A Non-Profit Organization

NOvember - DecemberJanuary 20152017 • VoVolumelume 36:138:6

Prospect of Human Age Reversal Page 10

Member Profile: Christine Peterson Page 16 ISSN 1054-4305 Brain Preservation and Personal Survival $9.95 Page 20 Improve Your Odds of a Good Cryopreservation You have your cryonics funding and contracts in place but have you considered other steps you can take to prevent problems down the road? ü Keep Alcor up-to-date about personal and medical changes. ü Update your Alcor paperwork to reflect your current wishes. ü Execute a cryonics-friendly Living Will and Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care. ü Wear your bracelet and talk to your friends and family about your desire to be cryopreserved. ü Ask your relatives to sign Affidavits stating that they will not interfere with your cryopreservation. ü Attend local cryonics meetings or start a local group yourself. ü Contribute to Alcor’s operations and research.

Contact Alcor (1-877-462-5267) and let us know how we can assist you. Visit the ALCOR FORUMS www.alcor.org/forums/ Discuss Alcor and cryonics topics with other members and Alcor officials. • The Alcor Foundation • Financial • Cell Repair Technologies • Rejuvenation • Cryobiology • Stabilization • Events and Meetings Other features include pseudonyms (pending verification of membership status) and a private forum. Visit the ALCOR BLOG www.alcor.org/blog/ Your source for news about: • Cryonics technology • Speaking events and meetings • Cryopreservation cases • Employment opportunities • Television programs about cryonics Alcor is on Facebook Connect with Alcor members and supporters on our official Facebook page: www.facebook.com/alcor.life.extension.foundation Become a fan and encourage interested friends, family members, and colleagues to support us too. A Non-Profit Organization COVER STORY: PAGE 10 Prospect of Human Age Reversal lume 38:6 ecember 2017 • Vo NOvember - D Bill Faloon established the first cryopreservation facility in the southeastern United States. In 1977, he incorporated the Florida Cryonics Association, which is now named Life Prospect Extension Foundation, Inc. This article of Human describes Bill’s latest project, which is Age to identify and fund research aimed at reversing biological aging in people Reversal Page 10 today! Member Profi le: Christine Peterson Page 16

ISSN 1054-4305 Brain Preservation and Personal Survival Page 20

$9.95

16 Member Profile: Christine Peterson Dive into nanotechnology and healthy living with cryonicist and Foresight Institute Co-Founder, Christine Peterson.

20 Brain Preservation and Personal Survival The Brain Preservation Foundation’s mission to validate structural preservation of the brain has been very successful but the link with mind uploading as a means of personal survival raises some important questions. Alexandre Erler makes the case for a distinct cryonics research program based on biological survival.

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 3 Editorial Board CONTENTS Saul Kent Ralph C. Merkle, Ph.D. R. Michael Perry, Ph.D.

Editor 5 Quod incepimus conficiemus Aschwin de Wolf The Case for Field Cryoprotection Contributing Writers What is field cryoprotection? How does it differ from Aschwin de Wolf today’s procedures? In this brief introduction to field Alexandre Erler cryoprotection you can read how aiming to deliver this William Faloon procedure to all Alcor members will improve patient care Max More, Ph.D. R. Michael Perry, Ph.D. and reduce costs, too! Nicole Weinstock 6 CEO Update Copyright 2017 An update about Alcor’s efforts to bring underfunded by Alcor Life Extension Foundation members back in the black, the history of Alcor Presidents, All rights reserved. and progress on case reports. Reproduction, in whole or part, without permission is prohibited. 26 Membership Statistics How many members, associate members, and patients does magazine is published bi-monthly. Cryonics Alcor have and where do they live? Please note: If you change your address less 28 FOR THE RECORD than a month before the magazine is mailed, it may be sent to your old address. The Price of Life: Isaac Asimov, Cryonics, and Human Death Extension Address correspondence to: Isaac Asimov was a well-known science fiction writer Cryonics Magazine and science popularizer, who published many of his own 7895 East Acoma Drive, Suite 110 writings through Doubleday, Inc., and was respected by Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 Phone: 480.905.1906 them as a scientific consultant. In 1964 he played an Toll free: 877.462.5267 important role in the fledgling cryonics movement by giving Fax: 480.922.9027 the nod of approval to Doubleday for publication of Robert Ettinger’s book, The Prospect of Immortality. Yet Asimov Letters to the Editor welcome: shunned cryonics himself and was finally cremated. Here [email protected] we take a look at why this happened. Advertising inquiries: 480.905.1906 x113 36 Revival Update [email protected] Mike Perry surveys the news and research to report on new ISSN: 1054-4305 developments that bring us closer to the revival of cryonics patients. Visit us on the web at www.alcor.org

Alcor News Blog http://www.alcor.org/blog/

4 Cryonics / November-December 2017 www.alcor.org Quod incepimus conficiemus

Photo: Cryo-Care Equipment Corporation at 2340 E. Washington St., Phoenix, AZ. Dr. Bedford’s “home” about 1970.

The Case for Field Cryoprotection By Aschwin de Wolf

he last major technological show that the fine ultrastructure of the brain option for all eligible patients is that it innovation at Alcor was vitrification degrades in a time-dependent manner and does not just improve patient care but (cryopreservation without ice blood vessels start leaking. reduces cost as well. Right now, for non- Tformation). Viability assays of brain The good news is that preventing this local cases Alcor needs to deploy a team slices and electron micrographs of brains outcome does not require novel scientific consisting of surgeons and technicians cryopreserved with these vitrification breakthroughs but a simple commitment to twice. Once at the patient’s beside and later solutions show substantial improvements eliminate shipment of patients on water ice again at Alcor for cryoprotective perfusion. over the older cryopreservation protocols. in favor of doing field cryoprotection and Field cryoprotection would eliminate this But this was almost 20 years ago and it is subzero cooling in the field instead. This double employment in favor of one single time for another technological innovation procedure is named “field cryoprotection.” deployment at the patient’s location. As a that will improve patient care. I want to The reason why we call it “field consequence, remote stabilization costs will suggest that the strongest candidate for cryoprotection” instead of “fieldgo up but Alcor HQ costs will be basically such an innovation is to introduce field cryopreservation” is because the patient is not eliminated except for a small cooling cryoprotection for all Alcor members. cooled all the way down to liquid nitrogen expense. This should allow for a non-trivial Field cryoprotection aims to close the temperature. While this is theoretically decrease in costs per case, which can be gap in outcome between patients that are possible (and desirable), the logistics of passed on to the member in the form of pronounced legally dead in the Scottsdale this procedure are too demanding at this lower cryopreservation costs or can be used area and patients that are pronounced legally point. So instead of cooling the patient to to eliminate or decrease future increases. dead in other US states by conducting the liquid nitrogen temperature (-196° Celsius) During the last couple of years Steve cryoprotective portion of Alcor’s procedure the patient is shipped to Alcor on dry ice Graber and Hugh Hixon have collaborated prior to transport to Alcor. (-78.5° Celsius) where further cooldown to improve field cryoprotection Currently the procedure would be to deploy begins. Research supports this is a safe technologies and the gap between a standby team to the patient’s bedside, start temperature for shipping patients, provided conducting cryoprotection in Scottsdale rapid cooling and cardiopulmonary support, stabilization and cryoprotection procedures or “on the road” has increasingly been replace the blood with an organ preservation are done timely and competently. From closed. Eliminating water ice shipment solution, and then ship the patient to Alcor the patient’s perspective the advantages for field cryoprotection will be need to for cryoprotection and long term care. Those include minimization of cold ischemia, be incremental and closely evaluated but organ preservation solutions have been preservation of integrity of the vessels the patient care and cost advantages are designed to counter the adverse effects of cold and blood brain barrier, and, under good evident. Field cryoprotection constitutes ischemia but are from for perfect. After about conditions, cryoprotection can start when the next big step in cryonics. Currently 6 hours of cold ischemia, the brain is rendered the brain is still in a viable state. only overseas members can benefit from non-viable (no EEG can be recovered). One of the most remarkable aspects of this procedure and the time has come to Electron micrographs of mammalian brains making field cryoprotection the default extend this to all members.  www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 5 CEO Update By Max More

lmost everyone is bad at financial on the Underfunding Plan. No one really Start of the Underfunding Plan Aplanning. liked it much. Yet it was clearly better than 4/12/2012 Alcor members, on average, seem to the ten or so other options considered. be well above average in education and Many members were able to solve their Number of members underfunded: intelligence, as are Alcor directors and underfunding problem by switching from 189 Neuro + 373 WB + 19 N/WB = 581 management. And yet, too many members whole body to neurocryopreservation. Total under minimum funding: seem to have assumed that inflation does not Others increased their life insurance $28,691,837 exist and that cryopreservation minimums coverage. Still others provided other would not rise from the level when they funding through the new Alternative Number of members at or above signed up. Perhaps some thought that Alcor Funding Methods mechanism. minimum funding: membership would grow so strongly that Many of those who could not do these 230 + 113 + 17 = 360 early, poorly-funded members would be a things were able to maintain their coverage minimal expense, easily grandfathered in. by paying the Underfunding Dues. These Total amount over minimum funding: The world has disappointed us, so far, in began at 1% of the amount by which $16,533,511 not adopting cryonics far more widely. We a member is underfunded (phased in should have grown much faster. Perhaps we gradually) and are currently (at the time of Balance: will before too long. But we cannot make writing) at 2%. Because of the phenomenon -$12,158,326 sustainable plans on hopeful assumptions. of “adverse selection,” this percentage is expected to rise over time. According to the International Risk Management Institute, 1/31/2016 adverse selection means: “An imbalance in Hugh has been full-time an exposure group created when persons Number of members underfunded: with Alcor for over 30 years, who perceive a high probability of loss for 137 + 167 + 9 = 313 themselves seek to buy insurance to a much starting full-time without greater degree than those who perceive a Total under minimum funding: pay in early 1983. His first low probability of loss.” In our case: Those $13,695,889 who can buy more insurance affordably Number of members at or above cryopreservation was in 1978. or otherwise raise their funding will do minimum funding: so, leaving a smaller pool of increasingly 395 + 342 + 11 = 748 underfunded members. Past Alcor boards have also contributed Given that there was no solution that Total amount over minimum funding: to the problem by putting off figuring would make everyone happy, the evidence $30,665,112 out an (inevitably painful) solution. As is that the Underfunding Plan has been cryopreservation minimums have risen working well. Here are three historical Balance: over the years to reflect Alcor’s real costs, data points illustrating the reduction in +$16,692,223 the situation got worse. Finally, in 2013, total underfunding, along with a growth in the Alcor board and management settled members funded above-minimum:

6 Cryonics / November-December 2017 www.alcor.org 9/1/2017 Alcor’s underfunding challenge has Alcor Presidents improved mightily over the last six years. 1. Linda Chamberlain took office Number of members underfunded: At the same time, we need to acknowledge 111 + 132 + 4 = 247 23 Feb 1972 (date of Alcor in our attitudes and policies going forward incorporation). [1 year] that realistic pricing and future planning Total under minimum funding: are critical to long-term survival and 2. Fred Chamberlain took office 16 $10,720,606 success. In a future article, I plan to explore Feb 1973 [2 years 6 months] Number of members at or above some ways in which Alcor members can 3. Linda Chamberlain returned to minimum funding: put those principles into practice. Alcor presidency Aug or Sep 1975 455 + 435 + 13 = 903 [1 year] 4. Allen McDaniels, MD took office Total amount over minimum funding: Aug or Sep 1976 [9 or 10 months] $33,837,527 Alcor members, on average, 5. Laurence Gale took office 12 Jun Balance: 1977 [5 years 3 months] +$23,116,921 seem to be well above 6. Mike Darwin (Federowicz) took office 12 Sep 1982 [5 years 5 To summarize the core points: average in education and months] • From the start of the underfunding intelligence, as are Alcor 7. Carlos Mondragon took office 07 Plan over five years ago, the number directors and management. Feb 1988 [5 years] of underfunded members has gone down from 581 to 247. And yet, too many members 8. Steve Bridge took office 23 Jan 1993 [4 years 1 month] • The total amount of under- seem to have assumed minimum funding has gone down that inflation does not exist 9. Fred Chamberlain took office 01 from $28,691,837 to $10,720,606. Feb 1997 [4 years 2 months] That’s a huge improvement. and that cryopreservation 10. Linda Chamberlain took office 01 • In addition, the number of members minimums would not rise Apr 2001 [5 months] with funding at or above the current from the level when 11. Jerry Lemler took office 09 Sep minimums has gone up from 360 to 2001 [2 years 4 months] 903. they signed up. 12. Joe Waynick took office 01 Jan • The total amount of over- 2004 [1 year 7 months] minimum funding (based on current minimums) has gone up 13. Steve Van Sickle took office 28 from $16,533,511 to $33,837,527. Friday September 1, 2017 Aug 2005 (acting CEO) [2 years 9 That’s shift from red to black of over Alcor staff took a little time off at noon to months] $35,000,000. So, all is good, right? mark two occasions. The first was Hugh 14. Tanya Jones took office 09 Jun 2008 Not so fast. Hixon’s 75th birthday. Hugh has been full- (Exec. Director). [7.5 months] time with Alcor for over 30 years, starting Two factors should stop us from relaxing 15. Jennifer Chapman took office 28 and keep us working on the issue. First, as full-time without pay in early 1983. His first cryopreservation was in 1978. Jan 2009 (Exec. Director) [1 year minimums go up over time, there could 11 months] be a shift toward the red if members don’t The other occasion was that on that day I became the longest-serving Alcor president 16. Max More, PhD took office 01 Jan plan ahead. Members need to do better at 2011 (President & CEO). planning for future nominal price increases, in its 45+ year history. Fred Chamberlain and Alcor needs to do better at helping held that title for a long time, having served as president twice, for 2 years and 6 months In descending order of length in office, them (without falling afoul of financial total time only: (as of September 14, 2017) regulations). Second, it’s likely that the starting in February 1973 and then again underfunded members are older and so for over four years starting in 1997. By the 1. Max More will be cryopreserved sooner, leading to a time you read this, I will be closing in on 6 years 8 months, 2 weeks loss for years to come. In other words, the 2500 days in the role. Given that none of us 2. Fred Chamberlain overall balance currently looks to be well in have perfect memories and many members 6 years 8 months the black, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have joined us relatively recently, this seems 3. Mike Darwin: have a large number of badly underfunded like a good excuse to convey a bit of history. 5 years 5 months cases over the next decade or so.

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 7 Age Less with

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MKAQAV171106 Alcor_NovDec_Gero_Ad.indd 51 10/4/17 10:32 AM Prospect of Human Age Reversal

By William Faloon, Co-Founder Life Extension Buyers Club, Inc.

William (Bill) Faloon has had cryonics funding in place for himself longer than virtually anyone. Bill, now 63, bought life insurance around 1971 to ensure funding would be available for someone to cryopreserve him. Back in those early days (before ALCOR), finding a cryonics organization was difficult, and none offered reliable services. Bill Faloon established the first cryopreservation facility in the southeastern United States. In 1977, he incorporated the Florida Cryonics Association, which is now named Life Extension Foundation, Inc. Along with Saul Kent, Bill Faloon is responsible for financially assisting ALCOR in earlier years, along with establishing cryopreservation research facilities, including 21st Century Medicine, Inc., Critical Care Research, Inc., Suspended Animation, Inc. and the Timeship project, which is designed to house tens of thousands of cryonicists in perpetuity in the safest geographic location in the United States. This article describes Bill’s latest project, which is to identify and fund research aimed at reversing biological aging in people today!

or ALCOR members who don’t know methodically validate age-reversal in study $1 million invested or committed. This me, I’ve co-founded entities over the groups of 30-50 people. amount was insufficient to fund the clinical past 40 years that support research to Healthy young blood donors have been studies. So 100% of the funds we received Fextend healthy human lifespans. recruited to provide plasma concentrates were returned to investors. These organizations have contributed that will be infused into elderly people. Our Life Extension Society also received over $200 million to initiatives that focus Preliminary data indicates old people tax-deductible donations of about $54,000 on perfecting cryopreservation, slowing receiving concentrated young plasma may that remains in a charity account and will aging and providing long-term security for be growing younger.13 only be used to fund human age-reversal cryonics patients (via the Timeship project). In August 2016, we announced the projects. Cryonics research is our priority, for it formation of Age Reversal Therapeutics, Each day, 5,000 Americans perish from represents the best way of gaining access to Inc. The company’s mission was to fund age-related illnesses.14 Based on what’s been future medical technology. human studies and rapidly make effective recently discovered, many of these lives can Starting about 3 years ago, however, we therapies available to those who have a short be saved. opened a new front in our quest to achieve time to live. As cryonicists, these human age-reversal human immortality. initiatives provide two critical benefits: Our inspiration was ignited by 1. Delay expiration of our first life findings showing consistent reversals of cycle, thus enabling us to benefit aging processes in experimental rodent from improved cryopreservation models.1,2,3,4,5,6,7 techniques. Even more compelling are pilot studies 2. May eliminate the current, absolute where degenerative aging is apparently being need to be cryopreserved, assuming reversed in humans.8,9,10,11,12 we can accelerate age reversal in It has become abundantly clear that a way analogous to the computer therapies may exist now to systemically Age Reversal Therapeutics, Inc.was only revolution that began in the early rejuvenate elderly people. allowed to accept funds from “accredited 1980s. Some researchers we are helping to investors,” which required burdensome This article describes a plan to fire up a support have approvals from the FDA to SEC paperwork. When the offering expired biomedical renaissance and how you can launch full-scale clinical trials. The goal is to on March 31, 2017, there was less than personally participate.

