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, there is indeed some evidence that suggest cryonics could work, and what is more, there have been several recent breakthroughs in vitrifying live tissues.2 And second, in the past there have been numerous attempts at what was considered impossible that succeeded in the end using more advanced technology. Alcors3 FAQ defines cryonics as „ […] the low-temperature preservation of humans who can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine, in the expectation they can be healed and resuscitated in the future using more advanced medical technologies.“ [Alcor Life

1 Vitrification is the process in which a substance changes into a glass-like solid (i.e. amorphous solid) instead of crystallizing. In cryonics it is used in order to prevent formation of ice crystals that would damage the cells. 2 See for example Vita-More, N. Barranco, D. 2015. „Persistence of Long-Term Memory in Vitrified and Revived Caenorhabditis elegans.“ Rejuvenation Research 18 (5): 458-463; Alam, H.B. et. al. 2002. „Rigorous demonstration of memory retention following profound hypothermia, confirming theoretical expectation and clinical experience.“ Surgery 132 (2): 278-288 and McIntyre, R.L. Fahy, G.M. 2015. „Aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation.“ Cryobiology 71 (3): 448-458 3 Alcor Life Extension Foundation is a non-profit cryonic organization based in Arizona, US and at this time the biggest cryonics organization in the world.

7 Extension Foundation, n.d.] In his book The Prospect of Immortality, which started the cryonics movement, Robert Ettinger makes the distinction between suspended animation and suspended death. While the former refers to „ […] a standstill in the life processes of the body.“ [Ettinger, 1995: 12] that can be induced or removed at will and during which the organism in question is considered „alive“, the latter refers to „ […] the condition of a biologically dead body which has been frozen and stored at a very low temperature, so that degeneration is arrested and not progressive.“ [Ettinger, 1995: 13] And while the body may be viewed as „dead“, this is a political and relative term, since future technology might be able to reverse this state. If we look at the way death has been defined in the past and how the definition has changed, we can see how suspended death can be reversed. In fact to understand this thoroughly, we need to look at several definitions that are used all at once, albeit from different perspectives. We are specifically interested in clinical death, legal death and information-theoretic death4.

1.2 Death and Cryonics

Clinical death is defined as the cessation of blood circulation and breathing [Kastenbaum, 2003]. It is important to note that before the modern CPR methods were being used, it most likely led to irreversible death, which is not the case anymore. Here it is most obvious how technology can change the understanding of death - while in the past, a person without respiration and a heartbeat was considered dead, today they are resuscitated and sometimes „brought back to life“ [Ettinger, 1995: chap. 3]. Legal death is the government’s recognition that a person has died. This is materialized through a death certificate, although the „moment of legal death“ happens when a person is pronounced dead, usually by a medical specialist. There can be differences between individual states and their legislatures, but the standard defined by World Health Organization (WHO) is the cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions or brain function [Montreal Forum Report, 2012]. Understanding legal death is important since people in

4 There are even more types of death, such as brain death or social death.

8 cryonic suspension (or in suspended death) are, by definition, legally dead and it is legal death over which has the state power control. The only death cryonicists are concerned with, however, and the only one that they accept as „final“ is the information-theoretic death. We consider a person dead by information-theoretic criterion „ […] if their memories, personality, hopes, dreams, etc. have been destroyed in the information-theoretic sense. If the structures in the brain that encode memory and personality have been so disrupted that it is no longer possible in principle to recover them, then the person is dead. If they are sufficiently intact that inference of the state of memory and personality are feasible in principle, and therefore restoration to an appropriate functional state is likewise feasible in principle, then the person is not dead.“5 [Merkle, 1992: 9] In practice this means that a person is not dead until it is completely impossible to „repair“ his/her brain to its original state; even if the brain was damaged and suffered a certain degree of cellular death, it still might be possible to repair it with a better understanding of brain structures and technology. To the cryonicist, the brain is very much like a machine that can be fixed and that contains everything important about the person, most notably memories and personality. In the context of cryonics, death is viewed as a process rather than a fixed event. More specifically it is the process that begins when the brain is not getting oxygen anymore and starts to decay (clinical death) and ends when this decay is impossible to reverse by any means [Alcor Life Extension Foundation, n.d.]. Meanwhile, legal death is considered just a formality that complicates, and sometimes prevents, cryonic procedures.

5 A more up-to date definition by the author: „A person is dead according to the information-theoretic criterion if the structures that encode memory and personality have been so disrupted that it is no longer possible in principle to recover them. If inference of the state of memory and personality are feasible in principle, and therefore restoration to an appropriate functional state is likewise feasible in principle, then the person is not dead.“ [Merkle, 2016]

9 2. Methodology

This work is based on various sources concerning cryonics as well as my own research and the resulting analysis based on the concepts of Michael Foucault's biopower and Giorgio Agamben’s homo sacer. It analyzes the language used as well as the actions of the actors documented in these sources, and understands them all as a part of discourse and power relations.

2.1 Sources Analyzed

In order to get an overview of the cryonics practice, language, ethos and beliefs, I used various sources from both inside and outside of the cryonics community. One of the most important sources from within is Robert Ettinger’s book The Prospect of Immortality, which started the cryonics movement. The mailing list, available at cryonet.org, offers valuable insight into the thoughts and exchanges during the early years of cryonics, and can show how the language and discourse changed over time. As for contemporary sources, there is the Alcor Life Extension Foundation’s frequently asked questions (FAQ) and other information given on their web pages, along with various documents concerning cryopreservation protocols, case reports, articles pertaining to various topics as well as their journal „Cryonics“. Other such sources come from multiple members of the cryonics community and other cryonics organizations such as Oregon Cryonics or the Cryonics Institute. Sources from outside the cryonics community are usually scientific articles concerning the technical and medical feasibility of cryonics, as well as various articles in newspapers. The last part of the analyzed data comes from the conducted research.

