X-Message-Number: 3217 From: (Ralph Merkle) Newsgroups: sci.life-extension,sci.cryonics Subject: Evaluation of the technical feasibility of cryonics Date: 5 Oct 1994 20:07:25 GMT Message-ID: <36v11t$> Those interested in evaluating the technical issues surrounding the feasibility (or otherwise) of cryonics might wish to read: "The Technical Feasibility of Cryonics," by Ralph C. Merkle, Medical Hypotheses, 1992, 39, 6-16. A longer version was published in Cryonics in two parts as "Molecular Repair of the Brain," January 1994 page 16 and April 1994 page 20. It is available from URL ftp://parcftp.xerox.com/pub/merkle/techFeas.html >From the abstract: Cryonic suspension is a method of stabilizing the condition of someone who is terminally ill so that they can be transported to the medical care facilities that will be available in the late 21st or 22nd century. There is little dispute that the condition of a person stored at the temperature of liquid nitrogen is stable, but the process of freezing inflicts a level of damage which cannot be reversed by current medical technology. Whether or not the damage inflicted by current methods can ever be reversed depends both on the level of damage and the ultimate limits of future medical technology. The failure to reverse freezing injury with current methods does not imply that it can never be reversed in the future, just as the inability to build a personal computer in 1890 did not imply that such machines would never be economically built. This paper considers the limits of what medical technology should eventually be able to achieve (based on the currently understood laws of chemistry and physics) and the kinds of damage caused by current methods of freezing. It then considers whether methods of repairing the kinds of damage caused by current suspension techniques are likely to be achieved in the future. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3217