Re: New to this group.

Joann Evans wrote:
> 
> Chris Morgan wrote:
> >
> > > > >
> > > > >    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?
> >
> >      I'm still waiting for a plausable / rational alternative answer. What
> >      purpose would it serve other than "because we can"

   Actually, I gave it more than once. "Because it's saving a life."

   What I don't understand, is why this is not self-evident.

> > >
> > >    And one should note that human beings are 'studied' all the time....
> >
> >      Still not a justification for attempting to revive a dead body.

   As noted earlier, 'death' is always subject to re-definition. We do
not all wish to be prisoners of past (or current) definitions.

> > > > 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.
> > >
> >     Still not relevant to the question in fact it invites another question.

   Why is it not relevant? You seem to assume that they cannot aquire
new skills. I don't. There are too many contemporany examples to the
contrary.

> >     Why use valuable resources to retrain a popcicle when there will be people
> >     from that timeframe who might put that opportunity to better use?

   What degree of resources do you imagine will be required? This is not
an Apoillo Project per person. In the future, wether cryonics is pursued
or not, the ability to repair and restore human beings to a healthy
state from various degrees and forms of disease or injury will only
improve, barring a collapse of civilization. Ultimately, we will likely
reach the state where any disease, accident or mayhem that leaves the
brain reasonably intact will be treatable, even with the extreme case of
generating a new, de-cerebrate body for the individual. This capability
will not be gained specifically *for* cryonicists, but it will be
adequate for their conditions.

> > >
> > > >  again what would be the point in doing so
> > > > other than "just because we can" ?
> > >
> > >    Um, because it's saving a life?
> >
> >       Wrong,  they are legally, clinically and biologically dead

   And maintained in a state where potential restoration may be
possible. The future will have different standards.

> and will have
> >       been dead for some 25-100 years before science attempts to create their
> >       new Frankenstein.

   Frankenstein? An interesting comparison that even present-day people
who are transplant recipients, or had their own severed body parts
re-attached, might find interesting. And more so, coming from someone
who surely knows the value of defribulation devices. Familiar
technology, that someone from the past might also say comes from the
mind of Mary Shelly....

   And the 'legality' of the matter is also based on what's known to be
possible at this time. (Indeed, the cryonics provider, understandably,
can't touch you until someone with the recognized authority to do so,
makes the pronouncement. And preferably at the earliest possible time.)
Cryonics has been likened to 'an ambulance ride to a hospital that
hasn't been built yet.' Some of us prefer not to be prisoners of the
medical technology of the time we happen to live in, either.

> > >
> > > > >    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?
> >
> >       Nope again. No ones life is being "saved" in these cases. They already
> >        meet all of the legal and medical criteria used to define what "dead" is.

   Indeed. As I noted above, you can't be suspended until someone
pronounces you dead. Once suspended, you can wait in a state where
further deterioration can't happen, until a different set of medical and
legal criteria exist. The 'saving' remains to be seen. The alternatives
of burial or cremation leave zero chance for any future restoration.

> > > > 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.
> >
> >    Still doesn't answer the simple question I put forth.

   You still have yet to answer whose money or assets are involved. No
public funds are involved in cryonic suspension. And utilizing one's own
assets to give one's self an increased chance for more life in the
future, is as sensible as using them to maintain and enhance one's
health today.


> > > > 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.
> > >
> >    If all measures available at that time have been used with no success then
> >    that "otherwise" healthy 50 year old is SOL.

   That answer would seem to apply to the child, too.

> > > > This person is from that time
> > >
> > >    Right. So?
> > >
> >      Again not much of an answer for a rather simple question.

   None of us exist in a 'single' time. Anyone who's lived any
meaningful part of the 20th century has seen great changes, and the rate
of change itself appears to be increasing. Adaptability to those changes
is desirable, cryonics or not.

> > > > 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.
> >
> >     Again I noticed that you've written hundreds of words with saying much,
> >     how about a direct answer to a rather simple question. Or do we continue
> >     playing verbal ping pong.

   Then consider this: you don't know how much time a child has ahead of
it. You don't know how much time a 50 year old has left, except that it
*may* be less than the child. How does having lived an arbitrary number
of years make one's life less valuable to one's self or society?

   We try to save the lives of children and the middle aged, because
this is a society that considers such actions to be morally and
ethically desirable and necessary. Currently, we are forced to consider
some people beyond saving with existing technology. Cryonics offers the
chance that some of them can be preserved until the technology improves
to the extent that they can be considered recoverable.

