AN INFORMATION GUIDE FOR STUDENTS AND STUDENT REPORTS
Q What is 'cryonics'?
A Cryonics is the practice of cooling people immediately after death to the point where molecular physical decay completely stops, in the expectation that scientific and medical procedures currently being developed will be able to revive them and restore them to good health later. A patient held in such a state is said to be in 'cryonic suspension'.
Q Can cryonics be performed on living people?
A Legally, not as yet. Obviously, it would be better to cool a patient before illness causes so much physical damage that it results in death. But it's not presently allowed by law, even for someone in great suffering or with a terminal illness. We hope that one day it will be, under carefully controlled conditions, once revival from cryonic suspension can be demonstrated.
Q How do you know revival is even possible?
A Our web site at http://www.cryonics.org contains an immense amount of scientific and medical evidence that leads to that conclusion. (You may be on that site now, or you may be reading a printed handout.) So much, that a quick summary is impossible. But, in essence: revival seems likely because: (1) Many biological specimens have been frozen, stored at very low temperatures, and revived; these include whole insects, most types of human tissue including brain tissue, human embryos which have later grown into healthy children, and a few small mammalian organs. (2) A large and growing number of respected scientists, particularly in the field of nanotechnology, have looked at cryonics and developed specific ideas as to just why reviving a person safely from cryonic suspension is possible, in spite of the damage from old age, disease, accident, postmortem warm ischemia, and the freezing process itself.
Q But isn't freezing a deceased person pointless? Once you're dead, you're dead. And even if you could revive them, they'd just have the same fatal disease they had before.
A If by 'dead' you mean 'clinically dead', without heartbeat or breathing, then 'raising the dead' is done every day, thousands of times every year, in hospitals all over the world. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR quite commonly restores life to people who were once considered (wrongly) to be absolutely and irretrievably dead in less technologically sophisticated times. If we can restore life to people who have been dead for several minutes, and even hours in some drowning cases, why should we assume that doing the same after years is impossible, if we can prevent further deterioration during that time? 'Absolute' death may only be said to occur when the brain is completely destroyed - and brain preservation is precisely what cryonic suspension hopes to achieve. As for having a fatal disease -- as medical science progresses, fatal diseases become formerly fatal diseases. Polio or bubonic plague were fatal once; they - and hundreds of other diseases -- are not fatal now. No reputable medical doctor will claim that any disease is eternally incurable, and many qualified people think that cures for currently fatal diseases - including old age - may arrive in the future .
Q Do you really think it will become possible to cure every disease, even reverse the effects of aging, and repair all freezing damage as well --?
A Eventually, yes, although there is certainly disagreement on this subject. Although it isn't necessary to wait till 'every' disease imaginable is cured, all at one stroke. All you really need to do to make cryonics itself work is simply to cure or prevent freezing damage (although additional advances will, of course, be necessary to revive patients). We don't expect an instant cure of every possible disease overnight; but scientific knowledge doubles every two years; technological breakthroughs are occurring almost daily; rapid progress is clearly taking place in every medical field, and cryonics is no exception. We are guardedly optimistic - because we have good reasons to be.
Q But aren't you really talking about raising the dead!
A No. Cryonics is a matter of rational procedures, not religious miracle. Cryonics can't restore life to people whose brains have been long been physically destroyed - a Lincoln, or a Julius Caesar, or those cremated. Cryonics simply - but reasonably -- claims that if you freeze a person rapidly enough so that the decay of essential brain structures does not occur, then that person's brain structure is preserved sufficiently to make it at least possible that that person's brain can be repaired and the person restored to life and health.
Q Can you guarantee success?
A No one can guarantee success, because no one can guarantee the future. It is difficult to predict details of new scientific advances--but even more difficult credibly to predict lack of advances.
Q If it's not a sure thing, why should I even consider it?
