7 replies to this topic

[thefirstimmortal]

X-Message-Number: 4909
Date: 23 Sep 95 11:20:48 EDT
From: "Kent, Saul" <71043.1120@compuserve.com>
Subject: Straight Freeze

Brook Norton writes:
"It is not a certainty that a straight freeze could be reanimated
nearly as soon as a full suspension, and so a full suspension makes sense
for those who can afford it. But the reasonable expectation that a
straight freeze could be reanimated in the same time frame as a full-
suspension patient, makes this an attractive and sound option for those
on a tight budget."
It is NOT a "certainty" that ANYONE frozen today under ANY
conditions will be reanimated!
It is NOT a "'reasonable expectation' that a straight freeze
could be reanimated in the same time frame as a full-suspension."
A straight freeze is NOT "an attractive and sound option for
those on a tight budget" because NO ORGANIZATION CURRENTLY OFFERS A
STRAIGHT FREEZE!
In fact, it is even UNcertain that ANY of us will be alive
tomorrow!
An appropriate step for someone who is young and healthy, but
poor, is to use inexpensive term insurance to pay for minimum funding and
then make more money in the future. Anyone who is old and poor has more
limited options. Of course, anyone who is dead and unfrozen has NO
options!
It's certainly better to be straight frozen than to be buried or
cremated, but I wouldn't sit around waiting for an organization to offer
straight freezing, unless, of course, you want to start such an
organization yourself.

---Saul Kent

[thefirstimmortal]

X-Message-Number: 4923
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 12:45:48 -0500
From: wowk@zeno.ibd.nrc.ca (Brian Wowk)
Subject: Straight Freezing

The feasibility of reviving patients frozen without
cryoprotectant ("straight freezing") is actually a trivial
observation. With technologies capable of general analysis
and repair on the molecular level, you could revive patients
after virtually ANY injury. The non-trivial question is how
much will the revived patient resemble the original person.

All the evidence supporting cryonics today is
indirect. There is still no definitive evidence that freezing
(cryoprotected or otherwise) preserves the essentials of
memory and identity, and there will not be such evidence
until we either

a) Improve the technology to the point of at least
reversibly cryopreserving brains.

b) Learn to repair the damage we cause by freezing,
and see to what extent revived animals (or
animal brains) "remember" who they were.

The medical/scientific community today regards
cryonics with great scepticism because of the damage
caused by even our very best cryopreservation methods.
If we go into the business of DELIBERATELY selling and
performing straight-freeze cryonics, we will be taking
a procedure with already questionable defensibility
and making it even more indefensible.

It is theoretically possible that straight freezing
may not only be ultimately reversible (as it must be if
we ever get advanced NT), but that it might also result
in the recovery of the original patients and be truly
life saving. This is why cryonics patients sometimes
are straight frozen, but ONLY WHEN THERE IS NO OTHER
ALTERNATIVE.

In my opinion, the dubious benefits of offering
straight freezing as a formal cryonics care option are
outweighed by the damage such practices would cause the\
image of cryonics. In other words, whatever compassionate
or humanitarian goals would be served by the procedure
would be thoroughly undermined by the added risk of
lawsuits, consumer fraud charges, and howls from the
physicians and cryobiologists. Cryonics *as a whole*
would suffer.

The above observation applies *in spades* to
permafrost interment, dessication, mummification,
and chemopreservation. Cryonics in recent years has
begun to get a fair hearing from some scientists.
This has happened both because of Drexler's popularization
of nanotechnology, and because cryonicists have been
*pushing the technology envelope*. We are showing the
world that we are approaching the biostasis problem
in a rational, scientific manner. Mummification and
chemopreservation are certainly not in keeping with
this spirit of progress. IMHO, they are just plain nuts.
And if I as a cryonicist think they are nuts, you
can imagine what government regulators and consumer
protection groups would think of these ideas if they
were ever sold with the advertised intent of future
reanimation.

Brian Wowk
President,
CryoCare Foundation

[thefirstimmortal]

X-Message-Number: 4925
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 95 15:51:59
From: Steve Bridge <steve@alcor.org>
Subject: Why not a straight freeze?

