[ExI] Cryonics is getting weird

[samantha]

Jeff Davis wrote:
> On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 6:24 PM, The Avantguardian
> <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> .... the corpses of Eva Peron and Lenin, who were so well embalmed that they showed no signs of putrefecation years after they died."
>>     
>
> Hot damn! Daniel.  Thank you.  I hadn't thought along those lines at
> all -- chemical fixation by formaldehyde -- but of course, you're
> right.
>
> Chemical fixation and dessication/drying have on occasion be suggested
> as alternatives to low temp (ie cryo) preservation.  
If either of those were as or more likely to preserve brain tissue I am 
sure they would be used.   I would especially doubt that dessication is 
good for the brain.

> But little
> discussion has followed, for whatever reason.  I suspect because we
> already have a method and an implementing infrastructure.  

Either of these would probably be cheaper so any pragmatic argument is  
rather doubtful.  Also that infrastructure was built to support the best 
known method and it is quite thin on the ground. It is not like we are 
talking a global network using current methods.  :)

> Buy it
> seems eminently  reasonable to ask about the comparative pros and cons
> of all preservation methods.
>
> But, bottom line is, as you note, if Mr. Richardsons's brain has been
> adequately preserved, by whatever means, then he's still in the game.
> Hurrah!  I really feel a lot better about this now.
>
>   
He was thrown into the ground for a year.  What part of that leads you 
to believe his brain structure would be at all intact?

> We would all do well to remember three words: information theoretic death.
>   

What do you suppose that means in the case of information solely encoded 
in the tissue of a living brain? 

>   
>> he would have been better off if some shred of his living tissue had been frozen down for potentially cloning him a new body, etc.
>>     
>
>   
There would be no "him" for or appreciating this body.  Only some new 
person with the same DNA. 

> I think his DNA is still recoverable (If dna can be recovered from
> dinosaurs, wooly mammoths, etc...).
>   

Sure, but so what? 

- samantha
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