243
It should be amply clear by now that the immortal superman represents not just a goal, but a way of life, a world-view only partly compatible with today's dominant ideologies. We might call this fresh outlook the new meliorism, of which the cryonics or people-freezing program is an important current element.
The old meliorism, it will be recalled, flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; it maintained the optimistic view that indefinitely sustained progress is possible by human effort, especially through science and technology; it is the traditional American outlook. However, it focused primarily on social rather than biological change and many of its goals proved elusive in the short run, In the twentieth century the bewildering zig-zags in science and the piling up of calamities produced a psychological backlash and the rise of dark and gloomy philosophies such as existentialism.
Nevertheless, I believe the meliorists were essentially correct, and wrong only in their emphases and time scales.
244
The new meliorism will shift the emphasis away from the herd and social change, toward the individual and biological change, and it will entail more subtlety, wariness, and scope, while retaining the basic elements of optimism and scientific orientation.
My main task has been to show that optimism is not just an accident of body chemistry, but that it has rational foundations; that is what this book is about. I now conclude the effort by laying down the cornerstone of optimism, and then briefly reviewing the history and status of cryonics.
The First Theorem of Hope
Many people, before and after Gautama and Mary Baker Eddy, have thought themselves blessed with insights worth sharing, insights which illuminate or transform life. In most cases, the "insights" are defective or even delusory, as perhaps mine also will prove to be. Nevertheless, I also have a Message of Cheer, a Word of Comfort, which seems to me to have certain elements of freshness, but in any case is worth passing on to my family and friends. In particular, I hope my children will never forget it.
Like many other messages--the Lorentz transformation equations of special relativity, for instance--this one can be expressed in a few words or symbols, but not conveyed. In order really to understand and appreciate it, one must (1)
follow the derivation or proof, and (2) attend or work out numerous specific examples; otherwise the import simply does not sink in. In these few pages I hope then, to state the theorem, prove it, and flesh it out a little.
The theorem itself can be stated in many equivalent ways, of which the following is perhaps as good as any: It is always too soon for despair.
This doesn't sound like much, but stick around. It is not
245
merely a slogan, but a theorem, and is not merely asserted, but will now be proved; then its versatility will be displayed.
As preliminary to displaying the proof, a few words are in order concerning ambiguities of language and the character of mathematical and logical proofs. On the first score, we note that uncertainties of language, or even of logical relationships, do not necessarily vitiate a statement; for example, Newton's laws of motion were at first couched in slippery language, and there are still disputes as to whether the Second Law is a definition or a discovery, but there is no question that Sir Isaac said something very important.
On the second score, we remind the reader--or admit to him--that in the last analysis "proof" is subjective; one uses certain (permissible) tactics to persuade the reader, and if be isn't persuaded, that isn't necessarily because the proof was wrong, just as his agreement doesn't necessarily validate the proof. Usually, in mathematics, all competent readers will agree, but occasionally there will be a protracted wrangle. (I bypass the question whether it is possible, in principle, always to frame a proof in terms which can be verified by a computer.) I think my theorem will pass the critical tests, but perhaps not easily.
Theorem: It is always too soon for despair.
Proof: We do not know our fates.
Admittedly, this theorem will (for many people) require interpretation, and the proof, explication. First I will elaborate on the proof, with examples.
Despair is founded on the assumption that one knows his fate, or at least knows that it will be tragic. Yet in fact, no one does have such certain knowledge. Even if the world is not more mysterious than it has appeared to be, there is always a chance that one has misjudged the situ-
246
ation. The cavalry may be riding to the rescue and may momentarily appear over the hill; a disease may show spontaneous remission; the pistol pointed at your head may misfire, or its wielder may have a heart attack; there may be a shakeup in the administration; your own personality may suddenly improve, through a variety of causes; etc., etc. In addition, there are countless possibilities of delusion or illusion in your state of mind and estimate of the situation; it is even possible that you are dreaming.
We tend to forget the simplest and most obvious lessons. This is especially true in a state verging on despair, since this is often more a matter of mood and psychology than fact and logic. (In fact, we are in the process of proving that it is always a matter of mood and psychology, rather than logical estimate.) Despair derives not just from situations, but from our reactions to them. As a crude example, the onset of nuclear war should be the cause of despair for many--but some would rejoice, seeing not the end of the world but the beginning of God's kingdom. New insights and radically altered viewpoints have occurred sudden]y, again and again, to men great and small, and if the individual, bordering on despair, can discipline his mind to marshal the lessons of experience, be must always come to the same conclusion: hang in there a little longer, because the picture may yet change.
From a slightly different viewpoint, we need only remember that history-- both personal and community history, micro- and macrohistory--is characterized, in the first instance, by largely unpredictable change. Things get better, things get worse; things look better, things look worse. Like the stock market, fortunes wax and wane. We hope, on the whole, the trend is upward; in any case, it is not monotone, and anyone who is sure the future will be no better is a fool.
(My favorite optimist is the medieval con-man who was sentenced to hang by the local king for a swindle. He
247
begged the king for a year's stay of execution, promising to teach the king's horse to fly. The king grudgingly agreed, but under stringent conditions that would make the year no easy one. When another servant asked why he made such a ridiculous promise, why it wouldn't be easier to take his medicine and get it over with rather than live with hard work, fear, and tension for another year, be shrugged. "A lot can happen in a year. Perhaps I will die of natural causes, and avoid hanging. Perhaps the king will die or be overthrown, and the new regime will be more lenient. Or--who knows?--perhaps the damned horse will even learn to fly." Some will say, of course, that the con-man only conned himself, but that is part of the art of life.)
The above reminders are banal and trite, although none the less true and relevant. But there are other references in the proof less obvious and more closely related to modern developments. We see one example in the narrow application of cryonics: contrary to very recently prevailing opinion, clinical death is not necessarily irreversible, nor is biological death, and if you are frozen after death you may some day be rescued, rejuvenated, and transformed into a superman. Although the problems of mind and identity are still obscure, Dandridge Cole, for one, thought it not beyond hope that even people dead, buried, and rotten might still be resurrected by a variety of scientific techniques. (26) It has also been frequently speculated that only the pattern of the personality is decisive in determining identity; this would leave always open the chance that someday, by accident or design, you might be reincarnated.
(This is not my view; see reference 45.) The crucial question is: How likely is it that some saving grace will be found, that will turn seeming doom into life and hope? Precisely here is where most people are betrayed by their narrow experience and curdled imaginations. They suppose that hypotheses at variance with orthodoxy and everyday
248
experience are remote ones, threads too slender to support one's hopes. Their uneducated guesses make the palpable world the dominant one, and the alternatives highly improbable--even collectively.
How wrong they are! Any single hypothesis, alternative to the prevailing world-view, may have debatable probability; but the alternatives collectively far outweigh the apparent reality. This is obvious from a reading of history.
Until relatively recent times, our knowledge of man and the universe was only a fraction of what it is now. In physical nature, nearly all the currently-known laws of physics and chemistry were beyond the veil; the workings of man's body were almost completely mysterious, even to so simple and fundamental a fact as the circulation of the blood, while the conscious and unconscious minds were scarcely admitted as possible subjects of investigation.
