www.ria.edu/e1964t
Ettinger's 1964 Thesis:
Indefinitely Extended And Enhanced Life (Immortality)
Is Probably Already Here Via Experimental
Long-Term Suspended Animation
by Charles Tandy, Ph.D.
This paper by Dr. Charles Tandy is
reproduced by permission from pages Z-27 – Z-43 of:
The Prospect of Immortality
by
Robert C. W. Ettinger
PUBLISHED BY
Ria University Press, PO Box 20170 at Stanford, Palo
Alto, California 94309 USA
Copyright © 2005 by Charles Tandy
2005 Hardback ISBN 0-9743472-3-X
ABSTRACT
Ettinger's 1964 Thesis:
Indefinitely Extended And Enhanced Life (Immortality)
Is Probably Already Here Via Experimental
Long-Term Suspended Animation
Charles Tandy
In 1964, Robert C. W. Ettinger
argued that immortality (as indefinitely extended and enhanced life) is
probably already here via cryonic hibernation (experimental long-term suspended
animation). This paper performs three functions. First, it introduces and
summarizes Ettinger's The Prospect of
Immortality (1964) for readers of the present 2005 (reprinted) edition.
Secondly, it presents and paraphrases Ettinger's
arguments using current 21st century terminology. The paper also contains a new
bibliography on cryonics.
Ettinger's 1964 Thesis:
Indefinitely Extended And
Enhanced Life (Immortality) Is Probably Already Here Via Experimental Long-Term
Suspended Animation
by Charles Tandy, Ph.D.
Robert Ettinger begins the
Foreword to his 1964 classic thus [p. xxi]:1 "Most of us now
breathing have a good chance [prospect] of physical life after death
[immortality] --a sober, scientific probability of revival and
rejuvenation." Moreover, this amazing scientific-technological development
"seems to have gone virtually unnoticed." The "prospect of
immortality is not idle speculation" but "urgently requires action by
all of us as individuals."
Ettinger defines "immortality" as "indefinitely
extended life." [p. xxi] He argues that such
immortality is practical for us now, not just for our descendants. Ettinger further argues that immortality in its present
form -- experimental long-term suspended animation now -- "is desirable
from the standpoints both of the individual and of society." [p. xxi]
Below I will use the term "cryonics" even
though the term was not invented until 1965-6.2 I suppose for
present purposes it is reasonable enough to associate cryonics with low
temperature biostasis or experimental long-term
suspended animation now -- as a possible door into a future world far advanced
in the technology of life enhancement (a step beyond mere life extension
technology). Ettinger refers to this future world as
"the Golden Age" and optimistically believes there is a good chance
he personally will experience it, first perhaps as a human repaired to youthful
health, then as a super-enhanced immortal or superhuman.
Chapter One: Death's Reversibility
Ettinger's "practical guide to immortality" consists
of eleven chapters. Chapter one serves as an overview of his analyses and
arguments in the chapters to follow. In chapter one, Ettinger
finds that we use the term "death" in a variety of ways.
Death defined to give a religious meaning will
depend on one's religion. Legal death or death defined in a legal sense
is related to a legal document or a determination of law. Death simply as lack
of heartbeat and respiration is clinical death; but if current
techniques are unable to restore clinical function, then it becomes biological
death. The "irreversible degeneration" of cells may be labeled as cellular
death -- yet "the question of reversibility at any stage depends on the
state of medical art." [p. 3]
Cryonic hibernation at the temperature of liquid nitrogen
puts the biologically dead person in a state that prevents further
deterioration and permits possible access to the more advanced medical
technology of the future, including the far distant future. With bad luck, the cryonaut will not be revived from biological death. With
good luck, revival means living as a superhuman or super-enhanced immortal in a
Golden Age. Thus the potential prize is enormous.
