X-Message-Number: 6910 From: (Thomas Donaldson) Subject: Re: Cryonet #6884, Paul Wakfer Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 14:38:21 -0700 (PDT) Hi everyone! I note Paul Wakfer's message in this Cryonet, which states that BOB ETTINGER has told us that Alcor and CI will compete with Prometheus. The last time I heard, Alcor was not a subsidiary of the Cryonics Institute and Bob Ettinger had no power to speak for Alcor. Certainly we should all pay attention to Bob's opinions, since he is a sensible person who has been with cryonics for a very long time. I don't think he or anyone else can speak for other cryonicists, they must speak for themselves. I remain very interested in getting the details of the Vissers' results, and I would hope that the choice can be worked out quickly. If not, it may turn out that Prometheus must spend some preliminary time (and money!) to evaluate TWO possible paths to reversible brain suspension --- hardly something that would help bring it closer. Though I am hardly flush with money, and donated money this year to Alcor already in specific support of research, I shall examine my books and try to work out if I can give more to Alcor short-term, since they wish to evaluate Visser's method themselves. One final point, an important one: no matter what method we use, we are very unlikely to obtain LITERALLY perfect brain preservation. What we are really seeking is a way to bring down the damage to a much lower level than current methods produce. Vitrification shows a lot of promise to do that; the Visser ideas may do so also, though they raise more questions in my own mind than does vitrification. And why do I say that vitrification won't produce literally perfect brain suspensions? Well, not because of any special thing I know about vitrification, but because things never ever work that way in real life. Perfection only happens in fiction, religion, and (prior to the election, but not afterwards) politics. Long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6910