Think of the surprising jolts delivered to science in the memory of living men. Near the end of the nineteenth century nuclear radiation was discovered, with the overthrow of the supposedly sacrosanct laws of conservation of matter and energy (in the forms then accepted). Shortly after, Einstein's special relativity turned common sense topsy-turvy, for example, proving false the "self-evident" proposition that two events either are simultaneous or not. (They may be simultaneous in one frame of reference, while not in another.) Later, the quantum theory seemed to admit a random factor in the world, shaking Newtonian and Laplacian determinism. In the last decade we have seen serious consideration of the idea that signals can be transmitted faster than light. (12)
Reputable scientists are working on a theory (the Everett-Wheeler-Graham theory) of multiple worlds or parallel universes, with each quantum event producing a new splitting or branching so that realms of existence proliferate in stupendous numbers. Thus another old notion of
249
science fiction is being tentatively reduced (or expanded) to mathematics, if not yet to hardware. (36) There is no sign whatever that we are near the end of the road; some scientists conjecture that reality may consist of an infinite number of layers, each more subtle than the previous one and conferring greater powers of manipulation, so that we will learn more and more, but will never know everything.
In view of the number of surprises we have already received, and the rapidity with which they keep coming, it is only prudent to suppose that the outer darkness is far vastert han our little circle of light. The ancients considered it only remotely possible that reality was other than it seemed; but we must conclude the reverse--it is extremely improbable that our present notions of the world will stand up.
What we now see is only a small facet of the world, and our interpretation even of that facet we must assume to be dim and clumsy. We can have confidence only in this: the world is not what it appears to be. Hence there is never ground for despair, which is the complete abandonment of hope.
But is this the proper definition of despair? As a matter of psychological--as opposed to logical--reality, an extremely slim hope may be equivalent to none. Furthermore, despair may in some sense be a benefit; some may embrace despair as a way out of their troubles--give up and avoid further responsibility. It is for just these reasons that I have been at pains to show that it is not merely possible, but nearly certain, that our present outlooks will be radically altered by new discoveries. Not only will we discover new things, but startling new interpretations of old things, and we shall surely find ways to take comfort from some of them without delusion.
It is a strange irony that despair requires a kind of arrogant self-confidence, the assurance that one knows all the important factors, while hope can stem from humi-
250
lity (realism), the recognition that hidden factors may still operate to save us. How fortunate then is our generation, in this also, that we have so many recent lessons in humility, on which to build our structure of hope.
None of the foregoing is new, in its individual elements; but there is some degree of novelty in the overview, in making explicit and cohesive what has heretofore been implicit and fragmented. In particular, I am not aware that there has been any formal recognition of the implications of recent lessons in the unreliability of world-views, in terms of individual outlook and behavior. No one really seems to take seriously the lessons of history outlined above; our "philosophers" are dilettantes only, who talk a good game sometimes but never play it.
Those who learn the First Theorem, and some of its many corollaries, would be advised to adopt the cryonics motto, not just as it pertains to physical death, but for all situations where one is tempted to fundamental despair: Never say die.
Emancipations and Revolutions
Now some loose ends need to be tied together, not through a full-dress exposition of cryonics--which was the work of another book--but by a brief review of its origin and status, including recent developments.
As of 1971 at least fourteen "dead" people have been frozen in hope of eventual rescue-i.e., restoration to active life, health, and even physical youth. The human cold-storage concept first received wide attention in 1964, and the first human was frozen in 1966; now there exist physical facilities and organizations for this purpose in a score of states and foreign countries, and many leading experts in low-temperature biology have given at least tacit approval.
251
Two obvious questions come to mind. (1) How is it that so radical a notion, so outrageous a proposal, so shamelessly ambitious a project has had relatively so much success so soon, so little active opposition? (2) How is it that the greatest hope of all the ages has met so much passive resistance and so little enthusiasm, especially among scientists?
The following discussion provides at least preliminary answers to both.
Cryogenics is an old word referring to low-temperature technology; cryonics is a recently coined word pertaining to human cold-storage or "cryogenic interment"--and, in a larger sense, to all of the life extension sciences. The purpose of cryogenic interment is nothing less than our emancipation from the ultimate bondage of death. (How ironic, that writers often refer to people being "freed" by death!--when in fact death is the complete, the absolute absenceof freedom, since both power and will are reduced to nil.)
The emancipation from death, seen as an historical process, in some way resembles an earlier and lesser emancipation, that of the slaves in America.
Every great controversy sees people of intelligence and high principle on both sides, even though later ages may view one side as entirely in the right. For example, when the abolition of Negro slavery was a political and social controversy, the abolitionists were considered radical; they were extremists. From our standpoint in historv, we regard the abolitionists as having been altogether in the right, and those who wanted to preserve slavery as completely unjustified. But for a long time the weight of prestige and the influence of many great and good individuals was all on the side of preserving slavery, or of slowly modifying it.
Every revolution, every radically new program, encounters massive resistance at first, even if only the resistance of inertia and indifference. It is well known what
252
Semmelweiss went through with regard to the use of asepsis in surgery--how important that revolution was, how slow it was in making headway, and how great was the opposition of tradition. Laymen almost always feel compelled to accept the consensus of "expert" opinion; but when there is a sharp break with tradition, and when the issue is laden with heavy emotional freight, the appeal to authority is virtually useless. The individual, whether scientist, physician, clergyman, or layman, has the onerous duty of evaluating the evidence as best he can and deciding for himself. In the military field, by way of partial analogy, we do not blindly accept the advice of the experts on all occasions; in fact, the Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces (the President) and the second in command (the Secretary of Defense) are both civilians. They accept the responsibility of passing military judgment, and sometimes overrule the experts. Despite their lack of training and detailed knowledge, they acquire enough information about specific large issues through study and argument to consider themselves--and to be--competent to pass judgment.
To gain perspective we must also remember that, in emotional issues, much seems to hinge on subtle nuances of psychology, on shades of meaning and turns of phrase. Those who bristle at the blasphemous notion of "resurrecting the dead" may be perfectly agreeable to "saving life." Those who are repelled by the thought of "another time around," or "imposing themselves on the future," may be attracted by the idea of new opportunities for adventure, growth, and service. Only an imperceptible shift may be required to transform the pessimist who sees the door of opportunity as nearly closed, into the optimist who sees it beginning to open.
This shift is occurring. The climate of opinion, as I know from frequent public contacts, is steadily improving. But
253
the change is still too slow; the same tired misconceptions and spurious objections are hanging on much too long, and repeated efforts are necessary to put the program and issues in focus. As a prelude, for the benefit of the latecomers and the partially oriented, I will very briefly outline the history of cryonics.
Cryonics Precursors
Faint and distorted intimations of our thesis have been around a very long time--perbaps almost as long as man himself. Certainly the ancient Egyptians attempted to preserve the bodies of the dead with the thought of resurrection, and the astonishing thing is that they may not have been far wrong. Mummies thousands of years old sometimes show much soft tissue partially preserved, including brains. (17) Recently, scientists have suggested that it may become possible to extract the genetic information from mummified animals, including humans, and grow organisms--"twins"-- of the deceased from the cultured material. While this is very far from restoring the individual himself, still it would be most impressive.
