X-Message-Number: 5807 From: Owen Lewis <> Newsgroups: uk.legal,sci.cryonics,sci.life-extension Subject: Re: Virtue of suffering Date: Wed, 21 Feb 96 10:57:13 GMT Message-ID: <> References: <> In article <> "Brian Wowk" writes: >In <> Owen Lewis <> writes: > >>Would someone care to post how it is proposed to revive a deep-frozen corpse >>complete and with its personality and memory intact? > >>If I mistake that as the actual intention, could someone please post in >>what condition it is prognosticated that a thawed out person will be? > > The intention is indeed to revive deep-frozen *patients* with >their personality and memory intact. Calling a cryonics patient a >"corpse" is an abuse of language. ...... Thanks for the detailed and interesting post, Brian. However - and without yet reading the reference sources you kindly provided - it does seem, prima facie, that there are a number of difficulties in the way of what you propose, namely: 1. It would seem that a person must enter 'cryonic suspension' before death by any other cause has occurred. In the absence of any instance of actual revival, the law must continue to view 'cryonic suspension' of humans as assisted suicide since by current practice anybody frozen stiff is certifiably dead and a corpse. 2. This first issue would also seem to be central to allowing the suspended entity to retain sufficient assets to survive, when revived at some future date, unskilled, probably unemployable and possibly with personality temporarily or even permanently destroyed. 3. As current 'cryonic suspension' is carried out in the absence of any proven path for its reversal, how is it to be assured that the current techniques does not in itself cause massive and irreversible damage. It does seem to me that to overcome these real and present obstacles in the path of cryonic suspension it required the research to advance to the point where where both physical resuscitation and subsequent mental condition can be reliably demonstrated under laboratory conditions with mammal subjects. Such licenced research must surely be the only way that the law can come to change its view of 'cryonic suspension' as the creation and preservation of a corpse? There is a fourth concern which it seems to me to be unlikely to be addressed until cryonics research has demonstrated the requirement to come to grips with its reality. That is the question of whether, if proved viable, it would not be prohibited other than under special licence and for specified purposes. A purpose for which it might well be beneficial is the colonisation of other parts of the galaxy by the human race (though other parts of the galaxy might not find such a colonisation to be beneficial :-)). In sum, I accept the possibility that the resuscitation of a frozen human may one day be possible. I cannot see why the law should change to encompass this possibility unto its reality is proven. Were its practicality proven and the ethical, social, economic and legal issues raised thereby come to be addressed, one possible - and in my view likely - outcome would be that cryonic suspension other than by special licence and for special purpose. Owe Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5807