X-Message-Number: 22768 Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 00:52:48 -0800 From: James Swayze <> Subject: Please reconsider your misconceptions regarding cryonics References: <> >Message #22761 >Date: Sun, 02 Nov 2003 15:25:27 -0500 >From: RANDY WICKER <> >Subject: Alcor politics > >Thomas Donaldson writes from Australia complaining about the lack of information regarding court cases and the internal politics of Alcor. >I think any onlooker can see that Alcor is in a precarious position. Popular opinion believes people should be buried or cremated when they die. The general public feels there is something obscene about preserving people through freezing. > It might help the situation if you could drop the misconceptions you yourself apparently have about cryonics. In example you say, "Cryopreservation is not for me,: I assured Farrey. "I hate the cold. Being put upside down in a tank of liquid nitrogen and kept at minus 320 degrees would give me 'an ice cream headache for eternity'.. Surely you realize this is totally bogus and hardly scientific. There is no possibility that you would ever feel any of the coldness and I speculate this is true even for eventual reanimation procedures. I am certain that repairs to our bodies will be done while we are well and quite still unconscious and still quite cold and that even as we are warmed we will be anesthetized. Waking from cryonic suspension will be like waking from general anesthesia in the recovery ward of any hospital today only then it will be much much more sophisticated. If you really don't feel this way, actually knowing better scientifically but choosing not to say so, and it was instead a clever quip to bolster your image or allay your nervousness while in the company of a man you seem to have admired more than professionally then I must say it is even more a disservice being so frivolous with our most serious of endeavors. Please reconsider your position on cryonics if this is indeed how you feel about it. For your own good and personal survival you need a more accurate personal portrayal of what cryonics truly is and will be about. But more than that, as you go about associating us with cloning, something cryonics will not even depend upon, then if we must have rub off on us the unfavorable views against cloning please do us the courtesy of not feeding the enemy with more false and inaccurate ammunition they certainly will twist against us. >We saw the media play to these prejudices with the coverage of how Ted Williams head was removed from his body. That was considered "horrible" by the media. > So why did you add fuel to the fire by speculating with ESPN about cloning Ted? You say yourself this was not the true motive of John Henry, as we all know, and that his spiteful and lying half sister made it and the DNA selling stories up simply in order to vilify her half brother and manipulate the press and the situation in her favor. We all know all too well what her true motive was and remains from the start in her making up such lies. She as much as extorted, nay blackmailed, her family in order to get herself back into the Will that her father wisely left her out of. Why did you not report her obvious to anyone with half a brain motive? By even answering the least of any questions as regards cloning in the context of Ted Williams just adds fodder for these miscreants to build up anti cryonics fervor against us. Surely you could see this. I would expect this from some talking head that had no love for cryonics or those involved. You seem to be friendly towards cryonics and we cryonicists so why did you even chance giving them more ammunition? I understand your being a reproductive cloning activist. I am one myself though not as active as you. I have appeared on television in support of cloning. But if I were asked to comment in public regarding cloning and how it relates to cryonics I'd in the very least be sure to point out that it is not even necessary for cryonics to work and should not be co mingled in the minds of the science illiterate. Going only on what you report about your interview, unless I missed something, it does not appear that you expressed strongly enough to Mr. Farrey that cloning was not and is not John Henry Williams' motive. I even find your speculation about producing a sports talented clone of Ted to be wildly inaccurate. You cite the work of researchers but stress only what favors your opinion. You quote: Wright concluded,'It is amazing how much identical twins ten to be alike in some abilities only to be so different in others. However, you go on to stress the similarities but say little about the "so different in others" part of the equation. You continue: "Absolutely." I replied. "Unless the woman carrying the later-born twin had inadequate nutrition, a later-born twin would have the same ability as Tiger. "Then Tiger would have something to worry about." Farrey theorized. "You bet he would." I continued. " In fact, perhaps if the later-born twin had better nutrition in the womb, he might be even better than the original.." Actually I assert that a raised with better nutrition twin would not necessarily be better talented, in fact he might tend to be muscle bound and constricted in movement by being overly strong for that sport. I have often said that a clone of me would not even look like me. My case is a little to one side of the spectrum though but the analogy carries with other, even the slightest, of environmental influences. A clone of me would have to have lived my exact life in order to look like me. In point of fact when I was 7 years of age I was runt. I was diagnosed with thyroid deficiency and given supplements until age 13. I had such a growth spurt one summer that I went from being short and pudgy to tall and leaner and still have stretch marks on my biceps from the rapid growth too quick for the skin to keep up. My clone not given the exact dosage of supplements as I would not possibly look the same and be my current 6'5" 230 lb.. frame. If looks would not be exacted then what can we say about personality? Talent is more than physical ability alone. A clone of Ted would need to live in an environment very similar to the original's to even have the same attitude toward baseball and especially the same work ethic, consider pay for ball player then vs now. How about the influences of the great depression and WWII on Ted? Some of his talent is attributed to his better than 20/20 eyesight. Could said eyesight be influenced by differing environments? I think so, consider simply differing attitudes toward protection from sun damage to skin and eyes from his times and some future date. All things considered I don't think speculation about cloning Ted for his talent was even viable enough to risk giving the anti science pro sports zealotry media more fodder to use against us. One last thing comes to mind regarding your own attitude toward cryonics. You say, "I'd settle for freezing just a few cells. Is this some indication of your opinion of personal survival? Do you think a clone of you constitutes your surviving death? If so I have got news for you... it is NOT. A clone of you is not even close enough to being YOU to even enter the realm of the perennial "duplicates as you identity" argument here on cryonet. If YOU wish to survive death, then YOU had better either survive until aging and death have been made null and void or get signed up for your feared worst of all ice cream headaches. > Yet burning a person up and turning them into nothing but ashes is considered "proper". > > > You make some very good points about cryonics vs the alternative but they would carry more weight if you were not merely speculating academically. I support your efforts for reproductive cloning rights for anyone wishing to do so and for how these rights and laws proposed against them have spilled over to therapeutic cloning, something that mainstream medicine, anti aging medicine and life extension in general could benefit from. Keep up the good work. But please as you do be careful how you associate cryonics in the mix. James -- Member: Cryonics Institute of Michigan http://www.cryonics.org The Immortalist Society http://www.cryonics.org/info.html The Society for Venturism http://www.venturist.org Immortality Institute http://www.imminst.org MY WEBSITE: http://www.davidpascal.com/swayze/ Signature Memetic Virus--The worst enemy of those who now or will need medical care is the uninformed politician or moral fanatic who proscribe what doctors are allowed to prescribe and research, with the consent of their patients. Those who understand this are strongly encouraged to modify this to fit their personality, and add this to their signature file, and organize to recover our freedom from Big Brother. For those who wait until they are sick, it will be too late. Those who suffer from diseases which might have been cured by advanced medical research or schedule 1 drugs banned by Big Brother, have the right to hold accountable those who sat on their hands or worse, deferred their responsibility for personal and humanity's survival to unseen mystical agents, while they remained ill and dying. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22768