About a century ago, C. A. Stephens tidied up the Egyptian notion and wrote, "Have your own body embalmed at your death in the hope that ere many decades death will be vanquished and the resurrection be brought within scientific possibilities. (60) Benjamin Franklin had similar ideas still earlier. Stephens was over-optimistic as to the pace of progress, but the basic idea has not been proven wrong.
In the 1930's, Neil R. Jones wrote a science-fiction story about a Professor Jameson who arranged to have his body placed in an artificial satellite for perpetual frozen storage. (Jones apparently believed, mistakenly, that the "temperature of outer space," even at the earth's distance from the sun, is near absolute zero.) After millions of years, however, with humanity extinct, a wandering spaceship happens by, carrying aliens of such advanced accomplishments that they are able to revive his brain and endow it with indefinitely extended life, placing it in a mechanical body. Oddly enough, Jones (and his readers) never seemed to realize that what aliens might do, we might also--someday--and that this offers hope for everyone.
Meanwhile, stories about "suspended animation" had become common, going back at least as far as Edmond About in nineteenth-century France. These usually focussed on freezing as the means of biostasis, but they seldom linked suspended animation to extended life, and they always seemed to assume freezing before clinical death, by non-lethal methods.
The Modern Beginning
In 1946 jean Rostand first reported the protective effect of glycerine in freezing animal tissue, and this might be said to open the modern era of cryobiology (low-temperature biology) and put anabiosis on a footing of more than vague hope. (41) Rostand himself made part of our thesis explicit by predicting that one day the incurably ill would be frozen to await the time when technology would beequal to their needs. (148)
Ideas about the relativity of death were also being deepened and broadened in the first half of this century, with thousands of people revived after clinical and legal death. (119) It was becoming clear that life is a set of complex processes, and that death--tbe cessation of life--is not necessarily sudden, or complete, or irreversible. Rather, it is usually gradual, incomplete for a protracted period, and
255
dependent for reversibility on the state of medical art; absolute criteria of reversibility, if they exist, are still unknown. These remarks apply, it is important to note, both to the organism and to its individual cells. In short, death may be regarded as a disease, not necessarily fatal.
Equally important, although less generally recognized, was the gradual emergence of the idea that deterioration with age may not be an inevitable consequence of living, as Bernard Strehler noted. Senile debility itself may be regarded as a disease, since it is a "deficiency relative to a desired norm," which is Joshua Lederberg's criterion. This disease--tbe most insidious of all--may one day be preventable and even curable, allowing indefinitely extended life.
Despite the complex side issues in sociology, religion, economics, law and philosophy, the basic proposition remains simple. The patient (we do not regard him as a cadaver, even if his death certificate has been signed, and even after he is glass-hard we prefer not to call him a "stiff") should be frozen or otherwise preserved, as soon as possible after legal death, by the best available methods, even if these are "lethal" by present criteria. He will suffer, in general, sixkinds of damage, due to (1) the fatal disease or injury; (2) the early stages of the dying process; (3) the crude freezing techniques (in the near future); (4) old age (since most people die old); (5) the effects of long-term storage; and (6) the effects of thawing. But deterioration in liquid nitrogen, once cooling is complete, is thought to be negligible (9) and no one will be thawed until these techniques are fully perfected, as proven by animal experimentation. (If, never-
[footnote]*In 1947 1 began to rediscover, integrate, clarify, extend, and develop these ideas. First publication was in a fiction story in 1948. (50) In 1960 I selected a couple of hundred names from Who's Who in America, and tried to interest them by letter, but the very small and weak response made it clear that a convincing presentation would have to be of book length. The preliminary version of The Prospect of Immortality was privately published in 1962, and the expanded Doubleday edition in 1964. (45)
256
theless, an error is made, and revival is not fully successful, he could be popped back into the freezer until our resources improve sufficiently.) Hence, if it turns out that the first four kinds of damage are reversible--no matter how far in the future this is accomplished--the patient may one day be restored to active life and physical youth.
These ideas were beginning to stir in several minds in the early sixties, and probably occurred to many people independently. Evan Cooper also published a book in 1962 and Lawrence N. Jensen was preparing to write one. (84)
Recent Events
It is not yet time, and this is not the place, to attempt a detailed tracing of the modern history of cryonics. A partial history is available in We Froze the First Man, by Robert F. Nelson, President of the Cryonics Society of California. Let us just note here a few highlights of recent years, and the situation as of this writing.
At least fourteen people have been frozen, although only eleven of these remain frozen; history, alas, has already seen its first mother-melter. Perhaps the best-known names are Professor James H. Bedford, Marie Phelps Sweet, Steven Jay Mandell, and Mrs. Ann DeBlasio (12) There have also been persistent rumors that certain wealthy and famous people have been quietly frozen, notably Walt Disney, but so far as I know, these are false.
Non-profit organizations active in the program have a probable membership of between one and two thousand. The Cryonics Society of New York was formed in 1965 as a result of a schism, over activism, within the Life Extension Society, beaded by Evan Cooper. The leaders of C.S.N.Y. are attorney Curtis Henderson and editor Saul Kent; they, together with Bob Nelson, have in recent years been the chief sparkplugs of the Societies, and someday historians
257
will pay adequate tribute to their qualities of leadership and determination. Anatole Dolinoff, the principal European leader, has similar qualities.
There are now about a dozen Cryonics Societies in the United States, Europe, and South America. (29) There are also many "cryonics coordinators" laying the groundwork for additional Societies. At least four of the Societies--those of France and, in the United States, New York, California, and Micbigan--have physicians and morticians as members or in cooperation, and have substantial physical capability, including specially constructed equipment, e.g., mobile emergency units (special vans analogous to ambulances) and permanent storage units or cryonic suspension modules.
Led by Frederik Horn and the St. James Funeral Home( Long Island, N. Y.) and Joseph Klockgether in California, several morticians have given active cooperation; and the National Funeral Directors Association has moved, in the course of six years, from cautious hostility to cautious approval. (155) Colleges of mortuary science have repeatedly invited our speakers, as have medical colleges. The list of cooperating physicians is headed by Dr. M. Coleman Harris, first chairman of the Bay Area Cryonics Society (San Francisco).
The first permanent storage units, or cryocapsules, were made by Cryo-Care Equipment Corporation of Phoenix, Arizona, headed by E. Francis Hope and his partners. These could be described as giant dewars or thermos bottles, with an inner cylinder of aluminum or stainless steel (which does not become brittle at very low temperatures), an outer cylinder of steel, and a vacuum space between for insulation, with multiple radiation barriers of aluminized mylar. These units, varying in design, are about ten feet long, four feet in diameter, and weigh 1,000 pounds empty; a charge of liquid nitrogen lasts several months. They sold roughly for $4,000, and reportedly required $300 to $500 annually for
258
liquid nitrogen. It was the pictures of Ed Hope's capsules, big and solid on many magazine pages and TV screens, that began to convince the public that cryonics was more than talk.
In August 1969 the first of the large cryogenics firms entered the field when Minnesota Valley Engineering Co. produced a new unit for vertical storage. (Society members can now say we are so stubborn that when we die we not only refuse to rot, we won't even lie down!)
