When and why it is of value to freeze even badly deteriorated corpses.

Rick Potvin said:
>Cryonics is "about" raising the standards we use in
>defining cryonics. Again, I don't have the support
>for my argument right now but I believe I will build
>that case. The low standards sometimes that have to >be accepted are done with regret, not enthusiasm.
>Therefore, I don't believe Mr. Bauge has it quite
>right.

There is a misunderstanding here,
If the goal was to freeze people with the least damage and in such a way that they could just be thawed out and then would be alive and well, then freezing corpses that are still more rotten, can be seen as lowering the standard.

However, my goal is not cryonics as such, but individual longevity, and as I have stated again and again in the posts many people have just skipped:
There are many good reasons for freezing deteriorated corpses:

a)The corpse can serve as a supply for DNA fragments and can be used to clone the person or organs or tissues. This can come in handy in restoring the person in the future, in particular if other better cell samples are not taken, have already been lost or are lost in the future, something they very well may be. basically keep the source so that it can be sampled for DNA fragments again, whenever this is of value.

b) Maybe some useful information can be cleaned from a deteriorated corpse too, beyond its DNA fragments.
At least we can leave this as a challenge for the future. With the frozen corpse the future at least have something to work with.

c) taking on even a worst case scenario, can be a good case to develop and test out procedures, establish an organization, educate the public, and establish more and better cryonic services so that other people easier can be frozen under better conditions in the future.

d) Cryonics is basically in competition with religions that already in an irrational way offer to preserve or raise the dead, and some of which also offer to preserve dead corpses through embalming (or even mumification), thus we have to deal with people that want to preserve the corpse anyway, and freezing can be seen as an alternative to embalming, that offer even slower breakdown than embalming.

e) We are faced with contracts, some people want their cryonics provider to be of assistance to themselves and their loved one's even in worst case scenarios,
where the body couldn't be frozen under ideal circumstances.
Many who responded to my survey wanted to be dug up and frozen if they inadvertently had been burried.
All I am suggesting is that we extend the same courtecy
to people trying to sign up their dead relatives post mortem as we already extend to those that have signed up pre mortem.

f) Forensic medicine, patological research and other research projects are valid reasons for freezing even deteriorated bodies. And by opening for such freezing, we might easier create a vehicle whereby cryonic supensions also might become available at an affordable cost in countries that do not presently offer cryonic storage.

g)there are more resons. But the most important is to let the client decide. E.g. If you want to buy a computer, and has the money it costs to buy one, the computer dealer doesn't suddenly say that he won't sell it to you because you don't fit the criteria set by the computer movement and its two main organizations "computer alcor" and "computer C.I.".

Let the buyer decide, is what I say,
if a buyer (the nearest relatives) sees some reason to freeze a relative,
and is willing to pay the cost, then I see no objection to that.

Only when the cryonics movement takes on a similar
attitude has cryonics become a regular and established part of a free society.


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I too would like to freeze dead people under the best circumstances, but when that is not possible then it becomes a question of freezing the corpses in the best still possible way, not just to best preserve the corpses in question but so to better improve the available routines and services so that future corpses easier can be frozen under better circumstances.

By taking on more post mortem cases, we would open up to people and investments that will improve the available cryonics services.
Today many people that are given a cold shoulder are turned off to cryonics.
Think if we instead had recruited into the cryonics organizations everyone that ever wanted to sign up a dead relative post mortem? We could have done this by
fashioning an affordable deal for each request, e.g. most people would have afforded to get a few cell samples frozen, some could have afforded to have the brain frozen and a few would even have afforded to have the head or the whole body frozen.

As I have stated elsewhere: The cryonic organizations get a lot of post mortem requests, and are likely to continue to get a lot of such requests, and we and cryonics would be better off if we found a better way of handling and accomodating post mortem sign ups than what is done by the large cryonic organizations today.

The growth and success of cryonics is at stake: We are not adequately utilizing the ressource and good will that all the post mortem requests actually constitute.

Sincerely,

Trygve Bauge