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


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