2.2 Conducted Research

The research was carried out in three stages. First, all of the major cryonics organizations6

6 Note that the smallest contacted cryonics organization cryo-preserved as few as 6 patients [Oregon Cryonics, n.d.].

10 were contacted, namely the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, the American Cryonics Society, the Cryonics Institute, KrioRus, Oregon Cryonics and Suspended Animation. All of them except KrioRus, the only contacted organization not based in the United States, responded positively to the question of future cooperation. In the next phase, questionnaires were sent via e-mail, along with an explanation of ethical conduct in anthropological research, the possibility of anonymization and the option to draft informed consent. Three organizations responded, none of which required anonymization or informed consent, which resulted in four completed questionnaires (Alcor sent two questionnaires each completed by a different member). The questionnaire consisted of 10 open questions concerning the legal, ethical and economical issues involved in cryonics, as well as the incentives for revival and the expectations for the eventual revival and integration of patients. In the last stage the organizations that replied were contacted once again in order to arrange an interview, however only Alcor responded. The option for anonymization and informed consent was declined this time as well. A semi-structured interview was conducted with one of the founders of Alcor via a video call that lasted 1 hour and 32 minutes. It was built upon the questionnaires and tried to obtain more exact and full answers to similar questions, as well as to get an idea of who the clients and members of the cryonics organizations and community are. The answers both in the questionnaires and in the interview were analyzed, not only by the information they contained (or did not contain) but also by how the information was provided7. These avenues of inquiry were chosen due to several factors. Firstly, the questionnaires were chosen for the lower commitment level, and thus higher response rate, and as a way to get a better understanding of the field in preparation for the interviews. The interview was chosen as the most direct way of observing and obtaining knowledge about the cryonics community and their discourse. Participant observation would most likely be the ideal method for this; however, due to distance and time constraints it was not applicable for this work.

2.3 Used Concepts

7 Both the completed questionnaires and the transcript of the interview are available if needed.

11 The data from these sources were analyzed through the optics of Michael Foucault's power. Foucault tells us that power is everywhere, and no one can own it. Instead, it manifests itself in power relations between subjects (i.e. actors). In this case the most important8 actors are the patients, the cryonics community, the cryonics organizations, the state and the legislative power. Whenever the subjects try to influence each other, they exercise power. This exercise can be seen not only in visible conflict, but in a subtler way through the usage of language and actions that do not fit the others’ discourse [Foucault, 1978, 1982]. This negotiation between actors can be understood as a struggle where each actor tries to impose their ideas or beliefs on the other - for example, the belief of cryonics community that cryonics patients are alive on the one hand, and the belief of state power that they are dead on the other. Discourse is, for Foucault, the system of thoughts, ideas, beliefs and practices that dictates how we understand the world and the relationships in it, and consequently how we act on them. Different discourses can exist within one culture and struggle for dominance or at least a change in the social order [Foucault, 1972, 1982]. Biopower comprises techniques of power used for managing populations, and more specifically for fostering life [Foucault, 1978: 138-140]. It consists on one end of the biopolitics used to manage populations and the efficiency of the population through the usage of statistics, hierarchies and surveillance [Foucault, 2003a: 239-264], and on the other end of anatomo-politics, or discipline, used to make bodies of individuals govern themselves, conforming to social norms and ethics - the discourse of the given population [Foucault, 1978: 133-159]. The last concept is Giorgio Agambens homo sacer. The expression originates in Roman law and translates to „sacred man“. A person designated homo sacer is excluded from the political life, and, in fact, from the protection of law. Homo sacer is in a state of exclusion - included in the law, only in the capacity to be excluded from it. Agamben notes that the law has the power to define what qualifies as life worth protecting in contrast to „bare life“ [Agamben, 1998]. This work argues that cryonics patients can be viewed as homo sacer, which greatly affects the power relations as well as the techniques used to manage

8 In Foucaults conception everything is connected, and can have indirect impact on power relations.

12 their bodies. Using these concepts, this text tries to describe the discourse of cryonics and the power relations pertaining to it, with a focus on the cryonics patient and his position in power relations as well as the biopower practices establishing the conception of death and life in our society.

13 3. Cryonics Today

3.1 The First Moments of Death

In the optimal scenario, the patient (i.e. the client of cryonic organization) is dying in a hospital in a predictable way9 that does not include diseases that damage the brain, and the cryonics team (or standby) is waiting somewhere in the hospital for the medical staff to declare the patient legally dead. As I mentioned above, legal death is not a matter that changes how cryonics work in a substantial way. Although it would be ideal from the preservation standpoint to vitrify a patient before clinical death and any damage due to asphyxiation occurs, from the current legal standpoint it is considered to be euthanasia, making it illegal in most states. After the patient is pronounced dead, the cryonic team will start the procedure. In some cases there may be resistance from family members of the deceased or from the medical staff for which the cryonics team needs to be prepared. The patient is cooled and his/her circulation is restored. Medications are used, most often to prevent blood clotting and to keep the brain from damage. Next, the patient’s blood is replaced with a vitrification solution that is circulated through the body, which partially replaces water inside cells, reducing the damage ice crystals could have done. At last, the body is slowly cooled to the temperature of liquid nitrogen and stored for long term care [Alcor Life Extension Foundation, 2016].

Death is a peculiar phenomenon - it is different across cultures yet something that all humans share. This part of my analysis is based on the notion that death, and more precisely its exact definition and understanding in our culture, is closer to a mere abstraction, a social construct. The only thing we can be sure about is the state of one’s body and its ability to be revived, albeit only in theory. However, we do not currently know where in the process of one’s decomposition lies a line which cannot be crossed; currently, only the line that our medical technology cannot cross is seen. At the moment, this is the lack of higher and lower

9 Such as cancer or failing heart.

14 brain functions, i.e. brain death. Whether it is „the line“ is currently both unprovable and irrefutable; this is why I will refrain from normative statements about what it means to be dead. Instead I will consider death to be a political decision - as Agamben notes: „Life and death are not properly scientific concepts but rather political concepts, which as such acquire a political meaning precisely only through a decision.“ [Agamben, 1998: 94] This means that the decision of whether or not you are dead and may lose your personhood and, in effect, your rights, rests on the subject that has the power to enact such a decision. In this case this is most prominently the doctor that pronounces you dead, but with a better analysis of the (bio)power relations we can discern that it is actually political or state power that normalizes the point of death through biopower practices. It is the legislative and state power that decides the definition of death and sets it as a norm not only through biopolitics (as mortality), but also through disciplining the bodies of others to recognize death [Foucault, 1978, 1995]. Such a normalization is not without consequence - a dead person is reduced to a cadaver and stripped of his or her personhood as well as the rights typically granted to living persons. While such a practice seems only logical, together with the politicization of death it can have a noticeable impact in extreme cases, among which cryonics is definitely included. A person who has lost the protection of law and was, in essence, reduced to an animal becomes zoe. Zoe is bare life, and unlike bios - a good life, a political life - it does not grant the protection of the government. In a normal case the person loses his or her bios together with zoe when he stops living, but in some cases a living person can be stripped of his bios, thus becoming homo sacer, a person included in the law only in the capacity to be excluded from it and its protection [Agamben, 1998]. In his work Agamben (1998) talks about Karen Qumlan, a girl kept alive artificially for years until being finally declared dead so she could be disconnected from life support. However, she kept breathing and „ [...] entered a zone of indetermination in which the words ‘life’ and ‘death’ had lost their meaning, and which, at least in this sense, is not unlike the space of exception inhabited by bare life.“ [Agamben, 1998: 93] Her state was not dissimilar to the one cryo-preserved patients are in - she had lost bios and was reduced to zoe after being declared dead. Unlike cryo-preserved patients, she

