X-Message-Number: 23581 Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 11:36:45 -0800 From: James Swayze <> Subject: Introducing cryonics via CWD/HS References: <> > >Message #23576 >Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2004 14:30:29 -0500 (EST) >From: Charles Platt <> >Subject: hypothermia, revised > > <snip> > >Often I have used such stories about children as a way of >evaluating the skepticism of the person to whom I am talking. >If the person says, "I don't believe it, that's impossible," >I know I am going to have some difficulty presenting the case >for cryonics. > > I do much the same. But as was mentioned, perhaps by you Charles, some people won't respond even to logic and reason when the stark and overwhelming evidence stares them in the face and dares them to change their minds. For example I like to link HS (hypothermic surgery) with CWD (cold water drowning) stories and provide at the end of a logical progression that anyone should be able to follow a logical comparison/question for they themselves to evaluate. I've had mixed results but even people that admit to agree with me still have not said, "James, where do I sign up?". It goes like this. After telling of several examples of CWD and then also carefully explaining in laymen's terms the short version of highlights only of HS [having explained to them the spontaneous revival of bodily functions after the persons temperature reaches high enough for their natural electrical system to begin again to power the heart and the brain, IOW they sort of "reboot" at some point when warmed carefully and slowly], I ask or present the following. "If we consider the survival of people in cold water drowning events and hypothermia incidents and couple that with the planned and controlled case of hypothermic surgery, and supposing that a cryonics patient is in the future medically treated via something advanced where all their diseased and/or freezing damaged cells are repaired to pristine state, can you see any difference between these cryonics patients and those awaking from hypothermic surgery or revived after cold water drowning? Of course, if they are clever enough their mind has already filled in the gaps such as, the cryonics patient should be in even better shape than these other examples and under much more advanced and finely controlled procedures. Then I wait for the light to go on. Sadly, it rarely does. >I once talked to a biologist who refused to believe Suda's >cat brain experiment even after I showed him a photocopy of >the original paper in Nature. (I had obtained the photocopy >from a medical library.) > That's incredible! It just goes to show how deeply ingrained the deathist meme is and in this case also the attitude of "real scientists" (quotes for emphasis of my facetiousness) toward cryonics, even real evidence is refused. 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 Methuselah Foundation http://www.methuselahfoundation.org Methuselah Mouse Prize http://www.methuselahmouse.org [Give $$$ for life!] Marijuana Policy Project http://www.mpp.org American Civil Liberties Union http://www.aclu.org Nat. Resources Defense Council http://www.nrdc.org Act For Change http://www.actforchange.org People for American Way http://www.pfaw.org MY WEBSITE: http://www.davidpascal.com/swayze/ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23581