Re: New to this group.

Chris Morgan wrote:
> 
> 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.

   That's the only outcome you can imagine?

   And one should note that human beings are 'studied' all the time....

> They would have no marketable skills,

   (shrug) When we were born, neither did we. And probably not for the
next 15-20 years, either. Even octogenarians go to college.

> so means of
> providing for themselves.

   See above.

>  again what would be the point in doing so
> other than "just because we can" ?

   Um, because it's saving a life?

> >    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 ?

   Um, because it's saving a life?

> Any time, money, assets spent on reviving someone who's
> clinically dead (only in these cases) is better utilized on the
> living.

   Whose money or assets are we talking about? I can think of far more
frivolus uses for it.

> >    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.

   So, if it happens to an otherwise healthy 50 year old, it's okay to
let them go? One can only conclude that.

> This person is from that time

   Right. So?

> 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

   Hmm. Death on schedule. Who is to judge? I'm rather past the average
life-expectancy of a few centuries ago, but today, only a teenager might
consider me 'old.' Standards change, as they well should.

> and there
> is no legitmate reason to attempt resuscitation of them

   Um, because it's saving a life?

> especially
> when you take into consideration the damage done at the cellular level
> by the freezing process.

   Which one will hardly try until one knows how to repair such damage.
At liquid nitrogen tempratures, one can wait as long as necessary.
 
> > > 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

   One won't know, until one revives each individual. Again, some very
non-productive people exist today. Yo go into this knowing you're likely
to have to do a lot of catching up. As said above, quite elderly people
still engage in formal learning, and I'd expect that the means of
teaching, in the future, will improve, or at least not get worse.

>  in order to justify the expense (however minor) and effort
> used to resuscite them ?

   So, your worthiness has to be judged before even one cent (or its
future equivalent) is spent? Or worse yet, make a blanket judgement that
you have nothing to 'offer' after X number of years?

>  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.

   No, it's called self-preservation. The same reason one gets out of
the way of a truck.
 
> >    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 ?

   Why must they have something to 'offer,' and by what standard? I
could stand in a nursery, say the same thing, and get a lot of crazy
looks...


   If, as you say, you've been an EMT, I doubt you've asked yourself
that question when you treated someone.

> > >      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.

   Perhaps. But the existence or non-existence of an afterlife (or soul,
or deity) isn't subject to popular opinion. It does, or it doesn't. I
was merely willing to accept its possibility for the sake of the
argument.

> As for a proven assumption I won't argue the point since
> I'm agnostic.

   As am I. But as I suggested, if it does, certain questions and
implications logically follow. If it doesn't, then it's irrelevant.
 
> > > 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.

   That's that reasoned judgement I mentioned, in action. No argument
there. (My father ended his days as a DNR. I understood that there would
have been no net gain. Quality of life matters, too.) But in the past,
mere cessation of heartbeat was enough to get you written off. Now it's
rather more involved. (I've heard an expression related to the 'drowning
under ice' scenario: "Nobody's considered deat, until they're *warm* and
dead.")

   Future (and not all that distant) medicine will give yet more options
that don't exist today.

>  To me
> still death is still a very black and white issue with very little
> grey to deal with.

   Those who work with the comatose, or in persistent vegatative states,
might disagree.
 
>     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.

   Remember, it's one's own money. (Once you *have* given up, I never
understood astoundingly expensive funerals, some of which approach the
cost of suspension.) And if one chooses to still make that assertion,
there's the slippery slope of paassing judgement on any other legal
means of spending it...