10 Cryonics / November-December 2017 www.alcor.org e live in an unprecedented era as Amsterdam gathered to form the it relates to our understanding Society for Recovery of Drowned Ben Franklin quote: of what causes pathological Persons.24 Amsterdam is a city of agingW. canals and hence people fell in “We must, indeed, all This knowledge enables us to investigate and drowned. It thus became the and measure the effects of interventions birthplace for the teaching and hang together or, most that may enable meaningful reversals of promotion of the resuscitation of assuredly, we shall all degenerative processes. dead persons. hang separately.” The enthusiasm surrounding the Within 4 years of its founding, prospect of age reversal has not gone the society in Amsterdam claimed (Relating to signers of the unnoticed. Headline news routinely reports that 150 persons were saved by Declaration of Independence) on today’s billionaires who are funding their recommendations.25 ...... projects aimed at achieving markedly The Society for Recovery of Paraphrase relating to longer lifespans.15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23 Drowned Persons introduced age-reversal research: We at the Life Extension Buyers Club™ scientific principles and applaud all those seeking to turn “aging” techniques, along with ethical “We must, indeed, all into a relic of the past, as was done with changes that started a collective work together to defeat smallpox, polio, and other diseases. belief that resuscitation of the Multiple factors involved in aging dead was possible. aging, or, most assuredly, make it unlikely that any one person Many of these techniques we shall, each alone, be alone will discover the ultimate cure. A (or variations of them) are used concerted effort to coordinate with activist in modern emergency medical defeated by aging.” individuals/organizations is a more rational practice.” approach. Our private association will seek to rescue aged humans who may not live long enough for rejuvenation therapies to be fully validated. Our goal is to save lives, as did the civic-minded Amsterdam group 250 years ago. Here is the game plan:

1. We believe aging is at least partially reversible using existing therapies; The purpose of Rescue Elders is to Pulling resources together 2. There is a growing interest in unite people in ways that will accelerate the The new strategy is a “private association” transforming this into clinical reality; availability of rejuvenation technologies to that brings together like-minded 3. Those interested in age reversal want benefit all of humanity, including members individuals into a collective group that active (not passive) engagement; of the association. seeks to rejuvenate aging people…like 4. The most efficient way to advance This private association consists of many readers of this article. age-reversal research is via a private activists, self-experimenters, physicians and The group has engaged in daily association (analogous to the scientists involved in age-reversal initiatives. communications whereby information is Amsterdam rescue society). These individuals share a common desire to disseminated about participating in age- regenerate aged people. reversal studies, self-experimentation, Choosing a name investing/donating to specific projects, and Based on the lives saved by the Amsterdam raising public awareness. group, I initially proposed our private This private association is analogous association be called Society for Rescue of to groups formed in the past to advance Senescent Persons. a science when the medical profession We later amended the name to reflect the showed little interest. wisdom inherent in elderly persons, along On the next column is an excerpt from with the respect shown to elders in long- Life Extension magazine that describes lived populations. such a private association: The name of our group is thus: “In 1767 a few wealthy Society for Rescue of Our Elders and civic-minded citizens in (RescueElders.org)

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 11 How the private association to access the scientifically validated To review current regenerative medicine operates rejuvenation therapy via emails that will be research projects, log on to www. The Society for Rescue of Our Elders sent to you. RescueEldery.org/update currently has about 1,700 individuals who If you want these age-reversal updates, have demonstrated their desire to donate, it’s essential that you register at: www. For longer life, invest, and/or actively participate in rescueelders.org/join advancing human age-reversal studies. William Faloon, Volunteer Moving forward… Society for Rescue of our Elders We live in an era whereby limitations on and long-term ALCOR member  maximum lifespans are likely to be soon vanquished. Multiple biomedical technologies are emerging comparable to the personal computer/communication revolution that arose in the early 1980s. Our mission is to demonstrate statistically significant human age reversal so that an eruption of charitable and capitalistic forces will compete to induce Partnerships may form within or outside even longer, healthier lifespans. the group in any manner the individual members choose. Information will be shared at the discretion of the individual members. William Faloon There are some prestigious individuals in this group who are bound by confidentiality/nondisclosure contracts. We nonetheless welcome their input and any meaningful scientific data they are permitted to disseminate. A key to our success will be open-source information sharing whenever feasible. Each day our research is delayed, we grow To reiterate, the Society for Rescue of older and more frail. There is tremendous Our Elders purpose is to exchange scientific urgency to the effort to move human information, foster strategic alliances, and rejuvenation projects forward. support biomedical endeavors aimed at I’ve dedicated significant personal reversing degenerative aging. resources towards helping to fund rejuvenation research that is occurring now. Who is eligible to join? Every time you purchase a blood test, Since 2015, I have asked supporters of the nutrient, or other product from the Life Extension Buyers Club for assistance Life Extension Buyers Club, you help in advancing this humanitarian mission to contribute more funds towards human abolish pathologic human aging. age-reversal endeavors. We’ve since gathered an impressive group of scientists and activists who want to participate. To register for informal membership in the Society for Rescue of Our Elders, you can log on to: www.rescueelders.org/join By registering on this website, you can learn about ongoing research projects and the various ways you can participate as a study subject. When a major advance occurs, you’ll be informed about how

12 Cryonics / November-December 2017 www.alcor.org FOOTNOTES

1. Conboy IM, Conboy MJ, Wagers 10. Stem Cell Therapy ‘Reverses Ageing 18. Live for ever: Scientists say they’ll soon AJ, Girma ER, Weissman IL, Rando Process’ in Millionaire Peter Nygard. extend life ‘well beyond 120’. Available TA. Rejuvenation of aged progenitor Available at: http://www.ibtimes. at: https://www.theguardian.com/ cells by exposure to a young systemic co.uk/stem-cell-therapy-reverses- science/2015/jan/11/-sp-live-forever- environment. Nature. 2005 Feb aging-process-millionaire-peter- extend-life-calico-google-longevity. 17;433(7027):760-4. nygard-1438362. Accessed April 5, Accessed April 5, 2017. 2017. 2. Young blood reverses age-related 19. Tech searches for fountain of youth. impairments in cognitive function and 11. Age-reversing pill to be tested on Available at: http://www.cnbc. synaptic plasticity in mice. Available at: humans this year. Available at: http:// com/2016/11/22/tech-searches-for- http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/ dennismichaellynch.com/age-reversing- fountain-of-youth.html. Accessed April v20/n6/full/nm.3569.html. Accessed pill-tested-humans-year/. Accessed 5, 2017. April 4, 2017. April 5, 2017. 20. The Immortality Financiers: The 3. Katsimpardi L, Litterman NK, Schein 12. Bernardes de Jesus B, Blasco MA. Billionaires Who Want to Live Forever. PA, et al. Vascular and neurogenic Aging by telomere loss can be reversed. Available at: http://www.thedailybeast. rejuvenation of the aging mouse brain Cell Stem Cell. 2011;8(1):3-4. com/articles/2013/08/20/the- by young systemic factors. Science. immortality-financiers-the-billionaires- 2014 May 9;344(6184):630-4. 13. In Revival of Parabiosis, Young who-want-to-live-forever.html. Blood Rejuvenates Aging Microglia, Accessed April 5, 2017. 4. Functioning of aged brains and Cognition. Available at: http://www. muscles in mice made younger. alzforum.org/news/conference- 21. Billionaire Philanthropists Funding Available at: http://hsci.harvard.edu/ coverage/revival-parabiosis-young- Anti Aging Research. Available news/functioning-aged-brains-and- blood-rejuvenates-aging-microglia- at: http://www.lifeextension.com/ muscles-mice-made-younger. Accessed cognition. Accessed April 5, 2017. magazine/2015/10/billionaire- April 4, 2017. philanthropists-funding-anti-aging- 14. Deaths and Mortality. Available at: research/page-01. Accessed April 5, 5. Ruckh JM, Zhao JW, Shadrach JL, et https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/ 2017. al. Rejuvenation of regeneration in the deaths.htm. Accessed April 5, 2017. aging central nervous system. Cell Stem 22. Silicon Valley’s Quest to Live Forever. Cell. 2012 Jan 6;10(1):96-103. 15. Silicon Valley Is Trying to Make Available at: http://www.newyorker. Humans Immortal—and Finding com/magazine/2017/04/03/silicon- 6. Loffredo FS, Steinhauser ML, Jay SM, Some Success. Available at: http:// valleys-quest-to-live-forever. Accessed et al. Growth differentiation factor www.newsweek.com/2015/03/13/ April 5, 2017. 11 is a circulating factor that reverses silicon-valley-trying-make-humans- age-related cardiac hypertrophy. Cell. immortal-and-finding-some- 23. A controversial effort to defeat death 2013 May 9;153(4):828-39. Available success-311402.html. Accessed 5, April is underway. Available at: http://www. at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ 2017. businessinsider.com/how-immortality- articles/PMC3677132/. Accessed April and-life-extension-research-could-help- 4, 2017. 16. Tech titans’ latest project: Defy the-world-2015-8. Accessed April 5, death. Available at: http:// 2017. 7. New York Acadmey of Sciences 1972 www.washingtonpost.com/sf/ Nov,34(7). Parabiosis for the study of national/2015/04/04/tech-titans- 24. Society for Recovery of Drowned age-related chronic disease. Available latest-project-defy-death/?utm_ Persons. Available at: https://play. at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ term=.89719f48a575. Accessed April google.com/books/reader?id=peNbA articles/PMC4082987/. Accessed April 5, 2017. AAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&o 4, 2017. utput= reader&authuser=0&hl=en. 17. Could humans one day live to 500? Accessed April 5, 2017. 8. Growth Differentiation Factor 11 is Available at: http://www.dailymail. a Circulating Factor that Reverses co.uk/sciencetech/article-3022363/ 25. Society for Recovery of Drowned Age-Related Cardiac Hypertrophy. Could-humans-one-day-live-500-s- Persons. Eisenberg M. History of Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm. group-eccentric-billionaires-believe- the science of cardiopulmonary nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3677132/. spending-fortunes-research-hope- resuscitation. In: Ornato JP, Accessed April 5, 2017. make-possible.html. Accessed April 5, Peberdy MA, eds. Cardiopulmonary 2017. Resuscitation. Humana Press. 2005;1-9. 9. Wu JM, Hsueh YC, Ch’ang HJ, et al. Circulating cells contribute to cardiomyocyte regeneration after injury. Circ Res. 2015 Feb 13;116(4):633-41.

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 13 ARE YOU TAKING THE BEST FORM OF CoQ10?

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MKAQAV170207 Alcor_CoQ10r4.indd 6 2/8/17 10:03 AM Bring in a new member and save a year of dues!

embership growth has been slowly accelerating since bottoming out in 2013. But we would benefit from faster Mgrowth. Alcor is now at a point where we could enjoy considerable economies of scale: We could manage many more members with minimal or no increase in staffing costs. That would enable us toreduce membership dues while building up our resources. A modest acceleration in membership growth would move us into a virtuous circle where growth enables reductions in dues which further spurs membership growth. Growth will also make it easier to hire highly skilled people in medical and technical areas.

The most effective way to bring in new members has been through direct encouragement by existing members. Many of us realize this, but may not make it a priority to nudge our friends a little more to sign up and potentially save their lives. How can we spur more members to gently persuade those they care about to move ahead with making cryonics arrangements? Perhaps some financial incentive will help.

Anyone who is primarily responsible for getting a new member to sign up will, at their request, be given a one- year waiver of membership dues.

For an existing member to receive the dues waiver, they must (a) be credited by the person who has signed up; (b) ask for the waiver; (c) not be otherwise profiting from the signup; (d) wait until the new member has completed all essential cryopreservation paperwork and has paid at least six months of dues; and (e) the new member must not be a member of their family. If the member signs up two new members, they are eligible for a two-year waiver of dues. If the new member is a student, the existing member is eligible for a waiver of six months of dues.

Who do you know who could do with some encouragement to sign up? Please, give it some thought, then help yourself and help the organization by helping to stimulate membership growth. Bring in one new member per year, and you will never pay dues again!

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 15 Member Profile Christine Peterson

By Nicole Weinstock

Christine at the 17th Foresight Conference in 2014. Image by Sunyata Studios

care tremendously about health, Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of lifespan, and Earth’s environment. Major but I also care tremendously about Nanotechnology, are responsible for the first pollutants like carbon dioxide can in the environment,” says Christine widespread definition of nanotechnology. principle be converted into methanol to “IPeterson. To satisfy both passions on a “The original definition that caught on in power fuel cells, atomically-precise sensors daily basis, it helps that she is a co-founder, the U.S. and most of the world was the one can someday be sent through the body board member and workshop facilitator that Foresight put forward, which really to detect and eradicate cancer cells. The at the Foresight Institute. The Palo Alto- is molecular nanotechnology, the coming applications are endless. area nonprofit has a thirty plus-year track ability to build molecular machines, For Christine, the road to possibility of record of cross-disciplinary research, systems, materials—everything—with this magnitude started in upstate New York. advocacy and innovation related to cutting atomic level precision.” But this scope Her father was an engineer, an orientation edge technologies—nanotechnology in became greatly broadened by the U.S. which encouraged her scientific world particular. National Nanotechnology Initiative near lens from early on. Christine credits good the turn of the century, whose definition local public schools in helping to secure continues to encompass any science, her college acceptance to the prestigious technology and/or engineering performed Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the scale of 1 to 100 nanometers. As a (MIT), as a chemistry major. “My high result, researchers who pursue the original school teacher taught chemistry better than goal often refer to their work as “molecular any professor I had at MIT later on,” she nanotechnology,” or “atomically precise praises, but adds that, nonetheless, “I can’t manufacturing,” to avoid confusion. say that chemistry was my great love.” The relationship between this extremely She explored and eliminated other small-scale technology and the areas of fields from consideration—economics, health and the environment may seem, philosophy, history, law, and medicine— Christine testifies before Congress in a time characterized by the likes of before toughing it out and finishing her on the societal implications of prescriptive and conservation-driven chemistry degree. Still it became clear that advanced nanotechnology. efforts, rather elusive, or, as Christine has her strengths lay elsewhere than chemical joked in so many of her presentations, “like lab work. “It’s like cooking,” she jokes. “I science fiction.” Yet the ability to manipulate wasn’t very good at it.” As an alternative According to Christine, Foresight and the matter at the atomic level promises to becoming an experimental scientist, key publication that spurred its founding, mammoth improvements to healthspan, she opted to pursue semiconductor

