X-Message-Number: 2743
Date: Tue, 10 May 94 21:46:53 EDT
From: 
Subject: CRYONICS

Paul Wakfer writes (amongst other points):
>5.  Unless one has grounds for being *certain* that current
>cryopresevation technology, even at its worst, is preserving the mind
>(and if someone out there *is sure*, I'd love to have them spell out
>the grounds for their certainty), then sitting and complacently
>waiting for, or even working to advance, nanotechnology in order to
>get ready for the future repair of damaged brains does *nothing* to
>ensure one's future existance.  While such an approach may leave one
>freer to enjoy present life, from a cryonics standpoint, it does
>nothing to *ensure* the revival of the cryopreserved.  Nanotechnology
>can, at best, only *hasten* such revival if that revival is possible.

I respectfully disagree with a number of points here:
(just to note my personal bias: To the extent that I can, I try to work
on nanotechnology.  Partly this is a matter of skills (my training is in
physics, chemistry, electrical engineering, and computer science, not in
biology) and partly this is for reasons I will discuss below.)

As one previous message on this mailing list put it, time in
cryopreservation is time at risk.  Hastening revival also, all other
things being equal, increases the probability of revival.  If revival
was delayed for 200 years instead of 50 we have increased risks from
financial failure, from political turmoil, from wars, from economic
collapse...

Development of nanotechnology also provides an alternate path to many
desirable medical technologies.  Simply having the ability to do brute
force copying of healthy cells and mechanically putting them in the right
places solves a lot of medical problems.  Development of nanotechnology
can fail, but so can development of more traditional medical technologies
I would like to have parallel paths available, so that they act as
backups for each other.  If, for whatever reason, biomedical techniques
capable of reviving cryopreserved patients are not developed, development
of nanotechnology may still permit their revival.

I would like to argue for the rationality of my course of action.  I am
not looking at it from the point of view of cryonics, but rather from
the point of view of maximizing my expected lifespan.  Either successful
cryonics or nanotechnological cell repair machines or biomedical
anti-aging treatments would assist me.  Given my particular skills,
attempting to assist nanotechnology, which can favorably affect the first
two possibilities, seems like a rational way to spend my time.

I applaud efforts to solve the cracking problem, but there are other
efforts which also seem sensible to me.  There are even other efforts in
cryonics which seem comparable in importance.  If we could get pre-mortem
cryopreservation legalized we could avoid a great deal of ischemic damage
which we also have to avoid in order to be revived.

                                                     Best wishes,
                                                     Jeffrey Soreff
standard disclaimer: I do not speak for my employer.

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2743