X-Message-Number: 4207 From: (Thomas Donaldson) Subject: Re: CryoNet #4194 Date: Fri, 14 Apr 1995 23:43:24 -0700 (PDT) Hi! Yes, and most cryonicists know very well that there will be considerable damage. There are 2 things to remember about that damage: if you arrange to be frozen, you will be frozen only in a case in which the alternatives will be burial or cremation, both of which do FAR FAR more damage than freezing, even to liquid nitrogen temperature. Cryonics is not simply a lark into the future. It is a last resort, and we mean that. At the same time, we think there is a fighting chance that technology will eventually reach a state in which it can repair that damage, and that people stored now will last until that time. (That's not really such an extreme idea: even now, scientists are designing viruses for medical use, and supramolecular chemists are working out ways to make all kinds of combinations of matter. Furthermore many organizations have lasted many generations: even businesses have last many generations, though they may change their name and their products along the way). In terms of the necessary long term preservation, the chemicals used by fish etc mean very little. Arctic or Antarctic temperatures, also, are far too warm for long term preservation. I will say that keeping people at about -140 C rather than at LN temperature has awakened a lot of interest among cryonics researchers because it should be possible to vitrify rather than freeze (freezing involves crystals, which causes lots of damage; vitrification basically involves making a solution which moves very very sluggishly, like glass, and the damage caused will go way down). Unfortunately, I must point out also that by the time you are frozen you will have already sustained lots of damage, not specifically by the process of dying but by old age, and whatever disease your old age allows to happen. You would not be revived until rejuvenation became possible; to do otherwise would be cruel in the extreme (and since elderly people become very frail, very difficult anyway). So if you are frozen you may have to wait for far longer than it takes to "cure" your particular disease... even if the freezing process we used did no damage at all. Do not expect to be frozen for a short time (say, 30 years or so, or even 60 years). It's just not that kind of thing. And I think to many cryonicists most of those who are not seem very short- sighted. Join a cryonics society if at all possible, and welcome then to a long long ride through history. Long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4207