X-Message-Number: 9103
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #9079 - #9084
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 22:25:09 -0800 (PST)

HI again!

To Paul Wakfer:

Your problems with cryonics, especially given the growing interest among
neuroscientists in such problems as that of consciousness, really have no
solution at all. Sure, you can suspend someone, and then bring them back.
They may or may not remember anything from before their suspension, but 
how do you tell whether or not they are "the same" person? What OBJECTIVE
criteria do you have that show you will have revived?

For that we'll all have to do it ourselves and thus find out. We are coming to
a far better understanding of how memory works, though lots of questions
remain. I believe it's good enough to start seriously thinking about what
might be done to revive "worst-case" suspension patients, and such thinking
has lots of merit. Even though we can't reasonably use probabilities here,
that's irrelevant to my fate or your fate. If someone could prove to me that
my probability of revival was (say) 50%, they still would not have answered
what I really want to know: will I come back? I don't want a probability 
estimate of whether I will come back. I want to know if I'll come back. And
as objective criteria, I have decided that survival of most of my memories
together with either the recreation or the survival of my other brain centers,
back to what they were, would constitute my revival (and note these are all
factors which can be, even at present only theoretically, objectively tested). 

So just how do you, Paul, plan to decide that you will be revived?  

(What we want to have is a much better idea of just exactly which abilities
will become possible (no, not through Nanotechnology, but nanotechnology,
including molecular biology and a whole lot else, will very likely have a role 
-- especially in the worst cases). And since any such estimate takes 2 legs:
future technology, and an understanding of how our brains work, and both
need attention. So far the combination has not happened).

Of course your problems get worse the closer you come. Just when will you
undertake suspended animation? Suppose we haven't got a cure for aging, or
even a cure for the disease that will kill you. Do you become suspended
now or later? Who is the volunteer who will have their brain preserved
first? And so many of us will wait till the very last minute ... sure, 
we've made our arrangements, but not just yet, thank you.

I very much like the idea of research aimed at finding a way to preserve
and bring back brains, and even the later research to do the same with a 
whole person. This is not because I expect to march into a hospital and into
suspended animation, but because it will remove what is now a SUPPOSITION of
what will be possible. But that's just ONE of the suppositions. I am also
very glad that you have gone as far as you've gone. But I think that its
quite wrong to base acceptance of cryonics on the issue of whether or not
suspended animation is possible NOW, or even perfect brain preservation is
possible NOW. When I need it or you need it, we won't be in a position 
to lay down conditions. Whatever can be done then, we'll want it to be done.
And to think about the problem otherwise is simply to decide to die. 

			Best and long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson

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