15 kept the most prominent features of zoe, of „living“, such as breathing and circulation, however the most significant one, shared by both Karen and cryo-preserved patients, is potentiality. Potentiality can transform into acutality, zoe can transform into bios [Agamben, 1998; Frost, 2013]. And while the actual „aliveness“ of patients in stasis can be disputed, their potential to be fully living in the future is currently undeniable. The cryonics patients thus become homo sacer - they lose their rights and the state power is no longer governing them. „After legal death, the body is no longer under medical supervision and the state has few claims on this body. Having named a fellow cryonicist ‘next of kin,’ the body can be turned over to that person - and thus to a cryonics company - to be ‘disposed of’ in the form of preservation and storage.“ [Romain, 2010: 199] However, as previously stated, zoe still exists in the form of potentiality. The individuals do not become mere bodies or cadavers, they become homo sacer, included in the law only to be excluded with the issued death certificate. In the final moments, just when death is confirmed by the doctor, a last display of the power of the now absent bios is manifested in the form of a contract with the cryonics organization. And while the individual is mostly taken out of the (bio)power relationship with the state power, he is part of the cryonics community that still engage in this relationship as a group [Foucault, 2003a: 252-3]. This cryonics group, consisting of cryonics organizations, their patients and the cryonics community, is constituted via the legal contracts with and within the cryonics organization, as well as a biosocial community that collectively recasts mortality as a failing of health. „The biosociality that I identify among cryonicists is co-constitutive of an emerging social world that consists of imaginaries of biomedically mediated immortal life and an identity formed in relationship to these projections.“ [Romain, 2010: 204] The combination of contractual obligation and biosociality means that this group is acting in the interest of cryo-preserved patients (who cannot act on their own) as if they were active members of the group. This puts the cryo-preserved patient, the homo sacer, into a greater network of power relations, where, through the cryonics group, the patient is resisting the status (of being dead) enforced on him. The resistance is, for Foucault, ontologically the same thing as power. „[…] power and resistance are no more than two different names Foucault gives to the same

16 capacity - the capacity to create social change.“ [Heller, 1996: 99] The difference that Foucault makes between power and resistance is only that of perspective „ [...] he chooses to privilege certain categories of power-exercising subjects over others, most often subject- categories that have the ability to exercise less power than their rivals - the power exercised by prisoners, by workers, by the perverse, by students, and so on. These forms of power are resistances for Foucault, because they are lesser forms of power, not because they are power-less.“ [Heller, 1996: 99] The analyzed sources talk about this struggle very clearly: where cryonics resists the state power by using loopholes in the legislature, the state power can resist this exercise of power by updating the legislature; where doctors can resist the cryonicists operating on their just deceased patient, the cryonicists can in turn exercise the power stemming from the contract with the deceased. [Foucault, 1978: 95-96; Heller, 1996; Pickett, 1996; Romain 2010: 200-201] The struggle of the cryonics group (the cryonics movement) is not unlike that of other marginalized groups which fight for their rights or for social change, whether it be the LGBT community or various ethnic groups. On the surface it might seem like the struggle of cryonicists is not of the same significance as those calling for equal or at least some rights for marginalized communities. However, the cryonics group consists predominantly both of people in stasis, the homo sacer that do not have the same rights as living people, and of individuals that want to be cryo-preserved in the future, thus inadvertently becoming homo sacer. But why is there a struggle in the first place? Why won’t the state power and legislative institutions just accept the wishes of this community and devise laws that will be applicable to cryo-preservation of humans? Foucault argues that biopower appeared because, among other things, the modern state needs productive and disciplined citizens. „This bio-power was without question an indispensable element in the development of capitalism; the latter would not have been possible without the controlled insertion of bodies into the machinery of production and the adjustment of the phenomena of population to economic processes.“ [Foucault, 1978: 140- 141] It is important to note that today, the productivity we are speaking of does not constitute only the economic prowess of an individual, but also his/her importance for the

17 community. An example of this could be the elderly population, which does not contribute to economic production but is nonetheless important for society as a wealth of experience and „social glue“ helping to keep families and communities together [Fenton, Draper, 2014]. Foucault also argues that death is the border of power and goes against the new goal of power, that is to foster life [Foucault, 1978: 138-140]. Since cryonics has yet to revive someone and thus has not been sufficiently proven, it is viewed in a similar way to euthanasia. As it is now, making a standpoint on the issue of cryonics inevitably leads to also making a stance on the issue of „the right to death“, death sentences, abortions, etc. It broaches the question of „what can we kill and in what ways?“ Any attempt at altering the position of cryonics within the power relations will meet with resistance because of this, and the arguments against euthanasia and the right to death are often brought up in the analyzed sources. Altering and blurring what the society considers the line between life and death could lead to difficulties when proving someone guilty of murder or exhorting suicide [Pommer III, 1993]. To a lesser degree, even in the future after cryonics prove themselves, this will cause precedent and could significantly alter how life and death are perceived. If we are protecting dead, frozen people, on the basis that they could live in the future, shouldn’t we protect embryos that have the same quality? If we are allowing some to „die“ so they can live in a different (i.e. future) world, why not allow others to also die and possibly move to another world? It is impossible to predict the discourse on these issues in the future, hence these are just current examples that make accepting and legislating cryonics problematic even after it could revive its patients. This analysis shows that cryo-preserved patient is situated within the power relations as homo sacer after losing his bios due to a death certificate. Meanwhile, the group that he/she belongs to struggles to achieve rights for the patients as well as for other members of the cryonics group and most likely future patients. Cryonicists want rights and protection during their time in cryo-preservation as well as the possibility of undergoing cryonic procedures sooner than currently allowed. For this they exercise resistance within the discourse of current power, using leeways and loopholes in order to continue their efforts [Foucault 1978:

18 95-97, 1982]. It is not the state power they want to fight with, but death. Nevertheless, death has been politicized and normalized, and this struggle became the struggle with the politicizing and normalizing power.