16 Cryonics / November-December 2017 www.alcor.org of consequences and applications, kept flexible enough to address related technologies like artificial intelligence and space technology. For Christine, who has been an Alcor member since the mid-80s, nanotechnology and cryonics have been associated since college. It was then that she first became acquainted with Drexler and his earliest insights into molecular nanotechnology, which also shifted his technical view of cryonics in a favorable direction. Christine became aware of cryonics during this shift, finding it quite sensible. “When you’re nineteen and someone explains something to you, and it sounds logical and technically correct, you’re not really surprised at that age. Everything is new at that point.” Many on first learning about cryonics have reacted negatively, but not her. “To me, cryonics is Christine shares a nibble with her mother, Norma Peterson, who is also an Alcor member. sort of an obvious thing. With sufficiently advanced repair abilities, it could work. My early introduction to this made it harder for engineering. Her chemistry background in Foresight was responsible use. They me to see why people have these emotional in fact would strengthen her talents for both smartly and earnestly anticipated reactions. I didn’t have to go through that semiconductor electronics, which is central concerns about the potential misuse of myself. I skipped that stage.” to modern computers and a mainstay of nanotechnology, amidst its many benefits. Nevertheless, Christine has a track modern technology. (Silicon, the chemical Foresight then became a forum and a record of success in communications. A element from which many semiconductors mechanism for information exchange and simple YouTube search under her name are made, made its way to the very name ongoing research into the entire spectrum of the country’s most tech-saturated region: Silicon Valley.) In addition to its improved alignment with her natural talents, the semiconductor engineering pathway furthered another career objective: supporting early publications in nanotech. Christine assumed responsibility for underwriting Eric Drexler’s seminal publication, Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology. Engines reached bookstores in 1986, the same year that Peterson and Drexler co-founded Foresight Institute. The concurrence of this was key, Christine explains: “We realized that just one book wasn’t enough...There needed to be an organization. We actually incorporated the organization before the book came out. And in the back of the book we gave our postal address...Because we knew people were going to be very excited about these ideas.” Christine on a hike at Pinnacles National Park in Central California. Check out that shirt! One of the concerns to which the nanotech duo gave particular attention

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 17 was proprietary, but the software that ultimately caught on was instead publicly available and modifiable. The licensing model for such software was frequently referred to as “free,” but as Christine recalls: “I had seen, so many times, newcomers to the concept of free software becoming very confused by what was meant by the term ‘free’ software. People always assumed it meant ‘free’ as in price. But while that software was free in price, that’s not what the name means by ‘free.’ It means ‘free’ in terms of freedom.” After several brainstorming sessions she came up with “open source software,” which is now widely used as a more understandable term. Christine’s communications strength isn’t just limited to technology. She has had a lot of success giving talks about love Badassery at its best, courtesy of Minda Myers. and finding a life partner. Drawing on examples from evolution and biochemistry, Diana Kirschner’s book, Love in 90 Days: yields several videos of nanotechnology with the Xanadu hypertext project, a The Essential Guide to Finding Your Own and longevity lectures and presentations. collaboration by a group of forward- True Love, and her own experience finding In fact, it was her sensitivity to the nuance looking thinkers initially scattered about love in 115 days—just a few weeks off and perception of language that led her to the country (but later centered in the Bay from Kirschner’s estimate!—she guides coin the term “open source software.” This Area) who were working on a technology people—women in particular—through indirectly stemmed from her experience similar to the World Wide Web. Xanadu the meaning and implications of cuckoldry, oxytocin, and dopamine in heterosexual pair bonding. She’s written an ebook and hopes to find time to write a more robust publication in the future. Not excluding the health benefits of a long-term love, well-being in general is an area of ever-increasing passion for Christine. Chronic stress is one area of particular interest, spurred by research into vagus nerve stimulation, which can “basically turn off the fight or flight mechanism of the body and turn on the healing mechanism of the body.” A part of the parasympathetic nervous system, many studies have drawn a connection between it and your health and longevity. To this end, she regularly meditates, practices yoga, and sings. Yes! Singing is, according to Christine, a great social (extra health points for that) way to stimulate the vagus nerve. “Right now, I’m learning ‘Just in Time,’ and ‘I’m in the Mood for Love.’ I would like to get good at ‘I’m in the Mood for Love,’ because my Christine shows off her stem cells now stored at Forever Labs. husband really likes that song.”

18 Cryonics / November-December 2017 www.alcor.org sense of sincerity and commitment to the field’s progress. “Promoting cryonics and then carrying it out—actually performing the cryosuspensions—and trying to carry forward the research is extraordinarily challenging. It’s one of the hardest things I know that people do anywhere, so I’m tremendously admiring of the whole team.” To read more about Christine’s work in nanotechnology and the Foresight Institute, please visit www.foresight.org. Her ebook on finding a life partner can be requested by Alcor members for free by emailing [email protected]. 

Christine with the late Doug Engelbart, inventor of the computer mouse and Silicon Valley legend.

The value of sleep in the stress and without that.” She has found ample proof of overall health equation is also important calorie restriction reducing chronic diseases to Christine. She wears an Oura ring every that impact healthspan, but is less convinced night. A waterproof Finnish sleeping ring of its efficacy in boosting human lifespan. made of high-tech ceramics, it uses a pulse As to the alternatives with similar benefits, oximeter and other sensors to give very she has been researching intermittent detailed information on your sleep. “I have fasting, and a distinct type of fasting that found it super helpful,” she reports. involves restricting one macronutrient Hot tip from Christine! Driving bumper Amidst all these successful experiments, at a time. Cold thermogenesis—regular cars is a great way to de-stress. Christine shares less enthusiasm for the exposure to cold temperatures—is another popular life extension topic of permanent area of inquiry. calorie restriction. “A long-term period of As is abundantly clear, “Increased calorie restriction over decades sounds like healthspan is kind of a routine thing for me hell to me. I hate feeling cold! But it sounds to be interested in,” says Christine. “You go like there are ways to get similar benefits to your dentist, you do your life extension stuff.” Looking to the future of cryonics, as the co-founder of an institute with “foresight” in the title is wont to do, Christine hopes the next five to ten years at Alcor will focus on recruitment with a futuristic edge. She hopes for an updated recruitment book and perhaps even a video. Such resources might have strong appeal to the tech-minded cryonicists-to-be and the younger generations that cryonics has yet Christine with her daily tea—another longevity strategy or at least a stress-reducer. to capture. A commendable combination, Christine’s vision is balanced by a strong

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 19 Brain Preservation and Personal Survival: The Importance of Promoting Cryonics-Specific Research By Alexandre Erler

INTRODUCTION: CRYONICS so simple. ASC is no doubt an important and the original brain revived, using AND THE BRAIN PRESERVATION achievement for the field of brain banking, future technology. Nonetheless, ASC does FOUNDATION and as its name indicates, it is indeed a introduce empirical and philosophical As someone who is fully supportive of the form of cryopreservation, since it involves uncertainties (e.g. could we really restore, ultimate goals of the cryonics enterprise, but vitrification of the brain at -135°C. as opposed to recreate, the original neural still views the current state of the practice Nonetheless, ASC does not count as structure following the various molecular with some degree of skepticism, I make a cryonics, insofar as it uses a fixative solution changes involved?) that traditional cryonics point of acquainting myself with the latest prior to vitrification and cooling, which does not. evidence regarding the quality of cryonics could potentially preclude revival of the But why, it might be asked, should one procedures and their ability to preserve the original biological brain (an essential part remained fixated on pursuing biological foundations of a person’s identity through of cryonics as traditionally understood). revival via traditional cryonics, if the time. Over the past 18 months or so, I have And indeed, biological revival with the help evidence in favour of good ultrastructure increasingly seen a recent achievement by of future technology is not a priority for the preservation is better for ASC than it is for 21st-Century Medicine (21CM) cited by BPF’s president, Dr. Kenneth Hayworth. contemporary cryonics procedures? It is for some cryonics supporters as demonstrating Rather, he envisages brain preservation instance known that, up to now, 21CM’s the scientific validity of those procedures: as conducive to radical life extension via cryonics protocol involving the use of namely 21CM’s research on aldehyde- mind uploading: a process that would cryoprotectant M22 has been causing the stabilized cryopreservation (ASC), a involve cutting the preserved brain into brain to shrink to almost 50% of its natural technique that allowed them to win the thin slices, scanning each slice, and feeding size due to osmotic dehydration, hindering Small Mammal Prize awarded by the Brain the resulting data to an advanced computer our ability to establish the quality of Preservation Foundation (BPF) last year that would thereby be able to map out the ultrastructure preservation using electron by demonstrating excellent preservation of entire network of neural connections in microscopy (The Brain Preservation the ultrastructure in a whole rabbit brain the person’s original brain, and ultimately Foundation, n.d.; De Wolf, 2017). If so, (McIntyre and Fahy, 2015). Were I to to emulate that person’s mind (Hayworth, why not join the BPF in focusing simply follow this line of reasoning, I could happily 2010). This is quite different from cryonics. on the type of brain preservation that seems set aside my concerns about the adequacy Assuming that a technique like ASC to yield the best evidence of success, even of today’s cryopreservation procedures, is compatible with mind uploading, but if this means turning away from cryonics which had now been verified by scientific not with the revival of the original brain, towards mind uploading? experts; or if I still wasn’t convinced, I it should not be treated as a landmark in In what follows, I will argue that, could simply donate money directly to the cryonics research. Admittedly, there is given the current state of our scientific BPF via their website, in order to support some uncertainty about the truth of that and philosophical knowledge, doing so further research aimed at perfecting brain assumption. It seems at least conceivable would be irresponsible. Brain preservation preservation methods. that the chemical cross-links created by research targeted at mind uploading is It turns out, however, that things are not the fixation process could be reversed, interesting in its own right, and could

20 Cryonics / November-December 2017 www.alcor.org potentially help foster breakthroughs in the (memories, beliefs, desires, personality of PsyCon strive to avoid that implication field of artificial intelligence. Furthermore, traits, etc.) that constitutes your mind. by stipulating that you are only identical the BPF’s commitment to holding such On this view, preserving you after you with an upload of your mind if no more research to the highest standards of scientific have been pronounced dead requires than one copy of it has been created, yet rigour is laudable, and worth emulating. ensuring the persistence of enough of those this move leads to other philosophical Nonetheless, for those interested in brain psychological features, in an embodied problems. Hayworth, however, happily preservation with a view to enabling radical mind of some sort (but one that need not be endorses the implication that multiple life extension, supporting cryonics-specific embodied in your current biological brain). copies of a single individual can co-exist research remains the safer bet. We should One variant of PsyCon, endorsed by many at the same time, and contends that those not leave it to organisations like the BPF to supporters of mind uploading including who object to that implication are simply figure out how to save those whom modern Hayworth, states that preserving a person confused (Hayworth, 2010). medicine cannot help. after legal death requires preserving her connectome, understood as the mapping of HOW TO MAKE A PRUDENT TWO DIFFERENT VIEWS ABOUT neural circuitry encoding one’s memories, CHOICE UNDER (PHILOSOPHICAL) PERSONAL IDENTITY AND SURVIVAL skills, and other psychological features UNCERTAINTY To see why this is so, let us begin by noting – that is to say, the connectome as an For the record, I personally find PhyCon the two main philosophical theories of informational entity rather than a physical more plausible than PsyCon (although personal identity through time that are one (Hayworth, 2010), even though the I also agree that the preservation of one’s relevant when discussing the respective information in question will by necessity psychological features after cryonic revival merits of cryonics and mind uploading in be stored in some physical substratum, is highly desirable, even if it is not required this context. The first one, which we can whether a brain or a computer. for sheer survival). However, my personal call the “Physical Continuity” (PhyCon) Like virtually all philosophical theories, opinion on the matter can be set aside for theory, asserts that a person is identical both the PhyCon and PsyCon theories have the sake of the present discussion. The with the physical substratum from which their partisans and detractors. PhyCon, important fact is that there are reasonable, her mind emerges: that is to say, her for instance, has been said to imply that honest and intelligent people on both brain, with its intricate web of neurons there is a fundamental difference between sides of that debate, and that neither side and synaptic connections. (For a good a scenario in which a person had her has so far managed to present arguments exposition of the theory, see e.g. McMahan, brain suddenly destroyed and replaced by that would convince all reasonable people 2002.) According to this theory, saving an exact copy of it, perhaps produced via on the other side. In such a situation, the a person from destruction after she has scanning and 3D printing using neurons as intellectually responsible path to take is been pronounced dead requires preserving basic material; and a scenario in which the surely to eschew certainty, and acknowledge enough of her brain, in a state in which person’s brain cells were gradually replaced that the other side could be right, even if that brain retains at least its potential for by new ones over an extended period of one thinks that this is unlikely and that the viability. What exactly counts as “enough” time, in the same way as the rest of the arguments favoring one’s own position are of the brain is of course a difficult question human body regularly regenerates itself. very strong. that would deserve much more discussion. While most PhyCon theorists would agree If that is the case, what is the prudent While we can safely say that, all else being that the second scenario is compatible with choice to make for those who wish to equal, it is always preferable to preserve as the preservation of the person’s identity promote radical life extension through much of the original brain as we can, the through time, they will deny that the first brain preservation? I submit that traditional survival of the person arguably does not is – if the original brain gets destroyed, cryonics is the more prudent option to require perfect preservation. Intuitively, they will say, so must the person as well, pursue. (This remark could be extended people can survive limited forms of brain and the new replica brain must belong to to ASC if one could show that it is in damage, such as those caused by strokes. a new person not numerically identical principle compatible with the revival of the What is more, as cryonicists have pointed with the first one. Some find this difference original brain, and provided that it is not out, brain damage that causes significant of treatment between the two scenarios combined with mind uploading.) This can disability today might no longer be a serious arbitrary (e.g. Parfit, 1984). be demonstrated using a simple argument problem (as long as it is limited enough not Some versions of PsyCon, on the that considers what the implications are if to undermine personal identity) in a future other hand, imply that multiple copies of we assume that PhyCon and, respectively, where cryonic revival has become possible, yourself could all be you. Indeed, suppose PsyCon are true. as the technological means will then likely that after scanning your brain to obtain a Suppose first that PhyCon is true. If so, exist to fully repair that damage, e.g. based map of your connectome, we then created a cryonics procedure carried out properly on inferences from the state of the person’s two identical copies of your mind running will save a person’s life, whereas fixing the brain prior to repair. on two different computers. Since both person’s brain using a technique like ASC, The second relevant theory can copies would demonstrate the same degree followed by scanning and uploading, be referred to as the “Psychological of psychological continuity with your will kill that person. If PsyCon is true, Continuity” (PsyCon) theory. Roughly previous self, we would have to conclude on the other hand, both methods can speaking, it says that you are identical that both are you – something many find ensure survival. Indeed, adequate cryonic with the set of psychological features intuitively unacceptable. Other versions preservation of a person’s brain would also