Chapter Two: Cooling Down
Activity of the cerebral cortex of a rat ceases at
about 18°C. Cooling of rats to a body temperature far below 18°C for over one
hour showed persistence of memory in the revived rats. Moreover [p. 25], each
memory "seems to be stored in many separate locations in the brain, and
therefore may withstand widespread damage;" and memories "consist of
[a kind of] chemical coding [that] ... may be hardy and resistant to
damage."
Typically many of the cells of a frozen and thawed
organ or animal survive the freezing and thawing, even when function cannot be
restored to the whole entity by our crude techniques of today. Use of cryoprotective blood substitutes improves matters. If some
cells of an organ or animal survive freezing and thawing, perhaps many other
cells of the entity almost survive the freezing and thawing or almost survive
the freezing stage or do survive the freezing stage (but do not fully survive
the thawing). Indeed, there is reason to believe that the thawing (i.e.,
thawing and post-thawing) stage causes more damage than the freezing stage,
especially if cryoprotective agents are used in the
controlled freezing.
Thus our task is to preserve persons soon after legal
death -- leaving thawing and post-thawing treatments to the future. Future (or
far distant future) technology should have substantial ability to infer the
state of the original healthy cell from the state of the damaged cell in its
frozen context. At room temperature [p.34]: "The period of grace before all of the body cells die is measured at least in hours, and
perhaps in days."
Chapter Three: Thawing Out
Many persons clinically dead for a
few minutes have been revived to life. Some persons clinically dead for many minutes have
been revived to life using even our crude techniques of today. Our
biomedical science and techniques related to resuscitation, transplantation,
freezing, thawing, and repair will be a little better in the near future and a
lot better in the far future.
Chapter Four: Today's Choices
A mere century of living in a merely human body is a
beginning, but pales by comparison to the superhuman or super-enhanced immortal
you can become. "You can change your mind after freezing, but not after
burial." [p. 73] Via legal documents, infrastructural arrangements, and
life insurance policies, make provisions now for you and your loved ones to be cryonically hibernated at legal death.
Chapter Five: Religious Issues
Death viewed as reversible and as a matter of degree
may seem novel. But revival of the dead is not a new problem. The clinically
dead have indeed been revived not only after a few minutes but after many
minutes. Anecdotal accounts suggest a few cases where clinical death lasted
over two hours before successful revival.
Religious and non-religious folks alike readily accept
such scientific accounts of many minutes and anecdotal accounts of two hours of
clinical death. Given the recent speed of scientific-technological advance,
most folks find no religious or philosophical impossibility with many minutes
becoming many years or two hours becoming two millennia. In that sense, the
prospect of revival from cryonic hibernation is a scientific (not religious or
philosophical) matter. Likewise, the matter of extending
healthy lifespan from 50 years to 50 millennia.
Most folks, including most religious folks, sometimes
use automobiles for transportation; they would not agree that if "God had
intended man to go forty miles an hour, He would have provided him with wheels
instead of legs." [pp. 76-77] Indeed, a wide variety of religious and nonreligious
philosophies agree in asserting that one has a duty or responsibility to seek
improvement and betterment, both for oneself and for others. Common beliefs
about the wrongfulness of suicide and murder easily extend to end-of-life-cycle
cases of failure to freeze oneself (suicide) or
failure to freeze others (murder). Such logic would seem to establish cryonic
hibernation as the default position or ethical imperative at legal death. For
the revived cryonaut, cryonic hibernation was a
method of life extension -- and the merely legal death was not real and
permanent death.
Cryonic hibernation allows "the present
generation to share the longevity which our descendants will have in any
case." [p. 87] Such longevity cannot guarantee us
certain and literal immortality. But it can mean indefinitely extended and
enhanced life for thousands of years -- for you and me already alive today.3
Chapter Six: Legal Issues
The rights of both animate and hibernating
persons must be properly legitimized by law and custom. The obligations
of both animate and hibernating persons must be properly legitimized by law and
custom. "Heretofore a corpse has had in itself neither rights nor
obligations; now it will have both." [p. 93] Incompetents exist in
relatively small numbers today, but cryonauts
"will constitute an enormous body of influence which must be duly
recognized and represented." [p. 103]
Eventually, cryonic hibernation or biostasis
will become the default legal position at legal death. Generally in such an
end-of-life-cycle event, failure to freeze will be illegal, a case of
manslaughter. And a sloppy murder will be legally differentiated from a murder
allowing ordinary cryonic (biostasis) treatment of
the victim.
