X-Message-Number: 5016
From: 
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 17:17:43 -0400
Subject: PPP

Principles, practice, and (excuse the expression) Plato--touched upon in
 recent postings:

Thomas Donaldson more or less scolded John Clark for mentioning Ralph
Merkle's calculations on turbulence as offsetting Mike Darwin's observations
or impressions regarding micrographs of events during tissue freezing. Thomas
implied that theories cannot or should not be used to discredit or minimize
observations.

Right and wrong, Thomas. Needless to say, enough observations of the right
kind by the right people under the right circumstances will always carry the
day and establish the facts. That is received scientific truth. But it is
also received truth that a well established theory will steamroller a whole
lot of alleged contrary observations.

The Patent Office will not even look at alleged "perpetual motion" machines
(purporting to overturn either the first or second law of thermodynamics) and
neither will most physicists or engineers; the remote possibility of merit
does not justify investing the time required. 

Countless alleged observations--many of them honest ones by ordinarily
credible people--attest to ESP; but the evidence just isn't there. Here we
don't even have a "theory" or "law" that explicitly rules out ESP; we simply
have a standard of evidence to which the ESP anecdotes (and even "studies")
don't measure up.

The turbulence formulas may not have the standing of some others in physics,
but they do make a lot of sense--for example that high viscosity tends to
reduce the chance or amount of turbulent flow. And frozen or freezing tissue
undeniably has high viscosity.

Stepping back a bit, on the overall question of optimism vs. pessimism and
the insistence of Darwin and others that only pesssimism is realistic; and
that anyone who considers any factor other than today's experimental results
to be important is just a blood brother or sister of Rosie Scenario:

First, again, "theory" is often--even usually--more important than any
particular experiment  or observation, since "theory" is BASED on a WHOLE LOT
of well confirmed previous experiments or observations.

Second, those who are too close to the forest sometimes see only a few trees,
even forgetting what they saw yesterday. For example, many experiments have
established the extreme freeze hardiness of DNA and many kinds of individual
cells. Some kinds of sperm show a good survival count after straight freezing
down to liquid nitrogen temperature and even liquid helium temperature. Now,
is it possible that some kinds of cells, and all or most of their organelles,
are very freeze hardy, yet some other kinds are extremely fragile,
disappearing with scarcely a trace? Possible, perhaps--but much more likely
the differences are only of moderate degree, and the "destroyed" cells or
tissues are only damaged. Of course we need to find out, not guess--but we do
NOT need to assume the worst while we are trying to find out.

Audrey Smith's hamsters survived after about half the water in the brain was
frozen, and seemed to show normal behavior afterward, even though there were
no actual tests of retention of learned behavior. Of course, it is
conceivable that the other half of the water--the half that was not frozen in
the hamsters--was the important and devastating half, and that after this
cut-off point some cataclysmic event(s) occur(s); but it isn't likely. More
likely, completion of the freezing would do enough damage to be fatal by the
usual criteria, but would still be far short of annihilation. Same remarks:
we need to know, not guess--but meanwhile we needn't assume the worst.

Hossmann's and Sato's cat survived and did not show unusual behavior after
close to an hour of total brain ischemia. Later examination reportedly showed
brain damage--perhaps related to some kinds of memory, a disturbing
thought--but clearly the cat LIVED, which is the outstanding result. 

Several people have revived completely or nearly so--including memory--after
drowning in cold water, sometimes being immersed for an estimated hour or
near that. Ischemic/anoxic time must have been close to the time under water.
These were generally young, healthy people, true, but they received no prior
medication or treatment of any kind, yet survived and retained their
memories. A determined pessimist can find reasons to discount this, but he'll
have to work at it. Our cryostasis patients are usually old and sick, but
often they receive much quicker cooling than these drowning patients--cooling
with ice or ice-cold water or other fluid and with forced circulation to help
the cooling and a bit later with internal cooling....Again, we need to know
more and more details, but meanwhile one need not choose to put the worst
light on everything.

In general, the cryothermic damage is by far worse than the hypothermic or
even (except in the worst cases) the normothermic. If this can be reduced
enough (and possibly it already has been, relative to future capability) then
we are in generally fine shape.

It is ironic that Mike Darwin and some others take ALMOST the same position
as those physicians and scientists who refuse to admit the admissibility of
unproven procedures even when there is no other hope, even when the patient
is already clinically and legally dead--who refuse to place any burden
whatsoever on the future. They are a bit like Charles Darwin's grandson who
wrote THE NEXT MILLION YEARS, a book on the thesis that--despite "marvels" to
come--we will never be able to sythesize food or establish world-wide habits
of birth control, hence population will always outrun food in the long run.
The author gives several cursory nods to progress and inventiveness, but they
are obviously insincere or lacking in understanding, since he denies that
relatively simple problems will ever be solved.  

All of this is probably another waste of time--except to those few people who
might conceivably be swayed in a decision as to whether to sign up, or
whether to freeze a relative. To them it could matter a great deal.

Finally, I assume Mike Darwin was deliberately/humorously trying to needle me
by comparing me to Plato, knowing that I share his low opinion of Plato, who
had little conception of standards of evidence or standards of language
usage.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society 


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