A What's your alternative? Certain death. Isn't a chance at life better than sure obliteration - not just your own, but your family's and your friends'? Just because it's 'possible' a cryonics patient may not make it to future, doesn't mean the odds are against you: if anything they're for you. The oldest patient currently still being held in cryonic suspension is a Dr James Bedford, who was suspended in 1967, almost 33 years ago. He's survived the Cold War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, 60's race riots, the 70's recession, Watergate, and the collapse of the Soviet Union - which is more than a lot of his contemporaries can say. If he can make it 33 years, you can too. Of course we can't guarantee that the cryonics effort will succeed. But we can and do guarantee this: that at CI we'll give our very best efforts to see our member patients are restored to life and good health. Because the life of every director and officer and member of CI depends on those efforts too.
Q What about the cost? I heard cryonics is supposed to be incredibly expensive.
A Good news: you heard wrong. With CI, the minimum fee for cryonics suspension at CI is $28,000 -- a one-time fee, due at time of death. And though it can be paid in cash, usually a member has a life insurance policy made that pays the amount to CI upon death. A member who wishes to become a Lifetime Member can make a single membership payment of $1250 and doesn't have to pay any annual dues at all after that. If a new member would rather pay a smaller amount up front, in exchange for funding a slightly higher suspension fee later on ($35,000), he can join without paying any membership fee at all, and pay annual dues of only $120, which are also payable in quarterly installments of $35. (And such a dues-paying member can upgrade to Lifetime Membership at any time, saving himself $7000 and any dues ever again.) Members at a distance may have to pay local and transportation costs in the case of a suspension, but not to CI. According to Quotesmith, an insurance policy search engine available on our web site's Links page, a middle-aged man in good health can get a life insurance policy for less than $140 a year. Which means that, far from being expensive, cryonics membership and suspension can cost no more than twenty dollars a month, if that - less than your monthly Cable bill! That isn't bad. Please take a look at the membership application forms and the long version of our FAQ on our web site at www.cryonics.org.
Q How much do the other organizations charge?
A Prices vary - wildly. CI has by far the lowest costs of any cryonics organization. We think a prospective member should shop around, and our web site has links to all the other providers' sites, so see for yourself. Prices with other organizations can swell to as much as $120,000 or more for whole body suspension, $50,000 for the "neuro" option, which CI doesn't offer.
Q Why the large difference in prices? Does CI's lower price mean lower quality treatment?
A No. The great majority of a cryonics organization's suspension fee (including CI's) goes for investments to insure ongoing long-term patient care. The actual procedures - cooling, perfusion, etc. - are roughly similar. Where different, we explain why in detail on our web site in an article called 'Comparing Prices And Policies'. And we have a number of other cost-saving advantages that other organizations don't have - we own our own facilities and building and land outright, we have no debt, no landlords, no stockholders. And our sources of income aren't restricted to suspension fees: we receive dues and donations and bequests and income from investments; members often leave us their estates, or part of their estates, to increase their own and everyone's chances. (Our 'Comparing Policies' article could tell you a lot more.)
CI could charge as much and more as the other organizations, of course, and we don't necessarily condemn them for their pricing policies - more income always helps an organization - but at CI we're very conscious of the fact that our job is trying to save human beings' lives. Not everyone is rich, and not everyone can get life insurance. Students, young couples just starting out, the elderly, the sick, can sometimes have a hard time coming up with funds for a suspension. And to let people die just because they don't happen to have $120,000 in cash, when a suspension really can be done for far less, seems to us unthinkable. So we've decided as a matter of policy to make suspension and membership available for as low a price as we reasonably can. Our procedures are cost-conscious and performed in accordance with the best current understanding of the principles and practices likely to give our patients the best overall chance of complete and total recovery.
Q What if I can't get life insurance?
A If you have--or expect to have--sufficient assets in any form, we may be able to work something out. Our members include attorneys and estate planners who are no strangers to creative financing.
Q What's the "neuro" option? And why don't you offer it?