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 21 preserve the ultrastructure grounding the Furthermore, even if taken for granted, to follow. These include a commitment to various psychological features that defined the computational theory of consciousness rigorously and impartially evaluating the that person. Insofar as traditional cryonics cannot, absent additional philosophical quality of brain preservation procedures, can secure survival whether PhyCon or arguments, show mind uploading to be in accordance with the standards of PsyCon is true, whereas mind uploading of consistent with personal survival. Assuming scientific peer-review. Another example is the kind envisaged by the BPF can only do that R2-D2 from Star Wars is conscious does the BPF’s successful effort at crowdfunding so if PsyCon is correct, traditional cryonics not commit us to accepting that a perfect its incentive prizes for brain preservation is the safest bet. replica of R2-D2 built from fresh parts, research, such as the Small Mammal This conclusion is reinforced by the after – let us assume – it was destroyed by Prize won by 21CM. For those seeking fact that the success of mind uploading at the Empire’s forces, is numerically identical to promote life extension through brain securing personal survival might depend on with the original robot. In response, preservation, who I have argued need to an additional factor, namely the possibility Hayworth could perhaps abandon PsyCon prioritize cryonics-specific research, this of creating conscious or sentient machines. and instead invoke the claim, famously suggests two main paths worth pursuing in If, for whatever reason, computers – defended by philosopher Derek Parfit, that the future: which, unlike biological brains, rely on personal identity does not actually matter a) Incentive prizes. Such prizes are hardware rather than “wetware” – happen in the way many of us tend to think – a powerful tool for stimulating to fundamentally lack the capacity for rather, psychological continuity is what research, particularly in neglected consciouness, regardless of how powerful really matters (Parfit, 1984). (In his reply areas of science. While the and sophisticated they might be, then to an article by neuroscientist Michael BPF’s prizes can in principle uploads turn out to be no more than Hendricks critical of cryonics, Hayworth help promote cryonics-specific computer “zombies” mimicking now actually appears to move in that direction: research, whether or not they deceased people. It’s unclear that someone see Hayworth, 2015.) However, besides are actually doing so is made less could “survive” as such an entity. And even the fact that this is again a controversial certain by the fact that – perhaps if we assume that they could, the value philosophical view, it notably led Parfit to unsurprisingly, given Hayworth’s of such survival, devoid of the conscious dissociate psychological continuity from philosophical beliefs – none of experiences that make our lives worth living, personal survival, and to conclude that these prizes include a requirement would be dubious, somewhat like the value the latter was, in itself, also overrated. This to preserve the brain’s potential of surviving with only a brain stem. This position is very much at odds with the life for viability. On the basis of the point about machine consciousness equally extension project, which the BPF claims to arguments I have provided so far, applies to the idea of a “Moravec transfer,” be pursuing. I submit that the institution of i.e. a procedure involving gradually I cannot but see some irony in the fact a prize (possibly crowdfunded) uploading a person’s mind to a computer that Hayworth, the author of an essay incorporating that requirement (neuron by neuron if necessary), unlike the titled “Killed by Bad Philosophy,” should would be highly desirable. BPF’s proposed method (Moravec, 1988). show a degree of overconfidence in his How demanding such an Traditional cryonics, by contrast, can philosophical views that might potentially incentive prize should be with succeed at preserving a person regardless of lead his followers to experience the very regards to the winning entry is whether or not machines can be conscious. same outcome his essay is warning against. a matter for further debate. A Hayworth would presumably deny that The differences previously highlighted relatively modest version would any such doubts about the possibility of between traditional cryonics and the BPF’s require demonstrating adequate machine consciousness are legitimate. approach are summarised in the table ultrastructure preservation in a Indeed, he seems to confidently embrace below. small mammalian brain, but using the so-called computational theory a procedure that secured the brain’s of consciousness, according to which WHAT THE CRYONICS MOVEMENT potential for viability more clearly consciousness is fundamentally the product CAN LEARN FROM THE BPF than ASC does. However, based of – highly complex – computation, which None of this is meant to imply that the on a recent talk by Dr Greg Fahy we know computers to be capable of at work of the BPF is without merit. On from 21CM, which I attended least in principle (e.g. Hayworth, 2015). the contrary, the Foundation’s approach in May at the International However, there is currently no general demonstrates a number of virtues that can Longevity and Cryopreservation agreement among philosophers of mind provide a model for the cryonics movement Summit in Madrid, such a goal or neuroscientists that the computational theory of consciousness is correct, and If: Traditional cryonics* ASC + mind uploading* Hayworth does not demonstrate that it is Physical continuity theory is true Survival Death (although he dogmatically equates the idea Psychological continuity theory is true Survival Survival that there might be physical properties Compromised (creates required for the production of conscious Machines can’t be conscious Unaffected computer “zombie”) experience which are found in wetware, but not computer hardware, with invoking (*It is assumed that the relevant procedures are performed “magic”). in accordance with the highest standards of quality)

22 Cryonics / November-December 2017 www.alcor.org may soon be achieved. Indeed, completed projects (e.g. as laid out cycle leading in turn to more funding and Dr Fahy reported having found in peer-reviewed publications). greater professionalization. The sooner we a way to largely overcome the The scientific experts tasked with can make this happen, the better. The clock abovementioned problem of evaluating the submissions for either is ticking!  dehydration and shrinking that an incentive prize or a research fund has so far prevented a proper should ideally be publicly identified, Alexandre Erler is a Research Assistant assessment of the quality of and sufficiently independent of both the Professor in Philosophy and Bioethics at the ultrastructure preservation offered authors of the submissions and of cryonics Chinese University of Hong Kong. He holds by traditional cryonics protocols companies (e.g. they should not be receiving a doctoral degree in Philosophy from the (e.g. using M22). Assuming research funding from those companies). University of Oxford. His research focuses Fahy has now reached that Furthermore, while an organization that on the ethical and social implications of milestone (and I look forward might implement solution a) or b) could be emerging technologies. to the publication of his paper created de novo, existing institutions might on the topic), one could set up already be able to fulfill that role. Some REFERENCES a prize with a more ambitious examples – all of which currently accept goal: for instance, one could donations from the public – include: DE WOLF, A. August 21 2017. Cryonics add that besides showing good 1. The UK Cryonics andWithout Cerebral Dehydration? Evidence- ultrastructure preservation and Cryopreservation Research Network Based Cryonics [Online]. Available from: retaining the preserved brain’s (http://cryonics-research.org.uk), http://www.evidencebasedcryonics. potential for viability, one should led by Dr João Pedro de Magalhães, org/2017/08/21/cryonics-without- cerebral-dehydration/. also demonstrate actual viability, who has connections with other say via measurable electrical scientific experts, including Ken HAYWORTH, K. 2010. Killed by Bad activity, either at the level of the Hayworth. Despite the scientific whole brain or in slices obtained Philosophy: Why Brain Preservation rigour with which it approaches Followed by Mind Uploading Is a from that brain. Ultimately, the the issue of cryonics, the network is Cure for Death. Available: http://www. details of such a prize should be currently underfunded. brainpreservation.org/content-2/killed- worked out by scientists with the bad-philosophy/ [Accessed 09/09/2017]. relevant expertise (as long as the 2. The Life Extension Foundation constraints I have outlined here (http://www.lifeextension.com), HAYWORTH, K. September 16 are respected). which already has a substantial track 2015. Ken Hayworth’s Personal Those who believe that ASC record of supporting cutting-edge Response to MIT Technology Review holds greater promise could research relevant to cryonics. Article. Brain Preservation Foundation support a prize rewarding the first It is also worth mentioning the Organ [Online]. Available from: http://www. team who found a way to reverse Preservation Alliance (https://www. brainpreservation.org/ken-hayworths- the fixative process involved in organpreservationalliance.org), even personal-response-to-mit-technology- that procedure, and restore the though it is focused solely on advancing review-article/. original neural structure. As I have the science of cryopreservation for organs MCINTYRE, R. L. & FAHY, G. M. 2015. indicated earlier, however, there other than the brain. Besides its potential to Aldehyde-Stabilized Cryopreservation. seems to be greater uncertainty help address the current shortage of organs Cryobiology, 71, 448-58. about the viability of such a for transplant, this type of research is also project. relevant to perfecting whole body cryonic MCMAHAN, J. 2002. The Ethics of b) Research funds. Such a preservation, and might yield insights that Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life, fund, which could also be would also apply to brain cryopreservation. Oxford, Oxford University Press. crowdfunded, would be managed While most people may understandably MORAVEC, H. P. 1988. Mind Children: in a transparent manner by not be able to commit substantial amounts The Future of Robot and Human an organization committed to of resources to supporting cryonics research, Intelligence, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard promoting cryonics-specific the success that the BPF has enjoyed so far University Press. research. In accordance with with its incentive prizes demonstrates that standard practice when it comes large numbers of even small donations PARFIT, D. 1984. Reasons and Persons, to funding scientific research, can foster impressive breakthroughs and Oxford, Clarendon Press. project proposals would be help strengthen the credibility of research solicited from active researchers projects of the most audacious sort. I THE BRAIN PRESERVATION in cryobiology (and other relevant believe it is now time to apply a similar FOUNDATION. n.d. Overview of 21st fields), and a committee of experts approach to the safer bet of cryonics- Century Medicine’s Cryopreservation for Viability Research [Online]. Available: would select the proposals that it specific research. Further raising the public http://www.brainpreservation.org/21cm- deemed most worthy of funding. profile of such research, and improving its The organization would then help cryopreservation-eval-page/ [Accessed image among the mainstream scientific 17/09/2017]. disseminate the results of the community, can help promote a virtuous

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 23 ORDER Preserving Minds, NOW! Saving Lives The Best Cryonics Writings of The Alcor Life Extension Foundation

“Cryonics magazine introduced me to Alcor and cryonics at its best back in 1983. The visions and technological breakthroughs that you will read about in this book continue to shape Alcor’s mission to preserve life through science.” – Max More, Ph.D. President and CEO of Alcor

ryonics is an experimental medical procedure that Cuses ultra-low temperatures to put critically ill people into a state of metabolic arrest to give them access to medical advances of the future. Since its inception in the early 1960s, the practice of cryonics has moved from a theoretical concept to an evidence-based practice that uses emergency medical procedures and modern vitrification technologies to eliminate ice formation.

Preserving Minds, Saving Lives offers an ambitious collection of articles about cryonics and the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. From its humble beginnings in 1972, and its first human cryonics patient in 1976, Alcor has grown to a professional organization with more than 1,000 members, more than 140 human patients, and more than 50 pets, all awaiting a chance to be restored to good health and continue their lives.

This book presents some of the best cryonics writings from Cryonics magazine from 1981 to 2012. There are clear expositions of the rationale behind cryonics, its scientific validation, and the evolution of Alcor procedures. Also covered are repair and resuscitation scenarios, philosophical issues associated with cryonics, and debates within the cryonics community itself.

Soft Cover Edition: $20 – Hard Cover Edition: $35 To order your copy, go to: www.alcor.org/book or call 1-877-GO ALCOR (462-5267) Table of Contents Foreword: Cryonics and Hope • Introduction

WHAT IS CRYONICS? Why We Are Cryonicists • Cryonics: Using Low Temperatures to Care for the Critically Ill • Medical Time Travel • The Bricks in the Wall HISTORY OF CRYONICS John Hunter, Cryonics Forerunner • The Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Dead • Riding the Jameson Satellite • The First Cryonicist • Robert Ettinger: Some Brief Historical and Personal Notes • Notes on the First Human Freezing • The Realities of Patient Storage • Suspension Failures: Lessons from the Early Years • Dear Dr. Bedford • Robert Nelson and the Bedford Freezing: A Comment • Cold War: The Conflict Between Cryonicists and Cryobiologists HISTORY OF ALCOR A Brief History of Alcor • Where did the name Alcor come from? • New Home, New Life: Alcor Moves to Arizona • The Alcor Patient Care Trust RESEARCH IN CRYONICS Evaluation of the Condition of Dr. James H. Bedford after 24 Years of Cryonic Suspension • A Brief History of Alcor Research • The 21st Century Medicine Seminar: Amazing Breakthroughs in Cryobiology and Resuscitation Systems for Intermediate Temperature Storage for Fracture Reduction and Avoidance ALCOR PROCEDURES AND TECHNOLOGIES How Cold is Cold Enough? • History of DMSO and Glycerol in Cryonics • Mathematical Analysis of Recirculating Perfusion Systems, with Application to Cryonic Suspension • Getting to 8M Glycerol and Other Perfusion Problems • How Cryoprotectants Work • Vitrification Arrives: New Technology Preserves Patients without Ice Damage • New Cryopreservation Technology • Cooling Down • Elements of a Transport • Cardiopulmonary Support in Cryonics: The Significance of Legal Death in Cryonics • Rapid Stabilization in Human Cryopreservation • Securing Viability of the Brain at Alcor • Case Reports in Cryonics RESCUSCITATION OF CRYONICS PATIENTS To Wake Refreshed • The Anabolocyte: A Biological Approach to Repairing Cryoinjury • Cell Repair Technology • Realistic Scenario for Nanotechnological Repair of the Frozen Human Brain • A Cryopreservation Revival Scenario Using MNT • Neural Archaeology • Cryonics, Cryptography, and Maximum Likelihood Estimation • Information Storage and Computational Aspects of Repair PERSPECTIVES ON CRYONICS A Message for Terminal Patients • The Death of Death in Cryonics • Why Suspension Members Need More Than Minimum Funding • Conservative Medicine • Binary Statutes, Analog World: Burke’s Paradox and the Law • Why a Religious Person Can Choose Cryonics • Cryonics and Emergency Medicine • Ethics of Non-ideal Cryonics Cases • Let’s Talk About Cryonics • How to Protect Your Cryonics Arrangements from Interference by Third Parties DEBATES WITHIN CRYONICS But What Will the Neighbors Think? A Discourse on the History and Rationale of Neurosuspension • The Neurocryopreservation Option: Head First Into the Future • The Case for Whole Body Cryopreservation • Responsibility, Probability, and Durability • The “I” Word • The Road Less Traveled: Alternatives to Cryonics • The Myth of the Golden Scalpel • Has Cryonics Taken the Wrong Path?

Afterword • Biographies of Contributors

“Society’s failure to take cryonics seriously is a tragedy “Alcor appears to be the leading organization that is probably costing countless lives. Alcor, notably in the application of cryonics in medicine. via its magazine, is leading the fight to change that.” I’m proud to be a part of this effort.” – Aubrey de Grey, Ph.D. – Michael D. West, Ph.D. Biomedical Gerontologist and Chief Science Officer Stem Cell Scientist and Chief Executive of the SENS Research Foundation Officer of BioTime, Inc.

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 25

1020

TOTAL Number of Alcor patients Alcor of Number 140 12

United Kingdom United 32 3

International Members &Patients

Thailand 5 1

Spain 3 1

Singapore 1 0

Portugal 5 0

Norway 1 0

New Zealand New 1 0

Netherlands 2 0

Monaco 1 0

Mexico 4 0

Luxembourg 1 0

Japan 4 0

Italy

3 0 Number of Alcor members Alcor of Number

Israel Israel 1 1

Hong Kong Hong 1 0

Hungary 2 0

Germany 12 0

China 0 1

Chile 1 0

Canada 56 2

Brazil 1 0

Australia Australia 13 3

Country

Patients

Members

Total 1691 1661 1645 1654 1639 1650 1634 1618

387 370 358 360 357 372 362 354 Associate

152 152 152 151 150 150 150 149 Patients

1152 1139 1135 1143 1132 1128 1122 1115 Members

EC D NOV OCT SEP G U A L JU N JU MAY APR MAR EB F AN J 2017 Membership Statistics Membership Reduce Your Alcor Dues With The CMS Waiver

Alcor members pay general dues to cover Alcor’s neurocryopreservation members under this election would operating expenses and also make annual contributions to be $110,000). Once this election is made, the member the Comprehensive Member Standby fund pool to cover the cannot change back to the original minimums in the future. costs of readiness and standby. Benefits of Comprehensive To have the CMS fee waived, these are the minimums: Member Standby include no out-of-pocket expense for standby services at the time of need, and up to $10,000 for • $220,000 Whole Body Cryopreservation relocation assistance to the Scottsdale, Arizona area. ($115,000 to the Patient Care Trust, $60,000 for Instead of paying $180 per year in CMS dues, Alcor also cryopreservation, $45,000 to the CMS Fund). provides members the option to cover all CMS-associated • $100,000 Neurocryopreservation ($25,000 to the costs through life insurance or pre-payment. Members who Patient Care Trust, $30,000 for cryopreservation, provide an additional $20,000 in minimum funding will no $45,000 to the CMS Fund). longer have to pay the $180 CMS (Comprehensive Member Standby fund) fee. This increase in minimums is permanent If you have adequate funding and would like to take (for example, if in the future Alcor were to raise the cost of advantage of the CMS waiver, contact Diane Cremeens at a neurocryopreservation to $90,000, the new minimum for [email protected].

Become An Alcor Associate Member! Supporters of Alcor who are not yet ready to make cryopreservation arrangements can become an Associate Member for $5/month (or $15/quarter or $60 annually). Associate Members are members of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation who have not made cryonics arrangements but financially support the organization. Associate Members will receive:

• Cryonics magazine by mail • Discounts on Alcor conferences • Access to post in the Alcor Member Forums • A dollar-for-dollar credit toward full membership sign-up fees for any dues paid for Associate Membership

To become an Associate Member send a check or money order ($5/month or $15/quarter or $60 annually) to Alcor Life Extension Foundation, 7895 E. Acoma Dr., Suite 110, Scottsdale, Arizona 85260, or call Marji Klima at (480) 905-1906 ext. 101 with your credit card information. Or you can pay online via PayPal using the following link: http://www.alcor.org/BecomeMember/associate.html (quarterly option is not available this way). Associate Members can improve their chances of being cryo- preserved in an emergency if they complete and provide us with a Declaration of Intent to be Cryopreserved (http://www.alcor.org/Library/ html/declarationofintent.html). Financial provisions would still have to be made by you or someone acting for you, but the combination of Associate Membership and Declaration of Intent meets the informed consent requirement and makes it much more likely that we could move ahead in a critical situation.

