X-Message-Number: 19122 Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 09:41:59 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #19109 - #19118 Hi everyone! Some comments: 1. On the issue of whether or not we could be made literally immortal, the argument is simple. If we do the math, any means which decreases our likelihood of death every year, if it does so fast enough, will make some proportion of those now alive literally immortal. The faster this decrease occurs, the more people become immortal. Those who recently discussed this issue on Cryonet are stuck in a trap of only looking at present physics and conditions. First, there is no requirement that we take up increasingly large amounts of space. We are considering the technology of thousands of years in the future, which offers the possibility of growth into other dimensions, means to affect changes occurring to ALL of our universe, and so on and on. Who can really claim such things are impossible in the literal sense? What physics will we have in the year 3002? Do I myself really believe that immortality is possible? I will just say that the arguments claiming the opposite depend on assumptions about the world which very well may turn out not true, after 400 more years of study. 2. The idea that those who have lived overseas are particularly prone to join is very interesting. I myself lived in Australia and have now returned to Australia (because I have an Australian wife) and travelled a good deal in the far East. I even played a big role in setting up cryonics in Australia, one which the recent change of policy by Alcor badly ruined (most Australians used to join Alcor, but now they join other societies, and some have even resigned from Alcor). Unfortunately, many leading lights in cryonics HAVEN'T spent much time overseas. We need other explanations for them. I suspect that in the end we'll find more than one explanation, and perhaps the combination of several increases the likelihood of joining even more. 3. Must cryonics have a "product" before it stands any chance of success? An interesting question, which if true would be a great pity. The aim of cryonics is to provide a means to defeat DEATH. Not just those special kinds of death in which everything is right and we can put some patient's brain into suspended animation, but ALL KINDS of death. This especially means death under unknown circumstances in which it's not at all obvious that the technology of the time can repair someone. I do not mean here the PRESENT time at all, but the time in which cryonicists try to preserve someone. Do I really believe that we'll go on into the indefinite future meeting with medical problems that the doctors of the time do not know how to fix? Yes. What will happen is that such problems will occur less often, but if you happen to be one of the unlucky few, you should still be stored until we can either PROVE you cannot be fixed by any future technology, or find a way to fix you. It does not even take much imagination to come up with such conditions: forgetting accidents with new technology, imagine a computer virus which gets into your brain deliberately and confuses it endlessly ... so that you become essentially "dead". For that matter, accidents happen too, and they too (especially if they are dealing with your brain) will do things to you we won't immediately know how to fix. This is a simple point, really. The only way you could claim differently would be to claim that we will make everyone literally immortal. And we've been discussing that one, too. Yes, our expected lifespan will become much greater, but in that one regard our lives will not have changed. And those who ask first that we find some way to keep someone alive while in suspension ask exactly the wrong question. Maybe many ask that question, true, and they will be buried or cremated just like almost everyone. That is the pity in it. Best wishes and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19122