Religious objection to cryonics has been minimal, with most major denominations showing no hostility to "God's frozen people." When Mrs. Ann DeBlasio was frozen there was a Roman Catholic funeral, with the approval of the priest and the bishop, and the capsule was consecrated by Father Saverio Mattei in a formal ceremony. In connection with Steven Mandell's cryonic suspension there was an Orthodox Jewish ceremony. Many clergymen have written favorably. (126) Others have objections or reservations, but these seem to be mainly sociological rather than strictly theological.
There has been at least one instance of formal legal recognition: Bronson LaFollette, the Attorney General of Wisconsin, has written that in his opinion cryonic suspension is lawful in that state. (91) A committee of attorneys of the Cryonics Society of New York has prepared suggested legal documents--to be modified for the individual and the jurisdiction--intended to give reasonable assurance that the patient's wishes will be carried out. (62) There have been several papers in legal journals. (16)
The first two storage facilities have ceased to operate, but the patients have been transferred to others that are intended to be permanent. Cryonic Interment, Inc. has two facilities on land purchased in cemeteries, one near Los Angeles and one in Butler, New Jersey. (29) Cryo-Span Corporation has a facility on Long Island. (29) CryoCrypt Corporation has purchased a small cemetery on Long Island, and built an installation there. (29)
To some extent, there persists a chicken-and-egg problem: the potential customers do not know where to buy a complete package of cryonic services, and, therefore, cannot make the demand known; in the absence of a proven large-scale demand, the people best qualified to provide the services hesitate to enter the field. This vicious circle has been cracked at several points, but it remains true that no well-integrated and well-financed organization exists. The societies and the new firms are trying hard to remedy this.
Advances in Research
Meanwhile, cryobiological research has advanced somewhat in recent years, despite the scant support it receives and despite the almost total lack of full-time workers in this field. Gains are being made in the understanding of freezing damage. (89) Although supposedly knowledgeable people are repeatedly quoted in the press to the effect that we still cannot successfully freeze "even a single organ," there have been several successes and partial successes. Ralph Hamilton and Herndon Lehr have frozen a segment of dog small intestine for a week at liquid nitrogen temperature, with full restoration of function after tbawing. (66) N. Halasz and colleagues have reported the long-term survival of dog kidneys after freezing to below -50*C; and the kidney is a very complex organ with many functions. (61) More spectacular, although less unequivocal, were the results of Professor Isamu Suda and colleagues at Kobe University; thebrains of several cats were frozen, one for over six months, with a fairly good corticogram--brain wave tracing--afterthawing. (166) The brain is, of course, by far the most important organ, being the principal seat of the personality
260
and memory; in fact, many physicians advocate using the encephalogram as the main indicator of life or death, so that one could make a case for saying we have already achieved suspended animation!
In fact, the Cryonics Society of Michigan in 1970--following a suggestion a couple of years earlier of Dr. M. Coleman Harris--began investigating the legal feasibility of "mercy freezing" or freezing a terminally-ill patient before clinical death. The three main advantages are obvious: (1) the patient will be less deteriorated if the presently incurable illness is not allowed to go its full course, and therefore fully successful revival will be more probable; (2) even more important, perhaps, the freezing will take place at a selected time and place, under optimum conditions, whereas ordinarily it is extremely difficult to make an accurate prediction of the date of death, so there is usually a delay after death before the team can reach the patient; (3) suffering and expense will be reduced.
We may go to court and seek a declaratory judgment that will allow freezing before death, under carefully specified conditions, arguing that it is desirable because it improves the patient's over-all chances, and it is permissible both for this reason and because the patient--in light of Dr. Suda's experiments--may still be "alive" after freezing. Needless to say, if the patient has official status as still living after freezing, this again offers many legal and administrative advantages, along with endless puzzles and difficulties.
(In April 1969, at the Second Annual National Cryonics Conference, at the University of Michigan, the Cryonics Societies of America presented Dr. Suda with the first cash award for outstanding research in cryobiology.)
Another important advance in research was announced at the Third National Cryonics Conference in Los Angeles, in May 1970, by Dr. Peter Gouras, referring to his own research and to work reported by Hossmann and Sato in Germany." Briefly, they have debunked the myth held almost universally by physicians and scientists, that the brain suffers "irreversible" damage after eight or ten minutes without blood and oxygen. Cryonicists, of course, have always pointed out that the word "irreversible" refers to existing techniques, and that absolute criteria of irreversibility, if any, are unknown, so it is always wrong to give up. Now we have been vindicated in another important specific instance. It turns out that the mammalian brain (the work was done with cats) can stand at least an hour of total ischemia (lack of blood) at body temperature and recover completely. Apparently, previous failures resulted from inability to re-establish circulation, because of swelling in certain tissues. The remedy is extremely simple: raise the blood pressure to force the renewed circulation despite the swollen tissues. "Irreversible" indeed!
In light of these and other successes, it is clearly time for the scientist to examine his conscience, if he has not already doneso.
The Scientist's Double Standard & Probability Theory
How is it possible that in spite of growing support and an unimpeachable logical foundation for our thesis, so many men of intelligence, good will, and expert knowledge are still cool to cryonics? The answer is manifold, since the scientist has many facets to his personality and cryonics touches on every nerve and gland; the root cause, in most cases, lies in neurosis, in irrational pathways of fear. But right now I want to look at the shortcomings of these scientists as scientists.
262
The ugly central fact is that many of them have simply been irresponsible, making offhand statements about our program that they would never dream of making in a technical journal. There have been many public statements to the effect that if someone is frozen by present methods, the chance of revival--ever--is "negligible" or " remote" or "vanishingly small." Well, if someone says the chance is "negligible," that merely means that he is willing to neglect it. But if someone says the chance is "vanishingly small," he is simply lying.
The proof is easy: ask him the simplest and most direct questions. How do you know? What is your proof? Where are your calculations? These "experts" have no answers to such questions; they can only point out, lamely, that the repair job will be exceedingly difficult--measured against their estimate of future capability. But our knowledge of the nature and extent of freezing and thawing damage is limited, and anyone who thinks he can estimate the limits of scientific capability in the indefinite future is an idiot. No one, to my knowledge, has even pretended to make such an estimate on any rational basis, let alone succeeded. This is hard for a layman to appreciate, but should be easy for a scientist.
Perhaps some of these men suffer more from ignorance than irresponsibility; maybe they know a lot about biology,but little about probability theory. Yet a little reflection should convince them that the probability of revival is not small; it is simply unknown, which is not at all the same thing.
It is possible, in principle, to make a calculation of probability for any event, past or future, repetitive or not. Yet in many cases the sequence of reference experiments--roughly corresponding to the kollektiv of von
263
Mises--is so vaguely indicated or so limited that the uncertainties make calculation virtually useless. This is our situation with respect to the event, "future technology will allow repair of injury inflicted by present freezing methods." We want to minimize risks and maximize chances by every means, but we cannot actually assign a number to the probability of success with even moderate confidence.
