X-Message-Number: 19377 From: "Brett Bellmore" <> Subject: Re: CryoNet #19366 Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2002 10:11:54 -0400 Thomas Donaldson: "If we look at cryonics in those terms, the very first conclusion is that it cannot EVER work in the sense that a medical procedure works. Yes, if we someday reach a state in which we know how to fix ALL POSSIBLE medical conditions, then cryonics can be said to work ... but it would also cease to be used." I think perhaps you misunderstood my point, Thomas; It's not that cryonics would have to be demonstrated to work for the purpose of saving the presently untreatable today. I agree with you that, at that point, *long term* cryonics would no longer have much application. (It might still have some short term applications, and might also be used as a form of one-way time travel.) Rather, my point is that cryonics will be accepted when we can demonstrate reversable suspension of a HEALTHY higher organism, under ideal circumstances. At that point, people in large numbers would be able to make the infintesimal conceptual leap to suspending unhealthy people until treatments are available for them. The large leap, suspending people today in the expectation that a cure for having been suspended will also be developed, is beyond most people. Even though WE obviously consider it reasonable. Granted, it's a failure of imagination, a deadly one. But it's a failure almost everyone, religious AND secular, is guilty of. Brett Bellmore Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19377