Debts will
be "subject to simple interest only, while assets may accumulate compound
interest." [p. 104] Thus you can take it with you! Although "it is true that the freezer era will be the era of
the Golden Rule, the fraternal outlook will become general only
gradually." [p. 104] Hence at some point
society will feel obligated to freeze the poor. "For failure to pay the
premiums on one's freezer insurance, the death penalty seems a trifle
severe." [p. 103]
Chapter Seven: Economic Issues
As we look to the distant future (say, the 23rd century), things
look good. Self-improving, self-reproducing computers should eventually lead to
the technological equivalent of the magic genie lamp. Our increasing abilities
to control and reorganize matter and energy should result in undreamed of real
wealth and available energy. And the size of the universe provides a lot of
space into which we will expand.
On the other hand, as a practical problem of today,
the population explosion is all too real. And with or without cryonics, we will
have longer lifespans and then immortality
(indefinitely extended lifespans). The long view that
comes with cryonics and immortality will help us address population problems
with realistic birth control policies.
If overpopulation is still a problem in the 23rd century, then hibernation in the form of
perfected suspended animation will be useful. One portion of the population
could alternate with others by hibernating for a set period of time. We could
honeycomb the earth and other planets to great depth. We could create new
planets if desired.
But what are the relatively more expensive per capita
costs of biostasis today? What are the economics of
experimental long-term suspended animation right now? Consider the cost of
cryonic hibernation staff, equipment, and facilities (including liquid
nitrogen) over a very long period of social-economic ups and downs. Ettinger finds the cost of hibernation today to be about
one order of magnitude above traditional arrangements (funeral, burial, and
related expenses). This means that "life" (hibernation) insurance is
generally the way to go and is easily affordable by most young adults in North
America and Western Europe. Indeed, through the wonder of compound interest, it
may be possible to awaken wealthy. To be sure, future governments could decide
to limit the wealth of cryonauts.
The advancement of cryonics, suspended animation,
longevity, and immortality should, over time, benefit some traditions and not
others. The advancement of biostasis would seem to
favor "permanence of the family and of institutions, a strengthened
feeling of the unity of mankind, [and] an ingrained sense of our endless
responsibility for each other." [p. 125] Thus ultimately cryonics and
immortality should serve to help humankind avoid temptations like fanaticism
and terrorism.
Chapter
Eight: Personal Identity
This section, Chapter Eight, is a highly original
contribution to professional philosophy. Professional philosophers subsequently
duplicated his work without being aware of Ettinger's
thought experiments related to biostasis and personal
identity.4 Ettinger
presents his philosophic work --and reports his findings straightforwardly
despite their apparent incongruity with the hibernation project.
Previously Ettinger had
reported his findings that death is reversible and that death is a matter of
degree. Ettinger's thought experiments in this
chapter suggest "that individuality is an illusion" [p. 141] and that
instead "of having identity, we have degrees of identity, measured by some
criteria suitable to the purpose." [p. 142] At this point Ettinger is obviously tempted to make a Humian
move. (David Hume in the 18th century concluded, perhaps reluctantly, that the
self is an illusion. Hume then goes on to point out that he and other
philosophers will nevertheless go on acting as if they believe in the existence
of selves.) But Ettinger also indicates that further
philosophic work may be needed to go beyond his "tentative partial
answers."
[p. 130]
Chapter
Nine: Immortality's Usefulness
Immortality will be useful to the further advancement
of philosophic inquiry. (Given enough time, we may even find out the meaning of
life!) Cryonics and immortality should make folks more hopeful toward our world's
continued existence and less prone to acts of terrorism and fanaticism. If so,
then a widespread cryonics program may be needed worldwide to prevent doomsday.
