CRYONICS
Volume 10(10) OCTOBER, 1989 Issue #111
1 Editorial Matters
Staff
1 Alcor News Items
Staff
-- Editorial Policy
-- Wallet Cards
-- The Gift Of A Lifetime
-- Membership Status
-- Suspensions Reported
-- A Friendly Face In A Foreign Place
-- A Pet Program
-- Now We're Fire Resistant
-- Legal Update
13 Cryonics In Europe
Saul Kent
15 Why Suspension Members Should
Videotape Their Wishes
Saul Kent
18 Letters To The Editors
Our Readers
21 Molecular Repair Of The Brain
Ralph Merkle
45 The Alcor Survey 1988-9
Max O'Connor with Mike Perry
60 Personals
60 Upcoming Alcor Events
Staff
CRYONICS is the newsletter of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Inc.
Mike Darwin (Federowicz) and Hugh Hixon, Editors. Published monthly.
Individual subscriptions: $25 per year in the US; $35 per year in Canada
and Mexico; $40 per year all others. Back issues are $2.50 each in the
US, Canada, and Mexico; $3.50 each all others.
Please address all editorial correspondence to ALCOR, 12327 Doherty Street,
Riverside CA 92503 or phone (800) 367-2228 (in California: (714) 736-
1703. FAX #: (714) 736-6917.
Contents copyright 1989 by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Inc.,
except where otherwise noted. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed
herein are not necessarily those of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation or
its Board of Directors or management.
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EDITORIAL MATTERS
We had planned on being back on track with
magazine production. No such luck. There's
been another human suspension and several com-
panion animal suspensions (more on both below).
We've also had our share of legal actions (more
on those below too). Nevertheless, we're still
trying!
This issue may seem a little one-dimen-
sional to many of our readers. There are sev-
eral reasons for this. First and foremost is
the 24 pages occupied by Dr. Ralph Merkle's
paper Molecular Repair Of The Brain. This
paper isn't for everyone. But it is important.
As far as we know, this is the first detailed
examination of the computational requirements/
feasibility of repair of the brain on a mole-
cular level. We are very proud to be pub-
lishing it.
Dr. Merkle's paper is only a beginning.
Tremendous amounts of additional detail need to be
put in place to shore up the argument that molecular-level repair of the
brain is not only a distant theoretical possibility but a practically
achievable reality. Dr. Merkle's paper will no doubt serve as an
invaluable starting point for such future endeavors.
This issue has also suffered from a lack of diversity due to the pace
of events in California. It is a paradox of Cryonics publication that the
busier we are, the longer it takes us to tell you about it. The furious
pace of activity here also means less time for reflection and analysis by
the core Alcor staff (this is no doubt why so many busy people wait to
write their memoirs until after retirement!). We apologize, and hope that
the results are worth the wait.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
EDITORIAL POLICY
Perhaps no aspect of Cryonics editorial policy, or
lack of it, has exacted more criticism and dissatisfaction
than allowing rebuttal to appear in the same issue as a
contributor's material. Many have felt this policy grossly
unfair since it in effect gives the last word to Cryonics
or Alcor staff.
Because of the unfairness of this, we have decided to
adopt an editorial policy which will hopefully guarantee
that contributors to Cryonics will have an opportunity to
see and to reply to rebuttals or letters of comment. This
policy is effective immediately.
We ask that all of our contributors bear with us as
this policy is implemented. We also ask that you
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understand that despite our fairly professional production values, Cryonics
remains a very amateurish and spare-time affair. Please allow extra time
for your comments on material published in Cryonics to appear: it will
take time to copy the original contributors as well as to enter their
response, if any.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
WALLET CARDS
Several years ago Alcor updated its wallet cards and issued new ones.
Apparently a lot of people didn't get them, despite the fact that a
comprehensive mailing was done to Suspension Members at that time. If you
don't have a wallet card for whatever reason (never got one, lost, stolen,
or a victim of "wallet rub" or "purse fungus") let us know. Reproduced
below is a facsimile of one side of the card. The reverse side has an area
for your signature. If you do not have a card, you need one and should
call us or write us now!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
THE GIFT OF A LIFETIME
We are offering introductory gift subscriptions again, at $10 each,
less than 1/2 the regular subscription price. The recipient cannot
previously have been on our mailing list as either a subscriber to Cryonics
or as a member of Alcor. This offer applies only in the U.S., due to the
much higher price of non-domestic mailings. We are actually taking a loss
on the gift subscriptions at this rate, but we consider that finding new
cryonicists is well worth it. If you have a friend or acquaintance who has
expressed any interest in cryonics, a gift subscription to Cryonics may
well be the gift of a lifetime.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
MEMBERSHIP STATUS
Alcor now has 136 Suspension Members, 261 Associate Members, and 13
members in suspension.
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SUSPENSIONS REPORTED
There have been two recent cryonic suspensions that we know about. One
was conducted by Trans Time for the American Cryonics Society on August 18,
1989. According to the American Cryonics Society Journal (June-July, 1989
issue), the patient was the father of an ACS Suspension Member who was
dying from a work-related lung cancer (probably mesothelioma as a result of
asbestos exposure). The patient was a former sheet metal worker who had
been a Bay Area resident since 1934.
Arrangements for the suspension were made less than 24 hours in advance
of the patient's legal death. Resuscitation and stabilization of the
patient were apparently initiated sometime after cardiac arrest and the
patient appears to have been removed from the hospital using a mortuary for
pick-up. Perfusion was reportedly carried out at the Trans Time facility
in Oakland with assistance from Dr. Ronit ben-Abraham, the physician-sister
of ACS president Avi ben-Abraham. Surgery was performed by Trans Time
consultant and UC Davis physiologist Dr. Eugene Bresnock.
According to Trans Time President Art Quaife, the Calif-
ornia Department of Health Services is refusing to issue a
death certificate on this patient (as they have also refused
to do in the case of Alcor patient Dick Jones). The DHS is
refusing to issue death certificates on cryonic suspension
patients because "cryonic suspension does not constitute a
legal means of disposition in the State of California."
Additional details about the Northern California suspens-
ion were not available as of this writing.
The most recent suspension was carried out by Alcor in
early September. The patient was a 21-year-old woman from
Spain who experienced sudden cardiac arrest in late August.
This suspension was undertaken under very adverse legal, bio-
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logical, and emotional conditions. This was the most problematic
suspension we have carried out. A full discussion of the circumstances and
conditions of this case will hopefully be presented in the next issue of
Cryonics. Suffice it to say that the patient was a Coroner's case in Spain
and that Spanish coroners can apparently be every bit as bureaucratic as
their Riverside, California counterparts.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
A FRIENDLY FACE IN A FOREIGN PLACE
In addition to human suspensions,
the Alcor staff has been kept busy
with the cryonic suspension of several
members' pets; both domestic and for-
eign.
The first of these cases came on
April 21st when we received a call
from an Alcor member living in
Melbourne, Australia. This member had
been in contact with us for sometime
about making arrangements for the
neurosuspension of his pet Labrador
Retriever, Rebecca. Unfortunately,
Rebecca experienced congestive heart
failure and cardiac arrest unexpected-
ly early. The member called Mike
Darwin from the animal hospital and
Mike was able to provide some simple
instructions for heparinization (to
prevent blood clotting) and cooling.
With further long distance communicat-
ion between Mike Darwin and a cooper-
ative Australian mortician (yes,
that's right, mortician) a decision
was made to perfuse Rebecca's head
with a formalin/glycerol/saline mix-
ture. Glycerol, saline and reagent grade
formaldehyde were obtained from a pharmacy and the veterinary clinic. The
mortician carefully prepared a flush solution of saline and glycerol
(following instructions from Mike Darwin by phone) in order to carry out
blood washout before introducing fixative. Following blood washout with
three liters of saline/glycerol, nine liters of formalin/saline/glycerol
were slowly perfused through both carotid arteries.
Penetration of fixative was deemed excellent and the animal was then
chilled to dry ice temperature. Fixative perfusion was used in this case
because of the impossibility of getting good cryoprotective perfusion
(fixatives stabilize tissue ultrastructure during freezing) and because of
the legal difficulty of transporting unfixed canine tissue into the United
States from Australia. Even with an embalmer's certificate, the
bureaucratic paperwork was not completed until late May and Rebecca did not
arrive until June 9th!
A few days later on the 15th of June, an ill and aged French Poodle
named Pierre belonging to Alcor member Jo Ann Martin was placed into whole-
body suspension under controlled conditions. Pierre was treated very
similarly to Alcor suspension patients and
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was glycerolized to 4M.
On the 23rd of August, Buddy, a five year old German Shepherd became
the sixth companion animal to enter suspension at Alcor. Buddy is the dog
of Alcor member Al Lopp and he experienced shock and cardiac arrest
secondary to a previously undiagnosed disseminated lymphatic cancer. Buddy
also had a special place in the hearts of some of the "old timer" Alcor
staff since he lived at the lab in Fullerton for nearly a year and half.
He was a gentle, affectionate, obedience-trained dog who won over the heart
of anyone who spent time with him. Buddy was also perfused with glycerol
and placed into neurosuspension using techniques very similar to those
employed in human cryonic suspensions.
Alcor now has roughly half as many companion animals in suspension as
it has people. Why this should be so is not surprising. Animals can be
awfully good company and can provide great emotional comfort in people's
lives. Sadly, sometimes they are the most decent and nonjudgemental beings
in a person's life. We have received criticism and been the butt of some
media jokes because we have pets in suspension. Somehow it is seen as
"flaky" or "eccentric" to have suspended a dog or cat. But this is not the
case. If an animal represents a powerful value in a person's life, wanting
to preserve that value is both understandable and healthy. Cryonic
suspension for pets makes no less sense than
(Continued on page 6)
What does it Cost?
Having companion animals placed into cryonic suspension isn't
inexpensive. Storage for animals can be as costly or more costly than
storage for human patients. Generally speaking the storage cost for pet
neurosuspensions can be assumed to be $7,500 per 1000 cubic inches. This
figure includes long-term storage but does not include money for revival or
contingencies. It is important to realize that the volume figure quoted
here includes packaging of the animal. Thus, if we are working with a
large canine head which consumes 80% of the volume of a standard human
neurocan, the charge would be for the full volume of the neurocan (i.e.,
roughly 0.5 cubic foot = $7500. Charges for whole-body pet suspensions
will be based only in part on the volume rule quoted above. Depending upon
the mass and shape of the animal, additional charges may be levied. Thus,
if one wanted to place a Bull-Mastiff into whole-body suspension, the cost
would be considerably higher than the per-volume figures quoted for pet
neurosuspensions, since one human whole-body slot would be used. This
would greatly increase the cost. In the case of a hypothetical Bull-
Mastiff the cost would be in the vicinity of $40,000.
Perfusion of pets is optional and varies in cost with the size of the
animal. A variety of perfusion options are available. Generally speaking,
costs for glycerol perfusion for neurosuspension can be assumed to be in
the range of $750 to $1,500 and the cost for whole body perfusion from
$1,500 to $2,500. These figures are tentative and will probably be revised
as we gain experience.
Members contemplating suspension for pets are urged to contact us well
in advance. We are giving consideration to creating a pre-need program
similar to that in place for people. If you are interested in such a
program, please call or write us and let us know. The feedback from the
marketplace will be helpful in allowing us to determine if we should
proceed.
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medical care for pets.
But I believe there is another reason why members have chosen to place
deeply loved pets in suspension. Of all the things you can take with you
to comfort you in the future, nothing will be as powerful as a familiar
face. Some cryonicists are working on Lifepact arrangements, trying to
convey personal property into the future so they will not be alone and
bereft of memories of the past. This seems a reasonable undertaking.
But it is not likely to be as effective as taking a loved one along who
will be just plain glad to see you. Anyone who has lost a dog or cat
understands well the emotional hole that is left when suddenly there isn't
anyone sitting attentively by the door to welcome you home.
This journey that we cryonicists are set to embark upon is one with
many anxiety-provoking unknowns. The vagaries of circumstance and law may
separate husbands from wives, children from parents; temporarily or
forever. We hope not. We plan not. But it is one of great ironies that
cryonic suspension for pets is not being called illegal. It is perfectly
acceptable to the state to freeze one's dog or cat. Similarly, pets
entering suspension may do so under far more controlled and optimum
conditions than people can. Indeed, euthanasia for pain-wracked and/or
dying animals is considered almost mandatory: To fail to do to a dying
animal what the law criminally punishes us to do to a dying human would be
considered an unspeakable act of cruelty.
It's a strange world.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
A PET PROGRAM
Despite the fact that we have placed half as many pets in suspension as
people, we do not have any kind of formal, structured program to do this:
or even any comprehensive set of policies or procedures to guide us. We do
restrict the suspension of pets to Alcor Suspension Members, but beyond
that, we haven't given the matter much thought. We'd be especially
interested in hearing from anyone who would be interested in taking on the
responsibility of structuring a companion animal suspension program using
the existing Alcor human suspension contract as a very rough starting
point. Anyone interested in doing this should contact Mike Darwin at (714)
736-1703.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
NOW WE'RE FIRE RESISTANT!
We have for some time provided fire protection for our neurosuspension
patients (and once the legal battles subside will do so for our whole-body
patients as well) and now we've extended that protection to suspension
patient records and member records.
Remember all that dreadful paperwork you filled out? Remember that
forklift load of documents you sent in to get suspension coverage? Have
you thought about having to go through all that again? Well we have, and
we've done what we can to protect all that work by purchasing fire-proof
files. A few days ago virtually all of the Alcor membership
records/suspension paperwork was loaded into top-of-the-line Meilink
Hercules fire-resistant filing cabinets. The cabinets also have both
combination and key locks to provide extra security for the documents.
Patient records have been stored in fire-
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resistant files for nearly a year.
Fortunately, we were able to obtain these files for a small fraction of
the $1000 (each!) new purchase price. Two of the four four-drawer files
purchased were obtained for $100 each, and two were obtained for $250. The
files, although used, are in excellent condition.
Alcor thus becomes the first (and to our knowledge the only) cryonics
organization to offer fire protection for suspension documents and patient
records.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
LEGAL UPDATE
Well, if anyone thought government har-
assment of Alcor was over with, think again.
In early September, we received word through a
leak at the Board of Medical Quality Assurance
(BMQA) that the Riverside County District
Attorney's Office was preparing to file 19
counts of felony practice of medicine without
a license against several Alcor Suspension
Team members. The physician who accepted the
anatomical gift on Dora Kent and who was her
treating physician in the last days of her
life was also reportedly going to be charged
with "aiding and abetting the practice of
medicine without a license."
What is interesting in all of this is
that we have been told that a significant
number of the 19 counts are for things done
after Dora Kent was legally dead! Further-
more, we were informed by the Board of Medical
Quality Assurance investigator handling the
case that they intended to bring charges rela-
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tive to cryonic suspensions where independent physicians first pronounced
the patient legally dead before Alcor did anything! It appears that
cryonics just got reclassified as medicine. That's the good news. The bad
news is that we've all been practicing medicine without a license! Oh
well, every silver lining must have a cloud.
It seems the California medical community wants to have it both ways.
Even after they give up and pronounce you dead (a situation which normally
rather abruptly ends the doctor-patient relationship!) anything we do to
you is still considered medicine.
Do you ever get the feeling these folks just plain don't like us?
Well, as usual we didn't take it lying down. As the press release and
newspaper articles which follow detail, we were in court yet again.
(Text cont'd on page 11)
* * *
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Carlos Mondragon
(714)736-1703
ALCOR FILES SUIT TO BLOCK GOVERNMENT HARASSMENT
Current Action
Riverside, CA, Sept. 16th. On September 15th the Alcor Life Extension
Foundation in Riverside, California filed a lawsuit against the District
Attorney of Riverside County to attempt to force him to stop wasting the
taxpayer's money on acts of harassment and terrorism against Alcor.
This action was taken because the California Board of Medical Quality
Assurance has informed us that the Riverside County District Attorney is
planning to file charges against Alcor for "practicing medicine without a
license." This absurd charge is the latest in a series of immoral and
unjustified attacks on Alcor and cryonics which were initiated by the
Riverside County Coroner over 21 months ago.
This planned action by the District Attorney's office is a continuation
of the malicious acts and systematic harassment begun by the Coroner's
Office against innocent people. We feel it important to stop such acts not
only for the peace of mind of Alcor members and for the safety and well
being of the people in cryonic suspension which Alcor is caring for, but to
stop needless waste of tax dollars on such persecution. Even now, the cost
to the taxpayers as a result of these actions could amount to millions of
dollars.
Background
The assault against Alcor began in January of 1988 when the Riverside
County Coroner attempted to remove 83-year-old Dora Kent from cryonic
suspension and autopsy her brain. Mrs. Kent had been placed into cryonic
suspension because she believed that future medical technology might be
able to restore her to life, health and youth. (Cryonics has been
practiced in California for 23 years and has, in recent years, been gaining
increasing support from scientists and physicians around the world.)
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The search warrants that were obtained to enter the Alcor facility and
remove Mrs. Kent from cryonic suspension on January 7th and 12th, were
obtained by acts of perjury on the part of the Coroner. When the Coroner
was challenged in court, he was unable to provide any evidence in support
of his desire to autopsy her. A consequence of our legal action against
the Coroner to block the autopsy of Mrs. Kent was the issuance of a
Temporary Restraining Order prohibiting the destruction of Mrs. Kent, or
any of the other patients being cared for by Alcor. This ruling is now a
permanent order.
To attempt to desecrate anyone's remains is despicable. To attempt to
do so to a woman who thought she might live again is even worse!
In the 21 months since the cryonic suspension of Dora Kent, Alcor has
been systematically harassed and terrorized. We have been subjected to two
raids during which records, furniture, personal property of staff members,
and tens of thousands of dollars worth of computers and medical equipment
were taken. We have been publicly accused of grand theft, (only to have
all of the so-called "stolen" property returned to us) and of homicide!
The reputation of the Alcor staff has been dragged through the mud, and the
career of one Alcor staff member, Jerry Leaf (Alcor's Suspension Team
Leader), formerly of the UCLA Medical Center, has been destroyed. Jerry
was discharged from UCLA at the time of the Kent affair after 17 years of
exemplary service and 13 years of outstanding work as a researcher in the
Division of Thoracic Surgery.