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 27 FOR THE RECORD

The Price of Life: Isaac Asimov, Cryonics, and Human Death Extension By R. Michael Perry

n 1962 Robert Ettinger completed its strengths and its limitations, and was, on Isaac Asimov deserves much credit in a first draft of his book, The Prospect the other hand, very open to possibilities cryonics for the important if peripheral of Immortality, and hoped to have it of the future that might be achievable contribution he made in helping start the Ipublished to spread his ideas. At Doubleday, through reasonable extrapolations of what practice. Yet he had no personal interest in Inc. he found a sympathetic junior editor, was known and available. it, and he died in 1992 and was cremated.4 Tom McCormack, who thought the Asimov studied Prospect and pronounced To those of us in cryonics at the time (self book was good but needed more length. the science respectable even if he had included) such a loss hurt. Many of us Ettinger got to work and by 1964 had an other, nontechnical misgivings about the grew up reading the science fiction stories expanded version which he again showed whole idea. Doubleday went ahead with of Asimov and others and dreaming about to McCormack. Now the book was long the publication.1 The book eventually did a future we would like to reach ourselves. enough, McCormack said, but there was well, becoming a best-selling selection of Cryonics became a possible way of doing an important additional requirement that the Book-of-the-Month club and being that, and, if it didn’t work after all—well, had to be met. Ettinger’s “prospect” called translated into numerous languages.2 what other prospect was as good? (We for what he said was a scientific approach Through it, people became aware of the were, of course, discounting supernatural to overcoming death: storing the very possibilities that cold storage could offer, or mystical or other such means that we newly deceased at low temperature where as an alternative to burial or cremation of didn’t have confidence in.) But the loss of deterioration would essentially halt, until remains after what conventional wisdom someone so respected was tragic inasmuch advancing technology could restore them said was “death” or a point of no return. as we hoped that people like Dr. A (as he to a functioning, healthy state. (So they A practice called cryonics grew up which was sometimes affectionately known5) really weren’t “deceased” after all.) True, continues today, with better techniques and would be in that future to share it with us. the technological breakthroughs that could a larger following but still the same basic His sharp, scientific mind was informed allow such restoration might be many years idea.3 by a voluminous, retentive memory, yet in the future, but meanwhile the donors he also cared about people and was not or patients could wait with matters safely just a “reasoning machine”—far from it. on hold, until whatever was needed was Moreover, he loved writing and produced developed. or edited more than 500 books and an To see how far Ettinger’s ideas might estimated 90,000 letters and postcards.6 have plausibility, someone with a good He made himself well-loved and respected scientific background was needed to by forward-thinking people, including check them out; Isaac Asimov was chosen. those like us who took Ettinger’s proposal Asimov had a Ph.D. in biochemistry and seriously and made arrangements for it. We was a leading science popularizer as well wanted him onboard—as we want others, as a world-famous science fiction writer. too. He had, moreover, published many of his But we have to live with frustration. own numerous books with Doubleday (and Cryonics, despite its durability, has not would publish many more through them). garnered much support at the personal He was well-grounded in science, both as to level, and there are relatively few of us

28 Cryonics / November-December 2017 www.alcor.org who now have the arrangements (about bring up their children in the family faith, After completing his doctorate at 2,000 people worldwide, mostly in the and the young Asimov grew up without Columbia he joined the faculty of the U.S.7) The apathy toward cryonics, which religious beliefs.) In 1921 Asimov and 16 Boston University School of Medicine. sometimes erupts into hostility, has been other children in the village caught double There he remained, nominally, for the rest a puzzle. Not everybody will be attracted pneumonia; he was the only survivor. In of his life, though in practice his teaching of course; religious people in particular 1923 the family emigrated to the U.S. and career ended in 1958 when he turned full may sense a threat to their firm reliance he grew up in Brooklyn. (He never learned time to writing, also making his home in on a supernatural power for their greater Russian but did speak fluent Yiddish along Brooklyn and mostly refusing to travel. An needs. There are many others though, who with English.) Over the years his father obituary in the New York Times (April 7, you would think might be more favorable, owned a succession of candy stores where 1992) offers this comment on his writing wealthy people in particular, who are not the son worked long hours alongside his career: religious and could invest a relatively tiny parents and siblings, acquiring a lifelong “Mr. Asimov was amazingly prolific, portion of their estate for the necessary habit which carried over to his writing writing nearly 500 books on a wide range coverage—yet haven’t and don’t appear career. At the age of five he taught himself of subjects, from works for preschoolers about to do so. to read, a feat which so impressed his father to college textbooks. He was perhaps best Isaac Asimov, with his many years of that Asimov was granted unrestricted access known for his science fiction and was a success and steady income as a writer, was to the local public library, which greatly pioneer in elevating the genre from pulp- at least moderately wealthy and should furthered and supplemented his education magazine adventure to a more intellectual have had little problem funding his along with nurturing a love of learning. level that dealt with sociology, history, cryopreservation. (It is worth noting too, mathematics and science. But he also wrote that cryonics isn’t just a luxury for the rich mysteries, as well as critically acclaimed since there are avenues such as life insurance books about the Bible, physics, chemistry, to make it affordable to persons of modest Asimov studied Prospect biology, astronomy, limericks, humor, means who are at least in good health.) and pronounced the science Shakespeare, Gilbert and Sullivan, ancient Studying why people such as him can do as and modern history, and many other he did can shed light on the more general respectable even if he subjects.” problem of why people who we might say had other, nontechnical In science fiction, perhaps his magnum “ought to know better” do not sign up or opus was the Foundation series, initially express any serious wish to do so. In the case misgivings about the a trilogy but eventually expanded, and of Asimov, at least, we have a large body of whole idea. harmonized with other work, to cover his writings, along with commentaries of fifteen novels, dealing with a future galactic others and such, to attempt the difficult empire, with a time scale stretching to task of mind reading and light-shedding. Another source of written material hundreds of centuries. The main hero of One particular Asimov essay, The Price of for the future writer was the candy store, the series is Hari Seldon, a thinking wizard Life, specifically addresses his reaction to— which also sold newspapers and magazines. who devises psychohistory, a mathematical and rejection of—the cryonics idea, despite The young Isaac was particularly attracted prediction scheme able to foretell the its acknowledged merits and not contesting to the science fiction pulp magazines, general drift of historical events, though not its technical feasibility. Instead it is clear inexpensively produced for a mass market, the finer details. At one point it is predicted that Asimov had deep misgivings about the which his father initially proscribed as that the empire will collapse and 30,000 more general idea of radically extending the trash, despite their being sold in the store. years of dark ages will follow unless certain human life-span, again, not as to technical But the son convinced him to relent, actions are taken which will shorten the feasibility—eventually at least—but the noting the “science” upon which they were chaos to 1,000 years. Persons individually desirability of doing it in the first place. (nominally at least) based. Asimov wrote are mortal much as today. (Seldon himself Here we offer some background on his own first stories at age 11; by 19 he dies in his eighties, near the beginning of Asimov then go on to the main topic at was selling science fiction to the magazines the long time interval covered by the series, hand, his reaction to the cryonics idea and himself. With his precocious intelligence and clearly thousands of years beyond our the more general idea of radically extending and learning he graduated from high school time.) The idea of conquering aging, rather the human life-span. at 15, in 1935, and went on to college and than, say, intergalactic space, does not university studies, finally obtaining a Ph.D. appear to enter most if any people’s minds. Background8 in biochemistry from Columbia University (Instead there is faster-than-light travel so Isaac Asimov was born of Jewish parents in 1948. For three years during World events can unfold on a galaxy-wide scale about the beginning of 1920 (the exact date War II he took time off from schooling within one person’s lifetime.) is uncertain, but the event was celebrated and worked as a civilian at the Naval Air Though primarily a writer, Asimov’s Jan. 2) in the Russian village of Petrovichi, Experimental Station in Philadelphia. interests were broader than merely literary near the present border with Belarus. Drafted into the U.S. Army in September or scholarly. From 1985 until his death (Though of Jewish background, the 1945 when the fighting had just ended, he in 1992 he served as president of the parents, Judah and Anna Rachel Berman was honorably discharged a few months American Humanist Association (AHA), Asimov, did not make special efforts to later, ending his military career. underscoring a long-standing interest in

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 29 promoting the betterment of humanity die out eventually, but that’s okay if it can “He was one of my boyhood through its own efforts. Exercising another give rise to a new and better species in the heroes. From early on I read every interest, he was a founding member of the process. Indeed, “life and intelligence in the book of his that I could lay my Committee for the Scientific Investigation abstract” are seen as “the only worthwhile hands on, from science fiction to of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP, immortality.” science fact. It was Isaac Asimov now the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry), Ettinger is swift in his expected rebuttal, who got me interested in chemistry and is listed in their Pantheon of Skeptics. in particular noting sarcastically: “This at the age of 10, with books on the In private life, he was twice married, man apparently would die happy—almost chemical elements and the history with three children by the first marriage. any time, one supposes—if only he could of chemistry. Because of him I His second wife, Janet Jeppson Asimov, was be assured that a billion years from now started on organic chemistry at also a literary collaborator on many of his on a planet of Antares, a race of giant age 15 with The World of Carbon works in later years and the marriage by spiders would discover a way to spin more (can’t start any more basic than report was a happy one that ended only beautiful webs.” He then asks, “Can he that book) and later taught myself with his death. (Initially his death at age really mean it?” and concludes that no, a biochemistry early in high school, 72 was described as from kidney and other man of Asimov’s intellect could surely see all from Asimov’s books. (Anyone organ failure. Much later it was revealed the same flaws in his own arguments that who says that science is a mystery that the principal underlying cause was are so evident to Ettinger himself. So the to them has no excuse: just go to AIDS acquired through a contaminated real motivator for these clearly straw-man your local library and look in the blood transfusion some years before, when arguments must lie elsewhere. Ettinger author index system under ‘A’). he had a heart bypass operation.) suggests it is in some way a deep-seated I had originally planned to be a fear of the unknown, a malady that afflicts medicinal chemist and did not What Robert Ettinger Had to “[a]lmost all our prophets.” They are terrified quite end up going down that Say9 of “the vast black spaces, the mysterious path, but it is no exaggeration to We have noted the great favor extended open reaches, the vertiginous depths.” say that Asimov is in a major way to the nascent cryonics movement and Frightened enough, evidently, that they still responsible for my career in Ettinger personally by Asimov’s approving cannot even voice their true feelings but medicine.” Ettinger’s book, The Prospect of Immortality, must conceal them with comforting (to Harris next writes of his efforts to for publication in 1964. But this stopped them) rationalizations that miss the true convince Asimov to reconsider his stance short of an actual endorsement of cryonics, point. What are they afraid of? An obvious on cryonics: and this shortfall is critiqued in Man into possibility is just death itself—more later— “Last Fall [1991], when I heard Superman, Ettinger’s sequel to Prospect but one must marvel at the lengths some through a mutual acquaintance that appeared in 1972. There, in a chapter people go (particularly Dr. Asimov) in that Asimov was gravely and entitled “Copouts and Dropouts: The defending their own viewpoint—again irreparably ill, I obtained his New Threat of Immortality,” Ettinger takes more later. York City address and wrote a Asimov to task, his main reference being So really we need to hear from Asimov belated first and only fan letter to a short essay by Asimov, “The Price of himself on all this, but first I’d like to him at his apartment, one which Life,” which appeared in the January, 1967 consider another essay on the man’s pro- not only said Thank You, but issue of the men’s entertainment magazine death, we might say death-extensionist which also contained a lengthy Cavalier. attitudes, one that appeared shortly after plea that he reconsider the idea Ettinger first reminds the reader of the his death, by a longtime fan and admirer of cryonics (I also sent him the accomplishments of his target (omitting who nevertheless is pro-cryonics. most recent Alcor handbook). I Asimov’s help in publishing his previous didn’t have much hope for this book): “Dr. Isaac Asimov is a very well- What Steve Harris Said10 last action, since for years I’d known writer of popular science and Steven B. Harris, M.D. is a longtime been reading Asimovian essays on science-fiction, formerly a biochemist at cryonics activist and is currently Alcor’s overpopulation, and I was even Boston University, a man of prodigious Chief Medical Advisor. During his many aware of one essay from the 70’s knowledge and towering IQ, who has years of involvement in cryonics he has in which Asimov had specifically spoken and written about the cryonics conducted life extension-related research, attacked the idea of cryonics. Still, program several times.” and has assisted with many cryonics I thought it no harm to try, and He then turns to Asimov’s above- cases and more generally with cryonics I did need to tell the man how mentioned essay (which we consider in technology, such as devising an “e-hit” much his writing meant to me. If detail in due course) and wastes no time algorithm for estimating ischemic exposure my letter gave him a single smile noting its glaring (from an immortalist’s prior to a patient’s cooldown. In 1992 it was worth the time it took to viewpoint) deficiencies. Asimov thinks when Asimov died Harris sent a message write it.” (1) no one would want to live more to CryoNet, quoted from here, lamenting Unfortunately, Steve’s frail hopes on the than five centuries anyway, (2) society the great man’s passing and noting his own, cryonics issue went unfulfilled: would be stagnated by super long-lived futile efforts to persuade him to change his “He never answered [the individuals, and (3) the species itself will thinking on cryonics. He writes: letter]. And (worse) he didn’t take

30 Cryonics / November-December 2017 www.alcor.org me (or anybody else) up on the and (again) his phobias seem to At this point Asimov briefly waxes challenge. I learned later that he blame. Asimov’s future worlds are positive, echoing a familiar argument often had long had some contact with either giant warrens of humanity advanced for the cryonics idea: certain members of Alcor NY, so (where overpopulation would “Why not? What do we have to it turned out that even as regards make the idea of life extension a lose? If science never learns how Alcor I probably wasn’t telling joke), or else empty worlds where to restore us to life, youth, and him anything about cryonics that people live in such psychological health, we are no deader than we he didn’t already know. Asimov’s isolation that living long seems would have been anyway, and at problem with cryonics was not a punishment. Neither of these least we died with hope. If science lack of access or money (his futures sounds like much fun, learns, then we are essentially writing had made him rich), and but Asimov could not seem immortal.” certainly was not lack of brains to break free of one idea or This cryonics-friendliness goes for one or scientific knowledge—his the other. Asimov’s stories also more sentence, then it’s all over, with a problem lay elsewhere.” frequently describe another kind vengeance: So what was his problem? Dr. Harris of joylessness: people fighting “Who can complain about a notes how Asimov “was a contradictory hopelessly against some ridiculous game in which the possible gain man.” His mind ranged far and wide and restrictive social custom or is infinite and the possible loss is through space and time in his books yet he belief in either a crowded or empty nothing? The funny part is, I can. was afraid to fly in an airplane. (It appears world—a custom which seems For it is the gain that is nothing he did this only twice in his life, both before perfectly rational to the persons and the loss that is infinite.” he turned 30.) He did not like to travel at who hold it. There is considerable What? Really? The gain from achieving all and did it only rarely, by train or other irony here, for Asimov himself immortality would be “nothing” and the land conveyance. He liked the cozy security died doing exactly what everyone loss from achieving it—“infinite”? By what of a small room in a crowded city with a around him was doing in the way twisted logic is this sort of conclusion typewriter he could peck away at rather of dealing with death, as much arrived at? than “physically exploring new things.” caught up in the social norms “In saying this,” Asimov starts out, “I Perhaps it was this sense of alienation of his own culture as any of the am not thinking of the individual [heaven from strange surroundings, coupled with various ‘enforcers of the status forbid that!], though even in his case, certain political views, that so colored his quo’ in one of his stories. Again immortality is not what it might seem outlook that he really didn’t want to see the he could not seem to break free.” to be. After all, who has ever pictured a future even as he loved writing about its really attractive heaven?” Ah yes, eternal possibilities. Harris writes: What Asimov Himself Had to life could not be worth living at the “[W]hile Asimov was a Say11 individual level: would we want to spend rationalist, an atheist, and a We turn now to Asimov’s aforementioned eternity doing things like Asimov suggests, committed humanist …, he was essay, “The Price of Life,” which Ettinger wearing a white robe and a halo, flying over also heavily liberal or even socialist referenced in his critique and which is one golden streets all day, singing hosannahs in his politics. In consequence, good source of his views on both cryonics and hallelujahs in perfect chorus, smiling many of his popular writings and the prospect of radical human life purely at attractive opposite-gender angels, abound with cautionary warnings extension. The article starts by referring to and the like? “I might be able to stand it about the damage which would population increase as “not the only danger” as a curiosity for a couple of days,” Asimov be done to ‘society’ or ‘mankind’ facing humanity. Instead, “a more subtle offers, “especially the flying part, but by personal immortality (such one is the drive for extended lifetimes and after that I’d start drumming my fingers.” as overpopulation, stoppage of even immortality.” The essay was written Even alternatives that incorporated other natural selection, stultification apparently just before the freezing of James behaviors, like making love to a Valkyrie of research because of lack of Bedford, “the first cryonaut.” Asimov is well in Valhalla, would get insufferable after a fresh viewpoints in positions of aware of the budding cryonics movement, while. “There is a strange alchemy about power, etc.). Whatever you and as he is quick to tell us: forever. It can take all that is finest and best I may think of these arguments, “There are organizations in and change it into boredom. Nothing can they were enough for Asimov, and being now that aim to organize escape. Weariness is all.” he had enough integrity to back the deep freezing of freshly-dead A semblance of immortality might them up with his life when the or about-to-be-dead bodies. The be okay, he offers, with extra-long life, time came.” idea is to revive the frozen bodies provided there was an eventual escape Harris continues: when science has learned how to into oblivion: “In such a society, the very “And perhaps this was not cure the disease that has killed cap and climax of life may be the civilized so hard to do, considering the them, reconstruct their broken death. It might even be that special centers way Asimov saw things. For as a bodies, reverse old age, restore would be established where one can hold science fiction writer his view of life. We will then each one of us the equivalent of a convivial wake before the future was not overly bright, be a Lazarus.” death; one last celebration, one last clasp to