   In other words, we will do it for the same reasons we seek to heal
the sick and injured today.

> > > > and there
> > > > is no legitmate reason to attempt resuscitation of them
> > >
> > >    Um, because it's saving a life?
> > >
> >      Nope yet again.  But is perhaps a rather shallow and vain

   Hmmm. I consider that a rather odd way to describe self-preservation.

> attempt to
> >      live past one alloted time on earth.

   Allotted? By what beings or force? By what criteria? Who or what is
deciding how much is enough?

>  They are simple questions. What
> >      makes a person think that anyone in the future will want to revive you
> >      considering there would be no legal, ethical or moral obligation to do so?

   Easy to say when it can't be done now. A future doctor may feel quite
obliged, if he has the means.

   Tell me why we go as far as we do to save lives today, and you will
have answered your own question.

> >      What makes you think you would have anything to offer in 50-100 years to
> >      justify the reanimation of your legally dead body.

   This is not a question that would be asked, were I brought to a
hospital today after major injuries. The point is to get to a time where
a suspended cryonic patient can be considered 'severely injured,' and
not simply, irretrevably dead. The question is not what someone has to
'offer' afterwards (otherwise the contemporary patients of the time
should rightly feel qute nervous as they await 'judgment'), as today,
their ethics will require them to do what they can.

   It's the definition of 'doing what they can' that will change. As it
always has in medicine.

> > > > 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.
> >
> >    Again, why would they bother to to wake the popcicle ?

   I believe I've addressed that. Today's 'popsicle' may be tomorrow's '
long term whole-body, severely frostbitten paient.' (to borrow a
description used by nanotechnologist Eric Drexler) What's easily
dismissable as hopeless now, may not be so then.

> >
> > > >
> > > > 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.
> >
> >    Still no reason given as to why one would go to the trouble of reviving you.

   As above, the same reasons we bring people to hospitals today.

> > > >  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?
> >
> >   Sigh......... still no answer.
> > >
> > > >  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.
> >
> >     In this case it's egotistical. Had one gotten out of the way of the "truck"
> >     one would have no need to go in the freezer.

   You miss the point. One gets out of the way of the truck to avoid
probable death. One may be avoiding 'permanent' death by cryonics. Both
are forms of self-preservation. Not ego. One is not thinking: "I deserve
to live," it's; "Hey, I don't want to die." There's a difference.

   Most of us are not in a hurry to meet either complete oblivion, or an
afterlife whose nature (in spite of any particular faith) is unknowable,
if it exists at all.


> Self preservation is taking
> >     care of your health while your living.

   Of course it's that, too. (I will address health and lifespan later.)

> Not deciding to freeze yourself
> >     after you've discovered you're dying of an illness with no current cure.

   Since most people fund their suspensions by way of a life insurance
policy that makes the cryonics provider the benificiary, one would be
wiser to do this when one *is* in good health, than wait until one may
be uninsurable. Besides, I'm sure you're quite aware that death may come
in quite unforseeable ways. (Perhaps you didn't *see* that hypothetical
truck coming.)

> > > >
> > > > 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...
> >
> >     The baby in the nursery has it's life ahead of it. The person in the freezer
> >     already had their shot at life.

   And who are we to judge how much of a 'shot' one deserves? Who
decides how much is 'enough' life? (And who, conversely, will pass
judgement on us?) Some people arrange suspension for their minor
children, as well. To me, that's as acceptable as seeing to their health
and safety in more conventional ways. Had the late Jeann Caulmet, who
died at the age of 122, made suspension arrangements, I would have
applauded that, too. Some people may not *do* positive things with their
lives, but (outside of a capital crime situation, which is a seperate
issue), I'll not tell anyone in effect: "You've lived too long."

   That is, in effect, what you're saying.

> Live your life in the present rather than
> >     hoping to get a 2nd chance in the future.

   That assumes that one does not do so already. I can't speak for
anyone else in this newsgroup, but I hardly 'eat, sleep and breathe'
cryonics. There are other matters about which I feel even more
passionate. And indeed, most of those are very future-oriented, as well.
(this isn't the only newsgroup I haunt) After all, to paraphrase someone
else, the future is where I intend to spend the rest of my life.

   But if events beyond my control make it impossible for me to get
there in a normal minute-by-minute manner, I believe in having a 'Plan
B.'


> Do you honestly think a frozen
> >     person from the past with god knows what disease or damage is going to be
> >     revived and cured of what ails them for altruistic reasons?  I hardly
> >     thinks so.

