It is too early to tell if cryonics in its infancy is more like early
relativitity theory or early phlogiston theory.  Any "experts" saying
that this question is already decided either way are probably wrong
and should know better.

Cryonics proponents should be careful when describing benefits that
none have yet seen nor which can be assigned probabilities of any
accuracy.  Detractors, particularly physicians, might want to refrain
from criticizing as greedy the economic motivation of cryopreservers;
I've paid thousands upon thousands of dollars in medical bills from my
own pocket and I've never seen a provider hesitate in the slightest
when accepting my money.

So let's have sci.cryonics and be done with it.

 [The above opinions expressed are my own; not necessarily held by others.]
      == Steven J. Edwards           Bull HN Information Systems Inc. ==
      == (508) 294-3484              300 Concord Road         MS 820A ==

"That Government which Governs the Least, Governs Best." -- Thomas Jefferson

   Indeed, I think most of the interesting
   discussions about cryopreservation are legal and technological rather
   than medical.  

It seems to me that there's a big psychological aspect to this too.  I
believe that essentially all of the people who dismiss cryonics out of
hand think that it would be a Bad Thing if it did work, and their
quick dismissal is a rationalization.

This leads to a testable hypothesis: There are no people who would say
"I wish cryonics would work, but it obviously can't".  Is there anyone
out there who can disprove this hypothesis?

Tim

Anyway, there're something incredibly techno-weenie about this
topic on USENET--it's like ham radios and computer user groups.
It's a "guy" thing.  You get the same crowd: guys who want to be
reincarnated to get the girls they couldn't in this century.  Ick.
Go back to your _Omni_ magazines, please...

--
Steve Dyer

   It seems to me that there's a big psychological aspect to this too.  I
   believe that essentially all of the people who dismiss cryonics out of
   hand think that it would be a Bad Thing if it did work, and their
   quick dismissal is a rationalization.

   This leads to a testable hypothesis: There are no people who would say
   "I wish cryonics would work, but it obviously can't".  Is there anyone
   out there who can disprove this hypothesis?

Although I would tend to agree with this, I don't think it makes a
good argument for cryonics: the psychological state of critics is not
an issue, only their arguments are of issue.

Furthermore, introducing ad hominem attacks like this into a debate
only engenders retailation and a degeneration of the argument. As I
don't want anti-cryonics types psychoanalyzing me in lieu of serious
argument, I will not psychoanalyze them in lieu of a serious argument.

--

--
                      "Neither death nor taxes!"
                         Extropian and Proud.

   Since all the work is being done on corpses, it's unlikely that
   "revival" will occur.  (In the words of this qbull-session,
   "information death" has already begun.)

Whats a corpse, Mr. Dyer? About 100 years ago, a man who's heart had
stopped for a few mere moments was a "corpse" already; indeed, even
fifty years ago, a man who's heart had stopped for several minutes was
a dead man.  Now, it appears that even several minutes after becoming
a "corpse" we can revive people. It used to be thought that
irreversable brain damage would occur when people were deprived of
oxygen for more than a few minutes. Now it appears that under certain
circumstances (such as cold water exposure) this is not the case, and
it also appears that with the use of {*filter*} such as calcium channel
blockers neural tissue can survive long periods of oxygen deprivation
without damage. We even conduct surgery on people who's hearts have
been stopped, and sometimes even on people who have been placed into
hypothermia and have had all circulation, including that provided by a
heart lung machine, stopped for prolonged periods.

Most Alcor patients have their suspensions begin within moments of the
time their hearts have stopped. Alcor personel are typically waiting
at the bedside, and begin work as soon as the person is pronounced
dead. In many cases, the use of common emergency room equipment could
have "revived" these people -- often, they are terminal cases for
which Do Not Recussitate orders have been issued. So, given that many
of these patients could be briefly "revived" given CURRENT technology,
are you sure that calling them "corpses" instead of "patients" is a
good idea?