A "Neuro" is short for neurosuspension, and it refers to the practice of removing and freezing only the head of a person declared legally dead. The theory is that only the information contained in the brain is of any importance, and that a body to contain the revived brain could be easily cloned or regenerated at some point in the future. Neurosuspension is popular - at other organizations - because heads alone, being smaller, require less space and maintenance, and so save money for those organizations. CI, however, doesn't offer it. Partly because money isn't the principal criterion at CI -- our price for whole-body is already lower than theirs for neuro - but mostly because of neurosuspension's negative effect on public relations and, especially, on the families of patients. Journalists and horror novelists invariably have a field day with frozen severed heads, and focus not on the scientific, medical, or humanitarian sense of cryonics, but on making cryonics look grotesque or ridiculous. And as human beings we understand that it just borders on the impossible for a person to go to the parents or children or friends of someone who has just passed away, and have to explain that the head of that person whose loss has broken their heart is going to be cut off and frozen in a tank with a dozen others somewhere. Nerves are frayed, people are grief-stricken, they may never even have heard of cryonics much less the scientific plausibility of it, and outbursts, arguments, and threats of lawsuits are inevitable. Why ask for such trouble - trouble that can put a patient at risk?
Q Exactly what is the freezing procedure?
A Specific details change according to our latest research and capabilities. But in general, it involves initial cool-down with use of an anticoagulant such as heparin, removing the blood, and replacing it with a cryoprotectant - a solution that minimizes freezing damage. Washing out the blood with a cold solution also serves to cool the patient more rapidly. This is followed by further cooling, and then long term immersion in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of - 196 C.
The most important ingredient of the cryoprotectant currently used is glycerol (glycerine). But others can be used in special situations, and many others--and combinations--are under investigation.
Also under investigation is the use of "vitrification" rather than freezing. "Vitrification" means "glassification" or formation of a glass-like solid that lacks the crystal structure of ice.
Q How soon after legal death must the process begin? At what point does delay cause irreversible damage?
A Nobody knows. The ultimate capabilities (or limits) of future technology can't be predicted. But we work on the assumption that the sooner we begin, the better. One could argue that even complete destruction of the brain and even the body would still allow cloning, assuming that even one cell survived; but the survival of even such a perfect twin would probably not be what we think of as our 'selves' surviving. Our web site has a great deal of current information on the subject, and - while we do give honest evaluations of damage and dangers - the current view tends to support optimism. The key term to remember here is not 'damage' but 'reversible'. There are cases of people with massive strokes or war injuries who have had much of their brains literally destroyed - yet, who have recovered memories and neurological functions and returned to quite normal lives. And they've done it spontaneously, even without the help of any future high technology.
Q Do you have a traveling team that will go to members at a distance in an emergency?
A For various reasons - immediacy of response, anatomical expertise, familiarity with local paperwork and hospitals, experience in handling grieving relatives, and more - CI has developed a system of using funeral directors located as close at hand to our members as possible, so they can be there very quickly when needed. We explain and train them in all the necessary procedures beforehand and they work under our instructions. Traveling teams, by contrast, usually involve long delays and on occasion have relatively limited qualifications and experience. But we are developing a plan for a limited traveling team under appropriate conditions for members not too far away
Q How long has CI been around?
A In a sense, CI was there from the very beginning, since it is with CI President Robert Ettinger's first book, THE PROSPECT OF IMMORTALITY, that the cryonics movement started in 1962. In the years just after that, a number of groups were formed which based themselves on the principles elaborated by Robert Ettinger, including the Immortalist Society, CI's sister organization, in 1967, and then the Cryonics Institute, which was formally incorporated in 1976.
Q How big is CI?
A CI is currently second largest in terms of membership. We are first in number of whole-body patients (currently 50) - all the other organizations maintain mostly neurosuspension patients. Currently we have over $1,000,000 in cash and other liquid assets such as stocks and bonds, plus our building (free and clear) and our equipment and supplies--total and net assets of over $1,500,000 as of July, 2003. Since we devote our resources more to patient care than marketing, our growth was initially modest, but now that the Internet allows people to find us more easily, we seem to be getting more members than any other organization - three for every two of our nearest (friendly) competitor. Indeed, our membership has grown by roughly a sixth in the last year alone.
