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PUBLISHED BY THE CRYONICS INSTITUTE
ISSUE 03 | 2015
Cryonics insights and information for members and friends of the Cryonics Institute

CRYONICS.ORG      info@cryonics.org

CI BULLETIN

Election Results, AGM Summary and Sincere Thanks

CI President Dennis Kowalski


Congratulations to all the directors who were reelected for another term. Thank you Connie Ettinger, Joe Kowalsky, Pat Heller and Paul Hagen for your loyal service and dedication to CI and its board. Holding office at CI is a very important and crucial part of keeping CI well-grounded and focused on our collective mission. Recently, the board held its annual officers election and the following officers were reelected: myself, Dennis Kowalski, as president, Alan Mole as vice president, Pat Heller as treasurer, Connie Ettinger as contract officer, Andrew Zawacki as secretary, Steven Luyckx as assistant treasurer, and Joseph Kowalsky as assistant secretary. Thanks for your confidence in me and congratulations to all of our officers. I will do the best I can to lead CI in the right direction, and I'm proud to serve with a board that shares the same dedication to our members and our organization.

It was a great pleasure having the opportunity to see old and new faces at our 2015 AGM. There was much to talk about.

Steve spoke about our financials, and although our investments did not repeat the over-the-top results we had last year, there was ample evidence that we continue to head in the right direction. Our investments are very safe, and we have once again held spending down so that a majority of people can afford cryonics for themselves and their families. In a world where many businesses seek to solve their problems with regular price increases, CI takes a more creative approach to controlling costs, such as utilizing technology to our advantage. We are constantly exploring different ways to get the job done more efficiently. We are committed to leading the way in affordability by getting the most from all of our available resources. I think the precedent we are setting now in terms of minimizing costs and maximizing every dollar spent will help carry us into the future and further illustrates our long-term endurance.

David Ettinger took the time to solicit member input on how to improve CI and lead a group discussion on the pros and cons of the ideas presented. We also passed around a volunteer questionnaire to help us call upon and utilize the tremendous resources and talent right here in the CI community. There are a lot of people who want to help improve CI, not for money or recognition, but instead, simply to help realize our goals and advance a cause that we all feel passionately about.

As you may have deduced, I am very vocal about the importance of basic standby and DIY local planning. I presented a simple demonstration of standby equipment, showing how members can set themselves up in a similar fashion and how such equipment and planning could make all the difference in the quality of suspension we receive. I'm happy to note that CI offers both the Standby Kits (Basic and Intermediate) used in these demonstrations for sale to our members.

I also spoke about how easy it is to point out problems, real or perceived, but how what really matters is solving problems. I am not just talking about philosophical issues about how we should operate, but rather hitting the pavement and donating a little personal time or money. Many people have answered the call already, and I'm looking forward to working with everyone who steps forward to help.

DONATIONS

I would like to take the time here to recognize those people who have donated money either through direct check, regular PayPal contributions, and/or overfunding the amount of life insurance needed or trust money reserved for suspension. For privacy reasons, and, frankly, so I don’t forget to mention everyone who has donated recently and in the past, I will not mention specific names. To those of you who have made contribution, words can barely express the gratitude we have for your continued support, but I will try regardless…

Thank you for your faith in us and for your generosity to CI. Your donations are truly having an impact on cryonics. We use these funds to improve and strengthen CI, helping to ensure our continued existence and growth.  Specifically, your money has helped in our latest efforts to install a tribute/conference room that not only facilitates our business, but also doubles as a place for families to pay their respects and to reflect on loved ones in suspension. Your money has also gone to much-needed research and development relating to our vitrification formula and operational techniques.