To CryoNet
>From Steve Bridge, President
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
September 27, 1995

In reply to: Message #4918
Date: Sep 95 12:59:12 EDT
From: "Kent, Saul" <71043.1120@compuserve.com>
Subject: Straight Freeze


Which was in reply to: Message #4916
Date: 25 Sep 1995 06:33:57 U
From: "Norton, Brook" <norton@mdta.mdc.com>
Subject: straight freeze

I think Saul missed the point on Brook's posting. Brook basically
said that he thought a "straight-freeze" (a suspension without washout
and cryoprotective perfusion) sounded like a cheaper, possibly viable
option and wondered if current cryonics companies would offer such an
option.

Saul replied:

> The primary reason I consider his approach to be unreasonable was
>stated in my last message. It is because of the fact that NO CRYONICS
>COMPANY CURRENTLY OFFERS A STRAIGHT-FREEZE OPTION, NOR TO MY KNOWLEDGE
>DO ANY COMPANIES INTEND TO OFFER IT IN THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE! The fact
>that Mr. Norton says he is not interested in starting a cryonics
>company, but is simply making a "suggestion" to existing companies
>underscores my point. Unless he has strong evidence that one of the
>existing companies expects to offer straight freezing in the
>foreseeable future, Mr. Norton's suggestion is, in my opinion,
>unreasonable.

Saul is saying that Brook Norton's suggestion that someone offer a
straight freeze option is a bad idea because no one *will* offer one.
That's a circular argument and does not answer Brook's real questions:

*Why* won't the cryonics groups offer this option?
Would a straight freeze indeed be a "viable" option; i.e., would it
preserve identity for future revival?

These questions have been asked often in the past. The answers are
still the same, from my point of view (and I think my view is still
largely the same as the majority view on Alcor's Board, although new
information in the future could change our minds).

Cryonics groups don't offer this as a standard option because it
seems less likely to work. Even the best cryonic suspension cannot be
proven to preserve individual identity. However, the research that has
been done so far, both in cryonics and in cryobiology, seems to indicate
that preservation with cryoprotectants preserves tissue structure
markedly better than straight freezing. (Others here are more able than
I to discuss the details of this research.)

We cannot yet quantify the differences in the approaches. We
cannot say that cryoprotectants allow us to preserve 5 times more
structure or 100 times more structure. And we cannot even definitively
state *which* structures are best preserved with cryoprotection,
although work is moving forward on that answer. However, it is pretty
clear that cryoprotected tissue looks better after freezing than
unprotected tissue does.

So when we compare these two methods, we are left with several
possible outcomes:

1. Cryoprotected frozen brains retain enough identity-critical
structure to revive individuals; but straight frozen brains do not.

2. Cryoprotected frozen brains retain enough identity-critical
structure to revive individuals; however, straight frozen brains lose
some portion of identity-critical so that individuals can be revived,
but changed in some important way or with partial "amnesia."

3. Cryoprotection does not matter: both cryoprotected frozen brains and
straight frozen brains retain *enough* identity-critical structure to
revive individuals.

4. Cryoprotection does not matter: *neither* cryoprotected frozen
brains nor straight frozen brains retain enough identity-critical
structure to revive individuals.

5. Because of some as-yet unnoticed effect of glycerol or other
cryoprotectants on *brain tissue*, straight frozen brains retain enough
identity-critical structure to revive individuals (in whole or in part);
but cryoprotected frozen brains do not, even though it is clear in
general that cryoprotected cells survive better than straight frozen
ones.

This simple recitation of possible outcomes makes it sound like
these outcomes are equally possible; but they are not. Enough research
has been done on frozen tissue over the last four decades for us to be
very confident that more cells survive freezing with cryoprotection than
without, and that the damage done by adding cryoprotectant is less than
the damage done by straight freezing.

Therefore, we try to look at these odds and come up with a protocol
that is more likely to result in preservation of information.

Now, if one of Alcor's Suspension Members is found in such a
condition that cryoprotectant perfusion is not possible (because of clot
blockage of vessels, injury or autopsy severe enough to make perfusion
impossible, or severe time delay), do we straight freeze their brain or
do we bury them? Of course, we straight freeze their brains because
that is the conservative thing to do. It is the last ditch procedure
for what is still pretty much a last ditch effort anyway.

Does this cost Alcor less? Yes, but perhaps only about $15,000
less. Transport and cool-down and long-term suspension expenses will be
nearly the same. Legal expenses may be more in some autopsy cases.
And, from another point of view, perhaps MORE funding would be needed
for the recovery of a straight-frozen patient. If more damage is in
fact done by the time-delay, clotting, injury, and absence of
cryoprotectant, it may turn out to be more expensive to repair this
person's brain and to give him the intelligence and knowledge to succeed
in that future society.