3.2 The Patients

The patients hang „comfortably“ in their new home, the dewar - a vacuum isolated container. They cool down over a period of two weeks to the temperature of liquid nitrogen, approximately -196°C, in which they are suspended. Liquid nitrogen storage means that the dewar does not need any electricity; however the nitrogen does slowly evaporate and needs to be refilled. In this state the cryo-preserved person does not feel anything, and is unaware of the surroundings and even the passage of time. Meanwhile he/she is considered dead by most of the world. Property owned is redistributed according to the laws of the respective country, and all legal contracts become void with a few exceptions - notably some trusts and the will and testament. Additionally there are documents specifically concerning cryo- preservation and the protection of cryo-preserved patient, as well as his revival.

At this time, there have been no court cases in cryonics in regard to a problem that is not covered within the existing law. Cases in cryonics usually concern the custody and handling of the remains (or patients depending on the point of view) and are generally treated under laws relating to the last will and testament, anatomical donation and funeral law.10 This means that there is neither precedent nor „rules“ to go by in cases that concern the rights of the cryo-preserved patient, for example, if his body becomes damaged, if it is destroyed (which could count as murder) or if it is experimented on. It all depends on the ruling of a court, sometime in the future11. It is important to note that I have been using very general 10 See for example: Alcor Life Extension Foundation v. Richardson, 2010 Iowa App. LEXIS 422, No. 0-098/09- 1255 (Iowa Ct. App. May 12, 2010) (available at http://www.alcor.org/Library/pdfs/RichardsonCase.pdf ); In re Robbins, No. 2010PR149 (Colo D.C. Mar 1, 2010) (available at http://www.alcor.org/Library/pdfs/courtorder.pdf ) and JS v. M and F, 2016 United Kingdom HCJ, EWHC 2859 (Fam) (High Court of Justice. November 10, 2016) (available at https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/js-judgment-20161118.pdf ). 11 Some of the protection pertaining to these issues is included in the contract and legal documents with the cryonics organization; the question is if they are valid and also who will know about the breach of these

19 terms, as specific laws and legal norms vary greatly depending on each individual state. Certainly the legal questions and precedents of cryonics are interesting and would be worthy of academic probation; however outside of this short overview, the scope of this work does not allow for more rigorous legal analysis. An important conclusion from this is that the person in cryo-preservation is lacking some protection, either protection against mistreatment, against a violation of the contract with the cryonics organization or against the safety of their privacy. On the one hand, the cryonics community and the cryonics organization that preserved these patients do protect them within power relations thanks to biosociality and (moral) obligation to uphold the contract with the patient. There is partial protection given to the patients in cryopreservation contracts with the cryonics organization; however, as I mentioned, the validity of those documents is not fully demonstrated as of now. Another form of protection stems from the fact that these bodies are considered anatomical donations or remains to be „modified“. These could be, and usually are, considered property12. The problem with considering cryonics patients as property is obvious, as some of them can still be potentially alive and later revived, and so even this kind of protection is not sufficient. David C. Hoy (2004) states that ethical decision requires freedom. If a moral order (i.e. law) is enforced that would address the particular subject and situation, our action is not an ethical one since there is no freedom in it; on the other hand, if we have the capacity to exert power over the powerless, the decision to do so in this particular manner is ethical action [Hoy, 2004]. Powerless subjects are, for example, unborn children or animals. Their lack of power is only meant in their capacity to successfully defend themselves against the exercise of power. Hoy does not exclude them from the power relations inherently, on the contrary, he speaks about „ethical resistance“ [Hoy, 2004: 8-16, 129, 155-168, 181-184; Levinas, 1979: 187-240], and as stated earlier in this text, resistance is just a form of power exercised by those with comparably less power [Foucault, 1978: 95-96; Heller, 1996: 99]. Individual cryo-

protections and who will sue the perpetrator. Currently there is no overseeing institution that would monitor the cryonics organizations handling of patients beyond monitoring of the remains as anatomical donation, so all of the eventual reporting of the crime rests on the cryonics organization, which can, intentionally or not, be the offender. 12 See Doodeward v. Spence, 1908 HCA 45, 6 CLR 406 (High Court of Australia, 31 July 1908)

20 preserved patients are powerless, since their power is diffused throughout the cryonics group, and they do not have the capacity to actively defend themselves against other subjects’ exercise of power. Since they are powerless and there is no moral order enforced by the state power concerning the cryo-preserved patients, they are ethical subjects. In fact, the parallel with unborn children is fitting. An unborn child is zoe, but until it gains protection from society and the state - and thus stops being an ethical subject - it is not bios [Kushner, 1984]. Furthermore, this zoe has the potential to become bios if given time, just like a cryo- preserved patient. The unborn child is, from a certain moment13, considered bios, a proper life, whereas the cryonics patient was stripped of his bios at the moment of legal death, becoming homo sacer. Thomasine Kushner (1984) argues that abortion is morally objectionable only after the fetus achieves capability to have „ […] history, nexus of personal and social relationships, complex patterns of psychological characteristics, plus the whole fabric of events as they happen to and affect the individual.“ [Kushner, 1984: 6] In other words, to have proper life, or bios. I argued in a previous chapter, that cryonic patients are zoe, a necessary requirement for bios, since they have the potential to become bios at their revival. However, they undoubtedly do have the capability to have history, personal and social relationships and even psychological characteristics, and so they could be considered bios even in their current state. However, since we do not know the line that separates death and life, some of the cryo-preserved patients are probably dead. And since we do not know the line, legislative and state power is reluctant to blur this line even further by ascribing bios to those that might be beyond this line, for reasons outlined in the previous chapter [Pommer III, 1993]. This leaves us with the cryo-preserved patient as not only a subject of power relations, but also a subject of ethics. The ethical resistance mentioned earlier can play an important role within power relations. In many cases, the existence of ethical resistance in power relations leads to the protection of state power. According to Hoy (2004: 16), ethical resistance is the most powerful form resistance can take. In fact, it is so powerful that it can visibly affect the power relations

13 The exact moment differs in various states. Usual criteria are developmental milestones such as functioning circulation, brain or capability to survive outside the womb.

