Re: Cryonics Terminology

From: S.J. Van Sickle (sjvan@csd.uwm.edu)
Date: Sat Jul 27 2002 - 10:59:37 MDT


Damien wrote:

>>The word "cryonics" has been long hated.

>It has? By whom? (Certainly the vulgar confusion between `cryogenics' and
>`cryonics' has long been hated by cryonics insiders, but obviously that's
>not what you mean.)

Well, me for one. Also, many others in the business of convincing people
that it is a good idea. At least in the U.S., there are some rather
low-tech negative connotations of keeping gramp-paw in the freezer until
we need room for the new season's venison, or just dumping auntie in a
bucket of LN2. It is one of those everyone knows the word, but no one
really understands what it means.

>I, for one, find these quite persuasive--with the possible exception,
>ironically, of:

>>Cryonics: the ethical principle that the legally dead but biologically
>>viable should be stabilized and cared for indefinitely until such time
>>as they can be restored to health.

>Common usage (among those who actually do use the term) connotes
>techniques of low-temperature preservation--as the root `cryo-' implies.
>If a cheap, reliable near-magical `anti-entropy field' could sustain
>organic structures unchanged for long periods of time, we'd surely use
>that to preserve the dead while awaiting the development of means to
>recover them back to health and life. To call that `cryonics' would seem
>perverse, although your suggested definition demands it.

I hate when that happens. You are right, of course. That is why I
included chemical fixation as a possible method of biostasis, and by
extension method of cryonics. Also, I'm not sure your magic stasis field
that works the way you describe counts, since I doubt anyone would wait
until a legal definition of death. Perhaps some other legal definition,
though. Yes, though, I can imagine form of post legal death stabilization
that wouldn't require low temperatures...and perhaps that should still be
defined as "cryonics". That is why I avoided mention of temperature in
the definition of biostasis. It would hardly be the first time a word has
exceeded its original meaning and root structure as the times change.

Perhaps a slight modificaton, though I hate to tinker with the
parallelism with the definition of medicine:

Cryonics: the ethical principle that the legally dead but biologically
viable should be stabilized and cared for indefinitely until such time as
they are restored to health. Historically this has been done by a
variety of means of reducing temperature.

Perhaps the parallelism with medicine could be preserved by:

Medicine: the ethical principle that the biologically viable should be
stabilized and cared for indefinitely until such time as they are
restored to health. Historically this has been done by a variety of
means, including nursing, machine support, medication, and surgery.

Note that I changed "can be restored" to "are restored", which makes more
sense, I think. The first could be interpreted as "we'll keep him here
until we know what to do, but then we won't do it and throw him out" in
both cryonic and medical contexts <comments on medical insurance deleted
in the interests of avoiding topic drift>.

And maybe, since "suspended animation" is actually somewhat practiced in
conventional medicine (and the actual phrase used in the literature):

Biostasis: The process by which those who espouse cryonics ethics
stabilize and care for their patients. Changes in the law or technology
may make this a more prominent branch of medicine.

>Maybe we need a more inclusive term for effective postmortem
>stabilization?

It may be that we do. I was trying to use the word "cryonics" in a more
general sense, so as to actually *reduce* its use, without actually
denying it, which has been tried and I find borderline dishonest. So it
would be "biostasis" or "vitrified" instead of "cryonic suspession", but
still "cryonics" as the reason or principle for doing so. Also, I was
trying a little verbal judo by making "cryonics" an ethical rather than
technological term.

Thanks for your commments....

steve van sickle



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:15:42 MST