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Ralph Merkle A Non-Profit Organization July-AugustJanuary 20152016 • VoVolumelume 36:137:4 Why Cryonics Makes Sense Page 9 “Scientific Proof” for Cryonics? Page 5 ISSN 1054-4305 Micro- to Nanoscale 3D Printing $9.95 Page 24 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. COVER STORY: PAGE 9 A Non-Profit Organization Why Cryonics Makes Sense Tim Urban’s Why Cryonics Makes July-August 2016 • Volume 37:4 Sense has been called one of the best articles ever published about cryonics. In this extensive survey of pro- and anticryonics arguments Why Cryonics Tim Urban consults a wealth of information and concludes that Makes Sense cryonics makes sense. Publication Page 9 of this review on his Wait But Why website has produced a sharp spike in interest in cryonics and an increase of information requests and (associate) membership. Alcor “Scientifi c Proof” for Cryonics? is proud to reprint this article with Page 5 ISSN 1054-4305 permission of the author. Micro- to Nanoscale 3D Printing $9.95 Page 24 5 QUOD INCEPIMUS CONFICIEMUS “Scientific Proof” for Cryonics? When a scientist asks for “proof” for cryonics to work (s)he displays two kinds of ignorance; not knowing the difference between empirical science and logic, and not knowing the difference between cryonics and suspended animation. 24 Brief Overview of Micro- to Nanoscale 3D Printing There are currently three distinct pathways leading to general cell repair therapies that can be used for the revival of cryonics patients: modification of biological cells or viruses, mechanical molecular nanotechnology, and nanoscale 3D printing. Carrie Wong reviews the current state of micro- to nanoscale 3D printing. www.alcor.org Cryonics / July-August 2016 3 CONTENTS Editorial Board 6 CEO Update Saul Kent In his latest CEO Update Max More discusses the importance Ralph C. Merkle, Ph.D. of preserving instituional knowledge and the projects that Alcor R. Michael Perry, Ph.D. has initiated to document its organizational and technological Editor knowledge. Other topics discussed include public and Aschwin de Wolf transparant pet pricing, new dewar designs, building expansions and membership growth. Contributing Writers Stephen Bridge Aschwin de Wolf 28 DAOs, Democracy, and Governance Ralph C. Merkle While some governments might be marginally better than Max More R. Michael Perry others, over spans measured in multiple centuries and longer, Tim Urban no existing human institution seems capable of providing the Carrie Wong kind of stability and consistently sound decision making that seems required if we are to enjoy long term global security, Copyright 2016 by Alcor Life Extension Foundation particularly when we consider the exponential advances we are All rights reserved. making in technology and the multi-century and longer lifespans Reproduction, in whole or part, without that we expect to enjoy. A useful approach to a better form permission is prohibited. of governance, it is argued, would be a form of democracy Cryonics magazine is published bi-monthly. based on “Futarchy”—governance by prediction markets. The Futarchy in turn would be implemented using a Decentralized To subscribe to the printed edition Autonomous Organization (DAO) based loosely around the and/or change your address, please call 480.905.1906 x101or visit the magazine Bitcoin algorithm. website: www.alcor.org/magazine 42 Book Review: Noggin by John Corey Whaley Please note: If you change your address less than John Corey Whaley’s first novel,Where Things Come Back, won a month before the magazine is mailed, it may the Michael Printz Award for best Young Adult novel. In Noggin, be sent to your old address. Whaley takes on the topic of cryonics for an engaging story about a young man returning from cryopreservation and the Address correspondence to: Cryonics Magazine challenges of readjustment. 7895 East Acoma Drive, Suite 110 Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 46 Membership Statistics Phone: 480.905.1906 Toll free: 877.462.5267 How many members, associate members, and patients does Fax: 480.922.9027 Alcor have and where do they live? Letters to the Editor welcome: [email protected] 47 Resuscitation Update Mike Perry surveys the news and research to report on new Advertising inquiries: developments that bring us closer to the resuscitation of cryonics 480.905.1906 x113 patients. [email protected] ISSN: 1054-4305 Visit us on the web at www.alcor.org Alcor News Blog http://www.alcor.org/blog/ 4 Cryonics / July-August 2016 www.alcor.org Quod incepimus conficiemus Photo: Cryo-Care Equipment Corporation at 2340 E. Washington St., Phoenix, AZ. Dr. Bedford’s “home” about 1970. “SCIENTIFIC PROOF” FOR Cryonics? By Aschwin de Wolf cryonics advocate makes an eloquent condition in the first place. We can respond to stabilizing people for whom no successful case for cryonics and then a scientist this proposal by asking a number of questions. medical treatment is available to permit them Ais called upon to dismiss the idea of What will freezing do to the fine structure of to benefit from future advances in medicine. cryonics because there is “no proof ” for it. the brain? How will future medical technologies By definition, it is not possible to prove that Unfortunately, such a statement reveals that infer the original state of the brain from the these technologies will become available. the “scientist” in question does not know the frozen state? What kind of technologies are What people who insist on “proof ” for difference between empirical science and logic, required to repair the brain and restore the cryonics want to see is evidence of reversible and also does not understand the difference person to a healthy and youthful state? cryopreservation. Human suspended between cryonics and suspended animation. These are the kinds of questions where animation is indeed a research and clinical As the evolutionary biologist Satoshi science (and reasonable extrapolations of objective that a credible cryonics organization Kanazawa writes in a November 16, 2008 where science will be heading) is important in should aim for. But it cannot be emphasized column for Psychology Today “The knowledge evaluating the idea of cryonics. And we cannot enough that while “proof ” of suspended that there is no such thing as a scientific just consult existing science, we can also push animation would provide strong support for proof should give you a very easy way to tell science in the direction of minimizing the the practice of cryonics is it is not necessary real scientists from hacks and wannabes… damage incurred during cryopreservation so for the cryonics idea to be plausible. What Proofs exist only in mathematics and logic, the odds of revival for the typical cryonics is necessary for cryonics to work is that the not in science. Mathematics and logic are both patient will increase. For example, in 2000 brain (and rest of the body) of a person are closed, self-contained systems of propositions, Alcor changed its protocol from limiting preserved to a degree that the original, healthy, whereas science is empirical and deals with freezing to eliminating it through a technology state of the brain can be inferred from the nature as it exists. The primary criterion and called vitrification. Advances in gene editing, preserved state. Perhaps future “neurological standard of evaluation of scientific theory virus modification, and nano-scale 3D printing archeology” technologies will reveal that even is evidence, not proof.” He goes on to write can make the idea of cell repair more plausible. freezing of the brain without cryoprotectant that “all scientific knowledge is tentative and Advances in science and technology of this allows for complete revival. provisional, and nothing is final. There is no such nature can make people update their prior A proper understanding of cryonics requires thing as final proven knowledge in science.” (subjective) estimates about the probability of that scientists recognize the difference between What is the proper role of science in cryonics? cryonics
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