Re: Some Questions for everyone on the list...

Elizabeth Childs (echilds@linex.com)
Mon, 30 Aug 1999 18:26:52 -0700

> How do you look at life differently than somebody who expects to live a
> short life span?

I am not signed up to be a cryonaut at this time, but I do expect to live a really, really long time.

As I have become aware of this, I have become dramatically more risk averse. I also feel like I have a lot more time to get everything done.

> 2. Are any of you afraid of your bodies falling into the wrong hands
> after your frozen? It is possible that you might be reanimated as some
kind
> of lab animal.

There are very few situations I can imagine in which my frozen body or head could be useful to anyone for anything other than humanely reviving it. Anyone who has the technology to do interesting experiments on my body could easily substitute something more easily available. In the short term, it's fairly easy to get cadavers. If you want bodies frozen immediately after death, you could probably talk someone in a less-regulated country into signing a release form for cash. It used to be possible to buy kidneys in India.

In the long term, it won't be all that long before you can grow a headless body in a vat, or even a brain to spec. The only use that I can think of for an old-model brain, frozen with old technology, is if it had some special knowledge that had become unavailable. Perhaps the cryonaut was a member of a revolutionary underground, and the standing government reanimates his head to upload out the names of its members.

If I were a cryonaut, I would be a little afraid of being reanimated with only partial success, such that I was brain damaged but still conscious. But foul play seems much less likely.