Some eminent cryobiologists have actually asked us something like this: "If you have so much faith in future technology, why bother with freezing? Why not just embalm these people, or preserve them by some other cheap method? Will they not still be eventually rescued?" Incredible, that people calling themselves scientists should seriously ask such questions! Gegen die Dummheit, selbst die Götter nicht kämpfen können. Although we cannot explicitly calculate the odds with any confidence, it is crystal clear that our chances are better with freezing than with embalming. There is evidence that, under favorable circumstances, most of the cells survive freezing; this is not true of embalming. Mammalian organs have survived freezing, but not embalming. We do not have "faith" in future technology; we simply observe the outlines of history and play the percentages, determined to give ourselves every possible advantage.
Judging a Gamble
The reluctant scientist can, and often does, take final refuge in his "feelings;" be cannot prove the chance is small, but nevertheless feels it is. The giveaway is his frequent use of the word "negligible," which just means, as already pointed out, that he is a pessimist. There are two sore points here, both related to value judgments.
264
First, it is clearly not cricket for the scientist, if he happens to value extended life lightly, to use his prestige as a scientist to browbeat laymen. (Harold Meryman, for example, is a cryobiologist who has deprecated the chance of revival, and who also has admitted that he hopes we do not learn how to extend life indefinitely.) Personal values must be kept distinct from scientific judgments of this sort. This is especially true when his professional competence is in question--and no one is competent to make confident predictions about the distant future. The appeal to authority is almost completely spurious.
Second, the deprecator can easily obscure another vital point; the worth of a gamble depends not only on the chance of success, but also on the value of success; in fact, the positive term in the "expected value" is just the product of these two numbers, the probability of success and the payoff. Even if the chance of revival and repair were minuscule--which I do not concede--the prize is so enormous, in the view of some people, that the effort would still be justified. Although there is not--I emphasize, not--a very close parallel, we can draw a partial analogy with the IrishSweepstakes.
The probability of success in the sweepstakes is very small; yet the prize, for many, is attainable in no other way. Unless they buy tickets, they feel sure of dying poor, whereas the chance of winning brightens drab lives. Hence it is not necessarily wrong to participate, even though the expected value is negative, since the positive term is less than the cost of a ticket. In the cryonics sweepstakes this is emphatically not true; the expected value may be tremendous, both in dollars and in the intangibles. An interesting sidelight is that the Irish Sweepstakes generate money for hospitals; there is a good parallel here--tbe cryonics pro-
265
gram is generating money for research in cryobiology and gerontology, with potential benefit to everyone.
The Arrogance of Pessimism
So very many scientists are so very confident that this or that will "never" be accomplished. They are unaware that they are revealing childish egotism! They are saying, in effect: "I cannot imagine bow this thing could be accomplished; therefore nobody, even from the vantage point of a later era, will ever be able to do so." What sublime conceit! What historical illiteracy!
We need not agree that "anything is possible." In fact, the things that are possible are probably of measure zero--to use mathematical jargon--compared with the things that are not possible. just the same, every generation of scientists is surprised to find that the end is not yet. Regardless of lip service to radical change, every generation, with the exception of a few hardy souls, seems to think that all the revolutions are past, and that only minor refinements are left.
We have mentioned some of the ludicrous failures of nerve and imagination so frequent among distinguished scientists in the past, including the recent past. Even professional visionaries have been comically short-sighted. H. G. Wells, in 1902, said, "I do not think it at all probable that aeronautics will ever come into play as a serious modification of transport and communication ... Man is not an albatross ." (117) Such examples could be multiplied.
Certainly the optimists have also frequently been wrong; great expectations have often gone unfulfilled. For every successful visionary, there are probably hundreds who are not vindicated. But there is one crucial difference between the optimist and the pessimist: it only takes one success to prove the latter wrong, while any number of failures can only prove the optimist is wrong so far. When the Wright brothers took the air at Kitty Hawk, all the hundreds of previous failures to fly, all the thousands of years of negative results, in that minute became irrelevant.
In any case, the "experts" are nearly the worst people to ask about future prospects--for example, of reviving someone frozen by crude methods. They are so familiar with the difficulties, and so impressed by them, and so devoid of any present ability to cope with them, that they naturally tend to pessimism. And although there is a pleasant legend that great men tend to be humble, my experience suggests the contrary: the more exalted the expert, the more rigid he is likely to be in his insistence that what he cannot conceive, now, no one can accomplish, ever.
Two Extreme Views
Until very recently, in fact, the experts clustered near the extreme lower boundary of pessimism or conservatism, which is the recommendation that no one be frozen until success is assured. Idiotic as it sounds, this view is actually expressed by many scientists and physicians. It means, presumably, that we must wait until someone has been frozen, stored, revived, rejuvenated and lived forever. More seriously, it means that we cannot place any reliance whatever on future advances in repair; we must assume that damage not reparable now will never be reparable. (And we must lump in thawing damage with freezing damage.) Such an attitude cannot be explained in terms of logic or biology, but only sociology or psychiatry.
The view at the opposite extreme--in which I concur--was expressed by Professor Gerald Feinberg of Columbia University: "I believe. . . a good first approximation for . . .predictions is to assume that everything will be accom-
266
plished that does not violate known fundamental laws of science, as well as many things that do violate these laws [as [presently conceived]."
In other words, if something is possible in principle and if we want it enough, it will be achieved in practice, sooner or later, regardless how formidable the difficulties appear; and even if it is now thought to be impossible in principle, it may nevertheless turn out to be feasible, through changes in the "laws" or in their interpretation.
Through no coincidence, Dr. Feinberg is a member of the Cryonics Society of New York. He is also the author of a paper in the Physical Review, the world's leading journal of research in physics, which stunned the scientific world and may revolutionize both science and industry, as previously mentioned. In this paper he showed, contrary to the previous opinion of almost every scientist, including Einstein himself, that the theory of special relativity does not necessarily preclude the existence of particles traveling faster than light in vacuo. His hypothetical "tachyons" have also been discussed in many lay periodicals.
If the existence of tachyons is verified--and university laboratories in the United States and Europe are spending substantial sums of money looking for them--there will be staggering theoretical and practical consequences; it will amount to a fourth major advance in physics, comparable to those of the Newtonian era, relativity, and quantum theory, and Professor Feinberg will take his place among the giants of history. But even if tachyons do not exist, the electrifying shock to scientists is scarcely diminished. It has been shown, once more, that things may be achieved which were thought to be not only improbable, but downright impossible. This new lesson in humility is sorely needed.
Cryonics and Medical Ethics
Like the scientists, most physicians remain pessimistic
268
and noncommittal. Let us consider the ethics of their position.
Apparently tending to justify reluctance is the tradition that rejects the use of any but proven methods on human patients; and this principle fits well with the natural inclination not to exert oneself or expose oneself to criticism. This combination, in fact, dominates the thinking of most physicians (with some notable exceptions). In addition, there is a school of medical thought that recommends, in principle, against extraordinary efforts to save "useless" patients. (There was a well-publicized scandal in England a few years back about the notation "NTBR"--not to be resuscitated"--on the beds of elderly patients in event of heart failure.)