We have been arrested and taken to jail hand-cuffed in front of
television cameras and photographers. We have had a SWAT team deployed
against us and been told that the very act of trying to save the lives of
ourselves and our loved ones with cryonic suspension is illegal!
Why?
Now, nearly two years after the sensational charges of homicide, theft
and brutality to Mrs. Kent have failed to materialize, the Riverside
District Attorney has decided to accuse Alcor of the practice of medicine
without a license. And what is more, to accuse us of doing so on people
who have been pronounced legally dead by a duly licensed and independent
physician. In fact, we have reliable information that an attempt was made
by the District Attorney's Office to execute a search warrant, arrest staff
and disrupt the cryonic suspension of TV comedy writer and producer Dick
Clair, who was placed into suspension by Alcor on December 11th, 1988.
Why are such actions being taken? Why is Alcor being terrorized in
this way? Why are we being forced to spend hundreds of thousands of
dollars to defend ourselves? Why are the taxpayers of Riverside County and
the State of California being forced to pay for such useless and
destructive government action?
We wish we knew the answers to those questions. But, regardless of the
reasons, regardless of the attempts of the District Attorney to destroy
both Alcor and the practice of cryonics, we've had enough.
Isn't it time for this outrage to end? Isn't it time to stop wasting
money on malicious acts against innocent people simply because you don't
agree with them?
* * *
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** TYPIST'S NOTE: THE FOLLOWING PAGE CONTAINED AN ARTICLE FROM THE
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1989 "SUN": **
CRYONICS LABORATORY LOSES BID TO FREEZE INVESTIGATION
By TONY SAAVEDRA
The Sun's Fontana Bureau
RIVERSIDE -- A cryonics group that freezes the dead lost the first
round Tuesday in its battle to kill an investigation by Riverside County
prosecutors.
Riverside Superior Court Judge Robert J. Timlin refused to grant an
emergency order protecting group members from being charged with practicing
medicine without a license.
Timlin said there was no evidence that Alcor Life Extension Foundation
would be harmed by waiting for a full hearing on Oct. 19.
The Riverside cryonics laboratory is suing District Attorney Grover C.
Trask to block his office from charging Alcor members with illegally
practicing medicine. The potential charges stem from the 1987 death of
Dora Kent, an 83-year-old woman whose head was surgically removed and
frozen in Alcor's Doherty Street lab.
During a hearing in the judge's chambers, Alcor attorney Christopher
Ashworth argued that members where being persecuted by the threat of
criminal charges.
"It's not dynamically any different from threatening to prosecute black
people for voting or Scientologists for practicing their religion,"
Ashworth said.
Alcor members insist they have the constitutional right to be frozen
after death in hopes of being resurrected by future technology -- a process
called cryonic suspension. The practice is dismissed as fantasy by most
scientists, but supported by others.
To protect the civil rights of its members, Alcor should be allowed to
perform whatever medical procedures are necessary -- before or after death -
- to preserve the body, Ashworth said. Fear of prosecution could force
Alcor members to renege on their contracts with people who wish to be
frozen, he added.
"Something that may look like practicing medicine has got to be
permitted to ease someone into cryonic suspension," Ashworth said.
Prosecutors argued that Alcor was staging an attempt to kill an ongoing
criminal investigation into the group's alleged medical practices. There
are no immediate plans to file the 19 charges recommended abut a year ago
by the state Medical Board of Quality Assurance, prosecutors said.
The medical-related charges were put on hold so prosecutors could
concentrate on the long-running homicide investigation into Kent's death.
Charges of illegally practicing medicine stem from the 36-hour period
that Kent spent at the laboratory before she died.
Robert G. Spitzer, supervising deputy district attorney, disputed that
Alcor members have the constitutional right to sidestep medical law.
Spitzer also accused Ashworth and the cryonics lab of filing a
frivolous suit that amounts to a publicity stunt. Another prosecutor
called Ashworth "the Zsa Zsa Gabor of Riverside County."
It Alcor loses, Spitzer said he will ask that Ashworth and the cryonics
firm be fined an ordered to reimburse the county for legal expense.
Alcor members denied the case was a grab for media attention, saying
that they want to end harassment by Riverside County authorities.
"It's costing us beaucoup bucks to defend ourselves against this kind
of petty action," said Carlos Mondragon, Alcor president. He estimated the
group has spent $120,000 to fight county officials, including a 1988
lawsuit that prevented the coroner from thawing Kent's head.
The latest suit has become a sideshow to the larger homicide case,
which ran into a roadblock last month in appellate court. Justices ruled
that Alcor members do not have to testify before the grand jury unless they
receive full immunity, meaning that they can't be charged for Kent's death.
Spitzer said he is preparing to send the case to the state Supreme
Court, hoping to get an order forcing the cryonics members to testify under
limited immunity.
Under that plan, the witnesses still could be prosecuted, but their
testimony cannot be used as evidence against them.
**
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(Continued from page 8)
On the Immunity front, we won solidly (see the San Bernardino Sun
article on the next page). Deputy D.A. Curt Hinman's performance was so
bad in court it is hard to put into words. Use immunity can be considered
a contractual agreement between prosecutors and witnesses. Mr. Hinman had
considerable problems with this idea, insisting that his offer must be
accepted by the Alcor witnesses, as would be the case with the broader,
court-sanctioned transactional immunity. Finally, the presiding judge
explained to him, "But they didn't agree to testify, Mr. Hinman. They told
you to stick it in your ear." After which Hinman launched into another
cycle of argument, as if repetition could make his point. And was again
counseled by the judge as to where his offer for limited immunity had been
placed. Eventually, the Court got tired of the repetition, and cut him
off.
By contrast, Alcor pro bono attorney Ephram Margolin performed
beautifully. The decision by the Appellate Court mirrored his brief almost
exactly.
Hinman, in a remarkable display of misplaced optimism (or desperation),
asked the court for a rehearing. It was summarily denied. Seeking even
more punishment, he has decided to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court
of the State of California. One shudders at the thought of our tax dollars
at "work" in this useless and destructive fashion.
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** TYPIST'S NOTE: THE FOLLOWING PAGE CONTAINED AN ARTICLE FROM THE
SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 1989 "PRESS-ENTERPRISE": **
By RONNIE D. SMITH
The Press-Enterprise
SAN BERNADINO --An appellate court has ruled against prosecutors in a
case related to the death of a woman whose head was frozen by a Riverside
cryonics lab.
For now, the ruling on an immunity issue by the 4th District Court of
Appeal in San Bernadino halts the homicide investigation of Alcor Life
Extension Foundation by the Riverside County District Attorney's Office.
"Yes, we are dead in the water right now," said Riverside County Deputy
District Attorney Curtis R. Hinman.
Hinman said a change in state law regarding immunity from prosecution
is needed to get the case back on track.
He was unsure whether the ruling, released yesterday, would be
appealed.
The criminal investigation of the death of 83-year-old Dora Kent began
1-1/2 years ago after her son, Saul Kent of Woodcrest, said he took his
ailing mother to the Alcor laboratory, where she died Dec. 11, 1987.
Alcor officials said her head was surgically removed and placed in sub-
zero storage.
The unusual case propelled the obscure cryonics movement to national
attention.
Devotees of cryonics say they freeze remains of the dead with the idea
that once science finds a cure for whatever killed those people, they can
be revived through cell re-generation procedures. Most scientists dismiss
cryonics as fantasy.
After Kent's death, county coroner officials concluded that she had
died from a lethal dose of barbiturates pumped into her body to prepare her
for freezing. Alcor officials have insisted that Kent was dead when the
drugs were administered.
Investigators are trying to find who administered the drugs and when.
They have focused on a dozen Alcor members, including Michael
Federowicz, Alcor's research director, and Jerry D. Leaf, who worked in the
division of thoracic surgery at UCLA and surgically removed the head.
The appellate decision released yesterday stemmed from a Riverside
Superior Court judge's ruling in March. Judge Victor Miceli refused to
force three Alcor members to testify with limited immunity before the grand
jury.
Prosecutors had offered Hugh Hixon, R. Michael Perry, and Scott Greene
limited federal-type immunity for their testimony about Kent's death and
the freezing of her head.
The federal-type immunity, like that given to Col. Oliver North in the
Iran-Contra affair, means a person cannot be prosecuted for what he says
but nevertheless can be prosecuted.
The Alcor members refused to testify before the county grand jury.
Miceli then ruled that they could not be forced to testify unless given
total immunity from prosecution as provided by state law.
State law allows what is called "transactional" immunity. Under it,
once a witness testifies, he cannot be prosecuted at all.
Riverside prosecutors appealed Miceli's ruling and asked the three-
judge appellate court to recognize the federal-type immunity in
California. Prosecutors said such immunity would be an added tool in
fighting crime.
Associate Judge Thomas Hollenhorst, in writing the appellate opinion --
which can be cited as existing law -- stated that the state penal code does
not recognize the federal-type immunity.
"We therefore conclude the trial court (Miceli) was correct in its
finding that the order to compel testimony must be accompanied by a grant
of transactional immunity as provided in the statute," he wrote.
Hollenhorst is a former Riverside Superior Court judge and Riverside
County assistant district attorney. He was joined in the opinion by
Justice Howard M. Dabney, a former Riverside assistant district attorney,
and Joseph Campbell, the presiding justice.
"Their investigation has always been dead in the water because there
have never been any guilty people around here and there was never a crime,"
said Carlos Mondragon, president of Alcor.
He said Alcor has a dozen people in sub-zero storage. Mondragon said
the last freezing, a 71-year-old physician from the Midwest, occurred in
April.
In a related matter, Mondragon said Alcor is still waiting to receive
about $3 million from the estate of Emmy Award-winning television writer
Richard C. Jones, who left Alcor half of his $10 million estate last
December. Jones' frozen body is at Alcor.
**
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Cryonics in Europe
by Saul Kent
Bill Faloon, Jo Ann Martin, and I recently spent about 16 days in
Europe. One reason for our trip was to make arrangements to set up The
Reanimation Foundation, a charitable foundation in Liechtenstein that will
enable members to invest the money they'd like to take with them when they
are placed in cryonic suspension. This is possible in Liechtenstein
because they have no Rule Against Perpetuities, unlike the United States
and most other countries. You'll be hearing more about The Reanimation
Foundation in the future.
Another reason was to meet cryonicists in Europe. We were unable to go
to Austria, where Dr. Ernst Fasan, an attorney whom I had met previously,
resides. But we did travel to Munich, Germany, where we met with Petr
Bucur-Volk. Since there was recently a report by Mike Darwin (Cryonics,
April, 1989) in which he discussed cryonics in Europe in depth, I'll just
discuss it briefly in this article.
Petr -- who is quite knowledgeable about a broad range of subjects --
told us how his interest in cryonics developed and about the others in his
country who would very much like to see cryonic services available in
Europe. The problem in Germany is that the four people interested in such
services are scattered throughout the country and none of them currently
has enough money to promote cryonics effectively.
Nevertheless, if the vigor and intelligence that Petr exhibited is
shared by his German colleagues, the future of cryonics in Germany will be
a bright one.
A Visit To France
I was looking forward to meeting with Anatole Dolinoff, whom I had
corresponded with in the 1960s, and I wasn't disappointed. Dolinoff, his
wife Elisabeth, his mother Raisa, and their six dogs proved to be warm and
friendly hosts. I was also impressed with the youthful vigor of his
mother, who is over 90 and as active as anyone I've ever seen at that age.
The most important subject I discussed with Dolinoff was his notion
that cryonics is "illegal" in France because of a decree imposed by Jean-
Marcel Jeanneney, that country's Minister of Health, in April, 1968.
Dolinoff kept on insisting that -- even today -- this decree has the power
of law in France, but I refuse to believe that its 60 million citizens are
to be denied their right to cryonic suspension because of a few words by a
petty bureaucrat more than 20 years ago.
I finally got Dolinoff to find a copy of this anti-cryonics polemic in
his voluminous, but fragmented, files, that are balanced precariously on a
ledge on the second story of his house. I intend to have this copy
translated into English and will then show it to an attorney in this
country with a knowledge of French law.
If it turns out that the decree actually does have the force of law in
France, we'll start looking for a strategy to challenge it effectively. If
it does not, we'll attempt to find out how attractive cryonics is to the
French. It could be very attractive. In the late 60s, when Dolinoff was
active in the Cryonics Society of France, they had the largest group of
cryonicists outside the United States. Dolinoff showed me several of their
publications, which rekindled memories of the past. He also showed me a
mailing list of 250 people who had expressed interest in cryonics at that
time.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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** PHOTO SPACE **
** CAPTION --
"External view of English facility now being constructed."
**
* * *
We also met Luigi Warren, an English cryonicist, who was in Paris
attending a Libertarian convention, and spent an evening with him. Luigi
has spent considerable time in the U.S., and has a wide-ranging
acquaintance with cryonics and cryonicists on both continents. He whetted
our appetite for our impending visit to England, where we had heard that
Alan Sinclair was in the process of putting up a cryonics facility.
The New Facility In England
The facility in England will be housed in a new industrial building
that is currently under construction in an area near the English Channel,
about 40 miles south of London. It is quite near Sinclair, who will be
financing it out of his own pocket.
When the building is completed, Alan plans to construct the interior
walls to provide working space for cryonic suspension services and
research, and then to start purchasing equipment and supplies from us in
the United States. We also discussed the possibility of a training
session, directed by Alcor personnel, to be held at the facility after it's
completed. Everyone thought it would be a good idea to invite one or more
of the German cryonicists to this training session.
We were driven to the new facility by Garrett Smyth and Mike Price, two
Alcor Suspension Members who were among the founders of Mizar, the company
that was formed in England to help promote cryonics. Later in the day, we
were joined by Andrew Blackall and a friend of his interested in cryonics.
A Possible Conference
I also discussed the possibility of holding a European Cryonics
Conference,
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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in September, 1990. If this conference comes off, it will probably be held
in England, close enough to the new cryonics facility to permit a tour of
it.
Such a conference would permit cryonicists from all the European
countries to meet and would also be a good opportunity for Americans to
meet their European brethren. It could also be used to promote cryonics
throughout Europe in an effort to recruit new members.
** PHOTO SPACE **
** CAPTION --
"Alan Sinclair"
**
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Why Suspension Members Should Videotape Their Wishes
by Saul Kent
Shortly after Dick Jones (The TV producer suspended by Alcor in
December, 1988) found out he had AIDS (in 1986), he wanted to make a
videotape about his wishes regarding cryonics "while he was still lucid and
rational." But he repeatedly put off doing so because he "didn't look good
enough" and wanted to get better before appearing before the camera.
His plan backfired. Instead of getting better, he got worse. By the
time he got over his concern about how he looked, he was very weak and his
mental condition had deteriorated significantly. The videotape was never
made.
At the end, Dick was victimized by his sister, Claire Martin, his
business partner, Jenna McMahon, and attorney Barrett McInerney. The three
of them conspired to get his signature on new legal documents to radically
change his estate plan 56 hours before he died.
When Dick was rational, he said repeatedly that he didn't trust Jenna
or his sister Claire and that he didn't want them, or anyone else, to have
any of his money. He even set up two trusts to make sure it was absolutely
clear what was going to his family and what was going to Alcor.
If Dick had made the video he had planned to make, it might have
stopped his scheming sister in her tracks. If he had said on videotape
what he had frequently said about Claire in real life, she might never have
had the guts to steal his money. And if she had still tried, the video
might have swayed the judge (presiding over the ensuing court fight
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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over Dick's estate) in our favor.
Alcor Will Fight For Your Rights
We have to learn a lesson from what happened to Dick Jones. Don't
expect the best of people around you, even people you think are on your
side. Sometimes a person changes radically when you're no longer strong
enough or sharp enough to influence them. And even if you're fortunate
enough to be able to control their actions while you're still alive, you'll
lose all control over them when you are in suspension.
This is especially true for wealthy people. Henry Ford II took
tremendous pains to prevent a court fight over his estate after he died.
He failed: as soon as he died, his relatives were at each other's
throats. There was so much fighting over J. Paul Getty's money after he
died that, at one hearing, there were 400 attorneys (representing various
relatives) jousting with each other in the courtroom.
In your case, things will be even more complicated because you want to
be suspended, rather than buried or cremated. If your relatives are
generally opposed to cryonics, they could wind up united against your
wishes (at least on that issue) even as they continue to fight over your
money.
But you'll have Alcor on your side no matter what. Alcor will fight
for your rights more vigorously than anyone, even the attorney for your
estate. We'll even fight your attorney if he turns on you. Once you're in
suspension, you see, we may be the only ones who really think you have any
rights at all!
Taking Preventive Measures
The best strategy is to take as many protective measures as possible
while you're still lucid and in good health. Preventing a potential
problem is always easier, less expensive, and more effective than depending
on others to cure it.
One measure that is quite useful is to make a videotape of your wishes
regarding your cryonic suspension and reanimation, and to update this tape
on a regular basis. This will provide Alcor and your attorneys with clear-
cut evidence that you were in your right mind when you executed your legal
documents and that your wishes were long-standing.
A videotape provides far better proof of your sanity in choosing
cryonic suspension than written documents because it enables the audience
to see (and hear) for itself what shape you were in at the time and how
strongly and passionately you felt about your wishes.
The Power Of Greed
The making of a videotape will help to protect you against anyone who
tries to steal your money, not just your relatives, friends, and business
associates. Your biggest enemy could turn out to be a creditor, a
government agency, or even a foreign government. Sometimes people have
enemies they didn't even know they had, especially if they have a lot of
money.
One lesson we learned in the Dick Jones case is that greed is even more
powerful than we thought it was. Claire Martin was clearly intimidated by
Alcor's attempts to protect
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Dick against her. On two occasions, she was almost stopped. But, in the
end, greed won out. Dick simply had too much money for her to give up.
Anyone Is A Possible Enemy
Another lesson we learned in the Dick Jones case is that greed can
transform otherwise nice people into dirty "streetfighters." Claire Martin
was (and is) a nice, intelligent, entirely respectable person. She
probably never acted before as she did in stealing Dick's money, and she'll
probably never act that way again. Under different circumstances, I
probably would have gotten along very well with her and enjoyed her company
greatly.
Dick liked his sister Claire a good deal, far more than his other
sisters (who had died years before). He had been quite close to her in
childhood, and had always gotten along well with her throughout his life.