In such case, our posterity may need cryonics today as much as we need cryonics
today.
At one point or another in history -- life insurance;
the abolition of slavery; blood transfusions; wonder drugs; biomedical
research; and, cryonic hibernation did not have the widespread acceptance they
deserved. Only crazies advocated life insurance or the abolition of slavery --
such is what most every educated and uneducated person "knew." Fortunately times change.
"Only those embrace death who
are half dead already," says Ettinger [p.
146]; indeed, "few people have the remotest conception of what the future
will be like ... They fail to understand that the differences will be
qualitative as well as quantitative."
The cryonaut will not
necessarily be revived as soon as possible. It might not be much fun to be a
mere human in a world of superhumans. When it becomes
feasible not only to revive the cryonaut but also to
offer a kind of superhuman equality -- then it will be appropriate to awaken
the sleeper.
For the cryonaut or
immortal, "no disadvantage need be permanent." [p. 148] "The
best advice for success in life has always been to choose your parents wisely;
and now, in effect, this" is possible via biostasis.
[p. 149] "But we can only choose between dangers, and
not escape them. Doing nothing also constitutes a choice, and often a
poor one." "When a humane, progressive, cooperative society has been
achieved, the purpose of life will be learning and growth --the disclosure and
then the attainment of ever more advanced intermediate goals, until either the
final goal (if any) is revealed, or some catastrophe overtakes us." [p.
153]
Chapter Ten: Immortality's Ethics
An anti-doomsday, pro-immortality mentality will have
to be sold to enough people to begin the cryonics programs the world so
urgently needs. It is unfortunate but true that if "respiration were not a
reflex, many people would have to be given a hard sell to draw a breath of
air." [p. 155] This is a reason why cryonicists must be optimistic, not neutral; active, not
detached; and, realistic, not naive.
Since people's lives in the freezer-centered or cryonautic-centered society will depend on the functioning
and continuing of the biostasis-immortality program
very-long long-term, the practical political pressure will be toward producing
a world at stable peace in which everyone is wealthy (or -- healthy, wealthy,
and wise?). Even severe personal accidents will not result in permanent death
but in hibernation. In such a world of immortals, the Golden Rule is not
optional but imperative.5
What, then, when crimes are
committed? Given proper circumstances, punishment can have a deterrent effect.
There would be time enough to punish the criminal for a very long time. If one
engaged in criminal activity against a thousand persons, then the criminal
might be punished for a thousand years.
For a certain period of history, birth control will
have to become widespread. Births will come from the lab, not the womb.
Marriage, with or without children, will continue to serve a worthwhile
purpose. Many problems never encountered -- or encounterable
-- by mere humans will have to be addressed by us, our super-enhanced future
selves. The Golden Rule may be part of the answer.
Chapter Eleven: Immortality's Future
We have already shown that a cryonautic-centered
society is both feasible and desirable. Indeed, it appears to be almost
inevitable. But what we do and do not do today may help determine whether the cryonautic-centered society comes sooner or comes later.
It is generally agreed that -- sooner or later --
suspended animation will be perfected. The default position or customary
practice in medicine at that time will be: Place terminally ill patients in cryostasis. This permits future cures to be discovered and
applied to the patient.
Some day the human lifespan will be extended. Eventually
the human lifespan will be radically extended. Such immortals may use perfected
biostasis to time-travel through the future and allow
compound interest to improve their financial situation.
Since the cryonautic-centered
society is inevitable, there are certain problems related thereto that will
have to be faced sooner or later. The estates and funds and investments of the cryonauts are helping both society and the cryonauts. The future not only has a moral obligation but
also owes a legal debt to the cryonauts.
