X-Message-Number: 2264
Date: Tue, 18 May 93 01:37:48 CDT
From: Brian Wowk <>
Subject: CRYONICS Reply to Art Quaife

Art Quaife:
 
> If it is ever possible to attach a revived head to a cloned body,
> that head (brain) is going to be in for quite a shock...
 
        Neuropatients (and possibly today's wholebody patients) will 
be revived by regrowing a new body around the repaired brain in a 
nutrient bath.  Body growth in this synthetic "womb" will resemble 
natural fetal development, except that the process will begin with a 
brain instead of an egg, and will be carried through to adulthood.  
Revival of neuropatients will not be anything so crude as sewing a 
head onto a body!
 
 
> Whether the consciousness that emerges from the old brain adapting
> to the new body is close enough to the original consciousness to
> count as "identity preservation", I do not know.
 
        Well, a lot of people *do know* the answer to this question
--first hand.  There are many people around today who have endured 
multi-organ transplants and spinal cord transections at the level of 
cervical vertebrae.  (Some possibly even both).  While none of these 
people are happy about their disabilities (an artifact of today's 
primitive medicine), they do not deny the continued existence of their 
life and identity.  Indeed, many of these people express gratitude 
that they are *still alive*.   
 
        We can quibble about the technical details of revival, and 
about whether revived neuropatients will remember how to play the 
piano, or even walk.  But it is plain dishonest to claim we "do not 
know" whether saving the brain can save a person's life as that word 
is presently understood in medicine.  Clinical experience 
overwhelmingly proves that it can.
 
 
> Whole-body patients are an odds-on bet to come out of suspension
> long before neuro patients.
 
        I'll take that bet.  Today's cryonic suspension methods are so 
intensely damaging, it is quite possible that whole body patients will 
be revived by regrowing them new bodies.  Growth of new bodies is a 
process that *already exists* in nature, and that can in principle be 
modified to suit the needs of cryonics patients.  On the other hand, 
repair mechanisms for extensive cryoinjury do not exist in nature and 
will have to be designed from the ground up.   
 
        There is another interesting aspect to this question I would 
like to hear Art comment on.  Reversible organ preservation 
technologies such as vitrification necessarily involve completely 
removing the brain and storing in a vitreous solution.  (Otherwise ice 
crystals in the rest of the body would propagate and devitrify the 
organ).  When this technology becomes available, will Art choose to 
have his brain preserved as a discrete organ in perfect (reversible) 
condition, or continue with the option of having his whole body frozen 
using today's highly damaging techniques?
 
 
> Some neuopreservation advocates claim that Dora Kent is still in
> suspension today *only* because she was a neuro patient, and
> could readily be moved out of the coroner's harmful way. I
> disagree. As I heard the story, the coroner's office only got
> involved in that case because they were notified that Alcor
> (another cryonics organization) was attempting to dispose of a
> headless corpse.
 
        Nonsense!  Dora Kent was a Coroner's Case from square one by 
legal definition because her legal death was not pronounced by a 
state-licensed physician or nurse before her cryonic suspension began.  
If her body (sans head) was not available for examination, the whole 
package would have come of out of suspension without a doubt.
 
                                                --- Brian Wowk

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