Although she had ceased to be an important part of his life for many years,
he still kept in touch and felt kindly toward her.
This may have been his undoing. If his other sisters had been alive,
he would have been more on guard. Perhaps he would have taken measures
that would have stopped them (and Claire) in their tracks when they
attempted to attack his estate.
But Claire was so "nice" and "sweet" that he never really thought she
was capable of acting like a common thief. Claire probably never thought
so either, till it happened. And probably has completely rationalized her
actions.
Videotaping For Reanimation
Another reason Alcor members may want to make videotapes is to provide
information for attempts to reanimate them after they are in suspension.
If it turns out there is a problem in re-establishing your identity during
reanimation, every bit of information about you will help. The more future
doctors know about who you were and what you wanted, the easier it will be
for them to reconstruct your identity.
What is needed here is autobiographical material. There's probably
nothing better for this purpose than a videotape that shows how you look
and act. When you talk about yourself on videotape, it's more revealing
than anything you write about yourself, because the camera shows how you
say things, not just what you say. Moreover, in talking about yourself,
you're more likely to reveal yourself as you really are, rather than when
you express your thoughts in a stylized medium such as writing.
A New Service From Alcor
Alcor now offers videotaping to its members. The cost of this service
is $35 per half hour, with a $35 minimum. The first opportunity for Alcor
members to make videotapes will will be at the annual Turkey Roast on
Sunday, Dec. 3, 1989, which will be at the home of Saul Kent and Jo Ann
Martin, at 16280 Whispering Spur in Riverside.
A special room will be set aside for this service. Members will be
offered guidance in making videotapes to protect their wishes regarding
cryonic suspension, and it will also be possible to tape autobiographical
material. Anything said on videotape will be private and confidential and
will only be revealed to the Alcor personnel involved in this project.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Letters to the Editors
Dear Editors:
With improved survival from heart disease and cancer, the likelihood of
developing some kind of brain disease in old age has increased. Also, for
some members of Alcor there must be a significant likelihood of developing
psychosis or other disease in which their judgement is impaired and they
may not act in their best interests. The onset of these illnesses is often
insidious, and considerable damage could be done to suspension arrangements
befor they would be declared legally unfit to manage their own affairs.
The recent problem with Dick Jones' estate is a case in point.
I was wondering what we can do now to improve our standing in such
circumstances? The libertarian attitudes of many cryonicists may be
inimical to the interests of people who sever their ties with cryonics
while in a state of mind which distorts personality and judgement.
In a recent discussion with two cryonicists who are proponents of
libertarianism, one advocated a non-interventionist attitude to people who,
while not hurting others, were behaving in a manner dangerous to
themselves. He appeared not to understand the insidious nature of brain
diseases which may change personality and emotion and leave "rational"
faculties intact so that their actions can be defended with apparent
reason. An abstract idea of "rights" was invoked to justify this. Thus I
am led to observe, from experience, that the "rights" of a brain tumour
patient vary with the location of the tumour. The patient with a tumour
that causes violence had some chance of being cured -- he was lucky enough
to threaten others and be hospitalized. The one with the tumour which
caused apathy and neglect, so he refused an operation, died, his "rights"
respected.
The other cryonicist stated that libertarian societies are tough and
don't tolerate weakness -- can we look forward to an absence of medicine in
the future? Or is this a selective discrimination against brain disease?
I think such a society would suffer a diminution of creativity. If we
extend the idea -- well, isn't cryonics for the weak? But this is an
aside. It is the attitude that concerns me.
I am thinking about this problem. I am aware that in this small space
I have stated it simplistically -- for instance, what about those who do
not have brain disease and decide against cryonics? Sanity is a murky
issue. I don't want to force existence on anyone, but want to be protected
from situations such as those described above. I welcome ideas. We
shouldn't remain smug in our sanity -- who knows what lies ahead?
Sincerely,
Cath Woof
Sunnyvale, CA
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(19)
To the Editors:
On page 5 of Cryonics, June, 1989, Alcor president Carlos Mondragon
asked for input on Alcor providing for the concerns raised by LIFEPACT. I
have a question.
Before cryonicist Richard Clair Jones was put into cryonic suspension,
he stored a lot of mementos of his life, in case they might be needed for
future memory stimulation upon his revival. And now LIFEPACT is thinking
of setting up a Museum-Library for revocable donations of personal property
for cryonicists (personal items and financial resources).
"Taking it with you" seems to be a common concern among many
cryonicists, including myself.
Is Alcor planning to set up a storage facility, an "Alcor Memory Bank,"
so that cryonicists signed up with Alcor could each bring into the future,
say, even a 3'x3' box of some personal items and financial resources?
David G. Johnson
Higganum, CT
David -- Yes we are, and there will be more on this in the future. -- MD
* * *
Dear Editor:
Thank you for the very flattering article in the July
issue of Cryonics. However, you have given me too much ** PHOTO
credit. As far as I know, the Pizer Tank was originally SPACE **
Mike Darwin's idea. He designed it, and although I did ** CAPTION --
add a few finishing touches, he deserves the credit for
most of it. "Dave Pizer"
The first tank was assembled by my employee, Ron **
Nickels, who may be considering cryonics for himself some-
day. Ron worked off Darwin's drawings and a few of my
suggestions and some of the input were his.
The newer, more refined versions were built by
Fitwell manager and newest Alcor Suspension Member Don
Ward, and Fitwell Master Trimmer Russ Wailand. Don supervised Russ, who
did most of the work and who is very skilled at upholstery and has other
talents in arts and crafts.
The Pizer Tanks are therefore mostly the products of these other
individuals. All I did was minor facilitation and supply the money.
Sincerely,
David Pizer
Fitwell Manufacturing
Phoenix, AZ
* * *
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Dear Sirs:
I have just returned from a trip to Germany. I read back-issues of
Cryonics, including Mike Darwin's comments on Europe and Germany. I was
also in Asia this summer. I assure you, if one of those two overtakes us
(U.S.), it won't be Germany -- especially with their tribal altruistic
attitudes.
By the way -- I certainly hope Alcor will suspend me for the money. I
hope Alcor will make lots of bucks by freezing me; if Alcor members are
not greedy and are apologetic to some altruistic Europeans, then there is
no hope -- some "saint" may end up thawing me out "for the good of
society."
Sincerely,
Krzysztof Ostaszewski
Louisville, KY
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(21)
Molecular Repair Of The Brain
by
Ralph C. Merkle
Xerox PARC
3333 Coyote Hill Road
Palo Alto, CA 94304
merkle@xerox.com
INTRODUCTION
Tissue preserved in liquid nitrogen can survive centuries without
deterioration [22,42]. This simple fact provides an imperfect time machine
that can transport us almost unchanged from the present to the future: we
need merely freeze ourselves in liquid nitrogen. This might at first seem
unwise: being frozen is bad for your health -- at least today. Perhaps,
however, this condition might someday be cured, which would permit time
travel to the era when the cure was available. While perhaps unappealing
to the healthy, this possibility is more attractive to the terminally ill,
whose options are somewhat limited. Far from being idle speculation, this
option is in fact available to anyone who so chooses. Three organizations
in the U.S. now provide such "cryonic suspension" services.
Perhaps the most important question in evaluating this option is its
technical feasibility: Will it work?
Given the remarkable progress of the past few centuries, it is
difficult to dismiss cryonics out of hand. The structure of DNA was
unknown prior to 1953; the chemical (rather than "vitalistic") nature of
living beings was not appreciated until early in the 20th century; it was
not until 1864 that spontaneous generation was put to rest, when Louis
Pasteur demonstrated that no organisms emerged from heat-sterilized growth
medium kept in sealed flasks; and Sir Isaac Newton's Principia established
the laws of motion in 1687, just over 300 years ago. If progress of the
same magnitude occurs in the next few centuries, then it becomes difficult
to argue that repair of frozen tissue must inherently remain infeasible.
Hesitation to dismiss cryonics is not a ringing endorsement, and still
leaves the basic question in considerable doubt. Perhaps a closer
consideration of how future technologies might be applied to the repair of
frozen tissue will let us draw stronger conclusions -- in one direction or
the other. Ultimately, cryonics will either: (a) work, or (b) fail to
work, and it would seem useful to know in advance which of these two
outcomes to expect. If it can be ruled out as infeasible, then we need not
waste further time on it. If it seems likely that it will be technically
feasible, then a number of non-technical issues should be addressed in
order to obtain a good probability of overall success.
The reader interested in a general introduction to cryonics is referred
to other sources [23,24]. Here, we focus on technical feasibility.
Given the nature of the damage caused by cryonic suspension, any
technology capable of reversing it might well have to go through the
damaged structure molecule by molecule. Such molecular repair should be
possible with nanotechnology. We will not consider the feasibility of
nanotechnology here -- this issue is considered elsewhere
[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10,19,41]. We will give a brief introduction to
nanotechnology, and will then clarify the technical issues involved in
applying it to the repair of damaged tissue.
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NANOTECHNOLOGY
Broadly speaking, the central thesis of nanotechnology is that almost
any chemically stable structure that can be specified can in fact be
built. This possibility was first advanced by Richard Feynman in 1959 [4]
when he said: "The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not
speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom."
(Feynman won the 1965 Nobel prize in physics.)
Recently Drexler [1,10,19,41] has made more specific proposals about
how such molecular manipulation might be done. In particular, Drexler has
proposed the assembler, a small device resembling an industrial robot which
would be capable of holding and positioning reactive compounds in order to
control the precise location at which chemical reactions take place. This
general approach should allow the construction of large, atomically precise
objects by a sequence of precisely controlled chemical reactions.
Ribosomes
The plausibility of this approach is perhaps best illustrated by the
ribosome. Ribosomes manufacture all the proteins used in all living things
on this planet. A typical ribosome is relatively small (a few thousand
cubic nanometers) and is capable of building almost any protein by
stringing together amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) in a
precise linear sequence. To do this, the ribosome has a means of grasping
a specific amino acid (more precisely, it has a means of grasping a
specific transfer RNA, which in turn is chemically bonded by a specific
enzyme to a specific amino acid), of grasping the growing polypeptide, and
of causing the specific amino acid to react with and be added to the end of
the polypeptide [14].
The instructions that the ribosome follows in building a protein are
provided by mRNA (messenger RNA). This is a polymer formed from the four
bases; adenine, cytosine, guanine, and uracil. A sequence of several
hundred to a few thousand such bases codes for a specific protein. The
ribosome "reads" this "control tape" sequentially, and acts on the
directions it provides.
Assemblers
In an analogous fashion, an assembler will build an arbitrary molecular
structure following a sequence of instructions. The assembler, however,
will provide three-dimensional positional and full orientational control
over the molecular component (analogous to the individual amino acid) being
added to a growing complex molecular structure (analogous to the growing
polypeptide). In addition, the assembler will be able to form any one of
several different kinds of chemical bonds, not just the single kind (the
peptide bond) that the ribosome makes.
It seems unlikely that an assembler must inherently be very large.
Enzymes "typically" weigh about 100,000 amu's (atomic mass units), while
the ribosome itself is about 3 x 106 amu's [14]. The smallest assembler
might be a factor of ten or so larger than a ribosome. Current design
ideas for an assembler are somewhat larger than this: cylindrical "arms"
about 100 nanometers in length and 10 nanometers in diameter, rotary joints
to allow arbitrary positioning of the tip of the arm, and a worst-case
positional accuracy at the tip of perhaps 0.1 to 0.2 nanometers, even in
the presence of thermal noise [18]. Even a solid block of diamond as large
as such an arm weighs only sixteen million amu's, so we can safely conclude
that a hollow arm of such dimensions would weigh less. Six such arms would
weigh less than 108 amu's.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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The assembler requires a detailed sequence of control signals from some
outside source, just as the ribosome requires mRNA to control its actions.
Such detailed control signals can be provided by a computer. A feasible
design for a molecular computer has been presented by Drexler [2,19]. This
design is mechanical in nature, and is based on sliding rods that interact
by blocking or unblocking each other at "locks." This design has a size of
about five cubic nanometers per "lock" (roughly equivalent to a single
logic gate). Quadrupling this size to 20 cubic nanometers (to allow for
power, interfaces, and the like) and assuming that we require a minimum of
10,000 "locks" to provide minimal control results in a volume of 200,000
cubic nanometers (0.0002 cubic microns) for the computational element.
Assuming that each cubic nanometer is occupied by roughly 100 atoms of
carbon, this 2 x 105 cubic nanometer computer will have a mass of about 2 x
108 amu's.
An assembler might have a kilobyte of high speed (rod-logic based) RAM,
and 100 kilobytes of slower but more dense "tape" storage, and might have a
mass of 108 amu's. Some additional mass will be used for communications
(sending and receiving signals from other computers) and power. In
addition, there will probably be a "toolkit" of interchangeable tips that
can be placed at the end of the assembler's arm. When everything is added
up, a small assembler, with arms, computer, "toolkit," etc., should weigh
less than 109 amu's.
Feynman said: "The problems of chemistry and biology can be greatly
helped if our ability to see what we are doing, and to do things on an
atomic level, is ultimately developed -- a development which I think cannot
be avoided." The assembler is the smallest embodiment of this dream.
A repair device is an assembler which is specialized for repair of
tissue in general, and frozen tissue in particular. We assume that a
repair device also has a mass of 109 amu's.
Cost
One consequence of the existence of assemblers is that they are cheap.
Because an assembler can be programmed to build almost any structure, it
can in particular be programmed to build another assembler. Thus, self-
reproducing assemblers should be feasible, and in consequence the
manufacturing costs of assemblers would be primarily the cost of the raw
materials and energy required in their construction. Eventually, the price
of assemblers (and of the objects they build) should be no higher than the
price of other complex structures made by self-replicating systems.
Potatoes -- which have a staggering design complexity involving tens of
thousands of different genes and different proteins directed by many
megabits of genetic information -- cost well under a dollar per pound.
MATTER AND THE BRAIN
We make the simplifying assumption that only the brain will require
repair at the atomic and molecular level. Although we could require repair
of the entire body one molecule at a time, this seems unnecessary.
Faithfully repairing each and every molecule of the liver appears to offer
no benefit over simpler techniques -- such as replacement. The
calculations and discussions that follow are therefore based on the size
and composition of the brain. They could be extended in the obvious way to
the rest of the body for those who feel molecular repair of such secondary
tissue is essential.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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The brain, like all the familiar matter in the world around us, is made
of atoms. It is the spatial arrangement of these atoms that distinguishes
an arm from a leg, the head from heart, and sickness from health. This
view of the brain is the framework for our problem, and it is within this
framework that we must work. Our problem, broadly stated, is that the
atoms in a frozen brain are in the wrong places. We must put them back
where they belong if we expect to restore the natural functions of this
most wonderful organ.
While we could view this statement as simply a broad philosophical
truism, we can also take it quite literally. Viewed thus, it raises three
major questions: how can we tell where the atoms are; how can we tell
where they should go; and how do we go about moving them from the former
location to the latter?
Rather than consider these questions at once, we shall instead first
consider a simpler problem: how would we go about describing the position
of every atom if somehow this information was known to us? This answer
will let us better understand the harder questions.
Each atom has a location in three-space that we can represent with
three coordinates: X, Y, and Z. Atoms are usually a few tenths of a
nanometer apart. If we could record the position of each atom to within
0.01 nanometer, we would know its position accurately enough to know what
chemicals it was a part of, what bonds it had formed, and so on. If the
brain is roughly 0.1 meters across, then 0.01 nanometers represents one
part in 1010. That is, we would have to know the position of the atom in
each coordinate to within one part in ten billion. A number of this size
can be represented with about 33 bits. There are three coordinates, X, Y,
and Z, each of which requires 33 bits to represent, so the position of an
atom can be represented in 99 bits. An additional few bits are needed to
store the type of the atom (whether hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, etc.),
bringing the total to slightly over 100 bits. While we could argue that
some additional information might be required (ionization state, for
example) the grand total will still be about 100 bits -- a conveniently
round number.
Thus, if we could store 100 bits of information for every atom in the
brain, we could fully describe its structure in as exacting and precise a
manner as we could possibly need. A memory device of this capacity appears
to be quite literally possible. To quote Feynman [4]: "Suppose, to be
conservative, that a bit of information is going to require a little cube
of atoms 5 x 5 x 5 -- that is 125 atoms." This is indeed conservative.
Single-stranded DNA already stores a single bit in about 16 atoms
(excluding the water that it's in). It seems likely we can reduce this to
only a few atoms [1], but even if we assume that the laws of chemistry
inherently require 10 atoms to store a single bit of information, we still
find that the 100 bits required to describe a single atom in the brain can
be represented by about 1000 atoms. Put another way: if we encode the
position of an atom in other atoms, we inflate the number of atoms we need
by perhaps as much as 1000. If we encoded the location of every atom in
the brain, we would need 1000 times as many atoms to hold this encoded data
as there are atoms in the brain. This means we would require roughly 1,000
times the volume. The brain is somewhat over one cubic decimeter, and so
it would require somewhat over one cubic meter of material to encode the
location of each and every atom in the brain.
While this much memory is remarkable by today's standards, it appears
inevitable that at some time in the future it will be feasible. That is,
it will literally be possible to store a description of each and every atom
in the brain in a memory device that we will be able to build.
While such a feat is remarkable, it is also much more than we need.
The title of
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this paper is "Molecular Repair Of The Brain," not "Atomic Repair Of The
Brain." Chemists do not often think of atoms by themselves, they usually
think of them in groups -- called molecules. For example, water is a
molecule made of three atoms: an oxygen and two hydrogens. If we describe
each atom separately, we will require 100 bits to describe each atom, or
300 bits. If, however, we give the position of the oxygen atom and give
the orientation of the molecule, we need: 99 bits for the location of the
oxygen atom plus 20 bits to describe the type of molecule ("water," in this
case) and perhaps another 30 bits to give the orientation of the water
molecule (10 bits for each of the three rotational axes). This means we
can store the description of a water molecule in only 150 bits, instead of
the 300 bits required to describe each atom. (The 20 bits to describe the
type of the molecule can be used to describe up to 1,000,000 different
molecules -- many more than are present in the brain).
As the molecule we are describing gets larger and larger, the savings
in storage gets bigger and bigger. A whole protein molecule will still
require only 150 bits to describe, even though it is made of thousands of
atoms.