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 31 the breast of the loved ones who have not And it attains perfection, first that to others: “If [someone] is fortunate enough yet gone before, one last shake of the hand perfection by which it rises to this or able enough to work out a life in which of all the trusty friends.” condition, and secondly that by he faces a truly challenging problem—if he One wonders how these in turn would which it remains therein, while it directs the affairs of humanity or guides the feel about the presumably avoidable demise has for the food on which it feeds assault of knowledge upon the unknown of someone they held dear. In any case, the problems of the meaning of or distills beauty out of the universe—he Asimov envisions the actual euthanasia as things and the nature of their is not likely to be bored quickly and may a scene closely resembling what would be causes. …” last a long time before the final wave of used in the movie Soylent Green a few years The rise to perfection will not happen all the hand.” How long? “Shall I guess? Five later (as a voluntary means to control excess at once but might occupy “no small interval hundred years on the average?” population): “Then, to the strains of soft of time,” but for a worthy purpose, so To me it would seem tragic in the music, and to a last burst of waving hands that those who participate, “through their extreme to lose someone after five hundred and finger-kissing, the compartment closes acquaintance with it all and the grace of full years. Presumably we are talking about a about you, the nerve gas sifts in and you are knowledge … may enjoy an indescribable person of good will who is at least not a gone.” (In the movie the euthanee drinks gladness.” Heaven, then, is portrayed as an threat to society. (Otherwise—if they were poison rather than being gassed, and the institution of higher learning (really higher, a threat—I would still say heal, don’t kill— main well-wisher is the technician offering we may imagine), and those who have but that is another issue.) Destruction of the red-colored potion in a big glass flask. a love of learning and are well-disposed any good or even potentially good person But there’s an inspiring picture show of the in other ways should find ample to spark after any amount of time is bad, I would beauties of nature as it used to be but now their interest so that life could be an endless say. But the longer someone lives in good was no more, along with sweet music from joy. Just learning for its own sake with no health, developing their powers and Beethoven’s sixth symphony.)12 output is not likely either. The “saints” (as knowledge and improving their goodness Must heaven—or any approximation any rational being may become, with due all around, the worse it is if they are to it we might create for ourselves in diligence) would be expected to occupy finally killed. Still, someone not wanting the future—be invariably boring and themselves with good and benevolent suicide for five hundred years would be insufferable? Asimov, it would appear, works and be part of a harmonious, an improvement over, say, wanting it after thinks that no one has ever pictured it loving community. In a heaven we might only one hundred years. A worthy goal otherwise, but I wonder if he ever looked make for ourselves, but somewhat along would, I think, be to study the problem in the Christian philosophical work On these imagined lines, the eager students of what would make a long life ultimately First Principles, written in the 3rd century would also be happily engaged in creative boring or otherwise insufferable and not by Origen:13 pursuits, adding to the store of knowledge worth it to someone, and what might be “I think that the saints as they themselves rather than just imbibing it done to sustain an interest in things and depart from this life will remain in from somewhere “above,” while working help in other ways so this outcome is some place situated on the earth, in other ways to sustain and improve the unlikely. So we might have support groups which the divine scripture calls world they found themselves in. for people who think they might want the ‘paradise.’14 This will be a place euthanizing scenario Asimov describes (or of instruction and, so to speak, a other self-destruction) to help them find lecture room or school for souls, more meaning and reward and ward off this in which they may be taught pathological outcome. about all that they had seen on Asimov, though, sees the matter earth and may also receive some differently, inasmuch as he feels that indications of what is to follow in very long-lived individuals ipso facto the future …” would constitute a threat to society: “The This is further elaborated, as in this statesmen of the world, the scientists, the nearby passage: artists, the scholars will be vigorous multi- “And so the rational being, The 3rd century Christian philosopher centenarians on the whole and there, growing at each successive stage, Origen , who was influenced by Greek exactly there, is the real danger.” What is not as it grew when in this life pagan thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle, this danger? It is the perceived inevitability in the flesh or body and in the imagined paradise (heaven) as “a lecture of stagnation, which seems to follow if we room or school for souls,” suggestive of soul, but increasing in mind just consider the human condition today: Raphael’s c. 1510 fresco, The School of and intelligence, advances as a Athens, depicting thinkers and rational “…The human mind hardens mind already perfect to perfect endeavors through the ages.15 quickly. This has nothing to do knowledge, no longer hindered with physical deterioration of by its former carnal senses, but the brain or its limited capacity, developing in intellectual power, Asimov seems at least haltingly aware and the problem won’t vanish if ever approaching the pure and of the possibility that persons who are we assume a society of immortals gazing ‘face to face,’ if I may so highly creative might find an unlimited life with brains that remain physically speak, on the causes of things. desirable, particularly if they are also useful young. Once a brain develops

32 Cryonics / November-December 2017 www.alcor.org a way of thought, that way okay by his criteria. In the end, though, all shaky arguments whole-cloth and not say wears a quick rut among the he can say is that this eventuality too would what was really on his mind—unless maybe convolutions, so to speak, and it be but “another step” toward “the only he thought he was being objective and is only with the greatest effort that worthwhile immortality,” which he claims, wasn’t fully aware of what was really driving the line of thought can force its as we have noted, is “life and intelligence in him. An attempted full psychoanalysis way out of that rut.” the abstract.” at this point is beyond our scope, but a Well, who said this tendency (if we Going back now to the idea that death possible clue to the mystery is provided by accept Asimov’s judgment at face value) is “wipes clean and prepares the ground for the Terror Management Theory of Sheldon something carved in stone, that no future new advance,” we may ask if the “new Solomon and colleagues, in which people endeavor of any kind could remedy? And advance” he had in mind was something like are psychologically impelled to defend their on the other hand, it seems clear that not you see in his Foundation series.16 There a consciousness against “mortality salience” all “stagnation,” “hard-wring,” whatever civilization persists and struggles for untold or being reminded of death.17 Some main you want to call it, would be a bad thing. centuries, where people die on schedule like points are summarized here:18 Suppose we imagine a world of radical they do today after short, futile struggles Throughout their lives, people are life extension, where people progress to with aging. There are scientific advances constantly interacting with their culture, what we might call sainthood, something that help defeat the more aggressive bad which plays a sustaining and nurturing like Origen imagined. If such people were guys, and much action and intrigue on role. Culture in turn is nothing but the very firm, even “hard-wired,” in their a grand scale, but where is there any real combined effects of individuals—each benevolence and other goodness, and their “advance” that would impact the lives of person forms part of the cultural web desire to increase their knowledge and individuals concerned with basic survival? that surrounds and helps sustain any powers to accomplish more good than ever, Instead behind the façade of whatever may other participant. Conforming to the and support and participate in a loving, be offered as “progress,” there is deadening values and expectations of one’s culture harmonious community of joy and purpose stagnation, sustained by the death of each is perhaps the most important source of all around, would that necessarily be person, one by one after a few decades a sense of self-worth, and it is natural that something bad? (In the hands of a science of declining health, that is supposed to this dependency would be fostered by a fiction writer it might tend to be, inasmuch renew, to “give ground to the bright and selection process. as sales of the forthcoming book might new.” But the alternative is understandably People especially turn to their culture in improve if things that ought to be good something that would be hard to depict in times of crisis when the problems are too went awry, but that is another matter.) a science fiction series, or any other way. serious to deal with individually. Among But no, Asimov can’t see it that way, and We are talking about not only radical life the problems of this sort are natural advocates death extension rather than life extension, but radical life expansion—in disasters, medical emergencies, and major extension. “Death is the price we pay for particular, becoming more intelligent and threats or harm from groups or individuals. meaningful life,” he insists. “Death makes having other superior attributes to those The death of a loved one is such a problem way. Death forces the tired and old to give of the species we are today. Enough to too—authorities must be notified, if not ground to the bright and new. Death wipes make the whole thing worthwhile, maybe already involved in rescue attempts or clean and prepares the ground for new forever. Poor Asimov—you couldn’t take medical treatment—and grief must be advance.” In case this would seem too hard this idea seriously—or not as seriously as it managed, which generally calls for outside to accept, he offers as consolation the idea deserved—despite your great talents. help. Finally, culture plays an important that dying for one’s family or one’s country, role in the problem of anticipating one’s if the occasion demands it, is considered Anti-immortalism as Terror own death, establishing an anxiety buffer an honorable and worthy sacrifice, so why Management to shield against terror and despondency. shouldn’t dying for the sake of abstract Cryonics, of course, is a possible pathway The cultural anxiety buffer—the humanity? “All men live lives which are to radical life extension (and expansion too, shielding sense of self-worth provided by in their every detail the conglomerate we hope), and we who are involved have participation in one’s culture—typically accomplishment of other men that live now placed our hopes in it at the personal level. draws on religious or philosophical and have lived before. The life which has Asimov’s unfortunate anti-immortalist systems. These offer survival—in some been made possible to the individual by the arguments seem tragically misguided and form—beyond the biological limits, or a species, he surely owes to the species.” mistaken, and we wonder how someone worldview in which one’s endless survival Oh really? Does “the species” have the like him could think and write as he did. is not so important and death is not to be right (even the duty) to take my life just His arguments do, of course, carry little feared. With such a psychological bulwark, because it gave me life and whatever has weight on our side of the fence, so that people are relieved of much of the burden gone into it, other than what I may have Ettinger thought Dr. A himself must have of concern over their own mortality. originated myself? How would that be also realized their flimsiness, with his sharp When the unpleasant subject does intrude different from parents having the right to mind, and had other underlying motives, (mortality salience) a natural response is to kill their children, just because they gave suggesting a fear of the unknown. On the strengthen the anxiety buffer by defending them life? He also admits that the species other hand, I find it hard to believe that or upholding one’s culture. The anxiety itself may die out, but it could be replaced someone with Asimov’s seeming integrity buffer in particular becomes a means by a better-yet species, which would be and scientific objectivity would just spin whereby the culture maintains control over

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 33 the individual and thereby fosters its own he says in an autobiography, written in the (some of) its possibilities for transforming survival. last years of his life, about his views on the future. When finally he was confronted In submitting to and participating in religion and an afterlife:19 with the cryonics possibility (he would have their culture, people take part in a cultural “Since I am an atheist and do been 44 years old in 1964 when Ettinger’s drama—an unfolding of events as seen from not believe that either God or book was published by Doubleday), his the vantage point of the worldview their Satan, Heaven or Hell, exists, I natural reaction was not to start rethinking culture provides. Such participation conveys can only suppose that when I die, his position. Instead, in keeping with the a reassuring sense of self-worth—again, the there will only be an eternity of Terror Management Theory, it was to cultural anxiety buffer. Participants must nothingness to follow. After all, “defend his culture,” that is, argue against meet two main requirements: (1) they the Universe existed for 15 billion the newfangled ideas on how death must accept the worldview of the culture, years before I was born and I could be challenged. His scientific bent along with the standards of value inherent (whatever ‘I’ may be) survived and personal integrity came into play, in that worldview; and (2) they must feel it all in nothingness. … There inasmuch as he didn’t express any strong that they are living up to these standards is nothing frightening about an doubt that cryonics might work, and even and thus have a significant role in the eternal dreamless sleep. Surely that life spans might eventually be greatly cultural drama. The resulting feeling of it is better than eternal torment lengthened or even made infinite. But his self-worth, with its sense of participation in Hell or eternal boredom in ingrained anti-immortalism still carried the in something meaningful and protection Heaven.” day in his arguing that radical life extension against mortality salience, offers great (I note here that just a little before this was a bad idea from the start. So he was benefit, and people are willing to pay he says: “Where is there a Heaven with an afraid, at a basic level, and what we are the price of conformity that their culture opportunity for reading, for writing, for seeing in his arguments is the baring of his demands. The nature of the cultural drama, exploring, for interesting conversation, for cultural anxiety buffer. Indeed, he may have the worldview, and the standards of value scientific investigation? I never heard of believed he was responding with reasonable will, of course, depend on the culture and one.” You should have considered Origen, objectivity, even if it doesn’t seem that way differ in detail from one culture to another. Dr. A!) to those of us who, like Ettinger, have a Cultures vary but have certain features in very different outlook and cultural anxiety common, dictated by the state of knowledge buffer. and belief over the time they have flourished and the logic of the selection process that Brief Afterthoughts has operated in their own survival and There are others like Asimov: highly evolution. In dealing with the short-term intelligent, creative, scientifically minded, problem of death, there was certainly much not attracted to religious beliefs, and non- that could be done in physical terms, even suicidal, who still show little interest in in ancient times, through common-sense cryonics. We should not be surprised at strategies, medical practices, and the like. their generally unenthusiastic, sometimes Yet it was recognized that there were certain hostile response. For most people generally, insurmountable barriers. Aging, with its and these in particular, cryonics offers eventual termination of the life process, a competing worldview and thus, we could not be forestalled, nor could a person should expect, will be seen as a threat and be restored to function if too much time a call to defend their culture, if the Terror had passed without vital signs, as would Management Theory has substance, as it always happen eventually. These long- seems to have. To persuade such people to term problems were both intractable and accept cryonics would apparently require Asimov wrote several volumes of universal and could be clearly distinguished autiobiography; this “memoir,” quoted full conversion to a different worldview—a from ailments of a more special nature here and independent of the others, difficult task, as it proved impossible for Dr. (short-term problems), which often could was the last, finished in 1990, about Asimov. What do we do? I don’t have any be remedied. For the long term it was two years before his death. good answers at this point, except that we necessary to focus on terror management must keep trying, promoting our approach rather than unobtainable physical to whomever will listen. We must also solutions. Cultures accordingly grew up At any rate, we may imagine that support advances such as antiaging research that, for example, favored medicine and Asimov, surrounded by the culture of the and therapies along with research more even medical progress but did not waste early-to-mid 20th century and developing directly relevant to cryonics. In addition to effort on more radical life extension, such as nonreligiously, formed his attitudes any direct benefits this might offer, it would alleviating aging or reversing clinical death. about death early on. Death he accepted exert further pressure on people to change So how, we ask, might all this apply in as inevitable and final. I think also he their attitudes about death.  the case of Asimov? At least we have a large probably accepted the present biological body of his writings to draw from, as noted, limits to life as more-or-less unchangeable, in making an educated guess. Here is what despite the interest he had in science and

