[ExI] Cryonics is getting weird

Damien Broderick thespike at satx.rr.com
Mon May 17 22:55:31 UTC 2010


On 5/17/2010 5:33 PM, Jeff Davis wrote:

> If Alcor doesn't freeze the
> putrefied remnant of Mr. Richardson's brain/head, then they seem to
> leave themselves open to charges of fraud, breach of contract, or
> perhaps something else.  So they've gotta freeze.

I'm trying to think of a parallel case; the problem is that existing 
ethics rules block most of them. For example, suppose one could contract 
to have a heart transplant if one needed it and this was funded upfront 
in the form of insurance. Alas, you up and die because your 
fundamentalist Xian relatives refuse to let you enter the hospital, and 
your corpse is buried--and then a year later the cardiac team sues to 
have your body exhumed, and they transplant a young heart into the 
liquified cadaver, as promised. This would be grotesquely absurd, but is 
the parallel with the present case completely far-fetched?

Damien Broderick



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