Q How is CI organized and run?
A A copy of our By-Laws is available on our web site. CI is a Michigan nonprofit corporation; its term of existence is "perpetual." There are no stockholders, and the officers and directors are unpaid. The voting members elect the Directors, and the Directors elect the officers. The voting members control overall policy, and the Directors control details of policy.
Q How many paid employees does CI have?
A Presently two full time paid employees and two part time paid employees. But much of the work, apart from physical day-to-day routine, is done by volunteer members without pay. Indeed, given emergency conditions or even a severe economic recession, we expect we could maintain patient care with no paid employees at all.
Q Can a prospective member visit the facility? Where is it?
A The Cryonics Institute is in Clinton Township, Michigan, northeast of Detroit, about 45 minutes from Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Members and prospective members are always welcome, of course. We do ask that anyone stopping by make arrangements with our office beforehand as to the time and date, so that necessary office work or patient care isn't interrupted.
Q Can relatives view the patients?
A Relatives are always welcome to visit. The patients are held in cryostats in protective apparel, and so can't be directly viewed. We do have - and welcome - photographs of our patients, which we display in the Institute conference room, to remind us daily of the people we're caring for.
Q What if a relative calls about suspending a patient who has already died?
A In nearly all such cases, nothing can be done. CI can't jeopardize its current patients by accepting a new patient completely out of the blue. We simply have no way of knowing over the phone whether the relative calling has the exclusive legal right to arrange a suspension, whether a suspension was in accord with the patient's wishes, whether the person calling can afford the full payment (which is due upon death), indeed whether the entire call isn't a prank (which has happened) and which might divert resources from another member currently in need. It's a dangerous situation which may place CI members at physical hazard, and CI itself in potential legal danger. And we simply can't put our members and patients at risk.
Q Is Walt Disney frozen?
A The names of patients and members (at CI, anyway) are considered to be confidential unless they tell us otherwise. So we couldn't tell you even if we knew. In fact, we don't know, and we believe this rumor to be an "urban legend."
Q Have any celebrities been frozen?
A The same unofficial rule applies. A number of prominent people have publicly indicated sympathy and interest in cryonics from time to time, but it would be meaningless to name them unless they were actively involved and gave us permission.
We should add that people famous in the entertainment field are not, after all, necessarily qualified to recommend cryonics, but people in the scientific field are. And it's there that cryonics has picked up some very famous and significant names indeed. Dr Marvin Minsky of MIT, for instance, is widely considered to be the father of the field of Artificial Intelligence in computing and is a cryonics supporter and member; Dr K. Eric Drexler, who founded the field of nanotechnolgy virtually single-handed in the late 70's and early 80's, is a cryonics member whose book, Engines Of Creation, and whose various research initiatives, have provided perhaps the best current blueprint for a successful, working cryonics; Dr Ralph Merkle of the world- famous Xerox Palo Alto Research Center is not only a member but a leading cryonics activist and has produced some of the most impressive and decisive papers on cryonics in the field. His cryonics site at http://www.merkle.com/merkleDir/cryo.html is one of the most compelling collections of evidence for cryonics on the web, and lists the web pages of some 26 prominent PhD's and computer scientists who have seen the evidence and signed up for cryonic suspension.
Q Has anyone been frozen and revived?
A No adult mammal - and only humans in the embryonic stage -- have so far been frozen to liquid nitrogen temperature levels (-196 C) and completely revived, even though there have been many partial successes. But progress is taking place, freezing methods are improving, and successes are accumulating.
Q Has anything living at all been successfully frozen, stored at liquid nitrogen temperature, and revived?
