> CRYONICS: A Basic Introduction (Continued)

A: There's certainly no explicit conflict. There is not a single word in the Christian or Jewish Scriptures (nor the Quran or the Dhammapada or the Tao The Ching, for that matter) that prohibits cryonics. Nor is there a Papal pronouncement, or a statement from the World Council of Churches to that effect.

Yet many people act as if they have had a divine revelation of an 11th commandment: "Thou shalt not cryopreserve". Such people presume a great deal by assuming that they have such exacting knowledge of the Mind of God.

Some people 'feel' there may be a conflict between cryonics and religion because they confuse recovering from cryonic suspension procedures with 'rising from the dead'. But that's simply a misunderstanding. The fact is, nowadays people are regularly returned to life from a state once considered to be irrevocable death. We regard cryonics to be an advanced form of medicine. There is no conflict between medicine and religion.

It might be more accurate to view a cryonics patient, not as 'dead', but rather as in a coma - call it a 'cryo-coma', if you wish. Indeed, the Catholic Church has expressed strong opposition to the destruction of cryopreserved human embryos. This presumes that the cryopreserved condition is not one of "death".

In one case a Roman Catholic priest actually consecrated a cryostat. In another case a Catholic priest was instrumental in persuading hospital personnel to cooperate in the cryopreservation of a cryonics patient.

Is that surprising? Why should it be? The avowed purpose of most major religions is to practice compassion, and to preserve and protect life. Not even the most conservative churches oppose CPR or mouth-to-mouth resuscitation: it's hard to be pro-life and advocate death.

Q: But aren't you raising the dead, or trying to?

A: No, we're healing the sick, or trying to. Cryonics is not offering 'eternal life' - merely extended life, hopefully without the burdens of age and disease. We aren't offering people a permanent guarantee against death, much less promising life for uncountable trillions of years into the future.

Scientific advances suggest that most fatal diseases, including old age, may very well be eliminated in the course of the next hundred years. If that takes place, a human being may very well live for centuries - even many centuries.

Again, don't be confused by language. If someone is revived after apparent death -- as thousands of people have been -- then their vital functions were not "permanently" stopped, which by the dictionary means they were not dead!

Q: Isn't it selfish to want to linger on, instead of making way for new generations?

A: Why not help future generations by actually being there in person to help? Is our generation really better off because Beethoven, Shakespeare, and Newton died, and left us three more parking spaces instead? Most people would call that a poor trade.

If selfishness means a lack of concern for others, what could possibly be more selfish than wanting other people to die? All the charity, creativity, friendship, help, advice, experience, that might have been made other people's lives better will never be given if the person who might have supplied those things chooses not to exist.

You can't help future generations - or work for justice, or feed the hungry, or heal the sick, or serve God - if you're dead. Compassion requires life.

Some people do think of cryonics only in terms of personal survival. And there's nothing wrong with that. But for some of us cryonics is life-saving and humanitarian.

The benefits of cryonics for one person is immense -- the promise of hundreds more years of life. But even that is nothing compared to the benefits of cryonics for every person -- for all mankind.

Q: What about population pressures?

A: Population problems - and solutions -- will be there with or without cryonics. Take the example of one of the most heavily populated places on earth -- Japan, which has virtually no natural resources yet holds half the population of America on an area the size of Florida. But the result is not some overpopulated hell, but one of the richest, most productive, polite, crime-free societies in the world. A large population doesn't necessarily mean a poor life.

Besides which, there are any number of unpopulated areas on the world where populations could expand to - indeed, skyscrapers and underground cities, the seas and space, have long been subjects of speculation for human expansion.

In any case, few people kill themselves now to make room for other people later. Just as few turn down medical help, for themselves or their family, just because of a wish to relieve population pressures. People who are alive now have as much right to live as people who might yet be born.

Q: The world is bad, and getting worse. Why should I want to come back?

A: One thing's for sure: the world won't get better if you give up on it. But why assume it'll be worse? We don't know what the future will bring.

In 1939 it looked as though Nazism would overrun the world. A decade after that, the Soviet Union under Stalin was mass-manufacturing hydrogen bombs and expanding. And today? Nazism and Soviet Communism are gone.

The future is generally a lot better than the past, especially over a large time scale. Life was very crude, brutish and short 10,000 years ago. Why just assume you won't like the things to come? Why not attempt a trip to the future and see, and decide if you like it then?

Q: Why would people in the future want to revive us?

A: Why are scientists talking about cloning from the DNA of the pharoahs or the frozen sperm of prehistoric animals? Because the past interests people. Why do people donate to charitable hospitals? Because people care about one another. Complete indifference to human life isn't as common as we sometimes let ourselves think.

Mind you, we aren't depending on that sort of help in the least. We hope to be revived -- and helped in leading new future lives -- not by some featureless "them", but by the efforts of our own cryonics organizations. After all, it's their -- and our -- job.

CI has a legal and moral obligation to do its best for its patients--some of whom will be friends and relatives of future CI officers and directors--and we are confident those obligations will be respected.

Q: How would I adapt to an alien future world without friends, family or marketable skills?

A: Many cryonicists have cryopreserved their loved-ones and pets. Close relatives who have mixed feelings about future life on earth can often be encouraged by the fact that you intend to be cryopreserved and want to be in the future with them. For many people, making cryonics arrangements has led to new friends among the cryonics community -- friends they can expect to see in the future if cryonics is successful.

Concerning marketable skills, people with minimal skills (and even handicaps) are more employable today than they ever have been. With the progress of society and technology, computer-training and social schemes should eventually lead to full employment for those wishing to be employed. This will not be so difficult to do in a world that is vastly wealthier than the world of today.

Q: What precautions has CI taken to prevent takeovers by outsiders, or by someone who might want to raid the treasury or change the focus of the organization?