So (the $50,000 question), why not offer "straight-frozen brain" as
an option for a lower price? There are three issues intertwined here:
ethical business practice, informed consent, and public perception.

There is nothing wrong with an automobile manufacturer offering a
choice of differently priced automobiles. General Motors offers cars
from a Cadillac for $40,000 with more comfort and luxury touches,
greater passenger capacity, and greater safety down to a sub-compact car
for $10,000 that may bounce more, hold fewer people and luggage, and be
more likely to kill passengers in a wreck. Both, however, will get you
where you're going, as long as you don't have a wreck.

However, would it be ethical for a car company to offer for sale a
new car for $4,000 which may or may not come with an engine; and if you
get lucky and get an engine, it may or may not run for a month or a
year? Perhaps in the most extreme use of "ethical" this deal would be
so, as long as you properly informed the customer that this car might
not work, that they might actually get no benefit from it, and they
might not be able to re-sell it. But if you then advertised this car as
the "low-cost option" in automobiles for people who couldn't afford a
real car, would THAT be ethical, no matter how well you informed the
customer?

I would say no.

This analogy breaks down here, since I can't come up with a decent
emergency scenario that would allow a car company to take the $40,000
for the Cadillac and then be forced to give the guy the $4,000 risky
special instead. And today we can't guarantee that even our "Cadillac"
has an engine. But I hope the point is still clear. Even with fully
informed consent (which is often damn difficult to be sure of in
cryonics), is it ethical to offer such a poor option for sale? Alcor
has not thought it was so in the past, so we have not offered it.

Finally, the issue of public perception is extremely important to
cryonics. Our image with physicians, scientists, and the press has
improved significantly in the last decade. This is largely due to the
growing understanding that we try to do our *best* for the patients, not
our least. As much as is economically feasible, we use medical
procedures that seem to be relevant to preservation. We are trying to
improve those procedures all of the time.

To my mind, offering the straight freeze as a standard option,
rather than "it was the best we could do under unexpected
circumstances," would tell the public that we are only interested in
getting people's money at any cost and that we are unconcerned about the
condition or recoverability of our patients. Maybe some day that
suggestion wouldn't matter, if cryonics is just seen as a normal
business. Perhaps there IS a market out there for a company that will
offer a no-guarantees, no frills suspension with the full information
that current research suggests that such an option is less likely to
succeed. But that company is not Alcor and I suspect that time is not
now.

Steve Bridge, Alcor

[thefirstimmortal]

X-Message-Number: 4926
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 1995 13:10:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <cp@panix.com>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #4921 - #4925

> From: Joseph Strout <jstrout@UCSD.EDU>
>
> Ah! This simplifies things immensely. There is no longer any need for
> any of us to strain our brains coming up with new ideas, because if it was
> a good idea, some cryonics company would already be doing it (or at least
> considering it). According to Mr. Kent, it is impossible (even
> inconceivable) that someone such as Mr. Norton could come up with a good
> idea that is not already under consideration by the infinitely wise
> cryonics organizations. The first criterion of a Good Idea, apparently,
> is that it was conceived by someone in a position of power within a
> cryonics organization. If that's not you, then keep your smart ideas to
> yourself.

If I want to fix my own car, and four separate engineers tell me I'm
going about it the wrong way, then maybe I should take their advice.
If I want to cure myself of an illness, and four different
doctors tell me that I have insufficient knowledge of medicine to make a
sound decision, then maybe I would be wise to listen to them.

I can't quite understand why Mr. Strout is so angry at the suggestion that
straight freezing might be a poor idea because four different cryonics
organizations refuse to offer it. These groups have reached their
conclusions after twenty years or so of trial and error and careful study,
and you don't need to be an expert to see why. If you look at the most
recent issue of CryoCare Report, you will see electron micrographs that
clearly illustrate the consequences of freezing brain tissue with and
without state-of-the-art cryoprotective perfusion. I don't care how much
faith you have in nanotechnology; it seems clear to me that given a choice
between causing severe damage to one's brain and causing less damage, the
logical course of action is to go for less damage.

Moreover, I think that offering a straight freeze would be questionable on
ethical grounds. If cryonics were a branch of orthodox medicine, a
straight freeze might even be considered malpractice. I am glad that
straight freezing is not an option anywhere, since this is a powerful
piece of evidence to refute any suggestions that cryonicists are only in
it for the money. Clearly, ethical standards do exist here, and we should
be proud of that fact.