We can do even better: the molecules in the brain are all bunched in
next to each other. Having once described the position of one, we can
describe the position of the next molecule as being such-and-such a
distance from the first. If we assume that two molecules are within 10
nanometers of each other (a reasonable assumption) then we need only store
10 bits of "delta X," 10 bits of "delta Y," and 10 bits of "delta Z" rather
than 33 bits of X, 33 bits of Y, and 33 bits of Z. This means our molecule
can be described in only 10+10+10+20+30 or 80 bits.
We can compress this further by using various other clever stratagems
(50 bits or less should be quite achievable), but the essential point
should be clear. We are interested in molecules, and describing a molecule
is much easier than describing an atom.
A further point will be at once clear to any biologist. Describing the
exact position and orientation of a hemoglobin molecule within a red blood
cell is completely unnecessary. Each hemoglobin molecule bounces around
within the red blood cell in a random fashion, and it really doesn't matter
exactly where it is, nor exactly which way it's pointing. All we need do
is say, "It's in that red blood cell!" So, too, for any other molecule
that is floating at random in a "cellular compartment." We need only say
which compartment it's in. For most molecules that are "membrane bound,"
i.e., are part of the cell wall or are in some other lipid membrane, it
likewise does not matter where in the membrane they are. The lipid
membrane is a "two dimensional fluid" because molecules in the membrane are
free to move about to other places in the membrane (though they usually
can't escape from the membrane). Just as we need only describe a
hemoglobin molecule as being in a red blood cell, so too we need only
describe most membrane-bound proteins as being in the membrane.
How much further does this reduce our storage requirements? Quite a
bit. Can we go even further? Yes, but only if we first address some
profound philosophical questions. Could we, perhaps, describe an entire
cell with only a sketchy description of the function it needs to perform?
Could we describe an entire group of cells in terms of their high-level
function, omitting all "unnecessary" detail?
To avoid a lengthy digression into such philosophical issues we will,
for purposes of this paper, adopt the narrowest possible philosophical
stance about successful tissue repair. We require that repair restore the
molecules of the brain to their original positions. We neglect a modest
amount of change in molecular structure during the repair process as being
unavoidable and insignificant. The molecular structure of the human brain
is in a constant state of change during life -- molecules are synthesized,
utilized,
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and catabolized in a continuous cycle. Cells continuously undergo slight
changes in morphology. Changes of a similar magnitude introduced by the
repair process can reasonably be viewed as insignificant.
We must ask if changes in molecular structure introduced by cryonic
suspension itself are of such an extent that they would block faithful
repair at the molecular level. It seems unlikely that freezing damage
causes sufficient disruption to obscure the molecular structure. Cryonic
suspension "almost" works. Many tissues have been frozen to liquid
nitrogen temperatures and, upon re-warming, have functioned correctly
(including early-stage human embryos -- now healthy children). It seems
unlikely that repair of frozen tissue will prove infeasible for this
reason. We will discuss this issue further after a more detailed
description of the repair process, and in the next section will explicitly
discuss the probable impact of freezing on human memory.
Our philosophical criteria are quite fastidious. It is not at all
obvious that the preservation of awareness, consciousness, and "self"
requires the physical repair or even the preservation of the brain
[11,12]. Although the brain is made of neurons, synapses, protoplasm, DNA,
and the like, most modern philosophers of consciousness view these details
as no more significant than hair color or clothing style. An "artificial
brain" that was functionally the same as the more conventional biological
design would still house a living, conscious human being [15, page 36].
While molecular repair is technically more difficult than the
construction of an artificial brain, it should be more generally
acceptable. Most people accept the idea that restoration of the brain to a
healthy state in a healthy body is a desirable objective.
Another issue is not so much philosophical as emotional. Major surgery
is not a pretty sight. There are few people who can watch a surgeon cut
through living tissue with equanimity. So, too, with molecular repair. If
we intend to examine and repair every major molecule in the brain, then we
must gain access to them, remove them from their surrounding matrix,
examine their structure, determine if repair is required, make the repair
to the isolated molecule, and then return the molecule to its proper
position. The mechanics of this process might make the strongest queasy.
Yet, as with surgery, we must judge the process by the final result -- the
restoration to complete health of a human being.
The reaction of "Bones" McCoy, the (rather conservative) doctor aboard
the starship Enterprise in the "Star Trek" television series, might be
common. As he described the transporter: "That's a heck of a way to
travel, scattering your molecules all over space." Despite his opinion,
the good doctor appeared none-the-worse for wear following his excursions,
for the transporter faithfully restored his structure down to the last
scattered molecule. While the repair process we will describe here is not
as exact as the fictional transporter, the basic idea is the same. We take
each molecule and put it back where it belongs.
MEMORY
It is reasonable to ask whether the important structural elements
underlying human memory and human personality are likely to be preserved by
cryonic suspension. Clearly, if human memory is stored in a physical form
which is destroyed by freezing, then cryonic suspension won't work. In
this section we briefly review what is known about memory, and whether
known or probable mechanisms are likely to be preserved by freezing.
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To see the Mona Lisa or Niagara Falls changes us, as does seeing a
favorite television show or reading a good book. These changes are both
figurative and literal, and it is is the literal (or neuroscientific)
changes that we are interested in: what are the physical alterations that
underlie memory?
Briefly, the available evidence strongly supports the idea that memory
is stored by alterations in the synapses between nerve cells.
Shepherd in "Neurobiology" [38, page 547] said: "The concept that
brain functions are mediated by cell assemblies and neuronal circuits
has become widely accepted, as will be obvious to the reader of this
book, and most neurobiologists believe that plastic changes at synapses
are the underlying mechanisms of learning and memory."
Kupfermann in "Principles of Neural Science" [13, page 812] said:
"Because of the enduring nature of memory, it seems reasonable to
postulate that in some way the changes must be reflected in long-term
alterations of the connections between neurons."
Alkon, in "Memory Storage and Neural Systems," [35] says: "The
formation of associative memories appears to involve a sequence of
molecular changes at specific locations in systems of neurons."
Lynch, in "Synapses, Circuits, and the Beginnings of Memory" [34, page
3] said: "The question of which components of the neuron are
responsible for storage is vital to attempts to develop generalized
hypotheses about how the brain encodes and makes use of memory. Since
individual neurons receive and generate thousands of connections and
hence participate in what must be a vast array of potential circuits,
most theorists have postulated a central role for synaptic
modifications in memory storage."
Greenough and Bailey in "The anatomy of a memory: convergence of
results across a diversity of tests" [39] say: "More recently it has
become clear that the arrangement of synaptic connections in the mature
nervous system can undergo striking changes even during normal
functioning. As the diversity of species and plastic processes
subjected to morphological scrutiny has increased, convergence upon a
set of structurally detectable phenomena has begun to emerge. Although
several aspects of synaptic structure appear to change with experience,
the most consistent potential substrate for memory storage during
behavioral modification is an alteration in the number and/or pattern
of synaptic connections."
It seems likely, therefore, that human memory is encoded by changes in
synaptic structure. Sometimes this encoding involves the presence or
absence of a synapse, and other times it involves structural and functional
changes to an existing synapse.
What, exactly, might these changes be? Very strong statements are
possible in simple "model systems." Bailey and Chen, for example, actually
recovered learned memories from sea slugs (Aplysia californica) by direct
examination of the changed synapse with an electron microscope [36].
"Using horseradish peroxidase (HRP) to label the presynaptic terminals
(varicosities) of sensory neurons and serial reconstruction to analyze
synaptic contacts, we compared the fine structure of identified sensory
neuron synapses in control and behaviorally modified animals. Our
results indicate that learning can modulate long-term synaptic
effectiveness by altering the number, size, and vesicle complement of
synaptic active zones." Examination by transmission electron
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microscopy in vacuum of sections 100 nanometers thick recovers little
or no chemical information. Lateral resolution is at best a few
nanometers, and depth information (within the 100 nanometer section) is
entirely lost. Specimen preparation included removal and desheathing
of the abdominal ganglion which was then bathed in seawater for 30
minutes before impalement and intrasomatic pressure injection of HRP.
Two hours later the ganglia were fixed, histochemically processed, and
embedded. Following this treatment, Bailey and Chen concluded that
". . . clear structural changes accompany behavioral modification, and
those changes can be detected at the level of identified synapses that
are critically involved in learning."
The following observations about this work seem in order. First,
several different types of visible changes were present. This provides
redundant evidence of synaptic alteration. Inability to observe one type
of change, or obliteration of one specific type of change, would not be
sufficient to prevent recovery of the "state" of the synapse. Second,
examination by electron microscopy is much cruder than proposed
nanotechnological techniques which literally propose to analyze every
molecule in the structure. It can reasonably be presumed that further
alterations in synaptic chemistry will be detectable at the molecular
level. Third, it seems unlikely that freezing would destroy all trace of
the changes actually observed.
Such satisfying evidence is at present confined to "model systems; "
what can we conclude about more complex systems, e.g., humans? Certainly,
it seems safe to argue that synaptic alterations are also used in the human
memory system, that synaptic changes of different types are likely to take
place when the synapse "remembers" something, and that these changes
probably involve mechanisms similar to those used in lower organisms
(evolution is notoriously conservative).
Perhaps, however, some fundamentally new long-term memory system has
been evolved only in humans? Even if this unlikely possibility were to
prove true, any such hypothetical system would be sharply constrained by
the available evidence. It would have to persist over the lifetime of a
human being, and thus would have to be quite stable. It would have to
tolerate the natural conditions encountered by humans and the experimental
conditions to which primates have been subjected without loss of memory
(presuming that primate memory is fundamentally very similar to human
memory). And finally, it would almost certainly involve changes in tens of
thousands of molecules to store each bit of information. Functional
studies of the human memory system suggest it has a capacity of only 109
bits (somewhat over 100 megabytes) [37] (though this excludes motor memory,
e.g., the information storage required when learning to ride a bicycle).
Such a low memory capacity suggests that, independent of the specific
mechanism, a great many molecules are required to remember each bit. It
even suggests that many synapses are used to store each bit (recall there
are about 1015 synapses -- which implies some 106 synapses per bit of
information stored in long term memory).
Given that nanotechnology will allow the molecule-by-molecule analysis
of the structures that store memory, and given that such structures are
large on the molecular scale (involving tens of thousands of molecules
each) then it appears unlikely that such structures will survive the
lifetime of the individual only to be obliterated without trace by
freezing.
TECHNICAL OVERVIEW
We now give an overview of the technical issues that must be dealt with
in molecular repair of the brain: what must be done, and how it might be
accomplished.
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The brain has a volume of 1350 cubic centimeters (about one and a half
quarts) and a weight of slightly more than 1400 grams (about three
pounds). (The smallest normal human brain weighed 1100 grams, while the
largest weighed 2050 grams [30, page 24]). It is almost 80% water by
weight. The remaining 20% is slightly less than 40% protein, slightly over
50% lipids, and a few percent of other material [16, page 419]. Thus, an
average brain has slightly over 100 grams of protein, about 175 grams of
lipids, and some 30 to 40 grams of "other stuff."
How Many Molecules
If we anticipate molecular repair, an obvious question is: how many
molecules are there? We can easily approximate the answer, starting with
the proteins. An "average" protein molecule has a molecular weight of
about 50,000 amu's. One mole of "average" protein is 50,000 grams (by
definition), so the 100 grams of protein in the brain is 100/50,000 or
0.002 moles. One mole is 6.02 x 1023 molecules, so 0.002 moles is 1.2 x
1021 molecules. Therefore, the brain has about 1.2 x 1021 protein
molecules.
We proceed in the same way for the lipids (lipids are most often used
to make cell membranes) -- a "typical" lipid might have a molecular weight
of 500 amu's, which is 100 times less than the molecular weight of a
protein. This implies the brain has about 175/500 x 6.02 x 1023 or about 2
x 1023 lipid molecules.
Finally, water has an atomic weight of 18, so there will be about 1400
x 0.8/18 x 6.02 x 1023 or about 4 x 1025 water molecules in the brain.
There are more water molecules than anything else, both because there is
more water in the brain by mass and because the molecular weight of water
is smaller than that of the other molecules.
These numbers are fundamental. Molecular repair of the brain will
require that we cope with them in some fashion.
How Much Time
Another parameter whose value we must decide is the amount of time
required to repair each molecule. We assume that such repair time includes
the time required to determine the location of the molecule in the frozen
tissue and the time required to restore the molecule to its correct
location, as well as the time to diagnose and repair any structural
defects. The total time required for repair is just the sum of the repair
times for all the molecules, divided by the number of repair devices. The
more repair devices there are, the faster the repair will be. The more
molecules there are, and the more time it takes to repair each molecule,
the slower repair will be.
The time required for a ribosome to manufacture a protein molecule of
400 amino acids is about ten seconds [14, page 393], or about 25
milliseconds to add each amino acid. DNA polymerase III can add an
additional base to a replicating DNA strand in about seven milliseconds
[14, page 289]. In both cases, synthesis takes place in solution and
involves significant delays while the needed components diffuse to the
reactive sites. Faster methods of transport than random diffusion seem
possible in principle (e.g., conveyor belts), and there is no reason to
believe that such methods cannot be reduced to nanometer scale. The speed
of assembler-directed reactions should also be faster than current
biological systems. The arm of an assembler should be capable of making a
complete motion in under a microsecond. However, we will conservatively
base our computations on the speed of synthesis already demonstrated by
biological systems, and in particular on the slower speed of protein
synthesis.
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We must do more than synthesize the required molecules -- we must
analyze the existing molecules. It seems unlikely that such analysis will
require substantially longer than the synthesis time involved, so it seems
reasonably conservative to multiply the synthesis time by a factor of a few
to provide a time estimate of the overall molecular repair. This should,
in principle, allow time for the complete disassembly and reassembly of the
selected molecule using methods no faster than those employed in biological
systems. While the precise size of this multiplicative factor can
reasonably be debated, a factor of 10 should be sufficient. Thus, we will
assume that analysis and repair takes 100 seconds per protein molecule.
It seems likely that repair will take place while the tissue is still
frozen. In this case, the times for the various biological synthesis steps
given here must be viewed as general "proof of principle" times rather than
specific estimates of the actual time that will be required by an assembler
operating at (perhaps) liquid nitrogen temperatures. We know that the
synthesis of the biological molecules of interest can be done in a certain
time frame using diffusive chemical reactions at 98.6F -- it seems
unlikely that reducing the temperature will create a barrier that will
inherently require longer synthesis times. Assemblers are basically
mechanical in nature, and so they can be designed to operate across a broad
range of temperatures. If anything, the reduction in thermal vibration as
a consequence of reduced temperature should allow more accurate positioning
and facilitate, rather than hinder, the assembler-based synthesis process.
In practice, most molecules will probably be intact -- they would not
have to be either disassembled or reassembled. This should greatly reduce
repair time. On a more philosophical note, existing biological systems
generally do not bother to repair macromolecules (a notable exception is
DNA -- a host of molecular mechanisms for the repair of this molecule are
used in most organisms). Most molecules are generally used for a period of
time, and then broken down and replaced. If we adopted nature's philosophy
we would simply discard and replace any damaged molecules, greatly
simplifying molecular "repair."
Discarding even parts of the original structure might be
philosophically disturbing for some people. This philosophical problem can
be entirely avoided by adopting the more difficult approach of actually
analyzing a damaged molecule, and then repairing it. However, for those
who view the simpler removal and replacement of damaged molecules as
acceptable, the repair process can be substantially simplified. Informal
discussions suggest most people view replacement of damaged molecules as
acceptable. For purposes of this paper, however, we will continue to use
the longer time estimate based on the premise that full repair of every
molecule is required. This appears to be conservative.
We shall assume that the repair time for other molecules is similar per
unit mass. That is, we shall assume that the repair time for the lipids
(which each weigh about 500 amu's, 100 times less than a protein) is about
100 times less than the repair time for a protein, while the "repair time"
for a water molecule will be almost 3000 times less than the repair time
for a protein. That is, the repair time for one lipid molecule is assumed
to be 1 second, while the "repair time" for a water molecule is assumed to
be 36 milliseconds. While "repair" of water molecules is in all
probability unnecessary, it seems likely that some time will be required to
clear them away while analyzing other molecules and some additional time
required to restore tissue water levels. While it should be possible to
handle water molecules in "bulk," in view of the uncertainties involved we
will adopt the more conservative estimate. The repair time would be
reduced by a factor of about five if we did not allocate time for the
removal, "repair" and replacement of water molecules.
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We have implicitly assumed that the time required to analyze and
synthesize an individual molecule will dominate the time required to
determine its location and the time required to restore it to its correct
position (with the possible exception of the small molecules, such as
water). These assumptions appear plausible but will be considered further
when the methods of gaining access to and of moving molecules during the
repair process are considered.
This analysis accounts for the bulk of the molecules -- it seems
unlikely that other molecular species will add significant additional
repair time.
Based on these assumptions, we find that we require 100 seconds x 1.2 x
1021 protein molecules plus 1 second times 2 x 1023 lipids plus 0.036
second times 4 x 1025 water molecules, or 1.8 x 1024 repair-machine-
seconds. This number is not as fundamental as the number of molecules in
the brain. It is based on the (probably conservative) assumption that
repair of 50,000 amu's requires 100 seconds. Faster repair would imply
repair could be done with fewer repair machines, or in less time.
How Many Repair Machines
If we now fix the total time required for repair, we can determine the
number of repair devices that must function in parallel. We shall rather
arbitrarily adopt 108 seconds, which is very close to three years, as the
total time in which we wish to complete repairs.
If the total repair time is 108 seconds, and we require 1.8 x 1024
repair-machine-seconds, then we require 1.8 x 1016 repair machines for
complete molecular repair of the brain. This corresponds to 1.8 x 1016 /
(6.02 x 1023) or 3 x 10-8 moles, or 30 nanomoles of repair machines. If
each repair device weighs 109 amu's, then the total weight of all the
repair devices is 30 grams: about one ounce.
Thus, the weight of repair devices required to repair each and every
molecule in the brain, assuming the repair devices operate no faster than
current biological methods, is only one ounce. This is only about 2% of
the total mass of the brain.