A Many things. Dozens of specimens, including planaria, insects, human tissue (including brain tissue), human sperm, human embryos, and apparently a few small adult mammalian organs such as rat parathyroid and rat uterus. The main point to remember is what is not revivable today may be revivable tomorrow. Human embryos were not revived in the 1940's, though they could easily have been placed in liquid nitrogen and kept there till the 1960's, when it was another story. The thing to remember is damage from freezing is limited: cell structure is the critical thing, and structure may be preserved even if full function (for the moment) is not. If (for instance) temperatures fall way below zero in the winter, your car may very well may not start, and if it's left that way long enough, damage may occur and it may not start even when things warm up. But that doesn't mean your car is utterly and completely destroyed, as though it had been buried and rusted into particles over the course of centuries. Studies indicate that freezing damage is rather like that: it disarranges brain cells somewhat so that brain activity stops. But it doesn't pulverize a brain cell into dust so totally that its original, functioning, form is completely obliterated and unrecoverable. On the contrary! It preserves the original structure to a considerable extent, depending on the type of procedure and the circumstances, which is precisely why the cell - and the brain -- may be reparable.
Q What were the ages of the oldest and youngest patients frozen?
A At CI, our oldest patient was 100 at time of death, and our youngest in the mid-twenties. Our members run from young children (members through their parents) up to extreme old age.
Q What are the occupations and backgrounds of your members?
A All sorts. But there are some interesting concentrations. CI members generally tend to be much better educated and better informed than average. We sometimes say, "Doctors choose cryonics, nine to one." That doesn't mean that 90% of all physicians are signed up, but it does mean that, according to our estimates, the cryonics organizations have about nine times as many M.D. members as would be expected on a population proportionate basis. A roughly similar statistic applies to Ph.D's. Only a small fraction of the population may be actively involved in cryonics, but the best informed and educated people are the ones most likely to join.
Q Some people consider cryonics a money-making scam.
A No officer or director of CI makes a nickel out of it, or has any way to do so. Check us out - we make our financial statement available to anyone who asks. CI exists for the benefit of its present and future patients--nothing else. (Incidentally, lawyers are also over-represented in CI, and they are not naïve or trusting types. If even lawyers are convinced they can trust us, maybe you should think about it too.)
Q Isn't there a conflict with religion?
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. Some people 'feel' there's a conflict between cryonics and religion because they confuse recovering from cryonic suspension procedures with 'rising from the dead'. But a cryonics patient may be viewed as "dead" only in somewhat the same sense that a patient is "dead" on an operating table whose heart has stopped and whose EEG is flat, or a person recently drowned. Such people are frequently returned to life from a state once considered to be irrevocable death. It's much more accurate to see a cryonics patient, not as 'dead', but rather as in a coma - call it a 'cryocoma', if you wish. No religion we're aware of advocates that people in comas should be put to death, even if that coma lasts several decades. Indeed, most traditional faiths strongly oppose such euthanasia; and in most cases where a clergyman or theologian of a major religion has made a public statement about cryonics, it has been neutral or even supportive. In one case a Roman Catholic priest actually consecrated a cryostat. Which is not surprising, since 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 is hard to be pro- life and choose death.
Q But aren't you raising the dead, or trying to?
A No, we are healing the sick, or trying to. Cryonics is not offering 'eternal life' - merely extended life, hopefully without the burdens of age and disease. 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. But we don't guarantee that a person won't ever be burnt to ashes in a fire, or lost at sea, or blown up in a war. We simply recognize the fact that it's a shame to live only a tenth or a hundredth or a thousandth part of the life you might have lived if you'd only made some simple inexpensive preparations here and now
Q Isn't it selfish to want to linger on, instead of making way for new generations?
A "Posterity" or "society" is an abstraction. Living people are the reality, and few of us would kill ourselves, or someone in our family, to make room for others unborn.
