X-Message-Number: 5043
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #5037 - #5040
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 10:22:51 -0700 (PDT)

Hi!

This is Thomas Donaldson again. Some comments on the messages in the latest
Cryonet:

1. Ralph Merkle and Steve Harris may well be right about whether or not 
   turbulence occurs in the classical mathematical sense. BUT when I pointed
   out that Mike Darwin's observations deserved respect AS OBSERVATIONS
   I was not sayiing that I agreed with his INTERPRETATION of them.

   If we wish for continued progress in suspension, arguing about
   interpretations while paying no attention to the observations themselves is
   a sure path toward stasis -- not, however, the kind of stasis we really
   want. All those who try to disprove the presence of turbulence would do
   much better to try and explain Mike's OBSERVATIONS. And if no one comes
   up with a good explanation, so be it ... many things in the world still
   have not been explained. But don't delude yourselves and others by simply
   saying that since we can't explain it it therefore cannot exist.

2. Bob Ettinger's comments about use of morticians are actually very well
   taken, and deserve attention by every cryonics group. One of the things 
   we did in Australia when I was living there was to involve a mortician,
   who became quite helpful even though he never joined. This has continued.
   In fact, cryonicists in Australia have recently hooked up with a large
   chain of funeral parlors over all of eastern Australia.

   Not only that, but if morticians learn to do the preliminary steps of a 
   suspension then their community standing will increase as cryonics 
   spreads. Doctors presently risk their reputations to be involved with
   cryonics. For morticians it is almost exactly the opposite: their 
   reputations will become enhanced. And just because morticians presently
   aren't ranked socially up there with doctors emphatically does NOT mean
   that they cannot learn the required procedures. 

3. As I understand it, assisted suicide is tolerated in the Netherlands ---
   not strictly legal, but tolerated. HOWEVER this privelege is available
   only to Dutch citizens. As I am sure almost everyone on Cryonet knows,
   a fair number of political ATTEMPTS to allow it has been going on for
   some time. One of them will likely succeed in the near future. Whether 
   this will really help us depends on lots of other factors, of course.

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson


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