Re: New to this group.

Joann Evans <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Chris Morgan wrote:
> > Greeting all,
> > 
> >       I've been facinated by the concept cryonics but that facination
> > has lead to several questions regarding the wisdom of spending large
> > quantities of money for an unproven idea.  First and formost,  what
> > makes anyone think that people in the future would want to waste time,
> > assets, money etc... on reviving an obsolete human body ?
> 
>    If it was possible to restore one or more people from the past today,
> would you not do it?

Absolutely not, what point would it serve other than the study them as
you would a lab rat. They would have no marketable skills, so means of
providing for themselves.  again what would be the point in doing so
other than "just because we can" ?
> 
>    And there's no reason to assume that major assetts/resources would be
> involved. Likely no more than the then-current medical technology
> available to anyone. 

Really ?  Again what would be the point in reviving someone from
25-100 years
in the past ? Any time, money, assets spent on reviving someone who's
clinically dead (only in these cases) is better utilized on the
living.
> 
>    If in the future, we consider human life in general as worth saving,
> why should the length of time involved matter? If it were possible
> today, what would be the difference in morality of resuscitating someone
> clinically dead for 45 minutes (as in drowing in cold water, which often
> happens) as one that's clinically dead (but in a potentially restorable
> state) for 45 years?
> 
Well, someone who's just died as in your example (mamalian reflex I
believe)has the priority as it's usually a small child who's the
patient. This person is from that time and there is a reasonable
expectation that every effort be made to resuscitate them. In the case
of cryogenics it's generally an adult well past their prime and there
is no legitmate reason to attempt resuscitation of them especially
when you take into consideration the damage done at the cellular level
by the freezing process.

> > Lets face
> > it, the population isn't shrinking and why add another non-productive
> > human to place a drain on food, housing, medicine etc... Be honest,
> > what would anyone of us have to offer future populations ?
> 
>    What does anyone *today* have to add? (I know some pretty
> unproductive people who have never been suspended. We all do.) How does
> having been 'on ice' for most of a century change that question?

And what would someone who's been on ice for 100 years have anything
to offer  in order to justify the expense (however minor) and effort
used to resuscite them ?  I can only imagine the ego involved in those
who think they deserve to be brought back from the dead after a period
of years.

>    Besides, even in the most optomistic scenario, I doubt the number of
> people that will ever be suspended will exceed six figures. How much of
> a pimple on population growth will that be? Overpopulation is an issue
> of its own, cryonics or not.

That still hasn't answered a fairly simple question. Why bring back
someone who died 10 to 100 years ago? What could they possibly have to
offer society in the future ?
> 
> >      My second question involved a religious perspective. Let's assume
> > for a moment that the human body's consciousness is "the soul".
> 
>    Okay, but hardly a universal assumption, or a proven one.

Since the vast majority of people alive today believe in an after life
it is as close to a universal assumption as we'll see  in our
lifetimes. As for a proven assumption I won't argue the point since
I'm agnostic.
 
> > Since
> > it's generally accepted that the soul departs the body immediately at
> > death
> 
>    At what point is 'death?' Remember my drowning-under-ice scenario. Or
> those people who are deliberately cooled, circulation halted, brain
> activity stopped, for almost an hour, in order to operate on blood
> vessels in the brain? Where's their soul then? Unless you jump into an
> active volcano, at ground zero of a nuclear detonation, on a plane
> diving straight into the ground, etc., the process of 'death' is not an
> instanttaneous one. Medicine has always been about pushing back the
> limit at which you can be recovered and restored. It's not finished.
> 

    Well as a former EMT I was taught there are two "deaths" (1)
biological death when the heart and breathing have stopped and (2)
clinical death when all brain activity has ceased. In the 1st case you
attempted to revive, in the 2nd you didn't waste the effort.  To me
still death is still a very black and white issue with very little
grey to deal with.

    I'm not opposed to cryogenics, it is an interesting yet unproven
science. If someone wishes to become an icecicle lab rat more power to
them,  I just think that money would be put to better use else where.