34 Cryonics / November-December 2017 www.alcor.org SOURCES

AL1. http://www.alcor.org/AboutAlcor/ IA1. Isaac Asimov, “I Just Make Them RE2. Robert Ettinger, Man into membershipstats.html, accessed 19 Aug. Up, See!,” Fantasy and Science Fiction, Superman, http://www.cryonics.org/ 2017. February 1958, reprinted in Isaac Asimov, images/uploads/misc/ManIntoSuperman. Nine Tomorrows, Greenwich, Conn.: pdf, mainly 166-67, accessed 18 Aug. AL2. http://www.alcor.org/AboutAlcor/ Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1959, 7-8. 2017; orig. ed. New York: St. Martin’s indexdir.html, accessed 20 Aug. 2017. Press, 1972. IA2. Isaac Asimov, I, Asimov: A Memoir, AL3. (Alcor case reports referencing New York: Doubleday, 1994. RE3. Robert Ettinger, “Address to the Dr. Harris), https://www.google.com/ Venturist Festival,” Venturist Monthly search?source=hp&q=Alcor+case+repo IA3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_ News 6(7) 1-6 (Jul. 1994). rts+harris&oq=Alcor+case+reports+ha Asimov, accessed 19 Aug. 2017. rris&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i160k1l4.3249. SA. (School of Athens fresco). https:// 8695.0.9258.27.26.0.0.0.0.158.2812. IA4. Isaac Asimov, “The Price of Life,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_School_of_ 6j19.25.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..2.24.2652 ch. 28 of Is Anyone There?, New York: Athens, http://artsnap.org/3-cool-things- .6..0j35i39k1j0i131k1j0i20k1j0i22i10i3 Doubleday, 1967, 234-238 (orig. you-might-not-know-about-raphaels- 0k1j0i22i30k1j33i21k1.j_bnNNh6GRE, appeared in Cavalier, Jan. 1967). school-of-athens/, accessed 20 Aug. 2017. accessed 20 Aug. 2017. MP1. (Estimates of how many are signed SC. (Scriptural allusions to “paradise”). AW. Aschwin De Wolf, “Critical Cooling up for cryopreservation, with funded See Gen. 2:8 (Sept.), Luke 23:43. Rate to Prevent Ischemic Brain Injury,” contracts). Author’s estimates based on http://www.evidencebasedcryonics. AL1, CI, CRY, and contacts within the SG. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ org/2008/07/10/critical-cooling-rate-to- cryonics community. Soylent_Green, accessed 20 Aug. 2017. prevent-ischemic-brain-injury/, accessed MP2. (Movie Soylent Green) author’s SH1. https://lifeboat.com/ex/bios. 20 Aug. 2017. personal experience. steven.b.harris, accessed 20 Aug. 2017. CI. http://www.cryonics.org/ci-landing/ MP3. R. Michael Perry, Forever for All, SH2. “Antioxidant Skepticism,” http:// member-statistics/, accessed 19 Aug. Parkland, Fla.: Universal Publishers, www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/tag/steve- 2017. 2000, 53-59 (discussion of Terror harris/, accessed 20 Aug. 2017. CRY. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Management Theory). SH3. Steven B. Harris, “Isaac Asimov, Cryonics, accessed 18 Aug, 2017. OR1. (Origen biography) R.I.P.,” http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/ CS. Cryonics Society, http://www. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ dsp.cgi?msg=705, accessed 19 Aug. 2017 cryonicssociety.org/free_ebooks.html, Origen#Philosophical_and_religious, (minor spelling errors silently corrected accessed 18 Aug. 2017. accessed 19 Aug. 2017. by present author in quotes from this source). FS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ OR2. Origen, On First Principles, G. W. Foundation_series, accessed 20 Aug. Butterworth tr., Gloucester, Mass.: Peter SS. Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, 2017. Smith, 1973, 151-53. and Tom Pyszczynski, “A Terror Management Theory of Social Behavior: FG. https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/ RE1. Robert Ettinger, The Prospect of The Psychological Functions of Self- fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=10325, accessed Immortality, http://www.cryonics.org/ esteem and Cultural Worldviews,” 18 Aug. 2017. images/uploads/misc/Prospect_Book.pdf, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology accessed 18 Aug. 2017, orig. ed. New 24 (1991): 93–159. York: Doubleday, 1964.

ENDNotes 1. RE1. 8. IA2, IA3, FG. 14. SC. 2. CS. 9. RE2 (quotations source). 15. SA. 3. CRY. 10. SH1; SH2; AW; AL2; AL3; SH3 16. FS. 4. FG. (quotations source). 17. SS. 5. IA1. 11. IA4. 18. Adapted from MP3. 6. CRY. 12. SG; MP2. 19. IA2, 333 (quotations source). 7. MP1. 13. OR1; OR2 (quotations source).

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 35 Revival Update Reported by R. Michael Perry

Personalized Cancer Vaccines before complex organisms emerged. When said study co-author Mark Ellisman, PhD, Successful in First-Stage a person develops cancer, he posits, their Distinguished Professor of Neurosciences Human Trials cells regress to become more like the and Bioengineering and director of the single-celled life prevalent a billion years National Center for Microscopy and ago. Some researchers are intrigued by the Imaging Research (NCMIR) at UC San A cancer vaccine is one of the holy grails theory, but plenty more think it’s silly. Yet Diego. “It efficiently packages DNA to fit of modern medical research, but finding gradually, evidence is emerging that Davies inside the cell nucleus, making it possible a way to stimulate the immune system could be right. If he is—if cancer really is for chromosomes and cells to divide and to specifically target and kill cancer a disease in which our cells act like their replicate safely and correctly. It’s a basic, cells has proven to be a difficult task. single-celled ancestors of eons ago—then working element of life.” Now two recent clinical trials that have the current approach to treatment could produced encouraging results in patients be all wrong. The atavistic theory portends Scott LaFee / UC San Diego News Center with skin cancer are providing hope for new approaches. Drugging tumors with 27 Jul. 2017 the development of personalized cancer the lowest possible dose could prevent the http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/ vaccines tailored to individual patient’s evolution of therapy-resistant pathways pressrelease/new_3d_imaging_ tumors. Both studies focus on neoantigens, that would otherwise enable the cancer to reveals_how_human_cell_nucleus_ which are mutated molecules found only spread around the body. “You don’t have to organizes_dna_and_chromatin_o?_ on the surface of cancer cells. Neoantigens get rid of it,” says Davies, “you just need to ga=2.72451543.512351946.1504056249- prove to be ideal targets for immunotherapy understand it and control it.” 491102103.1504056249 as they are not present on healthy cells. A vaccine’s challenge is to train the body’s Jessica Wapner / Newsweek immune cells, known as T cells, to hunt 17 Jul. 2017 and kill only those specific tumor cells Breakthrough Stem Cell Study http://www.newsweek.com/2016/07/29/ that hold the target neoantigens. In the Offers New Clues to cancer-evolution-cells-637632.html?spMai first trial, at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Reversing Aging lingID=2072121&spUserID=MzQ4OTU Institute, four out of six patients showed 0NjEwMTIS1&spJobID=831231430&sp no recurrence of their cancer 25 months ReportId=ODMxMjMxNDMwS0 This week, a study published in Nature after vaccination. In the second trial, by threw a wrench into the classical theory of Biopharmaceutical New Technologies aging. In a technical tour-de-force, a team (BioNTech) in Germany, after 12 to 23 New 3D Imaging Shows How led by Dr. Dongsheng Cai from the Albert months eight of 13 subjects were cancer- Einstein College of Medicine pinpointed free. Human Cell Nucleus Organizes a critical source of aging to a small group DNA and Chromatin of stem cells within the hypothalamus— Rich Haridy / New Atlas an “ancient” brain region that controls 9 Jul 2017 Sixty-four years ago, James Watson and bodily functions such as temperature and http://newatlas.com/cancer-personalized- Francis Crick described the now-iconic appetite. Like fountains of youth, these vaccine-success-trial/50402/?utm_ double helix structure of DNA. In a new stem cells release tiny fatty bubbles filled source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_ paper, published in the July 28, online with mixtures of small biological molecules campaign=ccf9755572-UA-2235360- issue of Science, a team of researchers at called microRNAs. With age, these cells 4&utm_medium=email&utm_ the University of California San Diego die out, and the animal’s muscle, skin and term=0_65b67362bd- School of Medicine and the Salk Institute brain function declines. However, when ccf9755572-89801958 for Biological Studies describe development the team transplanted these stem cells and application of new electron microscopic from young animals into a middle-aged imaging tools and a selective stain for one, they slowed aging. The recipient mice A New Theory on Cancer DNA to visualize the three-dimensional were smarter, more sociable and had better structure of chromatin — a complex muscle function. And—get this—they also Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist at of molecules that helps pack six feet of lived 10 to 15 percent longer than mice Arizona State University (ASU)—and DNA into each cell nucleus, construct transplanted with other cell types. To Dr. therefore somewhat of an interloper in chromosomes and control gene expression David Sinclair, an aging expert at Harvard the field of cancer—theorizes that cancer and DNA replication. “The primary Medical School, the findings represent a is a return to an earlier time in evolution, functions of chromatin are fundamental,” “breakthrough” in aging research.

36 Cryonics / November-December 2017 www.alcor.org Shelly Fan / Singularity Hub resolution living tissues is hard to do, as the Liezel Labios / UCSD News 6 Aug. 2017 cells often move within printed structures 16 Aug. 2017 https://singularityhub.com/2017/08/06/ and can collapse on themselves. But, led http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/ these-stem-cells-are-key-to-controlling- by Professor Hagan Bayley, Professor of drug_delivering_micromotors_treat_their_ aging/ Chemical Biology in Oxford’s Department first_bacterial_infection of Chemistry, the team devised a way to produce tissues in self-contained cells that Regenerative Medicine support the structures to keep their shape. Tripping the Light Fantastic Breakthrough The cells were contained within protective nanoliter droplets wrapped in a lipid A team of researchers at MIT has developed Researchers at The Ohio State University coating that could be assembled, layer- a super-fast, prototype chip that uses light Wexner Medical Center and Ohio State’s by-layer, into living structures. Producing rather than electrons to crunch data. The College of Engineering have developed a printed tissues in this way improves the optical chip, which could one day process new technology, Tissue Nanotransfection survival rate of the individual cells, and information as much as a million times (TNT), that can generate any cell type of allowed the team to improve on current faster than the chip in a typical Intel Core interest for treatment within the patient’s techniques by building each tissue one drop i7-based personal computer, won the grand own body. This technology may be used to at a time to a more favorable resolution. prize in the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship repair injured tissue or restore function of Competition earlier this year. Essentially, the aging tissue, including organs, blood vessels University of Oxford News & Events researchers have found a way to manipulate and nerve cells. Results of the regenerative 15 Aug. 2017 light inside a chip so it processes vast medicine study were published August http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-08-15- quantities of data simultaneously, similarly 7 in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. new-method-3d-printing-living-tissues to the way a human brain does. “Today’s “By using our novel nanochip technology, computers do operations one by one,” says injured or compromised organs can be Yichen Shen, a post-doctoral associate at replaced. We have shown that skin is a Drug-delivering Micromotors MIT and co-founder of Lightmatter, a fertile land where we can grow the elements Treat Their First Bacterial start-up the MIT research team has forged of any organ that is declining,” said Dr. Infection in the Stomach to bring its prototype chip to market. “We Chandan Sen, director of Ohio State’s do operations all together, when light is Center for Regenerative Medicine & Cell Nanoengineers at the University of passing through. It’s all simultaneous. We Based Therapies. Dr. Sen co-led the study California San Diego have demonstrated change the architecture completely.” “Deep with L. James Lee, professor of chemical and for the first time using micromotors to treat learning algorithms that are traditionally biomolecular engineering with Ohio State’s a bacterial infection in the stomach (mouse computationally-hungry, or expensive, can College of Engineering, in collaboration model). These tiny vehicles, each about half now be efficiently deployed with our chips,” with Ohio State’s Nanoscale Science and the width of a human hair, swim rapidly says Darius Bunandar, another Lightmatter Engineering Center. Researchers studied throughout the stomach while neutralizing co-founder. mice and pigs in these experiments. gastric acid and then release their cargo of antibiotics at the desired pH. Researchers Joe Dysart / ACM News Eileen Scahill / Ohio State University published their findings on Aug. 16 in 17 Aug. 2017 7 Aug. 2017 Nature Communications. This micromotor- https://cacm.acm.org/news/220279- https://news.osu.edu/news/2017/08/07/ enabled delivery approach is a promising tripping-the-light-fantastic/fulltext regenerative-med-study/ new method for treating stomach and gastrointestinal tract diseases with acid- sensitive drugs, researchers said. The effort is Custom-Made Molecules A New Method of 3D Printing a collaboration between the research groups Living Tissues of nanoengineering professors Joseph Imagine a deadly virus emerging in a part of Wang and Liangfang Zhang at the UC the world without the resources for vaccine Scientists at the University of Oxford San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. development. Now imagine if researchers have developed a new method to Wang and Zhang pioneered research on on the other side of the world could send 3D-print laboratory-grown cells to form the in vivo operation of micromotors and local medics an effective vaccine by email. living structures. The approach could this study represents the first example of Dan Gibson, Craig Venter and colleagues revolutionize regenerative medicine, drug-delivering micromotors for treating of Synthetic Genomics in La Jolla, enabling the production of complex bacterial infection. Gastric acid can be California, have done exactly that, based on tissues and cartilage that would potentially destructive to orally administered drugs earlier work. Their new digital-to-biological support, repair or augment diseased and such as antibiotics and protein-based converter (DBC) can, upon receipt of a damaged areas of the body. Printing high- pharmaceuticals. DNA sequence, prepare appropriate oligos

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 37 (short nucleotide chains for initiating DNA Abby Olena / The Scientist Researchers at Northeastern University synthesis), carry out DNA synthesis, and 30 Aug. 2017 have made a major advance in developing then, as required, convert that DNA into a http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles. significantly smaller antennas, hundreds of vaccine, or indeed into any RNA molecule view/articleNo/50228/title/Parkinson-s- times tinier than currently existing versions. or protein. The team has so far programmed Disease-Cell-Therapy-Relieves-Symptoms- “Current antennas are limited to large the DBC to make fluorescent proteins, in-Monkeys/ sizes, which are hard for many applications antibody polypeptides, an RNA virus like bio-implantable, bio-injectable, (H1N1 influenza), an influenza vaccine, and bio-ingestible antennas,” Nian Sun, and a full bacteriophage. “The authors paint Single Molecules Can Work as a professor of electrical and computer this future where one might be able to, in a Reproducible Transistors—at engineering at Northeastern, told Digital completely digital and automated fashion, Trends. The antennas described by Sun go from DNA sequence to functional Room Temperature and his colleagues are based on an entirely output,” says Michael Jewett, a chemical different design principle to the traditional and biological engineer at Northwestern A major goal in the field of molecular ones currently used. Traditional antennas University who was not involved in the electronics, which aims to use single receive and transmit large electromagnetic research. “… exciting.” molecules as electronic components, waves, and have to remain a certain size to is to make a device where a quantized, function with electromagnetic radiation. Ruth Williams / The Scientist controllable flow of charge can be achieved Northeastern’s new antennas, on the other 21 Aug. 2017 at room temperature. A first step in this hand, are designed for acoustic resonance, http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles. field is for researchers to demonstrate which uses a wavelength thousands of times view/articleNo/49877/title/Custom-Made- that single molecules can function as smaller than electromagnetic waves. Molecules/ reproducible circuit elements such as transistors or diodes that can easily operate Luke Dormehl / Digital Trends at room temperature. A team led by Latha 24 Aug. 2017 Parkinson’s Disease Cell Venkataraman at Columbia Engineering https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/ and Xavier Roy, assistant professor (Arts tiny-antenna-brain-implant/ Therapy Relieves Symptoms in & Sciences), published a study (DOI Monkeys 10.1038/nnano.2017.156) August 14 in Nature Nanotechnology that is the first Ethanol: a Lethal Injection for Cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease (PD) to reproducibly demonstrate current Tumors is closer than ever. In a study published blockade—the ability to switch a device August 30 in Nature, an international from the insulating to the conducting state team of researchers improved symptoms where charge is added and removed one If ethanol (the type of alcohol found in in a monkey model of PD by grafting electron at a time—using atomically precise adult beverages) is injected into a tumor, dopamine-producing neurons derived molecular clusters at room temperature. it destroys proteins and causes the cells from human induced pluripotent stem cells Bonnie Choi, a graduate student in the to dehydrate and die. Ethanol ablation (iPSCs) into the monkeys’ brains. Kyoto Roy group and co-lead author of the work, is used to treat one type of liver cancer, University neurosurgeon Jun Takahashi created a single cluster of geometrically and its success rate is similar to that of and colleagues generated eight iPSC lines ordered atoms with an inorganic core made surgery. Better yet, it costs less than $5 per from skin or blood cells collected from of just 14 atoms. treatment. Ethanol ablation faces several seven human subjects—three with PD and limitations, however. First, it only works four without—and derived dopaminergic Holly Evarts / Columbia Engineering well for tumors that are surrounded by a progenitors from these cell lines. The 14 Aug. 2017 fibrous capsule. Second, it requires large seven monkeys that received either cells http://engineering.columbia.edu/news/ amounts of ethanol, which can damage derived from individuals with PD or latha-venkataraman-single-molecule- nearby tissue as it leaks out. And third, healthy individuals showed a 40 to 50 transistor it requires multiple treatments. Now, a percent improvement in symptoms. “This team of researchers from Duke University is an important step in the translation of has shown that injecting an ethanol-based iPSC-derived technology to clinical cell New, Tiny Antenna Could Be gel directly into a specific type of tumor, called squamous cell carcinoma, resulted in transplants in Parkinson’s,” Patrik Brundin, Used for Brain Implants a neuroscientist at the Van Andel Institute a 100% cure rate in a hamster model. In in Michigan who did not participate in the their work they mixed ethanol with ethyl A revolutionary antenna, hundreds of cellulose, creating a solution that when work, tells The Scientist. “There were no times smaller than existing models, could major surprises, but these were essential injected into the watery environment of a help shrink phones and satellites, and even tumor turns into a gel, which remains close experiments that were required before make smart brain implants a real thing. moving forward to clinical trials.” to the injection site. As merely a proof-of-