But it might also be possible to help future generations by being there to give them the benefit of your help and experience? Is our generation better 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 suicide? 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 the heart of cryonics is humanitarianism, not selfishness. Nowadays people may be born severely retarded, deformed, crippled, blinded; their bodies may be dismembered or shattered in accidents; paralyzed, and torn apart by years or even decades daily intolerable pain; their brains may be eaten away by cancer or Alzheimer's as their life savings and their families' future with it are drained away on ineffective medical techniques that do no more than prolong their degradation and agony; and even those who survive are crippled by grief and loss, by the fear of illness and the swift approach of death. Every human being may end up being debilitated by accidents or debased by illness, and even those who aren't will be destroyed by old age.
Why does this have to be? It doesn't. Thanks to cryonics. Cryonics could be the most life-saving, pain-relieving technique ever conceived. That's what cryonics promises, and why scientists and laymen, Christians and Jews and agnostics, prominent authors and simple volunteers, are working to make that promise real. The essence of cryonics is compassion.
Q What about population pressures?
A Population problems - and solutions -- will be there with or without cryonics. One of the most heavily populated places on earth is 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. Cryonics, far from adding to the population problem, could actually offer solutions: even now cryonic suspension has progressed to the point where human embryos can successfully be stored till such time as birth becomes feasible. Worldwide cryonics practice could - right now - halt population growth entirely, without destroying a single fetus, simply by delaying births until such time as space arrangements could be made. We don't say that will happen; but we do say that we need to explore better ways of solving the population problem than insisting on mass suicide and making people die.
Q The world is bad, and getting worse. Why should I want to come back?
A Most cryonicists are optimistic, although we can never be sure 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 today? Nazism and Soviet Communism are gone. The future isn't necessarily worse than the past. Sometimes it's a lot better. Particularly if you work to make it better.
Q Why would future people want to revive us?
A We hope to be revived and helped in leading new future lives not by some featureless "them", but by our own cryonics organizations, through our own efforts and using our own money. After all, it's their - and our -- job.
Q How do you know that cryonic suspension is pain-free? Doesn't it feel cold? And if I'm in cryonic sleep, couldn't I have nightmares?
A At liquid nitrogen temperatures, molecular activity comes to a halt. So when a person is in cryonic suspension, their brains simply do not function at all. Pain, and sensations of cold, and dreaming, are all accompanied by extensive and identifiable brain activity. Where there is no brain activity, there is no sensation, and no dreaming, and certainly no nightmares. Cryonic suspension can't hurt.
Q What precautions has CI taken to prevent takeovers by outsiders or someone who might want to raid the treasury or change the focus?
A Our By-Laws have several precautions. But principally: (1) we have no stockholders, so a 'hostile takeover' is not 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 we have hundreds of members, so 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 council of nine Directors, none of whom has more power or authority than the other, and all of whom are not arbitrarily appointed, but reelected by and responsible to the members; and members themselves can't vote (or run for Director) without paying annual dues for two to three years for the privilege.
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 to do anything but die. Plus, joining now tends to strengthen the organization and therefore accelerate our research work and growth and progress, and so improve 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 yourself.
Q I asked for this packet because I'm doing a school report. Do you have any suggestions?
A Well, we find that the thing that most impresses teachers (and students, if you're giving a class presentation) is giving a report that demonstrates that the writer has done his research, and is presenting the real facts of the case, and not just easy-to-get but superficial misinformation that people pick up without paying much attention. This particularly applies to cryonics, because most people sort of know what it is, but seem to have gotten their ideas about it from an episode of Star Trek or the Twilight Zone. Misinformation is common, and accurate knowledge is very rare. So we suggest that you structure your report around the difference between the myths about cryonics and the real facts. For instance:
Myth: "Cryonics is unbelievably expensive. It's only for the Super-Rich." Fact: Most people in good health can afford a cryonics membership and suspension (with CI, anyway) for about $20 a month.
Myth: "People are frozen and kept in refrigerators." Fact: Cryonics patients are rapidly and carefully prepared as soon as possible after death with anticoagulants and cryoprotectants and other procedures to minimize freezing damage and preserve brain structure. They're then maintained at -196 C in liquid nitrogen for long term cryostasis.