Yet the vital core of the medical ethic is that the patient comes first--not society, not the family, and certainly not the physician's convenience, but the patient--and that even heroic measures are justified in the attempt to prolong life, especially if the patient requests them. Furthermore, there is wide recognition that desperate cases justify desperate measures: unproven remedies are permissible if the patient has no other hope.
The latter viewpoint was publicized in the fall of 1967, when Dr. Christiaan Barnard appeared on American television after the first heart transplant. He had been criticized for using an insufficiently tested technique, but calmly pointed out that the patient had no other chance. If this reasoning is valid, as most seem to agree, then it applies even more forcefully to cryonics. After all, Dr. Barnard actually killed his patient, in a sense, since he cut his heart out, and the net result might have been to shorten his life, whereas the cryonics patients are already clinically dead and have nothing at all to lose.
Another point with a close parallel in cryonics was on the same TV program by an American participant, the
269
celebrated surgeon Dr. C. W. Lillehei. Dr. Lillehei pointed out that Dr. Barnard's operation gave hope to countless other heart patients, and therefore constituted a therapeutic achievement in itself, regardless of the outcome. Just so, and more so, with cryonic suspension! The patient "dies" with an extra measure of hope, and the family's grief is mitigated; these are substantial benefits, whatever the medical sequel. This is not guesswork; we have firsthand reports that the patients, and their families, were comforted. After young Steven Mandell was frozen by the Cryonics Society of New York in July of 1968, his mother, Mrs. Pauline Mandell, said: ". . . there is so much less feeling of loss when there is a flicker of hope ... there is a light at the end of the tunnel." (10)
Needless to say, the feeling of hope does not by itself justify unusual medical measures; if it did, every con artist and fakir could make a case for himself. But when it can be shown that the hope is rational, then the other benefits, such as stimulus to research and reduction of grief, become bonuses.
Understanding is slowly increasing, and medical participation in our program is also. The early fears of scandals and ostracism have proven empty; there has been no hysteria, and the medical and other professionals who have assisted in cryonic suspension have not suffered. But neither the growth of awareness nor the degree of awareness is adequate to the challenge, so far. The minimum moral requirement has been expressed by theologian Robert Johansen, Crozier Theological Seminary:
"Doctors and ministers who, by not at least explaining the freezer program, are actually making a decision about the lives of their followers without even consulting them. Whether or not one favors cryonic suspension, it is my belief that it should at least be made known as an option. That is to say, even a chance of success offers enough
270
merit for close examination by all those who are honestly concerned about life." (85)
By acquainting his patients with the opportunity, the physician is not putting himself out on any limb. After all, there is no problem of availability of a new drug, of learning an esoteric technique, or of legal permission. The physician does not have to perform any physical services, if he prefers not to; Cryonics Society personnel or associates will take over, if appropriate arrangements can be made in time. The minimum asked--and the minimum the patient has a right to expect--is that the opportunity be made known in time. In this case, silence is not golden, but perhaps the blood red of negligent homicide.
Research and Cryonics
There is one more foible of many scientists and physicians important enough for separate attention: the notion that we should spend our money on research, not on cryonic suspension. This is nonsense on its face, and on the record.
To begin with, as repeatedly emphasized, those now dying cannot wait for more research, but must be given the benefit of whatever chance current methods offer. Most of us, if we are in our right minds, have limited interest in abstract humanity or remote posterity; we are primarily concerned with those near us, and cannot forego their probable physical benefit and certain psychological benefit. But even on their own terms, those who complain that research should come first are wrong.
Cryonics does not divert money from research, but channels money into research, and it is the only likely source of such funds in large amounts. Those who speak of using the funds for research "instead" of cryonics are out of touch
271
with reality: these are not the alternatives. This is scarcely even arguable; it is a matter of record. Cryobiology has always been ill-supported, and in recent years support seems actually to have dwindled, partly because of a cutback in NASA funds. And private efforts to raise research money have had very little success. In contrast, organizations growing directly out of the cryonics program have donated money to cryobiological research without the help of a single big name: these include the Cryonics Societies of America, the Harlan Lane Foundation, and the Bedford Foundation. The sums involved have so far been very modest, but they will grow with the Societies. Note, for example, that Professor James Bedford, not a very wealthy man, left $100,000 of his estate for research in cryobiology and related areas, because he was planning cryonic suspension for himself. (10) Does it require much imagination to see how this research will fare when people are being frozen by the thousands or by the millions?
The can-rattling approach to fund-raising, and appeals to a vague and diffuse altruism, are unlikely to produce more than small change. The community will not support many "March of Dimes" campaigns. But a dynamic cryonics program will mean personal involvement and emotional commitment, and the will to apply major resources to research.
Note carefully, once more, that this is not conjecture: it is happening. I personally know many individuals in our societies who are devoting major energies to the program and making many sacrifices to assure their families' preparations. We in the cryonics societies intend to extend and systematize our efforts to support research in cryobiology, gerontology and related disciplines. The measures contemplated include a routine allocation of a percentage of all funds, and organized solicitation of foundations and individuals, as well as lobbying. (The latter activities will be important only in the short run; the program itself, once it reaches critical mass, will generate all the money the biologists can possibly absorb.) Needless to say, our efforts will depend substantially on the support we receive from the scientific community. A positive feedback is involved: cryonics and biology need each other, and to speak of either as coming "first" is nearly meaningless.
The Scientific Advisory Council
In 1968 a breakthrough was achieved in relations with the scientific community. Until then, very few scientists, especially in biological and medical disciplines, had been willing to associate themselves with us publicly, although many had given informal expressions of sympathy. But by the middle of 1968, through a protracted communications effort, I estimated that a full half of American cryobiologists bad come around to a position at least of tolerance or passive approval. In forming the Scientific Advisory Council of Cryonics Societies of America, we did not insist that the members fully endorse all of our positions and programs, but that, in addition to assisting us in areas of common concern, they give formal recognition to the principle of free individual choice and to the fact that the probability of revival (after freezing by present methods) is not small but only unknown. This was done, and the Council now includes important names in cryobiological research, as well as in other areas of science and medicine. While the work of the Council will only develop slowly, as money becomes available, it is hoped that its existence and its activities will benefit all parties. The current list will be sent on request.
The latest recommended freezing procedures are available
273
to members of the Societies, and to others at our convenience.
Among the large majority of scientists who have not been asked to join the Scientific Advisory Council, and have not volunteered, there are many who show a considerable degree of sympathy, and even in nominal opponents there is evidence of decided ambivalence. Audrey U. Smith, for example, the grand old lady of cryobiology, has often expressed disapproval--and yet she has written:
"Recently, our ideas about what is possible in human surgery have been shaken by the transplantation of hearts into patients who would otherwise have died from incurable diseases of their own hearts. Several of these patients have actually returned home and even resumed some of their activities . . . We must therefore hesitate before stating that anything is impossible . . . There is (however) little chance that a whole body frozen several hours or days after death of the animal could be revived either at the present time or at any foreseeable time in the near
future. ..." (158)
The added emphasis in the above quotation provides an interesting contrast to the more categorical statements she makes elsewhere.
