X-Message-Number: 26401
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 01:12:26 -0400
From: 
Subject: Re: Cryonics vs. Burial ?!?

In #26395, Brian Wowk strongly urges cryonicists not to equate 
cryopreservation with burial methods.   His stated reasons are that doing 
so is counterproductive, absurd and incomprehensible to the 
public.  Instead, he wants us to tell the public that the patients are not 
really dead at all, but being stabilized until more advanced medicine can 
treat them.

As this is one of the first things I read this morning after I woke up, I 
started to wonder if I had awakened in this century, or in some later one 
when reanimation was already being practiced, the definition of "death" was 
being relegislated, life insurance could no longer be used to fund cryonics 
because cryonics patients were no longer considered dead, and the law and 
medical ethics permitted the "suspension" at below freezing temperatures of 
persons still considered alive, which procedure had become a part of the 
ordinary medical insurance policy.

After confirming it was still 2005, I began puzzling over just what Brian 
was trying to say.  Is he saying we should stop the practice of using life 
insurance funding, since these folks are not really dead?

Is he saying that we should not get death certificates signed, because 
these people are not dead?  In what legal jurisdiction can a cryonics 
organization administer toxic chemicals and suspension procedures at below 
freezing temperatures to someone not considered dead, and the practitioners 
not be put in jail, the bodies thawed and autopsied?

The obvious answer is no, we should not go that far.  But if Brian is right 
in saying "Describing cryonics as an alternative interment method for dead 
bodies makes cryonics utterly incomprehensible to the worldview of normal 
human beings," it is a stretch to think those same human beings will 
comprehend anything about how we consider these bodies "alive" after we 
have obtained death certificates and accepted life insurance payments.

So if we don't go that far, and do get a death certificate, and do use life 
insurance funding, what is wrong with also taking advantage of another 
benefit that accompanies the status of "deceased", namely, the legal 
ability to consider cryopreservation simply another method of disposition 
of a dead body?  It is upfront different from other methods -- we make no 
secret of telling people that their frozen/vitrified friend/relative may be 
reanimated some time in the future when it is possible, and practical, to 
do so.  Cryopreservation is not thereby being equated with burial or cremation.

But it does have some important benefits.  For one thing, it provides 
psychological and emotional closure to non-cryonicist friends and 
relatives, if the proper memorial services and such are provided.  It can 
also have certain legal benefits, such as in jurisdictions where cryonics 
is considered legal as a funeral procedure.

There is a danger, too, in diminishing the idea of death in regards to a 
cryopreserved patient.  People and the courts are not yet ready for this 
redefinition.  "Being brought back to life" is a much more palatable 
concept.  We as cryonicists can think whatever we want about it, but until 
reanimation is practiced and everybody therefore knows these people were 
not really dead, most people are not going to accept the idea and a good 
many do not even want to hear of it.  In fact, if cryonicists do not 
present what they do in terms most people can understand, we will continue 
to have legal and public relations difficulties.

Brian's whole premise seems to be a misconception that the general public 
at this time in history will embrace "the true motives and goals of 
cryonics."  Not so, I'm afraid.  Instead, I have been seeing more evidence 
of things like attempts to pass legislation that would make it nearly 
impossible for a cryonics organization to operate, newspaper and magazine 
articles ridiculing cryonics, etc.  I fear that if we try to push too hard 
onto the public the fact that our cryopreserved patients may indeed still 
be alive under a future definition of the term "death," we risk a backwash 
of confusion and anger from those who cannot handle the uncertainty of 
their deceased friend/relative's status, and the threat to the comfortable 
mindset they have cherished since childhood.

This is not to say we shouldn't keep on publicizing cryonics and talking 
about it to other people.  The soft approach is best.  When someone is 
ready for a change in mindset, they will understand the idea and see its 
possibilities.  Until then, they want to hear and think that their loved 
ones are "at rest."  Let them.  We don't need billions of cryonicists, at 
least until there is more than vaporware to offer.

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