Myth: "Cryonics is a scam to rip off people's money." Fact: No officer or Director of the Cryonics Institute has a salary or makes a penny. Our organization's funds go toward patient care and toward strengthening the organization. Not a cent is earmarked to any CI official. All CI officials have their own private means of support, and work on an unpaid volunteer basis.
Myth: "Once you're dead, you're dead, and that's it." Fact: Thousands of people die on operating tables every year, and are brought back to life thanks to medical techniques like CPR. And living creatures from worms to insects to human embryos have been cooled or frozen to the point where all life signs have stopped for periods stretching from hours to years - and been brought back to life.
Myth: "No human being can possibly survive long-term deep freezing." Fact: No adult human being has - yet. But freezing human embryos has not only successfully taken place, it's now considered almost commonplace. The first human being to successfully emerge from cryonic suspension is arguably one John Brooks, who was removed from his mother's womb and suspended in liquid nitrogen for two months, after which he was carefully thawed, placed in his mother's womb again, and emerged - eleven months after being conceived - a completely healthy and normal child. Thousands of embryos have been successfully frozen since. Indeed, in one case, a human embryo was frozen at liquid nitrogen temperature for seven full years - and then brought to term, and is now a healthy young child. Granted, reviving a mature adult is very different from reviving an embryo. But we are making constant progress.
Myth: "Cryonics is some weird cult that cuts off people's heads." Fact: CI, at least, does not perform neurosuspensions at all. And as for being a 'cult', we do not advocate any political or religious or metaphysical views at all. Our members are Catholics and Jews, atheists and agnostics, Asians and Caucasians, Conservatives and Liberals, computer scientists and postal workers, children and retirees. The full spectrum of opinion is represented at CI - as far as we know. We don't know for sure, because we don't ask. You can join CI and believe or vote for whoever and whatever you want to. And if you do join, you don't ever have to donate another penny (though of course we don't object if people do); 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.
Myth: "Cryonics? Those people are all just a bunch of nuts." Fact: in statistically relative terms, Cryonics organizations have ten times the number of doctors as the general public; not to mention statistically far higher numbers of scientists, PhD's, professors, authors, academicians, and lawyers. They include some of the most prominent and respected scientists of the late twentieth century, particularly in the field of nanotechnology. Once nanotech works, cryonics will work: and some of the richest corporations and governments and educational institutions in the world are pouring money into nanotechnology at an astonishing rate. Academic research is taking place at Yale, Princeton, MIT, Washington, Hamburg, Switzerland, Japan, and dozens of other institutions. Government research is being done by the departments of the U.S. Army and Air Force, NASA, the National Science Foundations, the National Institutes of Health, and the Departments of Commerce and Energy, and dozens of other institutions noted on the Nanotechnology Resource Database available on our web site's link page.
More information about that and all of the above can be found by checking out our (this) web site at http://www.cryonics.org -- an award-winning site that contains virtually everything about cryonics that's available online - or anywhere. We even have an internal search engine now on the contents page, so if there's some specific topic you want to know more about, 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 the best introductions possible. And the books by Ettinger and Drexler can be downloaded free from our web site. (James Halperin's book is out in paperback, and available at libraries.) Our web site has all sorts of other material on it useful in doing a report. We especially recommend our longer FAQ on the site, and the article 'Comparing Policies and Procedures' (and the What To Read page, of course - some great cryonics sci-fi there). For more technically advanced stuff, a cryobiologist's court declaration in A Cryobiologist's Defense Of Cryonics and Dr Ralph Merkle's The Molecular Repair Of The Brain are among the best technical defenses of cryonics written - so far.
One last thing. A lot of people who look into cryonics start out as skeptics, but end up as members. (In fact, it was in the course of doing research for his novel The First Immortal that James Halperin became convinced and signed up.) Sometimes this happens to students too. They learn about cryonics, and want to join. But if they're not yet of age, they need their parents' consent.
Email us at: cryonics@cryonics.org
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