21 between the powerless and other subjects - most prominently, through exercising this kind of power on state and legislative power, which can in turn provide the aforementioned protection. That is the case with unborn children or animals. As Levinas states the powerless other, through the infinity of his transcendence „ [...] already resist us in his face, in his face, is the primordial expression, is the first word: ‘you shall not commit murder.’ The infinite paralyzes power by its infinite resistance to murder, which, firm and insurmountable, gleams in the face of the Other […] “ [Levinas, 1979: 199]. What one considers „face“ is in some cases subject to debate - that is why there are differences in the time and scope of protecting unborn children or animals. And this uncertainty in „the face“ in connection with uncertainty in „the line“ is another reason why cryonics patients do not receive protection. How can one murder that which is already dead? We are left in a space of uncertainty, in which we do not know who is worthy of protection and who is not. State power denies protection to those who might be living in order to better protect those who definitely are. According to the analyzed sources, the cryonics community follows a different ethos. For them, the cryo-preserved patients are alive and worthy of protection. Even though they realize that not all of them are truly alive, they choose to act as if they are alive in spite of it. They do not need to make the choice between protecting others and protecting people in cryo-preservation - some do not even see the difference. Cryo-preserved patients are powerless, and since the cryonics community sees „the face“ in them, the relationship includes ethical resistance which urges them to protect. Furthermore, through biosociality they identify with the patients, sharing the same flaw as them - mortality - and using the same means to cope with and remedy it - cryopreservation [Romain, 2010]. On top of that, the cryonics organization that is responsible for the patients adheres to the contracts they made, since they consider their patients to be alive as well. They ignore the status of homo sacer that is imposed on the patients by the state power by abiding to the contracts that may no longer be valid. This is just one of the tactics the cryonics group uses in the struggle for more protection and rights. The tactics employed by the cryonics group are within the current discourse of power. They use language to a great effect - referring to the cryo-preserved people as „patients“ or

22 „clients“ thus normalizing their status as living persons [Foucault, 1995]. They also use their own definition of death and respect it when acting on the bodies of their clients, performing resuscitations and careful surgeries in order to keep them alive. Another category of employed tactics includes contracts and law. The cryonics group is relying on contracts and upholding them when the validity of their work is questioned. Using the courts and the judicial system in order to continue their work and prove their claims to the bodies of their clients has become commonplace [Romain, 2010]. However, finding and using loopholes in these systems became necessary as well. „For instance, Alcor accepts ‘anatomical donations,’ cryonics companies sometimes act as funerary services, and many cryonicists carry cards in their wallets claiming ‘religious’ objections to autopsy.“ [Romain, 2010: 200-201]

3.3 A Brave New World

A stream of nanobots enters the patient’s body. They start repairing the damage done during the decades or centuries he/she was in stasis. They clear out cryo-preservants, repair cells damaged by freezing and fracturing and even damage caused by aging. At last they uniformly bring the patient’s body back to its normal temperature and re-start his heart, lungs and brain. Once the patient wakes up from the coma, he or she might be slightly confused - the last thing the patient remembers is being in the hospital where they died. However, they will not remember dying, as their short-term memory is gone. Promptly they are greeted by an artificial intelligence (AI) that registers the awakening. The AI explains to them what happened, where they are and when they are. Any relatives or friends that might still (or again) be living are immediately notified - they might even be there already, waiting for the patient to wake up. After making sure the patient is medically and psychologically fit, he/she will be prepared for re-integration into society. This is, according to cryonicists, and my interviewee as well, the most likely revival scenario that can happen.

The patients should be reanimated by the cryonic organization that is storing them. The motivation to do this can come firstly via economical incentives, the most obvious being

23 storage costs. While the cost of reanimation might be huge at the start, sooner or later it will decrease to the point where it is no longer economically advantageous to store the patients. Consequently, it would be more (economically) beneficial to revive them in the long term. Companies can also include an optional „reward“ for a successful revival which is agreed upon in the cryonics contract. The money is held by a trustee and the company will receive them when the patient is successfully reanimated [Alcor Life Extension Foundation, n.d.]. If these arrangements fail for some reason, such as the company losing its assets or economical power no longer being relevant, there are arguably more important social and moral incentives. According to the the analyzed sources, cryonicists argue that once revival becomes possible and cryonics is viewed in a less controversial light, the revival of frozen patients will become similar to reviving a comatose patient or treating a curable disease. There will be incentives from the cryonics community as well as from society at large, since it seems inhumane to keep someone vitrified even though there are means for him to live again. This could even lead to patients being reanimated before it is economically viable thanks to public donations or contributions from patients’ friends and family. It might seem far fetched to consider living relatives and acquaintances so far in the future, however Ben Best, former president and CEO of the Cryonics Institute, thinks differently. Best expects a cascade of revivals where the first revived patient will know someone else who is frozen and will strive to help them. Once this second patient is awakened, they will help someone else, and so on. Indeed, after the first person is revived the position of cryonics and cryo-preserved patients will change drastically. It is very likely that „the line“ will be known, or at least better estimated, and the cryo-preserved patients would be considered analogous to comatose patients14. Lastly, there is the contractual obligation of cryonics organizations to revive their clients, which at this point would most likely be enforced by society, since cryonics will have been proven to work. The organizations should be committed to doing it, and should have the necessary funds from the client’s payment [Best, n.d., Alcor Life Extension Foundation, n.d.].

14 Note that this change will have no impact on cryo-preservation - humanity will be able to treat all diseases and even aging a while before it will be able to revive someone from cryo-preservation, so there will be no need to cryo-preserve someone anymore.

