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MASARYK UNIVERSITY Faculty of Social Studies Department of Sociology Bachelor Thesis Cryonics Patient as Homo Sacer: The Exercise of Biopower in Cryonics Jakub Bubelíny Supervisor: Mgr. Eva Šlesingerová, Ph.D. Brno 2017 Number of characters: 85 520 I declare that I have worked independently and that I have state all used sources in the included bibliography. Brno 17.05.2017 Jakub Bubelíny 2 I would like to thank my supervisor Eva Šlesingerová for her patience and valuable advice while writing this thesis. I would also like to thank my amazing girlfriend for her support and remarkable perseverance. 3 Contents 1. Introduction …............................................................................................................... 5 1.1 Definition …............................................................................................................ 7 1.2 Death and Cryonics …............................................................................................. 8 2. Methodology …........................................................................................................... 10 2.1 Sources Analyzed ….............................................................................................. 10 2.2 Conducted Research …......................................................................................... 10 2.3 Used Concepts ….................................................................................................. 11 3. Cryonics Today …......................................................................................................... 14 3.1 The First Moments of Death …............................................................................. 14 3.2 The Patients …...................................................................................................... 19 3.3 A Brave New World …........................................................................................... 23 4. A Brief History of Cryonics …........................................................................................ 28 4.1 Robert Ettinger and Evan Cooper …...................................................................... 28 4.2 The Life Extention Society and Early Cryonics …................................................... 29 4.3 Robert Nelson …................................................................................................... 29 4.4 Ted Williams …...................................................................................................... 31 4.5 Recent Developments …....................................................................................... 32 5. Conclusion …............................................................................................................... 34 Annotation …..................................................................................................................36 Anotace …....................................................................................................................... 37 Sources of Analysis …...................................................................................................... 38 Bibliography …................................................................................................................ 41 Name Index …................................................................................................................. 44 4 1. Introduction Most people in our society view death as an inevitable part of life, dealing with it in unique ways, but nevertheless accepting it as the necessary outcome. However, there is a group, in our western society, that has a completely different understanding of death. They do not accept it as a part of everyday life; instead they see it as a shortfall of modern medicine, a condition that can be treated with better medicine. This work deals with the fringe medical field of cryonics, the practice of cryo-preserving human bodies (i.e. patients) in order for them to be revived in the future, and its usage of power, language and discourse. More specifically, it tries to answer the question „What is the position of the cryo-preserved patient within power relations?“ For this it primarily uses the concepts found in the works of Michael Foucault and Giorgio Agamben to analyze and describe existing power relations, the nodes in them and the tactics and strategies used to influence them. It tries to describe the power relationships between various actors relevant to cryonics and to provide an overview of the field of cryonics using the concepts of power, biopower and homo sacer, as well as the knowledge gained through my research, consisting of questionnaires and interviews, and analysis of a multitude of cryonic sources, such as cryonics journals, web pages of cryonics companies, court cases, internet forums and even digitalized records of mailing exchanges during the early years of cryonics. It also explores the notion of death and its understanding in the cryonics community as well as the ethical discourse applied in cryonics. This work tries to provide an objective account of the practice of cryonics and is in no way normative. The analysis shares some features of Foucauldian Discourse Analysis; however it is in no way exhaustive, and should be considered as preliminary research and a description of the terrain. The cryo-preserved patients can be considered homo sacer, people included in the law only in the extent that they are excluded from it, since they have died and the state power is no longer governing them or protecting them [Agamben, 1998; Romain, 2010]. However, this does not completely exclude them from the existing power relations - „Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere.“ [Foucault, 5 1978: 93] The cryonics community does not consider the patients to be homo sacer and this manifests itself in the language they use and the ways they exercise their power. The different discourse within the cryonics community leads to a struggle with the dominant discourse that can be seen in the different usage of language, ethics and legislature. This text also tries to explain why the state power is opposed to the idea of cryonics and if there is a possibility of reconciliation. Even though cryonics has been around for more than half a century, there are only a few anthropological accounts of it, and so cryonics is still a fresh and interesting terrain. The practice broaches many of the established viewpoints and discourses of western society, yet the group formed and exists within this society. It challenges the definitions of death and life, the legal system and even ethical norms. An account of this would be a worthwhile contribution, more so considering the recent breakthroughs in cryo-preservation and revival techniques, which will be elaborated on later in this work. Furthermore, the accelerating rate of technological advancement may lead to an increase in the credibility of cryonics and, consequently, the significant growth of the cryonics community. Firstly the terms pertaining to cryonics will be explained, most notably what this term encompasses as well as how cryonicists view death. This will be followed by the methodology of this work as well as the connected research. The basics of the theories and concepts used for the analysis - power, biopower, power relations, discipline, struggle and homo sacer - will be explained in this part as well. The three chapters that follow will observe the cryo-preserved patient in three distinct stages - at the point of death, in cryo- preservation and after revival. The first will explore the position of patientsas homo sacer and the reason and ways how they become homo sacer when they legally die, as well as patients’ relations and the relations between state and legislative power, the cryonics community and the cryonics organization that cryo-preserved them. The second chapter presents the patients as ethical subjects within power relations. It shows on what basis the cryonics community and cryonics organizations protect these patients, and what tactics the cryonics group uses in order to influence and modify the state and legislative power. The last of the three chapters deals with the incentives for revival and the position of the patients in 6 the future within a new society and discourse. In the end, this work will explore the history and formation of cryonics in greater detail and try to evaluate the usage and evolution of cryonics discourse through the outlined concepts. 1.1 Definition Cryonics is still a field that receives little attention from the general public or scientific community, and as such, there are many misconceptions and misinterpretations about the meaning of the term and the specific practice of cryonics. First off, cryonics at large is not considered a mainstream or „accepted“ medical procedure, and that is due to the nature of the premises it makes - premises that cannot be conclusively proven true or false by any experiment feasible today. Even though the premise of cryonics does not break any laws of nature, it is impossible to prove that it will work until the first patient is revived from his/her vitrified1 state. To some, this might be analogous to believing in an afterlife. Whether you believe in reincarnation or spending eternity in heaven, you cannot know for sure until it happens, and until it does all you can do is believe that it will work out. Many cryonicists would be quick to point out two things: first,