As for "information death" already beginning, there is good solid
evidence that it has not. Golden hamsters will survive having over 30%
of the water in their brains being turned to ice and will still run
the same mazes perfectly well. Dogs have been successfully held just
above the freezing mark for extremely long periods without heart
circulation and been completely revived without apparent permanent
injury. Cat brains have been taken down to very low temperatures,
brought back up, perfused with {*filter*}, and have shown electrical
activity. Even animal brains exposed to periods of prolonged warm
ischemia have shown remarkably high levels of cellular structure
preserved after freezing to liquid nitrogen temperatures and
subsequent thawing. Although there is certainly no proof that enough
information remains to reconstruct a healthy brain, there is very good
evidence.

   Yet, you have
   a very great ethical dilemma, even if you do believe the technology
   is at hand: who's going to volunteer to be frozen when they're
   not dead,

We do not accept the clinical functional definition of death, and
thus, by the lights of most cryonicists, virtually ALL cryonics
subjects are alive when they are suspended, although they are indeed
legally dead.

   Well, how about it would be interesting if cryonics would work,
   but it obviously won't anytime soon.  Meanwhile, these Alcor
   places have a bunch of corpses on their hands.

It is obvious that revival proceedures will not exist any time soon,
but that is not the issue. The issue is whether the patients in
question are well enough preserved that revival is ever going to be
possible.

   Anyway, there're something incredibly techno-weenie about this
   topic on USENET--it's like ham radios and computer user groups.
   It's a "guy" thing.  You get the same crowd: guys who want to be
   reincarnated to get the girls they couldn't in this century.  Ick.

I can understand you stating a good solid argument on why cryonics
could not possibly work, and I could understand a good solid argument
about why you personally might not want to prolong your life, but I
fail to understand what possible importance the question of the
motives of cryonicists could have to the topic of discussion here:
could cryonics work.

--

--
                      "Neither death nor taxes!"
                         Extropian and Proud.

Question: Where is the result published that with 30% of their brains frozen,
          hamsters were able after thawing out to run through the same mazes?

Allan Adler

--
Steve Dyer

Of course.

<Therefore, we do not know that
<the freezing carried out now will be reversible by any future technology.
<In view of that, it seems premature to sell this service.

I disagree.  Ample evidence has been presented to suggest that tissue
does not decay (at least for several centuries) at the temperature of
liquid nitrogen.  You and I may not find current evidence convincing enough
to make us opt for cryonics, but others may, and I don't see any evidence
of fraud.

                                        --Scott

--
Scott Horne                               ...!{harvard,cmcl2,decvax}!yale!horne

203 436-1848                Residence:  Rm 1848 Silliman College, New Haven, CT
Hong2jun1 bu2 pa4 yuan3 zheng1 nan2, wan4 shui3 qian1 shan1 zhi3 deng3xian2.

1.)  Select N subjects.
2.)  Freeze them.
3.)  Wait 100 years (or some similar period).
4.)  See if the technology of 2100 can indeed revive them.

This experimental protocol leaves an obvious dilemma: what do you
tell the terminally ill patient prior to completion of the clinical
trials?

This problem is not unique to cryonics (some treatments undergo
clinical trials for years).  However, cryonics presents this problem in
a fairly unique form.  The delay till completion of the trials is at
least decades.  Further, the risk that the treatment will prove worse than
the disease is negligible.

Under these conditions, the patient might reasonably be asked whether he
wishes to participate in an experiment to determine the effectiveness of
cryonics, and might further be asked whether he wishes to join the
experimental group or the control group.  (While the outcome for the
control group is well established, the outcome for the experimental
group is at the present time not certain).

How then can the patient evaluate these options, given that complete
information (e.g., the completion of the clinical trials) is not available?

There are basically one of two possible results and one of two possible
courses of action, leading to the following payoff matrix:

            It works         It doesn't work

Sign up       Live             Die, lose insurance policy

Don't         Die              Die

To evaluate these outcomes, it is necessary to (a) assign a value to
being alive, (b) assign a cost to being dead, and (c) determine, based
on the best currently available information, the probability of success.
Given this information, it is then a trivial matter to evaluate the
payoff matrix and decide on an appropriate course of action.

To deny the terminally ill patient the option of being cryonically
suspended is inappropriate unless it is possible to determine with
absolute finality that cryonics will not work.  Given that cryonics
inherently depends on the use of technology that quite literally need
not be developed for centuries, it appears extremely difficult to
reach such a conclusion.