Stanley W. Jacob and Ralph D. Robertson, surgeons and cryobiologists at the University of Oregon Medical School, wrote in their excellent 1968 review article, "Now, recent successes in freeze-preservation offer a glimmer of scientific hope for negating death." They also made explicit a point that has always been emphasized by cryonicists: "Organs frozen and thawed with present technics may not be irretrievably damaged; it is possible that the organ is lost because technics of resuscitation are inadequate. Present knowledge of the effects of shock on the mirocirculation may offer fruitful clues to both the pretreatment and the
274
resuscitation of frozen organs." (Earlier in this chapter a similar cryonicist viewpoint concerning "irreversible brain damage due to ischemia" was shown to have already been vindicated in the laboratory.)
Finally, to cut the list arbitrarily short, there has been a degree of support from a surprising source. Professor Vladimir Alexandrovitcb Negovskii is a member of the Academy of Medicine of the USSR and Director of the Experimental Physiology Laboratory for Reanimation of Organisms in Moscow; be is one of the world's acknowledged authorities in resuscitation techniques. In August 1971 he invited and received Anatole Dolinoff, President of the Societe Cryonics de France, and was most cordial, expressing his continuing interest in cryonics and his belief that it might work. The general opinion in Russia, according to M. Dolinoff, is that cryonics, although scientifically not impossible, may not be useful and reserved only for a few capitalists; nevertheless, Professor Negovskii promised to come in person to Paris for the formal founding--expected in 1972--of the European Cryonics Corporation. (A French municipality, Beauvoir-sur-Mer, has already donated land--or more precisely, sold it for one franc--to allow the new corporation to build a permanent storage facility.)
In short, while the scientific establishment still is not exactly warm toward cryonics, a definite thaw has occurred and continues.
The Sociology of Life Extension
Volumes could be written-and doubtless will be--about cryonics as a social phenomenon. At this point a brief summary of certain aspects may be useful.
Some of the obstacles to cryonics are obvious, the first being simple inertia of individuals and institutions. One of
275
the charter members of the Cryonics Society of Michigan, Dr. Ronald Havelock, is a social psychologist at the University of Michigan whose specialty is the study of the dissemination and utilization of new ideas, and he doesn't know how to overcome this inertia in any quick or easy way.
Two of the more obvious and direct methods of overcoming inertia would be to incite fear or desire. But in modern circumstances few people can be moved by fear of death or of senility: not many have quit smoking, not many wear seat belts, and I know from personal experience that even in war it is often hard to make soldiers dig in--they would rather rest than improve their chances of survival.
As for the potential rewards of extended life and personal improvement, these remain, to almost everyone dim, distant, and unreal; this book is one part of the intended remedy.
Another major obstacle, touched upon in Chapter 10 and elsewhere, is the threat to value systems and ideologies implicit in an open-ended and activist outlook. In particular, a philosophy of self-interest seems to outrage every ideal based on self-sacrifice or fanaticism. Partly related to this is the unwelcome burden of total responsibility the cryonicist must accept.
These general principles are obvious enough, but certain particular conclusions may not be. For example, what kinds of people have joined the program, and why have some "obvious" candidates remained aloof?
To begin with, the surmise originally made by some--that primarily those with an abnormal fear of death would be attracted to cryonics--has emphatically been proven false. On the contrary, they tend to be bolder than average:
Curtis Henderson, the attorney who is President of the Cryonics Society of New York, flies his own plane, as does W. C. Gaines, President of the Cryonics Society of Kentucky; and Robert F. Nelson, President of the Cryonics
276
Society of California, is a scuba diver and former prize fighter. (But they also tend to be prudent; Mr. Henderson has a blast shelter under his house, and the percentage of shelters among our members runs unusually high.)
The very elderly and the very ill are poor prospects, which surprises some people, but the reason is simple. Those who are suffering, or who have low vitality, typically are not afraid of death, but only of pain and the demands of others. They just want surcease. Young people are usually not the best material either, because their interest is mainly intellectual and they tend to have a short attention span, as well as limited financial resources. Our strength--such as it is--with some notable exceptions is in the middle-aged group, for whom the reality of death and the value of life are becoming serious questions, but who have the vigor and resources to help themselves and each other.
Very rich people apparently are not survivor types either. Alleged millionaires and billionaires are always nosing around, professing either a personal or business interest in cryonics, and we talk to them politely, if not enthusiastically; but they never seem to grasp the nettle. Many well-known personalities, including a considerable number in the entertainment business, have expressed a seemingly substantial degree of interest, only to fade out again. The reasons, I believe, are several: (1) they are too busy; with all their time already committed and pet projects coming out of their ears, they can only be caught at strategic moments: (2) they are afraid of being suckered in some way, and protect themselves with layers of advisers who, in turn, protect themselves by taking the most conservative possible view; (3) they are vain, and tend to avoid areas where leadership has apparently been preempted, or where their business and social peers are not involved.
These difficulties can be resolved, but not easily. My own policy has been to ignore the rich and eminent (and their swarms of greedy relatives) in the main.
277
It is ironic, too, that the very character of the typical cryonicist--individualistic, nonsacrificial, nonfanatic--makes organizational success difficult. Most of the problems of the cryonics societies are simply the problems of organization, irrespective of goal or ideology, problems shared by every business, every club, every fraternal group, every political party. Those who do the daily work, if not motivated by money, are in other organizations looking for companionship or for a focus for zealotry or rebellion. Perhaps we needmore inflammatory types, who will do the right things for the wrong reasons; or perhaps we need more charismatic leaders. Or perhaps, on the contrary, we are fortunate to go slowly (except for those who die unfrozen), since we may be building a more solid foundation and undermining potential opposition. It is true, at least, that early warnings of swindles and hysterical stampedes have fallen completely flat, and few now seem to doubt that the movement, whether right or wrong, is at least sane and sober.
Despite the foregoing there is still some disapproval, even within the movement, of commercial activities. For, example, Evan Cooper, one of the early leaders and an important contributor, abhorred commercialism and indeed hoped the program would be taken over by the United Nations. Most of us agree there is room for both nonprofit and commercial organizations, and that large-scale success will come only with profitability; after all, even physicians and pharmacists work for profit. The profitability, in my opinion, requires nothing more than any other successful business--competence and adequate capitalization. The tentative ventures to date have been grossly undercapitalized, and there has never been a professional marketing campaign.
The cryonics societies, of course, are strictly nonprofit and the major ones have federal tax-exempt status. There is one commercial avenue that could have some pitfalls: cosmetic freezing, cryogenic interment at relatively high temperatures and without special preparation,
278
merely to preserve the appearance of the deceased in a way superior to embalming. Pitfalls or no, one firm has already entered this field; freezing with ordinary electrical refrigeration is much cheaper than with liquid nitrogen. Some people may become confused about the difference between cosmetic and prophylactic freezing, and again we may see the right things being done for the wrong reasons, or vice versa.
One of our current efforts to improve both the image and the impact of cryonics concerns a clear understanding of its scope. We are not just abominable icemen; we do not see heaven in the shape of a giant refrigerator. Someone has said: the only thing worse than growing older is not growing older. Saul Kent, Secretary of the Cryonics Society of New York, often says that the only thing worse than being frozen is to die and not be frozen. We don't want to be frozen; we are trying strenuously to avoid it. A soldier digging a trench in expectation of a bombardment would muchrather be doing something else, and the foxhole is not his goal in life; in a similar way, we are obliged to focus on freezing for the present, but we have larger interests, involving all of life and its extension and improvement.