 

Donations like yours have helped us to address early emergency notification.  CI has developed custom-branded File of Life warning decals for vehicles and homes which helps emergency responders to carry out our wishes with greater urgency. We have also developed an Android App that checks up on members and automatically alerts a pre-selected list of contacts by text message if you are incapacitated or in need of help. Basically, we know that the cryonics organizations all do a similar and adequate job of suspending and caring for patient’s long term. But when you look deeply at the data of what constitutes a good or a poor suspension, you will find that what happens in the Standby Phase, prior to a patients arrival at a cryonics facility, more often than not determines the ultimate quality of the suspension. The biggest challenge and potential problem facing cryonics today is the time that elapses between legal death and activation of the cryonics emergency response. Donations like yours are helping us close the notification and response gap.

 

We take special care in making sure donations are spent wisely on meaningful updates. We watch our budget very diligently and avoid all frivolous expenditures. For instance, CI utilizes a large volunteer staff and contracts out a lot of work for maximum efficiency. We would rather keep our prices affordable for more people, thus saving more lives, rather than spend money on salaries.  We want you, the customer, to come first and to always remember that preserving human life is our utmost priority. Today, CI patients receive the best suspensions available, within a budget that almost anyone can afford. Because of your generosity, we can work on these improvements without pulling precious capital away from operations. Your donations allow us to keep our prices at a point where more people can afford to be suspended. Not only are you helping to make us better as an organization, but your generous donations also allows CI to potentially save more precious lives. This is certainly something our donors can be extremely proud of and that we are sincerely grateful for.

 

I would personally like to invite all CI members and potential members to be a part of our success; if you have not visited CI recently, please arrange do so to see the improvements we have done for yourself.  Come in and check out the facility and operations we all plan to have carry us into the future. We welcome scheduled visits and have a fairly flexible schedule so people can see the various stages of our operations.

We welcome your valuable feedback. What would you like to see at CI? We want to work hard for you and your family. We think you will be very surprised at the positive changes at CI. Thank you all for supporting us.

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CI NEWS

What's Happening at the Cryonics Institute

2015 AGM Photo Gallery


SEVENTH ANNUAL TEENS AND TWENTIES EVENT

Sign up now!

The Life Extension Foundation’s popular Teens and Twenties event for Young Cryonicists is scheduled for Fri-Sun, April 8-10, 2016 in Ontario, California. The event is open to fully signed up (financially covered and contracted) cryonics enthusiats ages 18-30 or 13-17 accompanied by a parent or guardian (age as of April 10, 2016.) The event will give attendees the chance to network with current cryonics experts as well as the cryonics leaders of the future, all while being updated on the latest scientific research. There will be presentations, "get acquainted" activities and much more. Additonally, the Life Extension Foundation is offering 40 paid scholarships to attend the event. Applications must be received by March 4, 2016. For complete details download the event package HERE.


CI APP Launched

CI's new Check-In app for Android devices is now available in the Google Play store. For more information, see this issue's Standby Workbook section.

CI 2015 FINANCIALS   have been posted to CI's web site. The statements cover the periods for year-end 2015, and January-July of 2015. Transparency is one of our long-standing traditions. We encourage all members to review these reports to better understand our organization's financial position, and how we are positioned for the future. The complete reports can be found on cryonics.org.

Meet CI Member Nicholas R. Van Der Meulen

Lifetime member of the Cryonics Institute and fully funded with Suspended Animation.

General Biographical Data: Kansas City Universal Life Insurance will pay for my expedient transportation and optimal cryo-preservation. The initial death benefit is $300,000 so my family will receive the remainder and the policy increases with value over time. At age 80, the cash surrender value will be worth $800,000 for myself. At age 120, the cash surrender value may be worth in excess of $80,000,000. If the price of cryonics ever increases or if there is a hefty price for eliminating and reversing the decay of aging, I will be able to afford it. Want this policy? Call Rudi Hoffman.

Now I'm 21 years of age living in south Florida as a BioTech student at Palm Beach State College. If I get an AA I'll try to get a PhD in Cellular & Molecular Biology then possibly a Master's degree. Scientists studying cellular senescence are discovering various methods for radically extending healthy human lifespan. There are thousands of people who want to live indefinitely and many more that will accept indefinite lifespan once the option is available. My ultimate goal is to transition into the next stage of human evolution and inevitably become immortal.