It seems unlikely that either more or larger repair devices are
required. However, it is comforting to know that errors in these estimates
of even three or four orders of magnitude can be easily tolerated. A
requirement for 30 kilograms of repair devices (1,000 times more than we
compute is needed) or 300 kilograms (10,000 times more than we compute is
needed -- over 600 pounds) would have little practical impact on
feasibility. Although repair scenarios that involve deployment of the
repair devices within the volume of the brain could not be used if we
required 300 kilograms of repair devices, a number of other repair
scenarios would still work -- one such approach is discussed later in this
paper. Given that nanotechnology is feasible, manufacturing costs for
repair devices will be small. The cost of even 300 kilograms of repair
devices should eventually be a few hundred dollars or less. The
feasibility of molecular repair is insensitive to even large errors in the
projections given here.
THE REPAIR PROCESS
We now turn to the physical deployment of these repair devices. That
is, although the raw number of repair devices is sufficient, we must devise
an orderly method of bringing each molecule, in turn, to the attention of a
repair device.
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We shall presume that analysis takes place while the tissue is still
frozen. While the exact temperature is left open, it seems better to
perform analysis prior to warming. The thawing process itself causes
damage and, once thawed, continued deterioration will proceed unchecked by
the mechanisms present in healthy tissue. This cannot be tolerated during
a repair time of several years. Either faster analysis or some means of
blocking deterioration would have to be developed if analysis were to take
place after warming. We will not explore these possibilities here
(although this is worthwhile).
On-Board Repair
We shall broadly divide repair scenarios into two classes: on-board
and off-board. In the on-board scenarios, the repair devices are deployed
within the volume of the brain. Existing structures are disassembled in
place, their component molecules examined and repaired, and then
reassembled on the spot. (We here class as "on-board" those scenarios in
which the repair devices operate within the physical volume of the brain,
even though there might be substantial off-board support. That is, there
might be a very large computational resource outside the tissue directing
the repair process, but we would still refer to the overall repair approach
as "on-board"). The on-board repair scenario has been considered in some
detail by Drexler [18]. We will give a brief outline of the on-board
repair scenario here, but will not consider it in any depth.
The first advantage of on-board repair is an easier evolutionary path
from partial repair systems deployed in living human beings to the total
repair systems required for repair of the more extensive damage found in
the person who has been cryonically suspended. That is, a simple repair
device for finding and removing fatty deposits blocking the circulatory
system could be developed and deployed in living humans [2], and need not
deal with all the problems involved in total repair. A more complex
device, developed as an incremental improvement, might then repair more
complex damage (perhaps identifying and killing cancer cells) again within
a living human. Once developed, there will be continued pressure for
evolutionary improvements in on-board repair capabilities which should
ultimately lead to repair of virtually arbitrary damage. This evolutionary
path should ultimately produce a device capable of repairing frozen tissue.
It is interesting to note that a team of Japanese scientists at Tokyo
University's Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology have
already begun developing a ". . . tiny robot to move inside the human body
to treat diseased tissue. . . ." Iwao Fujimasa said their objective is a
robot less than 0.04 inches in size that will be able to travel through
veins and inside organs [17]. They hope to have a working prototype in a
year [20]. While substantially larger than the proposals considered here,
the direction of future evolutionary improvements is already clear.
The second advantage of on-board repair is emotional. In on-board
repair, the original structure (you) is left intact at the macroscopic and
even light microscopic level. The disassembly and reassembly of the
component molecules is done at a level smaller than can be seen, and might
therefore prove less troubling than other forms of molecular repair in
which the disassembly and reassembly processes are more visible.
Ultimately, though, correct restoration of the structure is the overriding
concern.
In on-board repair, we might first logically partition the volume of
the brain into a matrix of cubes, and then deploy each repair device in its
own cube. Repair devices would first get as close as possible to their
assigned cube by moving through the circulatory system (we presume it would
be cleared out as a first step) and would then disassemble the tissue
between them and their destination. Once in position, each repair device
would repair every molecule in its assigned volume.
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Off-Board Repair
The second class of repair scenarios, the off-board scenarios, allow
the total volume of repair devices to greatly exceed the volume of the
human brain. The advantage of this approach is obvious -- any lingering
concerns about volume and heat dissipation can be eliminated. If a ton of
repair devices should prove necessary, then a ton can be provided. In
addition, off-board repair scenarios do not require that the repair devices
be mobile -- simplifying communications and power distribution, and
eliminating the need for locomotor capabilities (legs) and navigational
abilities. Off-board repair scenarios have been discussed informally [18],
but have not previously been written down.
Off-board repair scenarios can be naturally divided into four phases.
In the first phase, we must analyze the structure to determine its state.
The primary purpose of this phase is simply to gather information about the
structure, although in the process of gathering this information it will be
necessary to move tissue aside to allow access to structures that would
otherwise be hidden. Various methods of gaining access to and analyzing
the overall structure are feasible -- in this paper we shall consider only
one approach.
The second phase of off-board repair is determination of the healthy
state. In this phase, the structural information derived from the analysis
phase is used to determine what the healthy state of the tissue had been
prior to suspension and any preceding illness. No tissue movement occurs
during this phase -- it involves only computation based on the information
provided by the analysis phase.
The third phase is repair planning. In this phase, a plan must be
developed which takes into account both the current (damaged, non-
functional) state of the tissue and the desired healthy state, and
describes how to convert the the former into the latter. Repair planning
requires a substantial amount of computation, but again no tissue need
actually be physically moved.
The fourth and final phase is actual repair. In this phase, the repair
plan has been determined and is used to control repair devices that
actually physically repair the affected tissue.
Now that we have discussed the four main phases involved in off-board
repair, we consider one off-board repair method in greater detail: divide-
and-conquer.
Divide And Conquer
Divide-and-conquer is a general purpose problem solving method
frequently used in computer science. In this method, if a problem proves
too difficult to solve, it is first divided into sub-problems, each of
which is solved in turn. Should the sub-problems prove too difficult to
solve, they are in turn divided into sub-sub-problems. This process is
continued until the original problem is divided into pieces that are small
enough to be solved by direct methods.
If we apply divide-and-conquer to the analysis of a physical object --
such as the brain -- then we must be able to physically divide the object
of analysis into two pieces and recursively apply the same method to the
two pieces. This means that we must be able to divide a piece of frozen
tissue, whether it be the entire brain or some smaller part, into roughly
equal halves. Given that tissue at liquid nitrogen temperatures is already
prone to fracturing, it should require only modest effort to deliberately
induce a fracture that would divide such a piece into two roughly equal
parts. Fractures made at
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low temperatures (when the material is below the glass transition
temperature) are extremely clean, and result in little or no loss of
structural information. Indeed, freeze fracture techniques are used for
the study of synaptic structures. Propst and Ko in "Correlations between
active zone ultrastructure and synaptic function studied with freeze-
fracture of physiologically identified neuromuscular junctions" [40] said:
"Freeze-fracture techniques provide en face views of presynaptic membranes
and are therefore a more direct and accurate way of studying the length,
spacing, and intramembrane particles of AZs [Active Zones -- specialized
parts of the pre-synaptic membrane]." In other words, you can see the
individual molecules on the exposed faces of the fracture. It seems
unlikely that the fracture itself will result in the loss of structural
information. The freshly exposed faces can now be analyzed by various
surface analysis techniques.
Current Work In Electron Microscopic Reconstruction Of Nerve Tissue
It is interesting to note that current research in the three-
dimensional structure of neurons often embeds neural tissue in plastic, and
then produces a series of thin sections (typically 50 to 100 nanometers
thick in electron microscopic reconstruction work) by using an
ultramicrotome. The serial sections are then examined by a person
(typically a graduate student. . .) and the structures of interest in each
section are outlined on a digitizing tablet and entered into a computer.
The resulting data-base is used to build a three-dimensional image of the
neuron. This work has been quite successful at determining the three-
dimensional structure of small volumes (small enough for a graduate student
to examine in a few weeks or months) despite the adverse effects of tissue
preparation and sectioning. Sections vary in thickness, and buckle, fold,
and tear. Despite these difficulties, the human visual system can
reconstruct the original shape of the object in three dimensions. Current
electron microscopic reconstructions are quite capable of analyzing even
the finest dendrites and thinnest axons, as well as determining the
location and size of synapses [27,28], and even finer detail [29]. It
seems reasonable that the less damaging method of inducing a fracture at
low temperature, and the more informative and less damaging analysis
possible with nanotechnology (as opposed to destructive analysis of thin
sections by a high energy electron beam!) will produce more information
about the structure being analyzed.
How Small Are The Pieces
The division into halves continues until the pieces are small enough to
allow direct analysis by repair devices. If we presume that division
continues until each repair device is assigned its own piece to repair,
then there will be both 1.8 x 1016 repair devices and pieces. If the 1350
cubic centimeter volume of the brain is divided into this many cubes, each
cube would be about 0.4 microns (422 nanometers) on a side. Each such cube
could then be directly analyzed (disassembled into its component molecules)
by a repair device during our three-year repair period.
One might view these cubes as the pieces of a three dimensional jig-saw
puzzle, the only difference being that we have cheated and carefully
recorded the position of each piece. Just as the picture on a jig-saw
puzzle is clearly visible despite the fractures between the pieces, so too
the three dimensional "picture" of the brain is clearly visible despite its
division into pieces.
Moving Pieces
There are a great many possible methods of handling the mechanical
problems involved
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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in dividing and moving the pieces. It seems unlikely that mechanical
movement of the pieces will prove an insurmountable impediment, and
therefore we do not consider it in detail. However, for the sake of
concreteness, we outline one possibility. Human arms are about one meter
in length, and can easily handle objects from one to ten centimeters in
size (0.01 to 0.1 times the length of the arm). It should be feasible,
therefore, to construct a series of progressively shorter arms which handle
pieces of progressively smaller size. If each set of arms were ten times
shorter than the preceding set, then we would have devices with arms of: 1
meter, 1 decimeter, 1 centimeter, 1 millimeter, 100 microns, 10 microns, 1
micron, and finally 0.1 micron or 100 nanometers. (Note that an assembler
has arms of 100 nanometers). Thus, we would need to design eight different
sizes of manipulators. At each succeeding size the manipulators would be
more numerous, and so would be able to deal with the many more pieces into
which the original object was divided. Transport and mechanical
manipulation of an object would be done by arms of the appropriate size.
As objects were divided into smaller pieces that could no longer be handled
by arms of a particular size, they would be handed to arms of a smaller
size.
If it requires about three years to analyze each piece, then the time
required both to divide the brain into pieces and to move each piece to an
immobile repair device can reasonably be neglected. It seems unlikely that
moving the pieces will take a significant fraction of three years.
Output Of The Analysis Phase
The analysis phase of divide-and-conquer will produce two things.
First, it will provide a detailed description of the location, orientation,
and type of each molecule. That is, the analysis will produce a detailed
structural data base that contains information about every molecule in the
brain. Second, it will produce the actual molecules, sorted and indexed.
Memory And Computational Requirements
The information storage requirements for a structural data-base that
holds the detailed description and location of each major molecule in the
brain can be easily met by projected storage methods. DNA has an
information storage density of about 1021 bits/cubic centimeter.
Conceptually similar but somewhat higher density molecular "tape" systems
that store 1022 bits/cubic centimeter [1] appear quite feasible. Given
that there are about 2 x 1023 "significant" molecules in the brain (we do
not bother to record the locations of the water molecules, simple ions, and
the like -- anyone concerned about this omission can increase the size of
the structural data base to hold this rather uninteresting information),
and assuming 50 bits are required to encode the location and description of
each molecule then we require 1025 bits -- or about 1000 cubic centimeters
(1 liter, roughly a quart) of "tape" storage. If a storage system of such
capacity strikes the reader as infeasible, consider that a human being has
1014 cells and that each cell stores 1010 bits in its DNA [14]. Thus,
every human that you see is a device which (among other things) has a raw
storage capacity of 1024 bits -- and human beings are unlikely to be
optimal information storage devices.
In addition, the computational power required to analyze a data base
with 1025 bits is well within known theoretical limits [9,25,32]. The rod-
logic molecular model of computation dissipates roughly 10-21 joules per
gate operation when operating at 50 picoseconds [2,19]. Extrapolation of
current trends in miniaturization suggest that such energy dissipations
will be achieved by the year 2020 [31, fig. 1]. There is no presently
known reason to expect the trend to stop or even slow down at that time
[9,32]. Energy
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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costs appear to be the limiting factor in rod logic (rather than the number
of gates, or the speed of operation of the gates). Today, electric power
costs about ten cents per kilowatt hour. Even ignoring future decreases in
the cost of energy (which might be dramatic over a period of one to two
12
centuries) this implies that 10 joules can be purchased for $30,000
14
dollars. This much energy would support 5 x 10 gates operating at 50
33
picoseconds per gate operation for three years. This is a total of 10
8
gate operations: 10 gate operations for each bit in the structural data
9 23
base, or 5 x 10 gate operations for each of the 2 x 10 lipid molecules
present in the brain.
Is this enough computational power? We can get a rough idea of how
much computer power might be required if we draw an analogy from image
recognition. The human retina performs about 100 "operations" per pixel,
and the human brain is perhaps 1000 to 10,000 times larger than the
retina. This implies that the human image recognition system can recognize
5 6
an object after devoting some 10 to 10 "operations" per pixel. Allowing
for the fact that such "retinal operations" are probably more complex than
7 9
a single "gate operation" by a factor 100 to 1000, we arrive at 10 to 10
gate operations per pixel -- which is quite in keeping with our estimate of
8 9
10 operations per bit or 5 x 10 operations per molecule.
It is likely that this estimate of the computational power required is
conservative (too large), and therefore that we have more than adequate
computational power available. In the following paragraphs, we argue that
even more computational power will in fact be available, and so our margins
for error are much larger.
Energy loss in rod logic is related to speed of operation. By slowing
down the operating speed from 50 picoseconds to 50 nanoseconds or even 50
microseconds we should achieve corresponding reductions in energy
dissipation per gate operation. This should allow substantial increases in
computational power for a fixed energy budget. If we increase the number
of gates, we can both decrease the energy dissipated per gate operation (by
operating at a slower speed) and maintain the same total number of gate
operations (by using more gates). Because the gates are very small to
12
start with, increasing their number by a factor of as much as 10 (to
26
approximately 5 x 10 gates) would still result in a total volume of only
10 cubic meters (recall that each gate plus overhead is about 20 cubic
nanometers). Given that manufacturing costs will eventually reflect
primarily material and energy costs, such a volume of slowly operating
gates should be economical and would deliver substantially more
computational power per joule.
We do not adopt this approach here for two main reasons. First,
published analyses [2,19] use the higher 50 picosecond speed of operation.
Second, normal logic gates cannot operate at energy levels below thermal
noise. The average thermal energy of a single atom or molecule at a
temperature T (measured in degrees Kelvin) is expressed as kT, where k is
-21
Boltzman's constant. At room temperature, kT is about 4 x 10 joules.
Normal logic gates ("AND" and "OR" gates, for example) must inherently
dissipate at least this much energy for fundamental thermodynamic reasons.
This does not impose a fundamental limit on computation because we can
build a computer out of other types of gates. The major problem with
normal gates is that they are "irreversible." That is, the output of an
"AND" gate does not necessarily uniquely specify the input: if the output
is a logic "0," then either or both inputs might be "0." To overcome this
deficiency, and to allow operation far below kT, it is necessary to make
the computation reversible. That is, any state in the computation must
have a unique predecessor state. Computational states that have two or
more predecessor states must inherently dissipate about kT energy, and must
be banned. A fully reversible computer can be built from "Fredkin gates."
These are three-input, three-output Boolean logic elements that are
reversible. That is, given the three outputs, it is possible to determine
the unique set of three inputs that produced that output. Fredkin gates
are logically complete, for it is possible to build the normal
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"AND," "OR" and "NOT" gates from them. However, designing and building a
computer with Fredkin gates introduces a new set of design problems that
have not been widely considered. Theoretical design work and several
different computational models strongly support the idea that building
reversible computers is quite feasible [9,25,32]. Likharev in particular
proposed a computational element based on Josephson junctions operating at
-24
4 Kelvin in which energy dissipation per switching operation was 10
-9
joules with a switching time of 10 seconds [33]. Further work on
reversible computation can only lower the minimum energy expenditure per
basic operation. While it is at present unclear how far this can continue,
it is clear that we have not yet reached a limit, and that no particular
limit is yet visible.
If we allow for the decreasing future cost of energy and the
probability that future designs will have lower energy dissipation, it
seems likely that we will have a great deal more computational power than
required. Even ignoring these more than likely developments, we will have
adequate computational power for molecular repair of the brain.
Chemical Energy Of The Brain
Another issue is the energy involved in the complete disassembly and
reassembly of every molecule in the brain. The total chemical energy
stored in the proteins and lipids of the human brain is quite modest in
12
comparison with 10 joules. When lipids are burned, they release about
nine kilocalories per gram. (Calorie conscious dieters are really counting
"kilocalories" -- so a "300 Calorie Diet Dinner" really has 300,000
calories or 1,254,000 joules). When protein is burned, it releases about
four kilocalories per gram. Given that there are 100 grams of protein and
175 grams of lipid in the brain, this means there is almost 2,000
kilocalories of chemical energy stored in the structure of the brain, or
6 5
about 8 x 10 joules. This much chemical energy is over 10 times less
12
than the 10 joules that one person can reasonably purchase at today's
prices. It seems unlikely that the construction of the human brain must
7
inherently require substantially more than 10 joules and even more
12
unlikely that it could require over 10 joules. The major energy cost in
molecular repair appears to be in the computations required to "think"
about each major molecule in the brain.
Determining The Healthy State
In the second phase of the analysis, determination of the healthy
state, we determine what the repaired (healthy) tissue should look like at
the molecular level. That is, the initial structural data base produced by
the analysis phase describes unhealthy (frozen) tissue. In determination
of the healthy state, we must generate a revised structural data base that
describes the corresponding healthy (functional) tissue. The generation of
this revised data base requires a computer program that has an intimate
understanding of what healthy tissue should look like, and the
correspondence between unhealthy (frozen) tissue and the corresponding
healthy tissue. As an example, this program would have to understand that
healthy tissue does not have cracks in it, and that if any cracks are
present in the initial data base (describing the frozen tissue) then the
revised data base (describing the resulting healthy tissue) should be
altered to remove these cracks. Similarly, if the initial data base
describes tissue with swollen or non-functional mitochondria, then the
revised data base should be altered so that it describes fully functional
mitochondria. If the initial data base describes tissue which is infected
(viral or bacterial infestations) then the revised data base should be
altered to remove the viral or bacterial components.
