter" but it does give
them the satisfaction that they have done their best against the
annihilation of death.

And this idea of "doing your best" goes back to the approaches used to try
and ensure that practicable cryonics procedures are as good as they can get,
and CI's independent and objective testing is certainly a good approach.
Nothing is perfectly safe, and maybe there are alternative approaches I
can't think of that are better, but that is how CI has decided to do it, and
it is up to the patients to make their choices based on factors like this.

--
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:      http://www.deRivaz.com
my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, music, Inventors'
report, an autobio and various other projects:
http://www.geocities.com/longevityrpt
http://www.autopsychoice.com - http://www.cryonics-europe.org -
http://www.porthtowan.com

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