A dramatic instance of life-saving without freezing occurred in the summer of 1971, when a Canadian child of eight years was apparently dying of cancer that was destroying her second kidney. A large Montreal hospital had given up on her case and her parents were told it was hopeless. Her parents remembered a Canadian television program on cryonics, and in particular our van (mobile emergency unit) with "Cryonics Society of Michigan" on the side; they reached us by phone to arrange cryonic suspension. After discussion of then available storage facilities, the child was taken to California--but the Cryonics Society of California people did not merely wait for her to die; they had her admitted to a first-class Los Angeles hospital for
279
reevaluation, and the prognosis was reversed. By removing her second kidney, treating remaining traces of cancer with chemicals and radiation, putting her on dialysis (kidney machine), and awaiting opportunity for a kidney transplant, she could probably be saved! At this writing she is back home, much better, an in-and-out patient at another Montreal hospital. A happy by-product of this episode was the discovery that, contrary to the current impression most people have, dialysis machines are not in short supply everywhere; in Michigan and California, for example, there is a surplus.
Perhaps this child will never have to be frozen. Within her "natural" lifetime, maybe we shall know how to retard, stop, and even undo the aging process. Dr. Johan Bjorksten, the eminent and aging gerontologist, thinks he may alreadyhave a partly-effective "youth pill," and that it may be proved and improved in time to save him, not to mentionthee and me. A few other scholars also have some optimism about the near future.
My own view, for once, is conservative: I doubt that aging will be cured within a few years or even a few decades. For this reason, and because the heavy talent and the big money have not yet moved in, I feel the Societies must continue to emphasize freezing and build the program. Even so, we also do our best to support and encourage work in other directions, especially in gerontology.
And if techniques of anabiosis or suspended animation more promising than freezing come along, we'll be delighted to encourage those. (So far, such alternatives as freeze-drying and hibernation seem to show only the faintest promise.)
Where the Buck Stops
The sense of the foregoing discussion, as the reader will
280
perceive, is that cryonics is a going concern, that success is nearly inevitable, and that its development is only a matter of time. But there's the rub: some of us don't have much time, and almost all of us have less than we think. This is why we find so infuriating the attitude of the typical citizen, who smiles in vague benediction, nods agreeably that science is wonderful, and mumbles something about making arrangements for himself and his family "when the process is perfected." He is so stupefied by the institutionalization of everything that be has no sense of personal responsibility; and be has no understanding of "lead time."
The latter concept is very easy to grasp, intellectually, but exceedingly difficult on an emotional level, somewhat as the danger of running into the street is easy for children to talk about, but requires long training--or a broken head--to appreciate. The cryonics program must be supported now, if it is to be scientifically and administratively advanced enough to maximize the chances of those dying later. We need fully-perfected freezing methods, and we need a vast network of hair-trigger emergency centers. (Eventually, it may be routine to wear an electronic pulse-watcher which will flash a coded distress signal whenever the heart falters, a little like the devices now used in the intensive-care wards of hospitals.) The methods and the network cannot bloom overnight; they must grow, bit by bit, and a later or slower start necessarily means a later maturity.
Those parents who imagine their children to be in no early danger, and think therefore cryonics has no urgency for them, are taking false comfort. Not only can death come without warning, but their chances fifty years hence may depend on actions taken now. We do not delude ourselves that the perfection of freezing methods will necessarily beeasy; it is conceivable that, even with massive support, it will take another generation, although we hope not. If those dying now are to have any chance, and those dying later a maximum chance, the cryonics; program must be implemented on a large scale--now!
Let us not deceive ourselves, either, that we can implement cryonic suspension on a selective basis--freeze only those who die under "good" conditions. We do not know where to draw the line, and a line-drawing attitude would effectively amount to paralysis. There must be no excuses and no exceptions. It must become habitual to freeze the "deceased," regardless of how unfavorable the circumstances may appear. Only thus can morale be maintained, and only thus can we make rapid progress.
After all, we are at war. The ancient enemy will take ruthless advantage of every weakness, every hesitation. Hewill give no quarter, and allow no second chances. We must not abandon our fallen, however grievous their wounds. Each time we do our duty, we strengthen the program, and gain confidence that those on whom we rely will, in turn, do their duty by us.
Governments and institutions protect our interests with reasonable efficiency much of the time, and we tend to rely on them. But by their nature they are sluggish, slow to react to new dangers or new opportunities. Just as the frontiersman of the Old West knew that only his own vigilance, courage, strength and skill stood between his family and mortal danger, so must we recognize our individual responsibility on the cryonics frontier.
When Harry Truman was President of the United States, be kept a reminder mounted on his office wall: The Buck Stops Here. I suggest that each of us look at the faces in his family and ask himself, where does the buck stop?
... And this might seem a good stopping point. But not everyone has a functional "duty button," and there is also a low road to the high place,
282
Greed & Jealousy to the Rescue
We have repeatedly pointed out that the main obstacle to our becoming superhuman is not technological, but psychological; it is a problem of morale, with some unusual kinks.
Ordinary political revolutions are also problems in morale; the question is not whether an oppressed majority can take control, but whether it will rise up, and sometimes all that is needed is a spark--a leader, a slogan, a dramatic event. Once the spark is struck, the flame is maintained by zealotry--idealism, militant enthusiasm, fanaticism.
The incipient cryonics revolution is under a severe handicap, viz., its supporters tend to repudiate zealotry and avoid mobs. To substitute for zealotry and mob action, individual rationalism is probably not enough; we need some emotional incitement. Perhaps greed and jealousy will help fill the bill. (Superman will not need them, but we still do.)
The aborigine who has never head of a supermarket may be contented enough with roots, berries, and grubs. If he hears of a distant land where everybody gets fat on delicacies from the supermarket, he is still unlikely to attempt the journey. But if he bears of a supermarket being built in a nearby town, and if its delights are described in some detail, and if some of his clansmen decide actually to go there, then he may stir himself. He wants his share of the goodies, and he wants to keep up with his neighbors.
Likewise, citizens of a sleepy backwater town may be content with a very modest standard of living, and little intellectual challenge, whereas New Yorkers want more and ever more, both absolutely and relatively. The analogy is only partial, and to make it invites trite and superficial criticism; but the buttons are there, if we reach and press them.
At this point, presumably the reader is acquainted with
283
some of the options of the immortal superman, and hopefully his appetite is whetted, his greed aroused. By now, too, he should be aware that some of us are determined to go the distance; we want it all, and intend to take it. To those who are slow on the uptake, then, we want to ask some nasty questions:
Won't you feel a fool if you are one of the last mortals to die? Won't you be ridiculous if you are one of the last humans thrown on the scrap-heap of history? Can you really settle for your worm's-eye view, your moment in a corner of the jungle, while some of us go onward and upward? Won't you be chagrined when we dance on your grave? Will you hold still for this? Will you hold still? Will you?
[Previous Page] [Next Page] [Contents Page]