The complexity of this program will vary with the quality of the
suspension and the
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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level of damage prior to suspension. Clearly, if cryonic suspension
"almost works," then the initial data base and the revised data base will
not greatly differ. Cryonic suspension under favorable circumstances
preserves the tissue with remarkable fidelity down to the molecular level.
Indeed, the structure is almost (though not quite) functional. It is not
difficult to deduce the location and function of a molecule when the
molecule is present and either functional or almost functional. If,
however, the suspension went badly and there was significant pre-suspension
damage, then deducing the correct (healthy) structural description is more
complex. However, it should be feasible to deduce the correct structural
description even in the face of extensive damage.
The full power of molecular repair should now be evident: almost any
damage that can be understood can be repaired. Almost any damage that can
be identified -- "The mitochondria are swollen and non-functional," "The
cell wall is ruptured," "The cell has been split," "The level of ATP in the
cell is too low to support metabolism," "The cell is dehydrated," etc., can
now be repaired. For example, it would be theoretically possible to repair
a cell even if it had been almost obliterated, provided that there were
sufficient clues in the surrounding tissue to support the inference that
the cell had been there, and what its function had been. For a nerve cell,
it would be sufficient to know little more than the locations and types of
the synapses and the courses of its axons and dendrites.
This truly remarkable repair capability makes repair possible under
conditions that would today be immediately dismissed as hopeless. It also
makes all current estimates of tissue "viability" based on functional
criteria irrelevant. Injury caused by a lack of blood flow (ischemic
injury) is today the primary cause of mortality, and its mechanism of
action is of great interest [21]. Efforts aimed at determining the ". . .
proximate causes of cell death" are intended to guide work aimed at
reversing non-lethal damage. The search for the ". . . critical events in
ischemic cell injury. . ." is serious, and might well provide near-term
improvements in health care. This work is also completely misleading about
the ultimate degree of damage that tissue can tolerate and still be
repaired. Proposed mechanisms of ". . . irreversible cell damage. . ."
include such obviously repairable injuries as: elevated intra-cellular
calcium, ATP depletion, membrane damage (holes), mitochondrial dysfunction,
and others. This work forms the backdrop against which tissue damage to
cryonically suspended patients is measured by most biologists,
cryobiologists, doctors, and other health care workers. Clearly, this work
pre-disposes such workers to dismiss cryonics because, by these criteria,
much "irreversible" damage has occurred in the cryonically suspended
patient. The implications of molecular repair have simply not been
considered, and we can reasonably expect a delay of several years to a few
decades before they are. This would be consistent with historical data
concerning the slow acceptance of the bacterial theory of disease. Despite
the demonstration by Ignaz Semmelweis in 1848 that washing your hands in
chlorinated lime after leaving the autopsy room and before entering the
maternity ward reduced maternal deaths from childbed fever from as high as
25% to essentially zero, his proposal was widely ridiculed and little
practiced for several more decades -- even in the hospital where he carried
out his study.
Molecular repair does have limits. If it is impossible to deduce a
reasonably accurate picture of the tissue structure that was present before
injury, then molecular repair will fail. Given the redundant nature of the
biological structures that make up the individual cells and the additional
redundancy introduced at a higher level by the structure of the nervous
system, the level of damage required to make such deductions infeasible in
principle must be truly massive. Even if significant loss of structure did
occur at the cellular level (an unlikely event when cryonic suspension
takes place under favorable circumstances) it would still be possible to
recover much if not most of the higher level structure. To quote
"Principles of Neural Science" [13, page 813]:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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"Although the physical changes representing learning are likely to be
localized to specific neurons, the complex nature of learning ensures
that these neurons are widely distributed in the nervous system.
Therefore, even after extensive lesions, some trace can remain.
Furthermore, the brain has the capacity to take even the limited
information remaining, work it over, and reconstruct a good
reproduction of the original."
Alternatives To Completing Repair
A brief philosophical aside is in order. Once we have generated an
acceptable revised structural data base, we can in fact pursue either of
two distinctly different possibilities. The obvious path is to continue
with the repair process, eventually producing healthy tissue. An
alternative path is to use the description in the revised structural data
base to guide the construction of a different but "equivalent" structure
(e.g., an "artificial brain"). This possibility has been much discussed in
the philosophical literature [11], and has recently been called either
"uploading" or "downloading" [26]. Whether or not such a process preserves
what is essentially human is sometimes hotly debated, but it has advantages
wholly unrelated to personal survival. As an example, the knowledge and
skills of an Einstein or Turing need not be lost: they could be preserved
in a computational model. On a more commercial level, the creative skills
of a Spielberg (whose movies have grossed in the billions of dollars) could
also be preserved. Whether or not the computational model was viewed as
having the same essential character as the biological human after which it
was patterned, it would indisputably preserve that person's mental
abilities.
It seems likely that many people today will want complete physical
restoration (despite the philosophical possibilities considered above) and
will continue through the repair planning and repair phases.
Determining A Feasible Assembly Sequence
In the third phase of repair, repair planning, we must generate a plan
for reassembly of the tissue components (the molecules) back into the
healthy state described by the revised structural data base. That is, we
must determine how to actually rebuild the healthy tissue. This problem is
similar to generating an assembly sequence for a complex human-made
structure, such as an airplane. The assembly sequence must satisfy certain
constraints, both physical and having to do with the specific assembly
technology. For example, you can't put large structural elements through
small hatches -- so they'd better be built into the structure early in the
assembly sequence.
It is worthwhile noting that the revised structural data base can be
further altered to make reassembly easier. While certain alterations to
the structural data base must be banned (anything that might damage memory,
for example), many alterations would seem to be quite safe. One set of
safe alterations would be those that correspond to real-world changes that
are non-damaging. For example, moving sub-cellular organelles within a
cell would be safe -- such motion occurs spontaneously in living tissue.
Likewise, gently pushing aside tissue to open a small space should also be
safe. Indeed, some operations that might at first appear dubious are
almost certainly safe. For example, any alteration that produces damage
that can be repaired by the tissue itself once it is restored to a
functional state is in fact safe -- though we might well seek to avoid such
alterations (and they do not appear necessary). While the exact range of
alterations that can be safely applied to the structural data base is
unclear, that a fairly wide range exists should be evident.
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One possible assembly sequence is to rebuild and repair the individual
pieces into which the tissue was originally broken, and then reverse the
sequence of steps used to generate the pieces. That is, each repair device
would not only analyze the piece of tissue for which it was responsible, it
would also restore that piece of tissue. Then, the original sequence of
steps involved in dividing the tissue would be reversed in the construction
of an intact whole.
It seems unlikely that this will prove to be the most attractive
possibility. It is probable that during the division process some large
molecules will have been split. In particular, long molecules of DNA will
probably have crossed a fracture boundary, and therefore will have been
split into two parts. While arranging matters so that individual molecules
that are split by fractures during the division process are properly
repaired during the assembly process does not seem infeasible, it would
appear easier to avoid the problem entirely. Given that we have a complete
description of the location of every molecule in the brain in the revised
structural data base, it would seem simpler to generate a new set of
synthetic "fractures" that systematically avoid dividing any molecules.
That is, a DNA molecule would fall entirely within a single "piece" in the
new arrangement. The locations of these new "fractures" would bear no
relationship to the locations of the old fractures, nor would they need to
bear any such relationship. The new "fractures" would be deliberately
selected to minimize reassembly difficulties. They might, for example,
follow cell boundaries whenever feasible. There is no need for the
assembly sequence to have any relationship at all to the disassembly
sequence.
A number of fundamentally different assembly sequences are possible.
We will not examine the problem of generating a feasible assembly
sequence here. This problem is clearly important, and deserves further
research. We expect that further work on the general problem of building
large, atomically precise objects should be applicable to this special
case, and we look forward to such work as interest in nanotechnology
grows. Even though we do not consider the problem of generating a feasible
assembly sequence here, it should be clear that it is indeed possible to
build living tissue. It is, after all, done by every living creature on
the planet. It also follows from the general thesis of nanotechnology:
that the construction of almost any chemically stable object that has been
specified to the atomic level is feasible. The revised structural data
base clearly specifies such an object (the brain) and specifies its
structure in precise molecular detail. Its construction should therefore
be feasible, particularly when we consider that existing biological systems
already demonstrate "proof of principle."
CONCLUSION
Molecular repair of the brain should eventually prove technically
feasible. Divide-and-conquer is particularly attractive in view of the
relative simplicity of the assumptions on which it is based. It requires
only that: (1) tissue can be divided by some means (such as fracturing)
which does not itself cause significant loss of structural information;
(2) the pieces into which the tissue is divided can by moved to appropriate
destinations (for further division or for direct analysis); (3) a
sufficiently small piece of tissue can be analyzed; (4) a program capable
of determining the healthy state of tissue given the unhealthy state is
feasible; (5) that sufficient computational resources for execution of
this program in a reasonable time frame are available; and (6) that
finding a feasible reassembly sequence given a description of the healthy
state of the tissue is possible.
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No particular constraints are placed on the number, size, energy
dissipation, or speed of the needed repair devices. They also need not be
mobile, nor have any navigational ability. Immobility also simplifies the
power and communication networks.
In short, should nanotechnology prove feasible, then repair of frozen
tissue can be readily accomplished. Indeed, the margins for error are
sufficiently large that it would require a gross failure of projected
technical capabilities to render such repair infeasible.
APPENDIX
Approximate values of interesting numbers. Numbers marked by a "*" are
extrapolations based on projected technical capabilities (nanotechnology
and molecular computing).
Volume of the brain: 1350 cubic centimeters
Weight of the brain: 1400 grams
Weight of proteins in the brain: 100 grams
6
Weight of a ribosome: 3 x 10 amu's
9
*Weight of a repair machine: 10 amu's
*Length of a repair machine arm: 100 nanometers
Weight of water in brain: 1100 grams
Weight of protein in brain: 100 grams
Weight of lipids in brain: 175 grams
Weight of "other solids": 35 grams
Weight of "typical" protein: 50,000 amu's
Weight of "typical" lipid: 500 amu's
Weight of water molecule: 18 amu's
Weight of carbon atom: 12 amu's
Density of carbon (diamond): 3.51 grams/cubic centimeter
21
Number of proteins in brain: 1.2 x 10
23
Number of lipid molecules in brain: 2 x 10
25
Number of water molecules in brain: 4 x 10
Time to synthesize a protein: 10 seconds
*Time to repair one protein molecule: 100 seconds
*Time to repair one lipid molecule: 1 second
*Time to "repair" one water molecule: 0.036 seconds
24
*Time to repair all brain molecules: 1.8 x 10 repair-machine seconds
*Number of repair machines to repair
all brain molecules in three years: 1.8 x 1016 repair machines
*Weight of that many repair devices: 30 grams
Number of bits needed to store the 25
molecular structure of the brain: 10 bits
*Energy dissipated by a single -21
"rod logic" (gate) operation: 10 joules
-12
*Speed of a single "rod logic" (gate) operation: 50 x 10 seconds
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12
Cost of 10 joules of energy at current rates: 30,000 dollars
*Number of gate operations
12 33
10 joules can support: 10 gate operations
*Size of a single "lock" (gate)
plus overhead (power, etc): 20 cubic nanometers
33
*Volume of gates that can deliver 10
operations in three years (cooling neglected!): 0.01 cubic millimeters
12
Power of 10 joules dissipated over
a three year period: 10 kilowatts (100 light bulbs for 3 years)
Water flow required to cool a 10 kilowatt
thermal source: 5 liters per minute
Normal blood flow through the brain: 0.75 liters/minute
Chemical energy stored in the structure 6
of the brain: 8 x 10 joules(2,000 kilocalories)
-23
Boltzman's constant k: 1.38 x 10 joules/degree Kelvin
Thermal energy of one atom at room -21
temperature (300 degrees K): 4.14 x 10
joules
One watt: one joule per second
6
One kilowatt hour: 3.6 x 10 joules
Avogadro's number (the number of atoms 23
in one mole): 6.0221367 x 10
Joules per (dietary) Calorie: 4,186
One mole of a substance: that quantity of the substance that weighs (in
grams) the same as its molecular weight amu (atomic mass units): By
definition, one atom of carbon 12 weighs 12 amu's.
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26. "The Tomorrow Makers," Grant Fjermedal, MacMillan, 1986.
27. "Computer analysis of neuronal structures" by Robert D. Lindsay,
Plenum, 1977.
28. "The microcomputer in cell and neurobiology research" by R. Ranney
Mize, Elsevier, 1985.
29. "Intracellular control of axial shape in non-uniform neurites: a
serial electron microscopic analysis of organelles and microtubules in AI
and AII retinal amacrine neurites," by Sharon E. Sasaki-Sherrington, J.
Roger Jacobs, John K. Stevens, Journal of Cell Biology 98, April, 1984,
1279-1290
30. "Guinness Book of World Records," Donald McFarlan et. al., Bantam
1989.
31. "Dissipation and noise immunity in computation and communication" by
Rolf Landauer, Nature, Vol. 335, October 27, 1988, page 779.
32. "Notes on the History of Reversible Computation" by Charles H.
Bennett, IBM Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 32, No. 1, January
1988.
33. "Classical and Quantum Limitations on Energy Consumption in
Computation" by K. K. Likharev, International Journal of Theoretical
Physics, Vol. 21, Nos. 3/4, 1982.
34. "Synapses, Circuits, and the Beginnings of Memory," by Gary Lynch, MIT
Press, 1986.
35. "Memory Storage and Neural Systems," by Daniel L. Alkon, Scientific
American, July 1989, pages 42-50.
36. "Morphological basis of long-term habituation and sensitization in
Aplysia" by Craig H. Bailey and Mary Chen, Science 220, April 1, 1983,
pages 91-93
37. "How Much Do People Remember? Some Estimates of the Quantity of
Learned Information in Long-term Memory," by Thomas K. Landauer, in
Cognitive Science 10, 477-493, 1986
38. "Neurobiology," by Gordon M. Shepherd, Oxford, 1983.
39. "The anatomy of a memory: convergence of results across a diversity
of tests," by William T. Greenough and Craig H. Bailey, Trends in
Neuroscience, 1988, Vol. 11, No. 4, pages 142-147.
40. "Correlations between active zone ultrastructure and synaptic function
studied with freeze-fracture of physiologically identified neuromuscular
junctions," by Jon W. Propst and Chien-Ping Ko, Journal of Neuroscience,
November 1987, 7(11), 3654-3664.
41. "Machines of Inner Space" by K. Eric Drexler, 1990 Yearbook of Science
and the Future, pages 160-177, published by Encyclopedia Britannica,
Chicago 1989.
42. "Stopping Biological Time: The Freezing of Living Cells" by Peter
Mazur, Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 541: 514-531, 1988. "Cryobiologists are
often asked how long cells can remain viable at -196C, the temperature of
boiling liquid nitrogen (which is the usual cryogenic fluid). The answer
is clear -- more than 1000 years. The reason is that direct ionizations
from background radiation are the only source of damage at such
temperatures. Ordinary chemical reactions cannot occur. The pertinent
question then is not storage stability, it is how can one get cells down to
-196C and back without killing them."
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THE ALCOR SURVEY 1988-9
tabulated by Max O'Connor
comments by Max O'Connor and Mike Perry
Part 2 of 2
Question 33: Which of these books have you read?
A. The Prospect of Immortality (Ettinger):SM:51 AN:21
B. Engines of Creation (Drexler):SM:56 AN:27
C. Man Into Superman (Ettinger):SM:28 AN:12
D. The Immortalist (Harrington):SM:25 AN:11
E. Prolongevity (Rosenfeld):SM:26 AN:13
F. Cryonics (Sheskin):SM:13 AN:3
G. Suspended Animation (Prehoda):SM:11 AN:6
H. We Froze the First Man (Nelson):SM:22 AN:5
I. The Life Extension Revolution (Kent):SM:34 AN:15
J. The Age of the Pussyfoot (Pohl):SM:20 AN:4
K. The Door Into Summer (Heinlein):SM:36 AN:13
Engines rates tops, closely followed by Prospect. These two books
appear to be the most influential in cryonics.
Question 34: Are you currently taking any anti-aging drugs? If so, which
ones? (Do not include vitamins or minerals in this section.)
Yes:SM:6 AN:6 No:SM:53 AN:27
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Hydergine:SM:4 AN:3 Ethoxyquin:SM:1
Co-enzyme Q10:SM:6 AN:2 L-Dopa:AN:1
Centrophenoxine:SM:1 AN:1 GH-3:AN:1
Deanol:SM:1 DMAE:AN:1
Aspirin:SM:1 AN:1 Estrogen:AN:1
Despite the very serious interest in (ultimately) defeating the aging
process, cryonicists are relatively uninterested in "anti-aging" drugs
today. A guess would be that they think "we ain't there yet," that aging
will be cured, but not until nanotechnology is far more advanced.
Question 35: Have you taken any anti-aging drugs in the past? Which ones?
Yes:SM:4 AN:6 No:SM:44 AN:16
BHT:SM:10 AN:1 GH3/Procaine:SM:1 AN:1
Hydergine:SM:5 AN:4 Estrogen:SM:1
DMAE:SM:4 [2 Deanol, 1 Deaner, 2 DMAE] AN:1 [DMAE] Progesterone:SM:1
Centrophenoxine:SM:2 Gerimal:AN:1
Ethoxyquin:SM:1 AN:1 Nootropil:AN:1
Co-enzyme Q10:SM:1 Lucidril:AN:2
Piracetam:SM:1 AN:2
Again, not much interest, considering.
Question 36: Do you take vitamin/mineral supplements? Which ones and what
amount?
