X-Message-Number: 26418
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:55:43 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: religious problems of cryonics

Well, this Cryonet merits some replies:

To Brian:

I honestly did not know and still don't know cases in which doctors
have cared for people because they deliver care in expectation of
future progress. I don't have my original message handy, but I don't
think I claimed that no doctor cares for someone with uncertain 
prognosis --- lots of serious diseases have an uncertain prognosis.

So Brian, can you tell me of actual cases of doctors caring for
patients because they believe in future progress?

I even agree with you that cryonics should be seen as medicine rather
than undertaking. At the same time it's very hard to convince people
of this when they see us getting a Death Certificate and doing things
to our patients which ordinary medicine would not countenance. That 
is a problem for us, both in dealing with opposition (whether or
not we created it by our own actions ie. David Pizer, or we somehow
offend their ideas.  The laws against doing cryonics in British
Columbia did not come from any act by cryonicists) and in trying to
recruit people by getting them to understand what we're doing.

To Joe Waynick:

Perhaps the output by Dave Pizer comes from deep frustration about
how fast cryonics has progressed.

In any case, I do not see the resurrection hopes of cryonicists
as at all similar to those of any religion. Cryonicists are actually
now doing research and supporting research to improve their 
methods. The change to vitrification, still incomplete, gives
an example. Even now it will cause less damage than freezing with
a cryoprotectant. 

As for getting more people, this research gives a much better case
than any simple argument that future science will save them. We
may not have any good cure for old age, but we may relatively soon
be able to say that we can store you until such cures are found.
No amount of personal contact can match visible advances in our
methods. (And unlike some, I don't think that we must first suspend
and then revive someone for our methods to be clearly advancing).
After all, if you suffer from a condition presently incurable,
then suspension adds no more uncertainty to whether or not you
can ever survive... and no one in cryonics advocates suspension
of perfectly healthy or curable patients.

             Best wishes and long long life for all,

                  Thomas Donaldson

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