X-Message-Number: 8743
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #8732 - #8740
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 11:16:12 -0800 (PST)

Hi again!

I wish to add a little to my last comments, and then go on from there. The  
small bit I wish to add is this: I said that openness was the best way to 
recruit cryonicists. Part of openness is that those considering cryonics also
get to see all the squabbles and struggles within the different organizations
and between them. Contrast this with the opposite and what I mean becomes
very clear: suppose we all got together and presented an air of complete
unity to the public (public == those not presently involved with cryonics). 
This is what religious organizations do, and what frauds do, and so on. To
expect arguments and opposition takes a much stronger set of beliefs than
one that decides that all is beautiful and tries to pretend so to those
outside. Yes, some people won't understand this, but then it's their problem.
The contrast is that between the Soviet Union in (say) 1975, before it broke
up, and the United States. Lots of opposition and argument in the US, lots
of demonstrators etc etc. Total unity on the other side. But what happened
later we all know.

To Charles Platt: Your comments raise several issues. First of all, I was
involved in cryonics very early, and as I remember the situation, Keith
Henson and his present wife got involved earlier, too. I remember when we
were among the few members of Alcor in Southern California. Drexler came
along with nanotechnology LATER. Keith naturally glommed onto nanotechnology
just as he gloms onto every new idea, whether or not it's consistent with
the older ones he's signed onto before. And for some time I and Cath got
to hear about how everything would someday be made of diamonds. 

Furthermore, fully perfected suspended animation will not solve most of
our problems with cryonics. In the first place, it could only be used
on people who were still alive, though they suffered from some conditions
for which a cure could not be found. What about people found dead 5 minutes
after they ceased breathing and heartbeat? What about accidents and (as we
all know now) the many things that can delay cryonic suspensions? Cryonics
is a form of emergency treatment, not something you do in a hospital to
those already surviving under very controlled conditions. If the coroner
is so good as to provide your brain, not cut into pieces, to your cryonics
organization, do you or don't you want it to be frozen?

Not only that, but just what is the situation of someone wanting suspended
animation? They want to take advantage of a POSSIBLE cure for their 
condition which will POSSIBLY be found at some unknown future time. Unless
the drug or treatment is already under investigation and tests for the
approval of the FDA, their reasons for believing that cures will come in
a short time have no validity. Sure, some scientists will be saying that,
no doubt. After the first experiments reviving cats from longterm ischemia,
many thought that there would SOON be an expansion in the length of time
after which we might be revived after loss of heartbeat, too. We have all
learned since that time how difficult that problem really is.

If any form of suspended animation is to be used for those awaiting a cure,
then putting time limits on the cure cuts down the number of people it would
be good for by orders of magnitude. And that has it's other side, too: if
we put no time limits, then the range of conditions for which suspended
animation might be used expands by orders of magnitude, to all those 
conditions we not only have no ideas about how to cure, and many that most
doctors would say are totally incurable. What about aging, for instance?
And from that point we find ourselves cryonicists. Would you still be in
your brain if the coroner gives it to your cryonics society intact? Would
you be in your brain if it were sliced into large pieces? No one can really
say. That's the point. And if you ask people, anyone, to define when someone
is "alive", and don't accept the stock answers (devised to justify harvesting
of organs for transplant!), you'll find only confusion. And THAT is the point,
too. 

It is not contradictory to believe that we can improve our knowledge of
the world, and in particular of medicine, without believing that our
present knowledge comes anywhere close to complete. To believe that our
knowledge is complete --- only a few i's remain to be dotted and a bit
of punctuation to be added --- is a very frequent problem many scientists
have, and they share it with many others who aren't scientists. "WE understand
completely how the human body works. It's only those ignorant people of the
last century who had a problem." It's also one reason it's been hard to get
people to see cryonics as it is. Most people live quietly in their own
little version of a Ptolemaic universe, believing that phlogiston explains
all our problems with chemistry. No, not at all.

Finally, a short word for Mr. Coetzee: No, I don't have to understand aging
completely to state that the organs in our head play a major role in it.
If you press me, I'll say that I was stating what I felt was very likely to
be true, not what is "true". But beyond that, we do have experiments. For
instance, melatonin increases lifespan. One thing that increases lifespan
in rats or mice, even more than melatonin, is a transplant of the pineal
glands from young animals into older animals. (The pineal gland is buried
inside our brain). Our hypothalamus also connects with our pituitary, and
controls its output of other hormones. (Without such a connection, the
pituitary is useless). The hormones involved control many of the phenomena
we associate with aging. And finally, on a more global level, even in embryos
the head region puts out many substances which control growth and development
of the embryo. I could go on, of course. Since no one has yet transplanted 
a head, in the root sense we don't know what would happen, but what I DO
know about aging makes me think that controls for it are in our heads, and
that's where we should look. For that matter, even antioxidants, if they
work in our bodies but not in our heads, would leave us young in body but
with a badly deteriorated brain from aging. (I don't think that we'd 
even get a young body, but that's because of the facts I've listed).

			Best and long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson

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