24 The time when patients will be revived comes down to the availability of technology and the discussed incentives, as well as the quality of preservation. The first to be revived will actually be the last that will be put in cryostasis, since they will be treated with the best preservation technologies. But even if the technology is invented, it might be too expensive or not tested enough to warrant a revival attempt. However, this should change with time, since it is a common trend that technologies become cheaper over time15. The prediction that most of the cryonics community makes is that nanotechnology will be the stepping stone that will bring cryonics into the range of feasibility. In general, nanotechnology is „[...] science, engineering, and technology conducted at the nanoscale, which is about 1 to 100 nanometers.„ [National Nanotechnology Initiative, n.d.] More specifically, cryonicists are concerned with molecular nanotechnology (MNT) which is better defined as „Technology based on the manipulation of individual atoms and molecules to build structures to complex, atomic specifications.“ [Drexler, 1986: 213] This technology would allow us to manipulate structures in our bodies, even individual atoms, providing a way to repair the cellular damage caused by the preservation process, as well as any damage caused by clinical death [Drexler, 1986]. An option that currently looks further away than MNT is whole-brain simulation. This option would be accomplished by scanning the individual atoms of a patient’s brain and then simulating it via computer, most likely in full virtual reality [De Wolf, 2013]. Both of these technologies seem like science fiction, but there are some notable recent accomplishments in both of them. In 2014 a team of researchers from the „OpenWorm“ project succeeded in simulating a considerable part of the brain of C. Elegans [Shadbolt, 2015], and at the end of 2016 scientists at Berkley National Laboratory created a transistor that was 1nm large [Desai et. al., 2016]. More importantly, the speed of technological advances is increasing exponentially, and due to the accelerating rate of technology these developments might come a lot faster than we initially expect [Kurzweil, 2001]. Moreover these technologies are „milestones“ - they are not something that necessarily improves over time, rather they could cause a jump in the technological prowess of our species, just like the knowledge of fire or wheel appeared almost suddenly, but caused a huge impact on society [Khun, 1962; Wells,

15 For example the price of seqencing human genome has recently fallen under 1000 dollars as predicted [National Human Genome Research Institute, 2016].

25 2001]. This is one of the reasons I believe it is important to concern ourselves with the ethical and social questions concerning cryonics even now. The first revival of a cryonics patient, which now looks like it will take place in the far future, might happen in just a few decades. Society would rally to help cryonics patients, as they would start to see „the face“ in them with the first revival, and thus would be affected by ethical resistance. On top of that, governmental16 or state power would have an interest in reviving potentially productive people, since even now it supports the rehabilitation of indisposed patients directly through healthcare and indirectly via creating and maintaining ethical norms in society, often using biopolitics and anatomo-politics [Foucault, 1978, 2003b]. Even though writing about being repaired, reanimated and brought back to life in the future can be highly speculative, there are some scenarios that can be expected. Since there are not many things we can know for sure, the attitude of the cryonics organizations towards issues concerning the future, such as revival or (really) long term storage seems to be, according to my research „future people will figure out these things“. However, it does not matter whether the patients will be revived in a full virtual reality, as cyborgs, or in their original bodies, because they will have to be integrated back into society, learn new norms and adapt to new ways of life. The institution that will manage this integration will have great responsibility, but also great power. It will be able to instill in the revived patients the morals and norms that it considers most important in a future society [Foucault, 1995]. From the sources I analyzed I find that there are three most likely institutions that could have a stake in integrating these people: the cryonics organization that cryo-preserved them, a private establishment specialized in re-integration, or a governmental power. It is very likely that a governmental power will have a great incentive to oversee this re- integration or at least be a part of it. The goals and tactics will be very similar to education - to create „docile bodies“17 by disciplining them and through expanding their own knowledge

16 Currently this would be state power, but in the future what can be called governmental power could be wielded by other entities, such as corporations. 17 In the future this can mean different things than now. While Foucault puts „docile bodies“ in context of factories and production, it is only because that is what the discourse of power requires currently. Decades or centuries from now the requirements of governmental power can be wildly different.

26 of the patients [Foucault, 1995: 135-170]. If the governmental power is still widespread in the future, it can fulfill these objectives through private companies or the cryonics organizations in a similar fashion to private schools. If it is not widespread, the cryonics organizations and private companies will have the ability to re-integrate the patients according to the discourses they choose. In essence, this re-integration will not only provide the revived patients with carefully selected knowledge, it will also discipline them to behave according to the desired discourse and to obey the laws and morals connected to it. On top of that, the institutions conducting the re-integration will be able to use the condition of the patient, that of being revived, to access his medical information (which is stored during cryo- preservation) and to conduct medical exams, thus further extending their involvement with the patient and the control they have over him. „ […] (T)he medical profession is not criticized primarily because it is a profit-making concern but because it exercises an uncontrolled power over people's bodies, their health, and their life and death.“ [Foucault, 1982: 780]

27 28 4. A Brief History of Cryonics

4.1 Robert Ettinger and Evan Cooper

Robert Ettinger’s book The Prospect of Immortality started the cryonics movement in 1962 - at least that is how most people, and even cryonicists, know it. But the individual that first came up with the idea of cryonics just a few months before Ettinger was Evan Cooper with his, albeit less influential, manuscript Immortality: Physically, Scientifically, Now. Even though his book never reached the audience of Ettinger’s book, Cooper was of great importance for the cryonics movement in its starting years. „Ev saw, as Ettinger did not, that action would have to be taken by those few who could see clearly that this was the right thing to do. In contrast to Ettinger's optimism and apparent belief that cryonics would ‘catch on’ and quickly transform the world Ev correctly foresaw the resistance cryonics would encounter and the paucity of adherents it would attract in its infancy.“ [Cross, 1983] Even before the cryonics movement was officially formed, some cryonicists predicted the struggle that it would face. Since Cooper did not believed in the easy acceptance of cryonics, he knew that some kind of organization needed to form in order to spread and promote cryonics’ ideas and eventually improve its position within society. And so in 1964 Cooper founded the Life Extension Society (LES) in Washington, D.C. - the first cryonics organization. Meanwhile, Ettinger’s book attracted the attention of a major publisher and was endorsed by Isaac Asimov, leading to the 1964 hardcover version of his book. The book became widely known and brought Ettinger substantial media coverage [Pascal, 2005]. His book first started to alter and modify the language in which cryonicists talked about death and dying, not quite blatantly changing the expressions used to describe death and cryo-preservation, but modifying them to erode their absoluteness. Examples include expressions such as „suspended life/death“, „permanent death“ in contrast to just „death“, and „body“ instead of „cadaver“ or „dead body“ [Ettinger, 1995]. Note that he did not yet use phrases such as „cryo-preservation,“ „vitrification“ or „patients“ when referring to cryo-preserved people. Ettinger was later instrumental in forming the Cryonic Society of Michigan in 1966

29 (eventually renamed The Immortalist Society) and the Cryonics Institute in 1970 [Perry, 1992].