   I do. There's a hospital a few blocks from me that already exists for
that reason.

   And understand, I'm as aware of the faults in human nature as anyone
else. (Several people I've known have passed through natural
causes...one was murdered in a rather high-profile case. I know what the
other side of altruism is, too.) But as noted above, *today's* society
considers the health of its citizens as something to make the best
organized attempt to preserve and enhance. Altruism is the underlying
reason that medical professionals and hospitals exist today. Yes,
hospitals are run for-profit, and medicine is often a well-paying career
(as it should be, considering the level of responsibility, and the
educational investment involved), but altruism still tends to be the
underlying reason one involves one's self (and you did say you've been
an EMT) in the profession. Unless one believes that this will not
continue into the future, this will be the reason.

   When the technology permits (and as noted, the suspended have the
luxury of waiting almost indefinitely, compared to most conventional
patients), reviving cryonic suspendees will be done for the *same*
reasons that they will treat 'god knows what diease or damage' in their
contemporaries.

  That's why.


> > >
> > >    If, as you say, you've been an EMT, I doubt you've asked yourself
> > > that question when you treated someone.
> >
> >     Yes as I said I was an EMT for 10 years, we treated the living.  Those
> >     that were obviously dead did not have man power and supplies used on them.


   Liquid nitrogen is cheap. Once suspended, maintenance isn't
labor-intensive. Cryonics should be thought of as the treatment of
*last* resort. If someone needs it, then by definition, they're out of
your hands. The point is, I doubt you passed any judgement on the
'living' patients as to wether you should treat them or not. Cryonics
extends that ethic. "Yes, you're *legally* dead, but we'll not deny this
one last hope merely because you've lived a long time already."


> > >    Future (and not all that distant) medicine will give yet more options
> > > that don't exist today.
> >
> >    Of that I have no doubt but why not save those resources for the people of
> >    that time frame.

   Are you suggesting that future resources will be so limited, that out
of the billions of individuals likely to exist at the time, several
thousand (if that) people in cryonic suspension will be a crushing
burden? Espically as they can revived at leisure, and not at all
simultaneously, as opposed to a disaster where a large number of people
may need major treatment at once? (And as those suspended with better
techniques will likely be most easily restored, those suspended with the
earliest, crudest techniques may indeed have to wait longest for the
degree of cellular repair to exist.)


>   I'm not opposed to cryrogenics at all, in fact I see it
> >    as a potentially useful tool in the preservation of endangered species (which
> >    man is not).

   Indeed. But endangered *individuals* are what this is about.


> It's your money to do with as you choose, and if that choice
> >    is to have your body frozen in the hopes of resuscitation years later more
> >    power to you.  I'm simply trying to understand what makes anyone actually
> >    think that future peoples would bother to revive you.


   As noted, using the *future's* definition of what's treatable, they
would do so for the same reasons medical professionals do today. (Why
would one give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a toatal stranger in
need? Same ethic.)

   Additionally, it should be noted, that the degree of cellular-level
repairs required (likely using nanotechnology*), also imply the ability
to keep the body in an indefinitely healthy state, again barring major,
sudden brain damage. Aging as we know it will also have become a
controllable, treatable phenomenon. This is also something cryonicists
hope to see, *preferably* by simply living long enough to see the
biological and medical advances happen. (No one *wants* to be frozen.
It's been said that cryonic suspension is the second-wost thing that can
happen to you. The worst being dying *without* being suspended. It is,
as I said, a 'Plan B.')

   This is something also that will happen with or without cryonics.
(You may [or may not] want to also check: news:sci.life-extension and
news:sci.nanotech ) Indeed, cryonicists can be considered a special case
of, or sub-category of life-extensionists in general. Getting to where
indefinite (Note I didn't say 'immortal.' Statistically, *something*
irreperable will get you eventually**.) life-spans are possible, maybe
in the middle of this century, is what we're basically after. Cryonics
is primairily a backup plan to that end, espically for those who had the
misfortune of not being born late enough....

   Now, I already suspect you question the ethics of wanting to life
'unnaturally' long lives too. (Again, you wouldn't be the first.) But
like many other changes, it's coming. Ready or not.






   (* And we can already say something meaningful about the design and
function of the nanotech devices required:
http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine )


   (** My own personal expression has been: "If I *have* to go, I'd
rather it was on an exploding starship, 400 years from now, than
withering away in a nursing home, 40 years from now.")



-- 

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