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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26418