Life Extension Mix:SM:22 AN:10 Rutin:SM:1
Multivitamin/mineral:SM:19 AN:13 Iron:SM:1
Extend:SM:2 Vitamin A:SM:1 AN:1
Vitamin C:SM:16 AN:6 Choline Chloride:SM:1 AN:1
Vitamin E:SM:8 AN:8 Phosphatidyl choline:AN:1
Magnesium:SM:8 Vitamin B5:SM:1 AN:2
Selenium:SM:7 AN:3 Glutathione:SM:1
B Complex:SM:5 B complex:AN:1
Zinc:SM:5 AN:2 Vitamin B1:AN:1
Co-enzyme Q10:SM:6 AN:4 Vitamin B12:AN:1
Amino Acids:SM:3 AN:3 Cysteine:SM:1
Calcium:SM:3 AN:1 Ascorbyl Palmitate:SM:1
Niacin:SM:3 AN:1 Bioflavinoids:SM:1
Ginseng:SM:2 Potassium:SM:1 AN:1
RNA:SM:2 GTF:SM:1
Vitamin D:SM:2 Twin EPA:AN:1
Cognitex:SM:2 AN:2 Onion powder:AN:1
Garlic:SM:2 AN:2 EPR-1000:AN:1
BHT:SM:1 AN:1 Gamma linoleic acid:AN:1
Beta Carotene:SM:1 AN:1 Papain bromelain:AN:1
Carnitine:SM:1 PABA:AN:1
Folic Acid:SM:1 Max EPA:AN:1
Vitamin B6:SM:1 AN:1 Biotin:AN:1
Antioxidants:SM:1 AN:1 Evening primrose oil:AN:1
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Again, some people indicated that they took a number of supplements but
were unwilling to list them.
Overall, this response is very interesting compared to the previous two
questions. Many more cryonicists are interested in vitamin supplements
than in anti-aging drugs. The efficacy of vitamin supplements is more
convincing than is that of anti-aging drugs.
Question 37: Are you a vegetarian? Vegan? Chicken and fish only?
Vegetarian:SM:6 (2 of these eat a little fish) AN:1
Vegan:SM:1 (but eats fish) AN:0
Chicken and fish only:SM:11 AN:3
A few cryonicists are vegetarians, a larger number, still a minority,
avoid high-cholesterol meats.
Question 38: Do you modify your diet in any other way?
No:SM:16 Bran:SM:1 AN:1
Low fat:SM:32 AN:12 Non-fat diary products:SM:1 AN:1
High Fiber:SM:11 AN:8 Control snacking:SM:1
Low calorie:SM:8 AN:5 High sugar:SM:1
Low/no sugar:SM:6 AN:7 Lots of curries:SM:1
Low cholesterol:SM:3 AN:6 Dr. Atkins diet:AN:1
High cruciferous vegetables:SM:2 Plenty of fruit:AN:1
Low salt/no added salt:SM:2 AN:3 Plenty of vegetables:AN:1
Moderate alcohol:SM:2 Fasting:AN:1
No alcohol:SM:0 AN:1 Low saturated fat:AN:1
Low/no caffeine:SM:1 AN:2 Avoid mutagens:AN:1
Low meat:SM:1 AN:3 Avoid carcinogens:AN:1
Most cryonicists modify their diet in some way.
Question 39: Do you get regular exercise? What kind?
Yes:SM:49 AN:28 No:SM:12 AN:4
Running/jogging:SM:18 AN:10 Treadmill:SM:1
Walking:SM:17 AN:8 Construction work:SM:1
Weights:SM:16 AN:3 Volleyball:SM:1
Swimming:SM:8 AN:3 Moving heavy objects for work:SM:1
Aerobics:SM:5 AN:0 Sex:SM:1
Aerobic (unspecified):SM:4 Rowing:SM:1
Calisthenics:SM:3 AN:2 Table tennis:SM:1
Tennis:SM:3 AN:3 Trampoline:SM:1 AN:1
Cycling:SM:3 House/garden work:AN:3
Irregular:SM:3 AN:1 Racquetball:AN:1
Yoga:SM:2 AN:2 Martial arts:AN:2
Stairs:SM:1 Soccer:AN:2
Climbing:SM:1 Golf:AN:2
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Softball:SM:1 Baseball:AN:1
Basketball:SM:1 AN:4 Rowing machine:AN:1
Stationary cycling:SM:1 Dancing:AN:1
Biking:SM:1
Most cryonicists are regular exercisers, with running, walking,
swimming and weights being especially popular.
Question 40: Is there anything else you do as an anti-aging or pro-health
measure?
No:SM:27 AN:19 Use a life extension doctor:SM:1
Don't smoke:SM:4 AN:4 Safe sex:SM:1
Calorie/weight control:SM:3 AN:1 Meditation:SM:1 AN:1
Don't drink:SM:3 AN:2 Laugh a lot:SM:1
No drugs:SM:3 AN:1 Don't drive drunk:SM:1
Avoid the sun:SM:3 Avoid prescription drugs:SM:1
Reduce risks:SM:2 Lots of pleasure:SM:1
Won't get in car with drunk driver:SM:2 Avoid auto accidents:SM:1
Aspirin:SM:2 Regular aging measurements:AN:1
Almonds:SM:2 Anti-dandruff shampoo:AN:1
Regular medical check-ups:SM:2 AN:1 Filter water:AN:2
Stay intellectually active:SM:2 AN:1 "Biowater":AN:1
Get adequate sleep:SM:2 Bee pollen:AN:1
Follow life extension developments:SM:2 AN:1 Filter air:AN:1
Stress control:SM:2 AN:2 Self-defense:AN:1
Regular dental check-ups:SM:1 Drink very little:AN:1
Plenty of sex:SM:1
A major oversight was to forget to specifically ask if and how many
cigarettes respondents smoked.
In general, a large percentage of SM's and AN's do "something else" as
an anti-aging or pro-health measure, often a form of avoidance (e.g. no
drugs).
Question 41: Do you know CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation)?
Yes:SM:44 AN:14
No:SM:25 AN:21
That so many know CPR is encouraging, except that CPR's effectiveness
is now being questioned.
Question 42: Do you use seatbelts?
Yes:SM:65 AN:31 No:SM:3 AN:3 Sometimes:SM:1 AN:1
It's "no accident" that almost everyone in the survey uses seatbelts!
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PERSONALITY PROFILE
Question 43: How many books do you own?
0-49........SM:6 AN:0 500-599.....SM:1 AN:3
50-99.......SM:3 AN:2 600-699.....SM:0 AN:0
100-149.....SM:2 AN:5 700-799.....SM:1 AN:1
150-199.....SM:0 AN:0 800-899.....SM:2 AN:0
200-299.....SM:6 AN:5 900-999.....SM:2 AN:0
300-399.....SM:7 AN:3 1000+.......SM:19 AN:8
400-499.....SM:2 AN:1 (SM:7 had 2000 or more, and 2 of
these have 10,000 or more; AN:one
had 2000.)
Very few....SM:1 Thousands...SM:1 AN:1
Dozens.....SM:1 Tons/many/lots:SM:5 AN:1
Hundreds...SM:9 AN:4
Working out an average requires assumptions to be made, since some
answers are not specific. I will ignore the "tons/many/lots" category as
hopelessly vague. "Very few" will count as 25; "dozens" will count as
70; "hundreds" as 400; and "thousands" as 2,000. Take the result with
two pinches of salt and call the statistician in the morning.
Average:SM:942 AN:482
Perhaps there is some significance in the fact that on the average
SM's own twice as
many books as AN's but read books at about the same rate (actually a
slightly lower rate;
see next question). Owning books is a way of preserving information, which
is generally
of interest to cryonicists. (Indeed a brain or other preserved remains are
like books.)
Question 44:How many books do you read per year?
0-5.......SM:8 AN:1
6-10......SM:6 AN:4
11-20.....SM:14 AN:8
21-30.....SM:8 AN:2
31-40.....SM:4 AN:6
41-50.....SM:6 AN:4
51-60.....SM:4 AN:0
61-70.....SM:1 AN:1
71-80.....SM:3 AN:1
81-90.....SM:1 AN:1
91-100....SM:0 AN:2
Over 100..SM:6 AN:3
(4 of these over 200)
Dozens.... SM:0 AN:1
Ignoring the vague answers, the average is 45 for SMs, 52 for ANs,
roughly a book a week.
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Question 45: To how many magazines do you subscribe?
0-3.......SM:16 AN:8 16-19.....SM:6 AN:0
4-6.......SM:22 AN:11 20-25.....SM:5 AN:3
7-10......SM:11 AN:6 25+.......SM:4 AN:0
11-15.....SM:3 AN:6
That's an average of just over seven for SMs, and nearly 7.5 for ANs.
Question 46: Have you ever been a regular reader of science fiction? If
"yes," at what times in your life?
Yes........................SM:28 AN:18 Now occasionally...........SM:6
No.........................SM:20 AN:11 Various times..............SM:2
Always/from childhood on...SM:24 AN:10 Childhood only.............SM:1
Teen-ager..................SM:14 AN:9 Recently..............SM:2 AN:2
Off and on.................SM:4 High school................SM:1
(Other SM answers - 15-30:1; 18-35:1; from 20 to present:1. AN:one
from 12 until 30, and one from 20 to the present.)
A majority of the respondents have been science fiction readers, and
most of these in turn were hooked for life.
Question 47: List the three most important books in your life.
By "important" it was intended that the respondent list the most
influential in their thinking or course of life. Some people seem to have
thought it meant their favorite books, which may not be the same. Often
the title but not the author was listed. I have filled these in where I
can.
K. Eric Drexler: Engines of Creation:SM:17 AN:7
Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged:SM:17 AN:4
The Fountainhead:SM:4 AN:3
The Virtue of Selfishness:SM:1 AN:1
General works:SM:1
Robert Ettinger: The Prospect of Immortality:SM:16 AN:3
Man Into Superman:SM:4 AN:1
Harry Browne: How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World:SM:3
Robert Heinlein: Complete works:SM:3 AN:1
Have Space Suit Will Travel:SM:2
The Door Into Summer:SM:1
Methuselah's Children:SM:1
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:SM:0 AN:1
Time Enough for Love:SM:0 AN:2
Stranger in a Strange Land:SM:0 AN:1
Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene:SM:3
Bible:SM:3 AN:1
Arthur C. Clarke: Profiles of the Future:SM:2
The Sands of Mars:SM:1
Robert Anton Wilson: Universe Next Door trilogy:SM:1
Prometheus Rising:SM:1
& R. Shea:The Illuminatus Trilogy:SM:1
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Bertrand Russell: Why I Am Not a Christian:SM:2
Gerard K. O'Neill: The High Frontier:SM:2 AN:2
Alfred Korzybski: Science and Sanity:SM:2 AN:1
Murray Rothbard: For a New Liberty:SM:1 AN:1
Russell & Whitehead: Principia Mathematica:SM:1
Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:SM:1
Morris & Linda Tannenhill: The Market for Liberty:SM:1
Isaac Asimov: Foundation Trilogy:SM:1
Douglas Hofstadter: Godel, Escher, Bach:SM:1
Ernest Holmes: The Science of Mind:SM:1
Robert Ardrey: African Genesis:SM:1
Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:SM:1
James P. Hogan: Voyage to Yesteryear:SM:1
Pearson & Shaw: Life Extension:SM:1 AN:3
John Mann: Secrets of Life Extension:SM:1
Harold T. Meryman: Cryobiology:SM:1
Ludwig von Mises: Human Action:SM:1
Friedrich Hayek: The Constitution of Liberty:SM:1
Nathaniel Branden: Honoring the Self:SM:1
Friedrich Nietzsche: The Will to Power:SM:1
Andrew S. Tanenbaum: Structured Computer Organization:SM:1
Marilyn Ferguson: The Aquarian Conspiracy:SM:1
Robert Nelson: We Froze the First Man:SM:1
Adrian Berry: The Next Ten Thousand Years:SM:1
John Cage: Silence:SM:1
Timothy Leary: The Game of Life:SM:1
Harlan Ellison: The Glass Teat:SM:1
Roger Callaghan: Five Minute Phobia Cure:SM:1
Encyclopedia Britannica:SM:1
Brian Wowk & Mike Darwin: Tomorrow's Medicine Today:Alcor:SM:1
Homer Smith: Kamongo:SM:1
G. Gordon Liddy: Will:SM:1
Woody Allen: Short story collection:SM:1
E. R. Burroughs: Tarzan of the Apes:SM:1
Mario Puzo: The Godfather:SM:1
Anne McCaffrey: Crystal Singer:SM:1
George Orwell: 1984:SM:1
Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People:SM:1
Maxwell Maltz: Psycho-cybernetics:SM:1
G. & S. Tanner: Mormonism:Shadow or Reality? :SM:1
Pool: Technologies of Liberty:SM:1
Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter:SM:1
J. R. R. Tolkien: Lord of the Rings:SM:1
Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland:SM:1
Herman Wouk: The Caine Mutiny:SM:1
Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes stories:SM:1
First calculus book:SM:1
Lorrie Hull: Strasberg's Method As Taught by Lorrie Hull:SM:1
Beeton's Book of Needlework:SM:1
Dr. Suge: Live to be 100 and Enjoy It:SM:1
F. Scott Fitzgerald: Tender is the Night:SM:1
The Story of Harold:SM:1
Balzac: Works:SM:1
Karl Menninger: The Human Mind:SM:1
J. D. Salinger: Catcher in the Rye:SM:1
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Shipbuilding:SM:1
Physics books:SM:1
I. S. Shklovskii: Intelligent Life in the Universe:SM:1
Biophysics of Organ Preservation:SM:1
A Music Anthology for the Piano:SM:1
Saul Kent: The Life Extension Revolution:AN:2
Frank Wallace: The Neo-Tech Discovery:AN:2
Napoleon Hill: Think and Grow Rich:AN:2
Dr. Seuss: The Lorax:AN:1
Fritz Perls: Gestalt Therapy Verbatim:AN:1
Alan Harrington: The Immortalist:AN:1
Roy Walford: Maximum Lifespan:AN:1
Thomas Wolfe: The Right Stuff:AN:1
Robert Nozick: Philosophical Investigations:AN:1
Petr Beckmann: The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear:AN:1
Robert Ringer: Looking Out For #1:AN:1
Webster's Dictionary:AN:1
Funk & Wagnall's Encyclopedia:AN:1
F. M. Esfandiary: Optimism One:AN:1
Milton & Rose Friedman: Free to Choose:AN:1
Feynman, Leighton, & Sands: Feynman Lectures on Physics:AN:1
Julian Jaynes: The Origin of Consciousness. . .:AN:1
Alvin Toffler: Future Shock:AN:1
R. Buckminster Fuller: Critical Path:AN:1
Rand-McNally Road Atlas:AN:1
Ward Dean: Biological Aging Measurement:AN:1
Lelord Kordel: Eat and Grow Younger:AN:1
Gaylord Hauser: Look Younger, Live Longer:AN:1
Adelle Davis: Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit:AN:1
Students Agains Tyranny: The White Rose:AN:1
Screenwriters' Workbook:AN:1
APL: An Interactive Approach:AN:1
Lonnie Barbach: Pleasures:AN:1
George Clason: The Richest Man in Babylon:AN:1
Urantia Foundation: The Urantia Book:AN:1
Jude Wanniski: The Way the World Works:AN:1
Martin & Ramanavski: We Don't Die:AN:1
Goodman & Gillman: The Pharmacologic Basis of Therapeutics:AN:1
Chad Oliver: Science fiction:AN:1
Adam Smith Institute: The Omega Report:AN:1
David Friedman: The Machinery of Freedom:AN:1
Frank Buck: Bring 'Em Back Alive:AN:1
Manual for the Adventurer and Traveler:AN:1
Ernest Becker: The Denial of Death:AN:1
Jean Craighead George: My Side of the Mountain:AN:1
Punt:AN:1
Liberty Primer:AN:1
Partial Differential Equations of Mathematical Physics:AN:1
Celestial Mechanics:AN:1
Relativistic Field Theories:AN:1
Well, as many seem to have known beforehand, the books holding by far
the most votes (though only a plurality) are The Prospect of Immortality,
Engines of Creation and Atlas Shrugged. These three books are nearly equal
in popularity, and no other book comes close to them. Otherwise there is a
wide but thin sprinkling. Certain classes stand out:
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science fiction, libertarian philosophy and economics, scientific and
technical, health and longevity, along with an expected handful of cryonics
books.
Question 48: Do you like travel?
Yes...........SM:55 AN:30
No............SM:9 AN:3
It's okay.....SM:3 AN:2
Indifferent...SM:1
Yes, cryonicists are venturesome.
Question 49: Do you collect anything?
Yes:SM:26 AN:9 No:SM:35 AN:20
Books..........SM:14 Medical trans- Cameras.........SM:1
Coins..........SM:8 AN:4 cription notes...SM:1 Software........SM:1
Encyclopedias..SM:4 Chess sets.......SM:1 Photos..........SM:1
Videos.........SM:4 Libertarian buttons:AN:1 Antique bottles:SM:1
Comic books....SM:3 AN:2 WWII Materials...AN:1 Art........SM:1 AN:1
Stamps.........SM:2 AN:1 Old music videos:AN:1 S.F. Books......SM:1
Memories.......SM:2 Old books........AN:1 Audio tapes.....SM:1
Pictures.......SM:2 Erotica..........SM:1 Frozen indian
Guns/weapons...SM:2 Pottery..........SM:1 dinner boxes....SM:1
Antiques.......SM:2 Life ext. stuff..SM:1 Spice cans......SM:1
Journals.......SM:2 Articles.........SM:1 Art books.......SM:1
Computers......SM:1 Matchbooks.......SM:1 AN:1 Stocks........AN:1
Cryonics Baseball cards...SM:1 Historical manuscripts:AN:1
newsletters....SM:1 Friends..........SM:1 Health books....AN:1
Genealogical Post cards......AN:1
data............. SM:1 Old elec.equip.:AN:1
A large minority of cryonicists are collectors, and someone wants about
everything, books and coins topping the lists.
Question 50: Did you suffer any bereavements before getting involved in
cryonics?
Yes:SM:25 AN:6 No:SM:34 AN:30
Parents.........SM:10 AN:2 Grandparent.....SM:2 AN:1
Husband.........SM:1 Sibling.........SM:2
Son.............SM:1 Pet.............SM:5
Uncle...........SM:1 Boyfriend.......SM:1
Friend..........SM:2 Neighbor........SM:1
A large number, but less than half of SM's suffered bereavements, with
parents the most common. For AN's the fraction suffering bereavements is
much smaller, which seems to be of significance. If others close to you
have died you are probably more likely to think seriously about your own
death.
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Question 51: Do you think a lot about being rich?
Yes.............SM:24 AN:19
No..............SM:36 AN:11
Occasionally....SM:5 AN:5
Several people commented that they not only thought about it, they
planned for it.