38 Cryonics / November-December 2017 www.alcor.org concept in an animal model with small Jennifer Langston / UW News move and build molecular cargo, using a sample sizes, more work needs to be done; 13 Sep. 2017 tiny robotic arm. Each individual robot is still, the results are promising. http://www.washington.edu/ capable of manipulating a single molecule news/2017/09/13/uw-team-shatters-long- and is made up of just 150 carbon, Alex Berezow / American Council on range-communication-barrier-for-devices- hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen atoms. Science and Health that-consume-almost-no-power/ To put that size into context, a pile of a 3 Sep 2017 billion billion of these robots would still https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/09/02/ only be the same size (volume/weight) as ethanol-lethal-injection-tumors-11779 Researchers Have Linked a a few grains of salt. The robots operate by Human Brain to the Internet carrying out chemical reactions in special for the First Time Ever solutions which can then be controlled and Long-Range Communication programmed by scientists to perform the basic tasks. In the future such robots could for Very Low-Power Sensors Researchers from Wits University in University of Washington researchers be used for medical purposes, advanced Johannesburg, South Africa have linked manufacturing processes and even building have demonstrated for the first time that a brain directly to the internet. Data devices that run on almost zero power molecular factories and assembly lines. gathered from this project could help fuel The research, which was funded by the can transmit data across distances of up the next steps in machine learning and to 2.8 kilometers—breaking a long-held Engineering and Physical Sciences Research brain-computer interfaces. According to a Council (EPSRC) will be published in barrier and potentially enabling a vast array release published in Medical Express, for of interconnected devices. For example, Nature 21st September. Professor David the first time ever, researchers have devised Leigh led the research. flexible electronics—from knee patches that a way of connecting the human brain to capture range of motion in arthritic patients the internet in real time. It’s been dubbed to patches that use sweat to detect fatigue University of Manchester the “Brainternet” project, and it essentially 20 Sep. 2017 in athletes or soldiers—hold great promise turns the brain “…into an Internet of Things for collecting medically relevant data. But http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/ (IoT) node on the World Wide Web.” The news/scientists-create-worlds-first- today’s flexible electronics and other sensors project works by taking brainwave EEG that can’t employ bulky batteries and need molecular-robot-capable-of-building- signals gathered by an Emotiv EEG device molecules/ to operate with very low power typically connected to the user’s head. The signals are can’t communicate with other devices more then transmitted to a low cost Raspberry than a few feet or meters away. This limits Pi computer, which live-streams the data Regenerating Tissues with their practical use in medical monitoring, to an application programming interface home sensing, and many other areas. By and displays the data on an open website Gene-Targeting Molecules contrast, the UW’s long-range backscatter where anyone can view the activity. Adam system, which uses reflected radio signals Pantanowitz, a lecturer in the Wits School A synthetic DNA-targeting molecule could to transmit data at extremely low power of Electrical and Information Engineering pave the way for tissue regeneration. Stem and low cost, achieved reliable coverage and the project’s supervisor, said this is just cells can be triggered to change into heart throughout a 4800-square-foot house, an the beginning of the possibilities of the muscle cells by a new method involving office area covering 41 rooms and a one- project. synthetic molecules. The method overcomes acre vegetable farm. challenges facing current approaches and Futurism.com / Hard Science can be fine-tuned to prompt the formation 14 Sep. 2017 of a variety of cell types. Junichi Taniguchi https://futurism.com/researchers-have- and Ganesh Pandian Namasivayam at linked-a-human-brain-to-the-internet-for- Kyoto University’s Institute for Integrated the-first-time-ever/ Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) in Japan constructed a synthetic molecule that can recognize and bind with a specific DNA World’s First ‘Molecular Robot’ sequence involved in the differentiation of Capable of Building Molecules hiPSCs into mesoderm, an intermediary cell type that can be stimulated into changing The research team built this flexible into heart muscle cells. When the synthetic epidermal patch prototype — which Scientists at The University of Manchester molecule, called PIP-S2, binds to its target could be used to collect and wirelessly have created the world’s first ‘molecular DNA sequence, it prevents a protein, called transmit useful medical data — that robot’ that is capable of performing basic SOX2, from binding to the same site. successfully transmitted information tasks including building other molecules. Human induced pluripotent stem cells across a 3,300 square-foot atrium. The tiny robots, which are a millionth of Dennis Wise/University of Washington (hiPSCs) are generated from adult cells and a millimeter in size, can be programmed to can be programmed to change into any cell

www.alcor.org Cryonics / November-December 2017 39 type in the body. The cell type conversion sealed immediately. They also come with is controlled by coordinated regulation of the risk that tissues are further damaged and signalling cues and genes. infected. The new study, led by Harvard University Professor Ali Khademhosseini Kyoto University / Eurekalert! and Northeastern University Assistant 25 Sep. 2017 Professor Nasim Annabi, presents a robust https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_ solution for the efficient repair of wounds releases/2017-09/ku-rtw092417.php in mechanically challenging body areas—a surgical glue called MeTro. They and their colleagues showed that MeTro can The surgical glue MeTro is applied be photochemically tuned to effectively New Human Protein-Based directly to the wound and activated Surgical Glue Seals Wounds in seal incisions in arteries and lungs of rats with light. University of Sydney. 60 Seconds and to repair wounds in the lungs of pigs, all suture and staple-free. “MeTro sets in just 60 seconds once treated with UV Sci-News.com To repair ruptured or pierced organs and light, and the technology has a built-in 9 Oct 2017 tissues, surgeons commonly use staples, degrading enzyme which can be modified http://www.sci-news.com/medicine/ sutures and wires to bring and hold the to determine how long the sealant lasts— human-protein-based-surgical-glue- wound edges together so that they can heal. from hours to months …” to allow time for metro-05298.html However, these procedures can be difficult wounds to heal. to perform in hard-to-reach areas of the body and wounds are often not completely

A Roadmap to Revival uccessful revival of cryonics patients will require three Gregory M. Fahy, “A ‘Realistic’ Scenario for Sdistinct technologies: (1) A cure for the disease that put Nanotechnological Repair of the Frozen Human Brain,” in the patient in a critical condition prior to cryopreservation; Brian Wowk, Michael Darwin, eds., Cryonics: Reaching for (2) biological or mechanical cell repair technologies that Tomorrow, Alcor Life Extension Foundation, 1991. can reverse any injury associated with the cryopreservation process and long-term care at low temperatures; (3) Ralph C. Merkle, “The Molecular Repair of the Brain,” rejuvenation biotechnologies that restore the patient to good Cryonics 15(1) (January 1994):16-31 (Part I) & Cryonics 15(2) health prior to resuscitation. OR it will require some entirely (April 1994):20-32 (Part II). new approach such as (1) mapping the ultrastructure of Ralph C. Merkle, “Cryonics, Cryptography, and Maximum cryopreserved brain tissue using nanotechnology, and (2) Likelihood Estimation,” First Extropy Institute Conference, using this information to deduce the original structure and Sunnyvale CA, 1994, updated version at http://www.merkle. repairing, replicating or simulating tissue or structure in com/cryo/cryptoCryo.html. some viable form so the person “comes back.” Aubrey de Grey & Michael Rae, “Ending Aging: The The following is a list of landmark papers and books that Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human reflect ongoing progress towards the revival of cryonics Aging in Our Lifetime.” St. Martin’s Press, 2007. patients: Robert A. Freitas Jr., “Comprehensive Nanorobotic Control Jerome B. White, “Viral-Induced Repair of Damaged of Human Morbidity and Aging,” in Gregory M. Fahy, Neurons with Preservation of Long-Term Information Michael D. West, L. Stephen Coles, and Steven B. Harris, Content,” Second Annual Conference of the Cryonics eds, The Future of Aging: Pathways to Human Life Extension, Societies of America, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Springer, New York, 2010, 685-805. April 11-12, 1969, by J. B. White. Reprinted in Cryonics 35(10) (October 2014): 8-17. Chana Phaedra, “Reconstructive Connectomics,” Cryonics 34(7) (July 2013): 26-28. Michael G. Darwin, “The Anabolocyte: A Biological Approach to Repairing Cryoinjury,” Life Extension Magazine Robert A. Freitas Jr., “The Alzheimer Protocols: A (July-August 1977):80-83. Reprinted in Cryonics 29(4) (4th Nanorobotic Cure for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Quarter 2008):14-17. Neurodegenerative Conditions,” IMM Report No. 48, June 2016.

40 Cryonics / November-December 2017 www.alcor.org POWER UP! TURN ON YOUR CELLULAR ENERGY

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MKAQAV171106 Alcor_NovDec_NAD_Ad.indd 1 10/4/17 10:31 AM MEETINGS

About the Alcor Foundation Oregon: The Alcor Life Extension Foundation is a nonprofit tax-exempt scientific and The contact person for meetings in the educational organization dedicated to advancing the science of cryopreservation Portland area is Aschwin de Wolf: aschwin@ and promoting cryonics as a rational option. Being an Alcor member means alcor.org. See also: https://www.facebook.com/ knowing that—should the worst happen—Alcor’s Emergency Response Team is portland.life.extension. ready to respond for you, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. British Columbia (Canada): Alcor’s Emergency Response capability includes specially trained technicians and CryoBC, a special interest group within customized equipment in Arizona, northern California, southern California, and the nonprofit Lifespan Society of BC (http:// south Florida, as well as many additional certified technicians on-call around the www.lifespanbc.ca/) holds meetings for United States. Alcor’s Arizona facility includes a full-time staff, and the Patient cryonicists in the Vancouver area. To be Care Bay is personally monitored 24 hours a day. notified of meetings join the CryoBC mailing list: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ ARIZONA San Francisco Bay: cryobc/info. Flagstaff: Alcor Northern California Meetings are Arizona without the inferno. Cryonics held quarterly in January, April, July, and TEXAS group in beautiful, high-altitude Flagstaff. October. A CryoFeast is held once a year. For Dallas: Two-hour drive to Alcor. Contact eric@ information on Northern California meetings, North Texas Cryonauts, please sign up flagstaffcryo.com for more information. call Mark Galeck at (650) 772-1251 or email for our announcements list for meetings [email protected]. (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cryonauts- PHOENIX announce) or contact David Wallace Croft VALLEY OF THE SUN: FLORIDA at (214) 636-3790 for details of upcoming This group meets monthly, usually in Central Florida Life Extension group meetings. the third week of the month. Dates are meets once a month in the Tampa Bay area determined by the activity or event planned. (Tampa and St. Petersburg) for discussion and Austin/Central Texas: For more information or to RSVP, visit http:// socializing. The group has been active since A new group for the Austin area has been cryonics.meetup.com/45/ or email Lisa Shock 2007. Email [email protected] for started for those interested in discussion and at [email protected]. more information. understanding of the relevant technologies and issues for cryopreservation, genomics, At Alcor: NEW ENGLAND epigenetics and medical research for increased Alcor Board of Directors Meetings and Cambridge: life/health span. Contact Tom Miller, 760-803- Facility Tours—Alcor business meetings are The New England regional group strives 4107 or [email protected]. generally held on the second Saturday of every to meet monthly in Cambridge, MA—for month starting at 11:00 AM MST. Guests information or to be added to the Alcor NE JAPAN are welcome to attend the fully-public board mailing list, please contact Bret Kulakovich Cryonics meetings are held monthly in meetings. Facility tours are held every Tuesday at 617-824-8982, alcor@bonfireproductions. Tokyo. Send queries to [email protected]. at 10:00 AM and Friday at 2:00 PM. For more com, or on FACEBOOK via the Cryonics information or to schedule a tour, call Marji Special Interest Group. ALCOR PORTUGAL Klima at (877) 462-5267 x101 or email marji@ Alcor Portugal is working to have good alcor.org. NEW YORK CITY stabilization and transport capabilities. The Alcor members in the NYC area can group meets every Saturday for two hours. For CALIFORNIA contact Javier El-Hage at javier.elhage@gmail. information about meetings, contact Nuno Los Angeles: com for information about local meetings Martins at [email protected]. The Alcor Southern California Meetings—For which are held once a month at a midtown Alcor Portugal website is: www.alcorportugal. information, call Peter Voss at location. com. (310) 822-4533 or e-mail him at peter@ optimal.org. Although monthly meetings are PACIFIC NORTHWEST UNITED KINGDOM not held regularly, you can meet Los Angeles A Yahoo mailing list is also maintained for Alcor members in the UK can contact Alcor members by contacting Peter. cryonicists in the Pacific Northwest at http:// Garret Smyth at [email protected] for tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/CryonicsNW/. information about local meetings.

If you are interested in hosting regular meetings in your area, contact Alcor at 877-462-5267, ext. 113. Meetings are a great way to learn about cryonics, meet others with similar interests, and introduce your friends and family to Alcor members!

42 Cryonics / November-December 2017 www.alcor.org What is Cryonics?

ryonics is an attempt to preserve and protect human life, not reverse death. It is the practice of using extreme Ccold to attempt to preserve the life of a person who can no longer be supported by today’s medicine. Will future medicine, including mature nanotechnology, have the ability to heal at the cellular and molecular levels? Can cryonics successfully carry the cryopreserved person forward through time, for however many decades or centuries might be necessary, until the cryopreservation process can be reversed and the person restored to full health? While cryonics may sound like science fiction, there is a basis for it in real science. The complete scientific story of cryonics is seldom told in media reports, leaving cryonics widely misunderstood. We invite you to reach your own conclusions.

How do I find out more?

he Alcor Life Extension Foundation is the world leader in cryonics research and technology. Alcor is a non- Tprofit organization located in Scottsdale, Arizona, founded in 1972. Our website is one of the best sources of detailed introductory information about Alcor and cryopreservation (www.alcor.org). We also invite you to request our FREE information package on the “Free Information” section of our website. It includes:

• A fully illustrated color brochure • A sample of our magazine • An application for membership and brochure explaining how to join • And more!

Your free package should arrive in 1-2 weeks. (The complete package will be sent free in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom.)

How do I enroll? Signing up for cryopreservation is easy! Step 1: Fill out an application and submit it with your $90 application fee. Step 2: You will then be sent a set of contracts to review and sign. Step 3: Fund your cryopreservation. While most people use life insurance to fund their cryopreservation, other forms of prepayment are also accepted. Alcor’s Membership Coordinator can provide you with a list of insurance agents familiar with satisfying Alcor’s current funding requirements. Finally: After enrolling, you will wear emergency alert tags or carry a special card in your wallet. This is your confirmation that Alcor will respond immediately to an emergency call on your behalf.

Not ready to make full arrangements for cryopreservation? Thenbecome an Associate Member for $5/month (or $15/ quarter or $60 annually). Associate Members will receive: • Cryonics magazine by mail • Discounts on Alcor conferences • Access to post in the Alcor Member Forums • A dollar-for-dollar credit toward full membership sign-up fees for any dues paid for Associate Membership

To become an Associate Member send a check or money order ($5/month or $15/quarter or $60 annually) to Alcor Life Extension Foundation, 7895 E. Acoma Dr., Suite 110, Scottsdale, Arizona 85260, or call Marji Klima at (480) 905-1906 ext. 101 with your credit card information. You can also pay using PayPal (and get the Declaration of Intent to Be Cryopreserved) here: http://www.alcor.org/BecomeMember/associate.html

Call toll-free TODAY to start your application:

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