4.2 The Life Extention Society and Early Cryonics

The first major event for cryonics was held by Cooper in 1962. At the end of the meeting, primarily concerned with his and Ettinger's books, he and a few others formed the Immortality Communication Exchange. The next year this was transformed to a more formal Life Extension Society (LES), and in January 1964 the LES newsletter was issued. However, the unity in the movement was short lived, as many were restless to see any progress in the „freeze and wait“ idea. Soon after, the Cryonics Society of New York (CSNY) was formed by Saul Kent and Curtis Henderson, and in 1966 they were both instrumental in forming cryonics societies in Michigan and California. There were several more organizations that formed during this time, but they were short-lived and too small to mention in this work. Cryonics groups and societies played a crucial role in the overall cryonics movement, forming an official and organized struggle for the propagation of ideas and eventual action. Such a movement is an important part of power relations in a similar way to the Queer movement or the Civic Rights Movement, when considering the position of an idea, in this case cryonics, within the given discourse of power [Baumgarten, Ullrich, 2016]. The first person to be frozen was James Bedford in January 1967 by the Cryonics Society of California (CSC). The LES and Cooper had officially lost the leadership of the cryonics movement. In 1969, Cooper walked away from cryonics, thinking it would not become a viable option in his lifetime, and the LES ceased to function the next year [Perry, 1992; Cross, 1983].

4.3 Robert Nelson

By 1974 there were about dozen cryonically frozen people, however only one of them remains frozen to this day. In that time, Cryonics was still more of an experimental venture,

30 and with no previous experience there were no safeguards. Payments for the preservation and storage were made by relatives, which caused a great deal of patients (mainly those frozen by CSNY) to later be thawed and buried, since relatives refused to pay. Another reason were the brute techniques and relatively primitive capsules used to store the clients. Raptures in the capsules and visible damage to the patients due to thawing and insufficient preservation led to all of the patients being removed from cryonic storage and buried by 1980. But the most significant blow to the reputation of cryonics was caused by the case of Robert Nelson, head of the Cryonics Society of California. The CSC offered the lowest storage price for patients and as such stored a great number of them, many of whom transferred to the CSC from other organizations. But the low price and the unreliable payments from patients’ relatives caused severe financial problems for Nelson. „A series of bad decisions“18 including the storage of four people in one capsule and the covert thawing of several others caused Nelson to be accused and convicted of fraud around 1979 [Perry, 1992]. In this case, the status of the patients as homo sacer can be clearly seen. There was nothing and no one protecting them, and they could be killed (i.e. thawed) without reprisal by Nelson. Although he was convicted, the charges were of fraud, not of murder. In the end, none of his patients were kept in cryonic storage apart from the exceptional case of the first cryonically frozen person James Bedford, whose son kept him in his capsule supplied with liquid nitrogen for nearly two decades until he was transferred to his current storage at Alcor [Darwin, 1991]. The case of Robert Nelson can be seen as a step backwards for the cryonics movement; however, the media coverage created an opportunity for the idea of cryonics to spread. It proved to be a sort of renaissance for the cryonics movement thanks to new interest in the field. On top of that, cryonicists had to create the so far missing safeguards in order to prevent such an event from happening again. This gave way, most notably, to the creation of cryonics agreements and furthered the language in which cryonicists operate - their clients were no longer frozen bodies, but vitrified patients needing protection from harm. Even if these agreements are not fully accepted by legislative power, breaking them would at least cause backlash from the cryonics community. Furthermore, due to the requirement of

18 Robert Nelson Quoted in David Walker. Jun. 13, 1979. „Former Head of Cryonics Society Defends Actions.“ The Valley News.

31 agreement that now had to be signed before the death, cryonics became a planned decision instead of a last hope for grieving relatives. This planning led cryonics clients to know each other and to form tighter groups of friends and relatives that would care for each other after cryo-preservation. This interconnection established the cryonics group mentioned in previous chapters - an important actor in power relations.

4.4 Ted Williams

The following twenty years or so went by relatively uneventfully, aside from some minor media controversies (most of them unfounded or altogether made up) and considerable progress in the technological side of preservation - mainly the invention of better resuscitation techniques and cryoprotective perfusions. But arguably the biggest scandal in cryonics happened in 2002 and 2003 concerning the death of baseball legend Ted Williams. The feud concerned mainly the wishes and disagreements of family members regarding cryonics, a scenario well-known to most cryonicists who work in the field [Platt, 2004; Bridge, 1993; Hancock, 2002]. However, the worst part for the cryonics happened in 2003 when Sports Illustrated claimed there had been wrongdoing and mishandling of Williams's remains, and since it involved the fate of a famous celebrity the report soon became widespread [Verducci, 2003]. These allegations were mostly due to a poor understanding and great exaggeration of cryonics procedures supported by a former employee of Alcor [Alcor Life Extension Foundation, 2004]. Nevertheless, they spurred public outrage and consequently damaged the public view of cryonics. Remarkably in 2009 the employee in question (Larry Johnson) repeated these allegations in greater detail in his book Frozen: My Journey into the World of Cryonics. However, after repeated court hearings, Larry Johnson admitted that his accusations were not based on facts as indicated in his book [Alcor Life Extension Foundation, 2014]. At this time, the cryonics practice was already well-established. The differences the cryonics discourse brings can be clearly seen in the public’s misunderstanding of the procedures and the language they use. For example, cryonicists often use the word „frozen“ instead of

32 „vitrified“ not only when communicating with the general public, but also among themselves. However, while cryonicists understand that cryonics does not freeze people, the general public does not, and can understand the meaning of the word differently, leading to misunderstandings and misconceptions. Also, the usage of the judicial system in order to protect themselves and their clients has become common for cryonics organizations, and they were able to claim Williams's body as well as defend themselves against false allegations.

4.5 Recent Developments

The only major news about cryonics that has reached the wider public in recent years was the case of Kim Suozzi, a 23-year-old victim of cancer. Kim raised awareness of cryonics during her almost two years of fighting the disease, mainly through social media sites such as Facebook and Reddit, but the story reached the general public thanks to a 2015 article in The New York Times, published after her death. Her fight against death caused heated debates not only on social media, but also in her family life. Due to complications, the results of Kim's head cryopreservation are not ideal; nonetheless she is currently in storage at the Alcor facilities [New York Times, 2015]. With the widespread usage of the internet and cases like Kim's, the cryonics movement is slowly entering the forefront of conversations. The exposure of cryonics in the media and on the internet is important to the cryonicists, which is confirmed by my interview. They realize that the only way the discourse is going to change is when enough people start to talk about the issues in cryonics and understand them, and as they start to see „the face“ in cryonics patients. If enough people support the cryonics movement, it could lead to changes in the position and protection of patients [Baumgarten, Ullrich, 2016]. Concerning technological advances, I have already mentioned the breakthroughs in nanotechnology and whole brain emulation in previous chapters. Other recent notable developments include improvements in vitrification perfusions leading to decreased ice damage to brain and greater protection against fractures [Lamler et. al., 2004], proofs of

33 memory retention after clinical death and cryopreservation [Vita-More, Barranco, 2015; Alam et. al., 2002], and even the conservation of the brain structures during vitrification [McIntyre, Fahy, 2015]. Overall the reputation of cryonics is improving both in the scientific world and also in the general population. This is demonstrated in the increasing amount of scientific publications on the topic, a recent open letter supporting cryonics containing number of respectable researchers [The Institute for Evidence-Based Cryonics, n.d.], and the growing quantity of members in cryonics organizations [Alcor Life Extension Foundation, 2017; Cryonics Institute, 2016].