A: Our By-Laws have several precautions. But principally:

(1) we have no stockholders, so a 'hostile takeover' is hardly possible.

(2) the purposes of CI as a nonprofit organization devoted strictly to cryonics (Article II) can only be amended by a unanimous vote of the membership; and since we have hundreds of members, that isn't likely,

(3) CI is not run by any one individual nor by some tiny unelected ruling clique, but is operated by a Board of twelve Directors, none of whom has more power or authority than the other, or any arbitrary power over the others, and all of whom are not arbitrarily appointed, but reelected by and responsible to the members. Only one third of them are elected in any given year.

(4) Any alleged improper action can be delayed by a small number of members--see the by-laws.

Q: If I am young and in good health, why shouldn't I wait before going to the trouble and expense of joining and executing a contract now?

A: Because young people die too. They are more active, after all. Or, you might develop a health problem that would prevent you buying life insurance, or make it too expensive to afford. If you wait till you're very ill or severely injured, you may lack the strength or energy or even consciousness to do anything but die.

Joining now has other pluses: it strengthens the organization and therefore accelerates our research work and our growth and progress generally, and thus improves your chances as well as those of others.

And if you join now and say so, you may very well inspire members of your family or friends or acquaintances to think about it, and join too. And that could save their lives, as well as your own.

Think of them, if not of yourself.

Q: How do I know I'm not getting involved with some weird 'cult'?

A: As far as CI being a 'cult' goes, suffice it to say that we do not advocate any political or religious or metaphysical views whatsoever. Our members are Catholics and Jews, atheists and agnostics, Asians and Blacks and Caucasians, Conservatives and Liberals, computer scientists and postal workers, children and retirees. The full spectrum of opinion and social class is represented at CI.

You can join CI and believe in or vote for whoever and whatever you want to. And if you do join, you don't ever have to come to a meeting, or contribute and time or services, or donate a penny (though of course we won't object if you want to). Your name is kept confidential and won't be sold to any sales organization or mailing list; and you won't be pestered by phone calls or knocks on the door.

As for cryonics itself being a 'crank' enterprise -- look at the facts: cryonics organizations have nine times the relative number of doctors as the general public; not to mention statistically far higher numbers of scientists, PhD's, professors, authors, academicians, and lawyers.

Q: But what will the neighbors say?

A: Well, if your neighbors are some of the leading figures in contemporary computer science and nanotechnology, they'll say, "Smart move! I did it years ago." And hundreds of CI members -- among them doctors, lawyers, scientists, physicists, authors, teachers, and attorneys -- would join right in.

But, of course, you're probably referring to those many completely decent old friends and acquaintances you know who don't know a thing about cryonics, and so probably think it's 'pretty strange'. You don't want people to think of you that way, and you really don't expect them to sit down and wade through a few hundred pages of technical reports on cryostasis till they figure out the good news for themselves.

So what do you do?

The easy way out, of course, is not to tell them. CI respects its members' privacy, and keeps member names confidential, unless otherwise notified.

But we don't recommend that. After all, what's really at stake? The possibility that some people may think you're foolish? We all feel that way about each other over some things. We all disagree with each other. We all think that people we know -- even our dearest friends and closest relatives -- vote for the wrong politicians and support the wrong sports teams and have some very silly opinions and awful habits.

But we don't end our relationships over it, do we?

People in CI think cremation is pretty dumb, but we don't stop doing business or avoid people who do, and they seem to get along with us about as well as before. If you tell people you're signed up for cryonics, some people will think you're brave and individual and support you, some people won't, and most people will shrug, not really care that much one way or the other, and forget about it. That's just how things go.

Still, it remains true that the more people you tell about your decision -- and at a minimum, you should tell your doctor and your lawyer -- the more likely it'll be that your suspension will go off safely. And the more likely it will be that other people will join up. Quite a few CI members joined because they knew or met a person who was a member, knew what he was talking about, and was willing to say so.

Signing up could save your life; admitting it could save someone else's. We'll respect your privacy and keep your membership confidential if you want that. But many of our members don't. And we think that's a wise decision. If a relative might cause problems, you can work to prevent those problems much better now than on your deathbed.

Q: Where can I find out more?

A: More information about all of the above can be found elsewhere on this web site. We even have an search engine so if there's some specific topic you want to know more about, you can just type in whatever you're looking for, and it'll take you right to the information you need.

The main advice that we can offer, of course, is read, read, read. Robert Ettinger's The Prospect Of Immortality, James Halperin's novel The First Immortal, and Eric Drexler's Engines Of Creation (chapter nine in particular) are good introductory books. The books by Ettinger and Drexler can be downloaded free from our web site on our bibliography page. (James Halperin's book is out in paperback, and available at libraries or for free download.)

A newer science fiction book entitled 21st Century Kids is unusual in that it is a cryonics novel written specifically for children which portrays and optimistic (but not entirely problem-free) future for those who practice cryonics. Unlike many fiction writers who attempt to write on a cryonics theme, Shannon Vyff (the author) is very well informed about cryonics and is a signed-up cryonicist (as is James Halperin).

For more technically advanced stuff, the cryonics section of Ben Best's website contains the best explanations of cryonics technology written so far.

We also recommend our longer FAQ on Becoming A Member.

But as you read, please -- remember that the clock is ticking. And that one day, much sooner than you think, time is going to run out. If you haven't signed up or made preparations for cryopreservation by then, it'll be too late.

Choosing to live and to attempt to preserve life is the smart thing to do and the right thing to do. For yourself and for others.

Do it. And let us help you do it.

[ For cryonics strategy questions, see CRYONICS: Why Don't We? ]

[ For a cryonics FAQ written by CI's current President, Ben Best, see Cryonics -- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on his website. ]