X-Message-Number: 995
Date: 16 Jul 92 01:59:21 EDT
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Re: cryonics: #975 - #979

My ideas on this subject split into 2 headings:
1. Do we really have any choice? It seems to me that regardless of what
all those people out there say they believe, they will work intensely 
once any serious possibility of escaping death becomes clear to them.
It doesn't even take special promotion by cryonicists (although founding
a secret society is probably far harder than it used to be). The idea is
out there, simmering away in almost everyone's mind.
2. I do not expect to be revived by some random doctor of the future.
I expect to be revived by my cryonics society, or by one of its descend-
ants (it's not necessary that the same society continue). The people who
revive me will not do so because I am a curiosity but because if they 
did not, then still further down the line their own lives would be put in
question (notice that I'm pointing out that cryonics in some form --- the
storage of badly injured people until means exist to fix them --- will 
continue into the indefinite future; and if it does not, it's unlikely 
we'd be revived). This storage and revival function is actually the major
purpose of a cryonics society in the first place; even if we can't do
so now, it's very likely that sometime in the near future it would be
perfectly possible to simply leave our body lying somewhere (protected) in
the vague hope of revival. But that isn't cryonics at all.

I know there are some people who believe that cryonics will cease to be
necessary at some future time. If they mean freezing, quite possibly true.
But I doubt very strongly that we will ever be free from a need to be
stored for an indefinite time because at the time of our injury (no doubt
an injury from something quite different from our current problems) no 
one will know how to repair us. The opposite view would essentially claim
that someday we will have a cure for all possible injuries and "diseases":
again, for any fixed disease, certainly ... but the kinds of possible 
injuries and diseases will change with time (and become less and less
frequent, true ... but there will always be something).
					Thomas Donaldson

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