34 5. Conclusion

This work analyzed the position of the cryo-preserved patient in the power relations as well as the discourse of the cryonics community. The analysis was based on various sources from inside and outside the cryonics community, as well as the conducted research consisting of questionnaires and an interview. These sources were analyzed using the concepts of power, biopower, resistance, power relations and homo sacer. The work showed the unique conception of death within cryonics and its impact on the status of cryonics patients within power relations. The first part argued that our conception of death is a political decision which has been normalized through biopower practices [Foucault, 1978, 1995; Agamben, 1998]. Since cryonics refuses the currently recognized definitions of death, whether clinical or legal, it views the cryonics patients as living beings, bios, deserving rights and protection due to their powerlessness. Whereas for most of society the patients are considered homo sacer, the cryonics group struggles to change the discourse in order to change this status. In pursuance of this, they exercise resistance and use various tactics to alter and undermine the current discourse [Foucault, 1995; Romain, 2010]. The cryonics group consists of the cryonics community, cryonics organizations and the patients due to biosociality and the legal arrangements in place. The patients are thus indirectly participating in the struggle of the cryonics group. The legal analysis in the second part of this work showed that there is not adequate protection given to cryonics patients. This is due to cryonics encroaching on the definitions of life and death, which would require a better medical knowledge and subsequent judicial reform to be resolved. The legislative power prioritizes better protection of those who can be clearly defined as living [Pommer III, 1993]. The figure of homo sacer manifests itself once again, since cryonics patients may be living, but are denied proper life or bios. However, within the discourse of cryonics, the patient is alive yet powerless, as they can not take action to successfully protect themselves. Ethical resistance stemming from this manifests, and the cryonics community is made to protect the patients due to this exercise of power [Foucault, 1978: 95-96; Hoy, 2004; Levinas, 1979]. The beliefs the cryonics discourse

35 produces only strengthen the cause of the cryonics group’s struggle. In the end of this chapter, the tactics cryonics group uses in this struggle are outlined - language, discursive action and law, as well as subtle violations of the current discourse [Romain, 2010]. The next chapter talked mainly about the circumstances of revival and the integration of patients into future society. For this, the expectations and assumptions of the cryonics community were used and analyzed. The integration provides an avenue of normalization that could be used to instill a certain discourse in the revived patients. They could become part of a future discursive struggle as the institution performing the integration will have a multitude of biopower techniques at its disposal to discipline the patients to follow the discourse [Foucault, 1978, 1982, 1995: 135-170]. In the last part, the formation of cryonics was analyzed along with the ways the discourse and the practices connected with it have changed over time. In these chapters I described the position of cryo-preserved patients within power relations as well as the discourse of cryonics organizations concerning the patients. That is why I believe I was able to fulfill the goals I outlined in the introduction, while keeping the character of this work descriptive and non-normative.

36 Annotation

Recent technological breakthroughs and the accelerating pace of technological advancement has led to the increasing popularity of cryonics, a trend that will most likely continue. This work focuses on cryonics, a fringe medical science concerned with vitrifying human bodies in order to revive them in the future using more advanced medicine. It analyzes various sources from inside and outside the cryonics community, as well as my research conducted within cryonics organizations composed of questionnaires and an interview. Using Michael Foucault's conception of power and biopower and Giorgio Agamben’s homo sacer, it tries to describe the position of cryonics patients within power relations as well as to provide an overview of cryonics practice and its discourse. Power manifests itself in power relations between subjects who can influence each other through the exercise of power. Biopower comprises the techniques of power used for managing populations as well as individuals. This work shows how death in western society is normalized through biopower practices in contrast to the different conception of death in the cryonics discourse, and how this conception affects the vitrified patients within power relations. The patients, considered homo sacer and thus without protection from legislative power, are protected by the cryonics community and cryonics organizations that struggle to change this status through the use of language, discursive action and law, as well as subtle violations of current discourse.

37 Anotace

Nedávné vědecké průlomy a zvyšující se rychlost technologického pokroku, vedly k navýšení zájmu o kryoniku, periferní medicínskou vědu, zaobírající se vitrifikací lidských těl za účelem oživit je v budoucnu použitím pokročilejší medicíny. Tato práce se tedy zabývá právě kryonikou, trendem, jehož popularita bude pravděpodobně dále narůstat. Jsou zde analyzovány různé zdroje, jak z interního, tak i externího prostředí kryonické komunity, zároveň však analyzuji i můj vlastní výzkum, který byl prováděn v rámci kryonických organizací a to za pomocí dotazníků a rozhovoru. Použitím konceptů moci a biomoci tak, jak je definuje Michael Foucault a taktéž Giorgio Agambenova homo sacer, se tato práce snaží popsat pozici kryonických pacientů v rámci mocenských vztahů a poskytnout přehled jak kryonické praxe tak i jejího diskurzu. Moc se manifestuje v mocenských vztazích mezi subjekty, které se mohou navzájem ovlivňovat, skrze vykonávání této moci. Biomoc je utvářena technikami moci používanými pro spravování populací stejně jako jednotlivců. Tato práce ukazuje, jak je v západní společnosti smrt normalizována skrze praktiky biomoci v kontrastu k jinému pojetí smrti v kryonickém diskurzu. Dále uvádí, jak toto pojetí ovlivňuje vitrifikované pacienty v rámci mocenských vztahů. Pacienti v pozici homo sacer, a tedy bez ochrany legislativní moci, jsou chráněni kryonickou komunitou a kryonickými organizacemi, které se snaží o změnu tohoto statusu pomocí jazyka, diskurzivní akce či práva stejně jako nenápadnými porušeními současného diskurzu.

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