X-Message-Number: 8798
Date:  Mon, 17 Nov 97 16:53:05 
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: #8784; Cryonics Workability

Hara Ra, #8784, writes:

>I had an interesting experience a couple of years ago 
>when I visited CryoCare. The woman who picked me up 
>at the airport works as a RN and does some work for 
>Mike Darwin. Of course I asked her if she were signed up 
>and she vehemently replied NO!
>
>Her reason was that life is painful enough as it is, and the 
>idea of more of it was beyond comprehension.
>
>I have spent many years exploring the depths of my 
>psyche and undergoing experiences which may be called 
>shamanic and other experiences having to do with my 
>early childhood. My sense of many people is that deep 
>inside the experience of life is painful and only a sense of 
>duty and shame prevents many suicides. Since one can't 
>kill oneself, the passive approach is just to live and then 
>die and that's that.
>
Perhaps to "a sense of shame and duty" we should add a 
visceral terror of death, which, I would guess, is deeply 
ingrained by the selection process. Some of its main fea-
tures appear to go back to long before we were human, 
inasmuch as animals too have a "survival instinct." This 
dread of death (in humans) also does not seem much 
amenable to a reasoning process. So, is it the case that 
people are afraid to die, either by a simple raw fear, or a 
sense of duty, shame, etc. but still don't want to live? I 
have puzzled a long time myself over why there aren't 
more suicides, given such apparent dissatisfaction with life, 
which seems often to be invoked when you bring up the 
cryonics option. On the other hand, many religions, which 
we can assume are projections in some way of deep-seated 
wishes of people who believe in them, promise an afterlife. 
It would seem, perhaps, that people "don't want to live" the 
sort of life that is possible to them here and now (as they 
see it) but "do want to live" in some sense--in a better 
place. I have no problem with the idea that the future in 
this universe will indeed be a "better place" than here (not 
that "here" is that bad, really), and it is one of the reasons 
I'm enthusiastic about cryonics.

***********************************
On whether cryonics will work:

This is an important topic and it's good to see it addressed 
from time to time. Of course, we need more research. The 
demonstration of reversible suspended animation would be 
very much in our favor, and should be pursued with all 
diligence.

But, for now, we must face things as they are. Some years 
ago, I wrote an article, "Why cryonics probably will work" 
for my "For the record" column in *Cryonics* (April '92). 
My approach was to focus on the Suda results. A well-
known cryobiologist was consulted, and suggested I focus 
in particular on the results with cat brains that were cooled 
to -20C for only 4 days then rewarmed, because these 
showed brain wave patterns that could hardly be distin-
guished (if that) from controls. So, my reasoning went thus: 
if perfusion and cooling to -20 yielded such good results, it 
was a fair bet that brain structure, memories, etc. were 
well-preserved at that point. On the other hand, of course, 
we need lower temperature than this for longterm preser-
vation, so we cool additionally to -196C, the temperature 
of liquid nitrogen. I reasoned that, despite such problems as 
tissue cracking, etc., it was unlikely that cooling from -20 
to -196--from cold to supercold--would so disrupt the fine-
scale brain structure as to cause massive loss of memory 
information, though it certainly does cause damage. Of 
course, preserving the information should be sufficient for 
eventual reanimation, even if cells are non-viable by our 
present criteria. So, on this basis, I was optimistic about 
cryonics working, even by then-current procedures, which 
haven't changed radically. And I remain cautiously opti-
mistic today, though again, much in favor of research.

Mike Perry

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8798