X-Message-Number: 5764
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 17:14:48 -0500
From: Ken Stone <>
Subject: Pre-death suspension

Brad Templeton opines:

>As far as I am concerned cryonics organizations should stay as far as
>possible from any attempt to suspend before legal death, *including*
>legal assisted suicide, should it ever be allowed.
>
>You just have to look at the debates over assisted suicide to realize
>that people are against it even when the patients face painful, lingering
>death, and suspect the motives of the doctors and all those involved.
>
>Now you want to have the sick opting for the assisted suicide of
>cryonics?  As far as the public is concerned this will mean quacks
>selling a fraudulent scheme for huge sums, giving the terminally ill
>a clearly false hope in order to make a bundle.  You don't view it
>that way but I can assure you the public will.
>
>If I were a member of a cryonics org that even publicly considered
>suspending a living patient, I would thing seriously about switching
>cryonics orgs.  That org won't be around long.

Brad,

Although I certainly won't knock the virtues of realpolitik, there comes
a time when you have to stand up for what you believe in.   

For now, I believe that the chances of bringing anyone back from cryonic 
suspension are remote, at best.  I believe that people who are betting 
everything on the Nanotechnology god are just deluding themselves, and even 
the people who only subscribe to the little-n variant of that religion are 
still taking a lot on faith.  I have little doubt that we'll be able to 
regrow any type of tissue that we need - that isn't the problem.  The problem 
is the major amount of damage that the brain will suffer.

A tiny bit of damage to the wrong neural pathway can cause major problems
(e.g. epilepsy).  A few MICROgrams of certain chemicals (e.g. LSD) can have 
profound effects on the brain's ability to function.  Brains are subtle-- 
they don't tolerate insults very well, either physical or chemical.

But look what happens to them currently during death and suspension:
 a) freezing damage (on the macro, micro, and nano scales)
 b) chemical poisoning, edema, and cell dehydration from perfusion
 c) hormones, enzymes, and free radicals released during the dying process
    cause massive chemical chaos and cell death.

These don't count any incidental brain damage caused by whatever did the
patient in.  The doctors of the future will already be hard-pressed
enough to fix things; why make their task nearly impossible by sending 
them  somone who is already literally DOA?  By intervening before 
clinical death, we have the opportunity to prevent almost all of what 
I listed above in category 'c'.  We also get to reduce the damage in the
other categories, because we get to control the timing and get a much 
better perfusion as a result.  It's the difference between a controlled 
takedown and a crash landing. 

So, look at the two alternatives this way:
1) Patient suffers a drawn-out, painful death with attendant decay
   and massive stress and damage to the body and brain.  Corpse is
   then frozen in the hope that future weirdos will be good at
   necromancy.
2) Patients are literally put to sleep when they near death; they
   don't suffer, and they aren't really even 'dead' when they get
   put into 'suspended animation'.  The entire operation is done
   in a controlled way that gives the BEST possible chances for 
   future revival.

I don't know about you, but if I had to make a living selling one
of these to John Q. Skeptic, I'd rather be able to offer the 
second one.

---Ken

(p.s. Say 'hello' to Karyn for me...)


Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5764