In the 20th century, we arrived at the Promised Land's
Jordan River; "to pitch camp on the near shore for a generation would be a
bootless waste. ... before long only a few eccentrics will
insist on their right to rot." [p. 174] In a
sense, the cryostasis program tends to serve as a
worldwide panacea "not because in itself it solves all problems, but
because it provides time for the solution of problems." [p.
175] Immortals value persons above killing machines and abstract ideas.
Thus the cryonautic-centered or immortality-centered
society provides you and me opportunity for learning, growth, and development
beyond our present ability even to imagine.
Some may say we should hibernate
the Albert Einsteins and forget the Joe Schmoes. But in fact Joe as revived cryonaut
will be superior to today's Einsteins by far; for
example, he will be able to re-engineer his own genes. Too, Joe needs to be
compensated for the poor hand he was dealt in his first life-cycle.
As a practical matter for the elite, it will become an
issue of sharing immortality with everyone versus experiencing an unstable
world in which they will fear for their lives. Thus, early on, we need to
emphasize that biostasis is for everyone. Indeed, the
"benefits to all of society resulting from the long view depend on all of
society sharing this view." [p. 178] The long
view is directly connected to the perspective of the Golden Rule.
"Hence there must be no excessive time lag between
the private, pioneer programs and public, mass programs." [p. 179] We need to demand two things: 1) Make available the
alternative methods and detailed procedures for doing cryonic hibernations
(including regularly updating this publicly available information); and, 2)
Engage in massive "research in non-damaging freezing methods." [p.
180] The prize is not just life,
but a
wider and deeper life of springtime growth ... Then, for the first time in the
history of the world, it will be au revoir
["till seeing again"], but not Good-by. [p. 180]
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Endnotes
1. Page numbers in brackets refer to
Robert Ettinger (1964) and to the present (reprinted)
volume.
2. Karl Werner
invented the term "cryonics" in either 1965 or 1966. Karl Werner
recently wrote (Personal Communication to Charles Tandy -- February 9, 2005): "I
was introduced to the Prospect of Immortality at Pratt Institute during a
lecture given by Robert. I then read the book and got together with
other lecture attendees to form a group. After we formed our New York group I
came up with the name Cryonics & Cryonics Society Of
New York. I just changed Cryogenics to Cryonics ... 'onics'
like in Bionics." [ellipsis in the original]
[Added Note: Additional research seems to clearly show that the year was 1965
instead of 1966.]
3. Many
different religions suggest that God is beyond (mere) time -- thus a
very long time or even infinitely long time is comparable, so to speak, to a
mere blink of the eye. (E.g., II Peter 3:8 says that "... with the Lord
one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.")
4. See, e.g.,
John Perry (1975) and Derek Parfit (1984).
5. Is the
Golden Rule "Treat others as you would have them treat you"? What
exactly does this mean? Is the Golden Rule "Love God with your all, and your neighbor as yourself"? Is the Golden Rule
improved-on by Kant's Categorical Imperative? Perhaps immortals (including
ourselves in the future) may interpret, reinterpret, re-reinterpret, re-re-reinterpret, etc. the Golden Rule for thousands of years to
the benefit of ever-improving persons, societies, and universe(s)?
ABSTRACT
Ettinger's 1964 Thesis:
Indefinitely Extended And Enhanced Life (Immortality)
Is Probably Already Here Via Experimental
Long-Term Suspended Animation
Charles Tandy
In 1964, Robert C. W. Ettinger argued that immortality (as indefinitely extended
and enhanced life) is probably already here via cryonic hibernation
(experimental long-term suspended animation). This paper performs three
functions. First, it introduces and summarizes Ettinger's
The Prospect of Immortality (1964) for readers of the present
2005 (reprinted) edition. Secondly, it presents and paraphrases Ettinger's arguments using current 21st century
terminology. The paper also contains a new bibliography on cryonics.
ALSO SEE:
Cryonic-Hibernation In
Light Of The Bioethical Principles Of Beauchamp And
Childress
This website is sponsored by
Dr. Charles Tandy <www.MedStable.com>
This Page Was Last Modified On 8 August
2010