Question 52: Before getting involved in cryonics did you, or do you now,
feel alienated from family, school, society?
Used to:Yes.............SM:36 AN:14 Now:Yes.............SM:28 AN:7
No............SM:27 AN:16 No.............SM:29 AN:15
A little......SM:5 AN:4 A little.......SM:8 AN:5
Alienation from society seemed to be more common than alienation from
family, though few people gave details. This is another question that
would have benefited from more explanation. There are different types of
alienation; you may feel alienated but able to cope and function
effectively, or you may be alienated and feel trapped and inefficacious.
Several people noted feelings of alienation but said it didn't stop them
enjoying life or functioning well. A degree of alienation seems highly
likely for people who challenge deeply entrenched traditional views of
death and who long for more understanding. The growth of the cryonics
community may be expected to provide an alternative community which can
compensate for feelings of deprivation.
Question 53: Do you read bodybuilding magazines?
Yes:SM:8 AN:3 No:SM:58 AN:27 Sometimes:SM:1 AN:5
At 13.4% (for SMs), the proportion of cryonicists who read bodybuilding
magazines is probably higher than the general population. However, I
expected it to be even more since many of us are attracted to the idea that
we will become more than human in the future. Bodybuilders seem to
represent the physical side of this in that they are far bigger and
stronger than the average human.
Question 54: Have you ever had cosmetic surgery? If not, would you if you
had the money?
Had cosmetic surgery:Yes......SM:6 AN:4 Would have:Yes......SM:17 AN:10
No......SM:58 AN:30 No......SM:38 AN:17
Maybe...SM:11 AN:4
Like question 53, this question was intended to reveal our attitudes
towards physical alterations. Though I have no control figures, it's
likely that cryonicists are more conducive to the idea of making changes in
their appearance through surgical procedures.
Question 55: Would you say that you are generally:
A. Very optimistic.........SM:20 AN:8 D. Pessimistic.............SM:2 AN:2
B. Optimistic..............SM:40 AN:20 E. Very Pessimistic........SM:2 AN:0
C. Neutral.................SM:6 AN:6 Depends on mood............SM:2 AN:1
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I know of no study of optimism and pessimism in the general population,
though the majority of people claim to be satisfied with their lives.
Cryonicists are usually much more optimistic than others, being interested
in the possibilities of a greatly extended lifespan, expansion into space,
and the absence of resource constraints. You are not likely to become a
suspension member unless you expect life in the future to be worth living.
Of course, you might think anything to be better than death, but this may
not be sufficient motivation to get signed up.
Question 56:Do you:
A. Prefer new buildings to old......SM:26 AN:12
B. Prefer old buildings to new......SM:15 AN:6
C. No preference....................SM:28 AN:18
Somewhat more cryonics people "prefer new buildings to old" than the
other way around, which suggests that the desire for novelty somewhat
dominates the urge for preservation of the past, but even more have "no
preference." In short, the issue does not seem of much significance.
Question 57: Have you ever served in the military?
Yes:SM:19 AN:7 No:SM:51 AN:31
A large majority of both SM's and AN's have not served in the military,
which does not seem surprising in view of other factors such as the
prevalence of libertarian philosophy (versus the military regimen), and
belief in overcoming death (making warmaking especially unpalatable).
Question 58: Do you belong to any community groups?
Yes:SM:16 AN:11 No:SM:52 AN:23
In general cryonicists do not seem to be "pillar of the community"
types.
Question 59: Do you give money to:
A. Humanitarian causes.............SM:37 AN:18
B. Political causes................SM:28 AN:13
C. Cultural organizations..........SM:13 AN:4
D. Religious organizations.........SM:8 AN:2
Write-ins:Alcor....................SM:8
Foresight Institute......SM:3
Scientific...............SM:1
Consumers' Union.........SM:1
Wildlife conservation....SM:1
The Venturists accounted for at least two of the religious organization
donations. Clearly cryonicists are not insular people interested only in
prolonging their own lives regardless of what goes on the world, despite
not belonging to community groups. Especially through humanitarian and
political causes they are concerned to improve the world they live in.
After all, if we don't keep an eye on what goes on, the world may not be a
very pleasant place to come back to -- and maybe we won't be able to come
back.
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Question 60: Are you a registered voter? Have you ever run for political
office?
Registered voter:Yes...SM:59 AN:20 Run for office:Yes...SM:8 AN:3
No...SM:10 AN:11 No...SM:59 AN:33
Especially considering how many cryonicists are libertarian, it's
remarkable how may have run for office. Several non-Americans noted that
registering to vote was compulsory in their country. Suspension members
are more politically active than non-members, if these results are
representative.
Question 61: On the issue of altering your own consciousness with
chemicals (such as marijuana, hashish, LSD, amphetamines, cocaine, alcohol,
barbiturates, nicotine or any subset of these):
A. Are you opposed to doing this............SM:28 AN:16
B. Believe it to be a good idea
in certain circumstances.................SM:29 AN:12
C. Believe it to be a bad idea..............SM:29 AN:15
Nearly half the SM's and AN's are opposed to psychoactive drugs. The
only drugs significantly favored were alcohol (in small amounts), and the
psychedelics (LSD, marijuana). There was almost universal opposition to or
lack of interest in the physically harmful drugs like amphetamine, cocaine,
barbiturates, and nicotine, though a few admitted to smoking despite
believing it to be a bad idea. Cryonicists are much more likely than the
general population to consider each chemical on its merits and demerits
rather than to support or oppose all chemical modifications of brain
states. Several people said that A and C were hard to distinguish. I'm
not sure what happened when I was formulating the question; either of A or
C is redundant. Virtually everyone who said "yes" to one said "yes" to the
other.
Question 62. There wasn't one. A slip which both I and the editors
missed.
Question 63: What do you think is the most important issue confronting
cryonics today?
A. Need to lower prices................SM:1 AN:4
B. Need to expand membership...........SM:23 AN:13
C. Need to increase technical
capability and standards............SM:13 AN:8
D. The legal status of cryonics........SM:47 AN:15
E. Need to expand research.............SM:14 AN:13
F. Need for co-operation...............SM:3 AN:2
G. Other:
More scientific plausibility......SM:1
Educate the public................SM:1 AN:1
Social acceptance.................SM:1 AN:1
There is a heavy emphasis of concern over the legal status of cryonics,
which reflects the crises of '88 (Dora Kent case, California Health
Department objections).
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Question 64: What suggestions do you have for reaching new members?
Generally, the suggestions were of the sort of things that have been
tried, or are being tried -- literature, media appearances, appearances at
conventions and conferences, etc.
Question 65: What do you feel are the chances of cryonics or suspended
animation working for you?
A. Very high...........SM:16 AN:3
B. Fairly good.........SM:19 AN:9
C. Possible............SM:27 AN:21
D. Highly unlikely.....SM:8 AN:3
Source of doubts:
Social/legal/political.........SM:28 AN:9 Money might run out..........SM:1
Organization may fail..........SM:8 AN:5 Philosophical................SM:1
Current techniques crude.......SM:5 AN:5 War vandalism................SM:1
Delay before suspension........SM:5 AN:1 Mistakes made................SM:1
Accident.......................SM:4 AN:2 Lack of research.............SM:1
Scientific/technical...........SM:3 Revival may be impossible:SM:1 AN:2
Memory may not be preserved....SM:2 Won't be necessary...........SM:1
Autopsy........................SM:2 AN:2 Emotional aversion......SM:0 AN:1
Distance from Alcor............SM:2 AN:1 Nuclear war.............SM:0 AN:1
Nanotech may destroy us........SM:1 Who will want to revive us? SM:0 AN:1
Ontological doubts.............SM:1
These results were interesting. They are objective evidence that
should lay to rest the idea that cryonics is a cult. Cryonicists, even
those signed up, are not "true believers." Opinions vary widely about the
chances of making it.
Question 66: What age do you think you will be when you are suspended?
30-39..........SM:1 AN:0 120-129..............SM:1 AN:0
40-49..........SM:0 AN:0 130-139..............SM:0 AN:1
50-59..........SM:1 AN:1 140-149..............SM:1
60-69..........SM:2 AN:2 Well over 100........SM:2
70-79..........SM:11 AN:8 Don't know...........SM:7 AN:1
80-89..........SM:11 AN:8 Don't think about it:SM:1
90-99..........SM:10 AN:3 Probably won't be....SM:3 AN:6
100-109........SM:9 AN:1 Possibly never.......SM:1
110-119........SM:4 AN:1
The median age range is 90-99 for SM's and 80-89 for AN's, showing they
both expect to live into ripe old age.
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Question 67: In what year do you expect your revival to be possible?
2000-24....SM:2 AN:3 2100-09....SM:13 AN:5 2180-89....SM:2 AN:1
2025-39....SM:1 AN:0 2110-19....SM:2 AN:0 2190-99....SM:0 AN:0
2040-49....SM:1 AN:2 2120-29....SM:1 AN:1 2200.......SM:3 AN:2
2050-59....SM:2 AN:2 2130-39....SM:0 AN:1 2300.......SM:1 AN:0
2060-69....SM:4 AN:1 2140-49....SM:1 AN:0 2400.......SM:0 AN:1
2070-79....SM:2 AN:0 2150-59....SM:3 AN:3 2500.......SM:2 AN:1
2080-89....SM:7 AN:1 2160-69....SM:1 AN:0 3000.......SM:1 AN:0
2090-99....SM:1 AN:0 2170-79....SM:1 AN:0
Other answers:2241 - SM:1; Few centuries - SM:1; 12,000 - AN:1; 500
years - AN:1; Never - AN:1.
There is a wide sprinkling of estimates, with the decade 2100-2109
getting the median and plurality votes for both SM's and AN's.
Question 68: In what year do you think someone suspended with current
techniques could be revived?
2010-19....SM:1 AN:0 2100-09....SM:13 AN:4 2190-99....SM:0 AN:0
2020-29....SM:2 AN:2 2110-19....SM:2 AN:0 2200.......SM:5 AN:1
2030-39....SM:1 AN:2 2120-29....SM:2 AN:0 2250.......SM:1 AN:0
2040-49....SM:3 AN:2 2130-39....SM:0 AN:0 2400.......SM:0 AN:1
2050-59....SM:3 AN:5 2140-49....SM:1 AN:0 2500.......SM:1 AN:1
2060-69....SM:4 AN:2 2150-59....SM:5 AN:4 3000.......SM:1 AN:0
2070-79....SM:4 AN:0 2160-69....SM:0 AN:0 12000......SM:0 AN:1
2080-89....SM:5 AN:0 2170-79....SM:1 AN:0 Don't know:SM:7 AN:2
2090-99....SM:0 AN:1 2180-89....SM:2 AN:0
Other answers:SM:2463:1, 3080:1, within 500 years:1; AN:2007:1,
2222:1, Never:2, Probably never:2.
Again, 2100-2109 gets the median and plurality votes among SM's, and
the median vote among AN's. (It is tied for plurality among AN's, with
2150-59. In general there seems to be a slight tendency for a later
estimate among AN's.)
Question 69: When do you expect the prevention and reversal of aging to be
possible?
By 2000......SM:1 AN:1 2050-59......SM:10 AN:5 2120-39......SM:1 AN:1
2000-09......SM:1 AN:2 2060-69......SM:5 AN:3 2140-59......SM:1 AN:0
2010-19......SM:6 AN:5 2070-79......SM:1 AN:2 2160-79......SM:0 AN:1
2020-29......SM:4 AN:2 2080-89......SM:8 AN:0 2180-99......SM:0 AN:0
2030-39......SM:4 AN:2 2090-99......SM:1 AN:0 2200.........SM:1 AN:2
2040-49......SM:1 AN:1 2100.........SM:6 AN:3 Don't know...SM:5 AN:1
Other answers:SM:Soon:1, within 500 years:1, 2500-3000:1.
AN:2230:1, 12,000:1
In general, it is estimated that aging will be prevented and reversed
some decades before revival from cryonic suspension is possible, with the
median estimate at 2050-59, some 50 years earlier than for cryonic revival.
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Question 70: How much injury do you think is done with existing perfusion
and and suspension techniques?
A. Permanent and irreversible.....................SM:1 AN:3
B. Severe, but potentially reversible in future...SM:33 AN:15
C. Severe, but almost certainly reversible........SM:30 AN:15
D. Moderate.......................................SM:3 AN:1
E. Insignificant..................................SM:1 AN:0
Don't know........................................SM:1 AN:1
As might be expected, cryonicists are cautiously optimistic.
Question 71: Do you expect any memory loss or other specific damage as a
result of freezing?
Yes................SM:25 AN:14 Possibly...........SM:5 AN:3
No.................SM:14 AN:10 Maybe short term...SM:4 AN:2
A little...........SM:9 AN:1 Probably...........SM:1 AN:1
Don't know.........SM:8 AN:2
There is a large degree of uncertainty here, which may be partly
attributed to the vagueness of the permitted responses. (For instance,
note how "a little," "probably," "maybe short term" and "possibly"
overlap.) Curiously, the AN's seem more optimistic than the SM's. A
majority, however, of both AN's and SM's favors the opinion that memory
loss will not be too severe.
CONCLUSIONS
Cryonicists have certain marked traits. They are venturesome, but at
the same time interested in preserving the past. They are nonreligious,
non-family oriented, non-society oriented yet optimistic and interested in
making a better world through more as well as less conventional means.
Though optimistic, they are not dogmatists, particularly when it comes to
cryonics. Though generally hopeful, cryonicists also acknowledge a healthy
element of doubt whether their particular approach, cryonics, will serve as
their means of deliverance. They do, of course, consider life important,
including their own. They believe in human solutions to human problems,
and that technology holds the key to the betterment of mankind even on such
a fundamental problem as mortality. They want a world where life will not
slide predictably to oblivion but be open-ended. They are willing to make
a serious, rational commitment to the attainment of that dream.
As cryonicists we are interested in reaching others who would find our
ideas agreeable and join our ranks. Thus far the single, greatest success
in spreading the word on cryonics seems to have come from one well-written
book, Ettinger's "The Prospect of Immortality." Many people, at least
among the "older guard" who were active in cryonics (or actively
contemplating) in the '60's, seem to have first heard about the idea
through this book either directly, through a chain of intermediaries, or as
a consequence of promotional efforts growing out of the book's success.
More recently, another brilliantly written book, Drexler's Engines of
Creation, has greatly improved the credibility of cryonics by suggesting,
in broad outline at least, a physical mechanism for resuscitation of frozen
humans. Well-written books make great promotional tools, though they are
not easy to generate, so that other approaches also need to be considered.
One possibility is
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to collect data of the "psychological profile" variety from a large pool of
volunteers and then try to identify those who might be predisposed to favor
the cryonics idea, based on responses of a control group of known
cryonicists. (Such people might then be sent Alcor information packs or
otherwise contacted.) The present survey could provide a starting point
for such a project, although we would want to conduct a new survey with a
more "generic" questionnaire not specifically slanted toward those who have
already embraced cryonics.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
PERSONALS
The Alcor Life Extension Foundation and Cryonics reserve the right to
accept, reject, or edit ads at our own discretion, and assume no
responsibility for their content or the consequences of answering these
advertisements. The rate is $5.00 per line per month (our lines are 90
columns wide).
Read UK views on cryonics, for and against:Longevity Report. $14.67 six
issues, $US check to "J de Rivaz." Join our lively debate! Also explore
infinity with Fractal Report, for computer buffs; $23. Westowan;
Porthowan; Truro, Cornwall TR4 8AX; United Kingdom
Looking for Texas cryonicists: Ravin Jain; 2120 El Paso, #3006; Houston,
TX 77054. Tel: (713) 797-1076.
Extropy: It's vaccine for future shock! Fighting entropy with articles on
immortalism, nanotechnology, memetics, AI, space colonization,
libertarianism, SF, psychology, morality, and more! $8/4 issues; c/o Max
O'Connor; 1129 W. 30th St., #8; Los Angeles, CA 90007
Life Extension Fiction: Including such authors as Lee Corbin, Thomas
Donaldson, Cameron and Leigh Rockwell, and other cryonics society members.
Send for a free sample issue. LIFEQUEST; P.O. Box 18690; South Lake
Tahoe, CA 95706.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Meeting Schedules
Alcor business meetings are usually held
on the first Sunday of the month. Guests are
welcome. Unless otherwise noted, meetings
start at 1 PM. For meeting directions, or if
you get lost, call Alcor at (714) 736-1703
and page the technician on call.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The OCTOBER meeting will be held at the Alcor facility:
(SUN, 1 OCT, 1989) Alcor Life Extension Foundation
12327 Doherty St.
Riverside, CA
There will be a YARD SALE of furniture and things from Dick Jones' house.
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The NOVEMBER meeting will be held at the home of:
(SUN, 5 NOV, 1989) Marcelon Johnson
8081 Yorktown
Huntington Beach, CA
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The DECEMBER meeting is the Annual Turkey Roast, at the home of:
(SUN, 3 DEC, 1989) Saul Kent and Jo Ann Martin
16280 Whispering Spur
Riverside, CA
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* * *
Alcor members in the San Francisco Bay area have formed an Alcor
chapter, and are aggressively pursuing an improved rescue and suspension
capability in that area. Meetings are generally held on the second Sunday
of the month, at 4 PM. Meeting locations can be obtained by calling the
chapter's Secretary-Treasurer, Thomas Donaldson, at (408) 732-4234 (home),
or at work, (415) 593-3200 (ask for Thomas Donaldson).
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The OCTOBER meeting will be held at the home of:
(SUN, 8 OCT, 1989) Keith Henson and Arel Lucas
1794 Cardel Way
San Jose, CA
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* * *
The New York Cryonics Discussion Group of Alcor meets on the the third
Saturday of each month at 6:30 PM, at 72nd Street Studios. The address is
131 West 72nd Street (New York), between Columbus and Broadway. Ask for
the Alcor group. Subway stop:72nd Street, on the 1, 2, or 3 trains.
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The meeting dates are as follows:
OCTOBER 21 NOVEMBER 18 DECEMBER 16 JANUARY 20
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If you live in the New York, Philadelphia, New Jersey, or Boston areas
and would like to participate in the rebirth of New York cryonics please
contact one or more of the following people:
Gerard Arthus (516) 273-3201
Curtis Henderson (516) 589-4256
HoMEҹͳƵ
ENTER NUMBET 0020