[thefirstimmortal]

X-Message-Number: 4970
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 08:04:57 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joseph Strout <jstrout@UCSD.EDU>
Subject: straight freeze != homogenate

We are witnessing the gestation of a myth here on Cryonet, probably
fathered by Mike Darwin but carried by most of the list, which I will
attempt to abort before it gets too big.

Straight freeze, despite appearances, is NOT the same thing as a tissue
homogenate. A homogenate is made by placing tissue in a blender, which
has two effects:

1. parts are physically disconnected from their neighbors
2. the relative location of each part is essentially randomized

(Note on #2: not really randomized, of course, but each part takes a
chaotic path -- see physics of mixing.) It is especially this second
effect which makes reconstruction nearly impossible, even in principle.

A straight freeze, on the other hand, causes only effect #1, but not
effect #2 since each "part" (disconnected bit of tissue) is locked firmly
in place by the ice around it. Position is preserved, and probably
orientation as well.

A simple analogy should serve to illustrate the difference. Imagine a
large, completed jigsaw puzzle. For a homogenate, take the puzzle apart,
put the pieces back in the box, shake well, and then lay the pieces out
again (in random order) flat on the table. For a straight freeze, take
the puzzle apart carefully, and put each piece back right where you found
it (spreading them out or overlapping a bit).

If you stand back a bit and squint -- or turn the pieces over so you
can't see the big picture -- then these two cases look very similar.
This is, in fact, how it appears to the electron microscopist. But when
you actually sit down and start putting the puzzle back together, it is
obvious that the first case is difficult, while the second is trivial.

Now. I'm not actually suggesting that straight freeze be offered as
anything but an emergency option -- a last-resort variation on what's
already a last-resort procedure. But it's not useless either, as the
"hamburger" camp would have you believe.

[bgwowk]

If anyone wants to know how bad straight freezing (freezing without cryoprotectant) is, take a look at the micrographs at the bottom of

http://www.alcor.org...nics/index.html

They show the progression of cryonics technology at Alcor over the past decade. Note in particular the pre-1992 technology, which shows more ice than brain. And that's with 3 Molar (about 25% concentration) glycerol cryoprotectant. Straight freezing would be an order of magnitude worse.

We once attempted to get microscopy data on straight frozen tissue at my lab, but it turned out to be impossible because the vascular system was so badly damaged that fixative couldn't be perfused into the tissue to even prepare it for microscopy.

Straight freezing is bad.

---BrianW

[jaydfox]

I think something Mr. Strout is overlooking is level of detail. The human brain has something like a hundred billion neurons and a trillion glial cells, at least to within an order of magnitude.

Now, we can reasonably assume that the cells will be in roughly the same place relative to each other, and so Strout's puzzle analogy roughly holds. I have no doubt that, with a half-decent AI, it would be trivial to put the neurons back in the right places.

However, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, current neurological science puts the necessary components of "self", be it memories, cognitive abilities, etc., more in the connections between neurons than the neurons themselves. The number of interneuronal connections numbers hundreds of trillions. And unfortunately, if the cells themselves are barely recognizeable, what hope have we that all these hundreds or thousands of delicate interneuronal connections on each cell will be "preserved"?

In this case, I think each cell with its accompanying connections can be thought of as its own puzzle, and these puzzles probably are quite "randomized" by the straight freezing process, so that they resemble a homogenate much more than the overall brain itself. It would NOT be trivial to reconnect every neuron, and with the same connection "weight" (a puzzle piece even more homogenized by the straight freezing process), as existed in the brain before. A hyper-intelligent AI might be able to reconstruct it heuristically, but it would not be "trivial" by any means, and I think that there would be a significantly larger difference in the reanimated person from the pre-deanimated person than if they had been vitrified.




However, barring any regulations against straight freezing as a primary option, I think once cryonics becomes a mainstream "commodity", we will see straight freezing as an option. Then, the industry buzzword will be:

Cryonics is the third-worst thing that can happen to you. The second-worst is straight freezing, and the worst is death.

And I fully suspect that the main reputable orgs will continue to NOT offer it; it will be a sort of "generic commodity" market, with large companies offering cheap solutions, fine-print disclaimers, and hyped, possibly borderline fraudulent advertizing.