The Hippocratic oath includes the injunction, "Above all, do no harm."
Given the above payoff matrix, it is clear that blocking a cryonic
suspension could do great harm (it could kill a person).  Permitting
a cryonic suspension, on the other hand, is at worst harmless.  Therefore,
the conservative course of action is to permit cryonic suspension when
the individual involved wishes to be cryonically suspended.

To quote the American College of Physicians Ethics Manual, "Each
patient is a free agent entitled to full explanation and full
decision-making authority with regard to his medical care.  John
Stuart Mill expressed it as: 'Over himself, his own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign.'  The legal counterpart of patient autonomy
is self-determination.  Both principles deny legitimacy to paternalism
by stating unequivocally that, in the last analysis, the patient
determines what is right for him." "If the [terminally ill] patient
is a mentally competent {*filter*}, he has the legal right to accept or
refuse any form of treatment, and his wishes must be recognized and
honored by his physician."  (Annals of Internal Medicine, July 1984;
Vol. 101, No. 2, pages 263-267).

Herman, I already know what your reply to this will be, so rest
your fingers.

 -km

If this were a real "clinical trial" instead of a bunch of
boy techsters playing Ben Casey, there would have been years
and years and years of basic research which pointed to the
feasibility of this technology.  There simply isn't.  The
cryonics crowd, whose only exposure to medicine is watching
DeForrest Kelley on Star Trek, would prefer to start freezing
first.

And they wonder why they're laughed at.

--
Steve Dyer

   >I disagree.  Ample evidence has been presented to suggest that tissue
   >does not decay (at least for several centuries) at the temperature of
   >liquid nitrogen.  You and I may not find current evidence convincing enough
   >to make us opt for cryonics, but others may, and I don't see any evidence
   >of fraud.

   We're not talking about decay (yet)--there are earlier problems, like
   damage to the cells while freezing.  

Agreed. The largest single source of damage to the body is caused by
the freezing process itself. However, the perfusion of patients with
cryoprotectants seems to radically reduce the production of ice
crystals, and the damage to tissues does not appear to be even
remotely so severe as to destroy all evidence of the original neural
structure; indeed, most of the structure survives completely intact
even in tests performed on cats that have been exposed to prolonged
warm ischemia (read, "dead" for hours at room temperature before being
frozen to LN temperatures and then brought back to room temperature).

Admittedly, we have no proof that the structure remains sufficiently
intact through the process to permit total reconstruction of the
tissues with nanomachines, but, on the other hand, the indications
that this should be possible are very strong.

--

--
                      "Neither death nor taxes!"
                         Extropian and Proud.

   Even if one accepts that cryonics could work and the technology will
   eventually be developed to freeze and unfreeze people, the fact remains
   that the technology does not exist now. Therefore, we do not know that
   the freezing carried out now will be reversible by any future
   technology.

This is misleading. Although we have no proof that the methods being
used now are reversable, the indications are fairly strong, and the
technology that will be needed to repair the damage caused by the
current suspension process (nanotechnology) seems almost inevitable at
this point. All that is needed is that the damage not be so severe
that your neural structure cannot be reconstructed; the indications
that the damage is mild by this standard are so strong as to be
compelling.

   In view of that, it seems premature to sell this service.

Forget "selling" this service; lets talk about buying it. We are
talking about the choice here between surviving and dying. I am
currently signing up with Alcor; being an Alcor member will cost me a
virtually negligible sum: about the cost of a pack a day of
cigarettes. If the system does not work, I will be no worse off than I
would be otherwise. If the system does work, I will be extremely happy
I sacrificed that negligible sum. Its my money, and this is the way I
wish to spend it. If you don't feel that even a small chance of
continued life is worth risking a bit of your cash that you won't be
using anyway if you are dead, well, thats your personal choice, and I
won't argue with it. However, please don't tell me what to do with my
money.

We are not talking about picking an experimental treatment when there
are known non-experimental treatments. We are talking about a simple
choice between something that has a reasonable chance of working and
simply dying. There is no other known methodology for dealing with the
situation. There is no possible harm done by the methodology other
than the loss of a small insurance policy that I won't be needing
anyway as I'll be dead. I think that the choice is fairly reasonable
under the circumstances.

--

--
                      "Neither death nor taxes!"
                         Extropian and Proud.