X-Message-Number: 9376
Date:  Mon, 30 Mar 98 16:23:07 
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #9365 - #9368

Charles Platt writes,

> I thought that cryonics was a marginal activity with very poor
> chances of success: about 1 in 10,000 under IDEAL circumstances, largely
> because of uncertainties in the decades ahead. I still feel that way
> today. 
> 
This pessimism seems mainly aimed, not at procedures in use 
today, but at what seems likely to happen "in the decades ahead," 
i.e. on whether the frozen will stay frozen. So far the 
record has been encouraging, statistically at least;
most of those frozen since the 
mid-1970s are still frozen today. Even a person frozen by Robert 
Nelson stood a 10% chance of still being frozen today, i.e. 1 in 10 
not 1 in 10,000. (For the record: another early cryoncics 
organization, CSNY, froze 8 people, according to information I have. 
Recently I learned that one of these is still frozen too! This is a 
highly confidential case that I hadn't realized originated with this 
organization. Back in those days relatives were depended on to fund 
suspensions, which is the main reason so many were lost.) Anyway, I'm 
not sure how the 1-in-10,000 figure was arrived at. My feeling is 
that, barring some global catastrophe, the odds are very good of the 
frozen staying frozen long enough to assess whether the laws 
of physics will permit them to be repaired. If they can be 
repaired they certainly ought to be and, I think, probably will be.

Mike Perry

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