How I Got Involved With Cryonics: Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey introduced me to cryonics through his anti-aging presentations. He talks about the longevity escape velocity, a term created by the life extension movement and the trans-humanist movement used in reference to the longevity of humans under conditions in which aging is progressively prevented and treated. “Many decades will have passed before we understand the way cells and organs work well enough to be able to describe in detail the mechanism of how these problems actually occur. We don't need to know the details of how they happen if we can figure out ways to fix them. I'm interested in knowledge as a means to an end.” -Grey

Recently I attended an annual cryonics conference in Las Vegas called the Teens and Twenties. I met with about sixty other cryonics members from across the nation and some members from other countries. Cryonics members who hold cryonic suspension agreements can apply for a free scholarship provided by the Life Extension Foundation. Robert Louis McIntyre, who works with 21st Century Medicine and the Brain Preservation foundation, informed us about some experiments that have improved the viability of vitrification. A rabbit kidney vitrified like the cryonics patients was compared to a straight frozen rabbit kidney and was then reinserted showing that kidney could still sufficiently function. Inside a brain slice vitrification lab, slices of a vitrified brain where examined under magnification and what was revealed is that the brain still reacts to electrical stimuli.

My Thoughts on Cryonics and the Future: Critical care medicine has vastly expanded from the knowledge of our previous cultures when mummification was equal to the process of vitrification today. Now all biological processes of the body, along with aging, are halted. Neural pathways of the connectome which harbor the memories and personalities of each individual in cryostasis remain intact. Essentially, a human brain that is perfused with cryoprotectant, is nevertheless alive.

Biological Molecular Assemblers that scan, save, design, reconstruct, and print are what inevitably revive us. Depictions of these Cryo-Pods can be found in The Fifth Element and Elysium. Fundamentals of the Cryo-Pods include power, software specifically for what's stated above, mechanisms specifically for what's stated above, preexisting genetic blue prints of the entire human brain and body, memory for saving new and unique blue prints, plus extra elements and organic material that make up the body.

The cryonics patients must be reconstructed with the use of nanotechnology that has the ability to sense and reconfigure cellular components of human anatomy and physiology. We will be revived with the least amount of damage caused during this process. Lastly, any deficiencies will have been corrected and we will then find ourselves in the future after a comfortable resurrection.

Although we may know everything as a result of the singularity, we do not have to focus on everything simultaneously. Also, we may even relinquish some degree of control unto the environment and certain individuals. Plus aging to death will never have greater meaning than living indefinitely. The sense of purpose is merely an aspect of the Universe that can be modulated. All aspects of the Universe can be modulated in order to alter the very ambiance of reality.

Contact Information For Networking With Me: I welcome the opportunity to network with other CI Members. I understand CI would like to encourage a greater sense of community among members, including this newsletter, volunteer opportunities, standby groups and just plain peer-to-peer networking or social groups. So if you like what you've just read and want to reach out, please let me know! My email is nickvdm@att.net and my phone number is 561-929-0054. Let's live forever or die trying!

Nicholas R. Van Der Muelen

Images courtesy of Nicholas R. Van Der Muelen





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CI STATISTICS - November 2015

    1,375 Total Members

  • 187 members have contracts with Suspended Animation.
  • 136 human patients
  • 115 pet patients

Argentina

1

Aruba

2

Australia

52 (Added 2)

Austria

3

Belgium

10 (Added 1)

Brazil

2

British Isles

2

Canada

68 (Added 3)

China

2

Costa Rica

2

Croatia

1

Czech Republic

2

Denmark

2

France

8

Germany

35

Greece

13

Hong Kong

1

Hungary

1

India

2

Ireland

2

Italy

6

Japan

3

Lithuania

1

Luxembourg

1 (New country)

Malta

1

Mexico

1

Netherlands

12

New Caldonia

1

New Zealand

1

Norway

7

Poland

8

Portugal

4

Romania

2

Russia

1

STANDBY   WORKBOOK

Every issue, we’ll be highlighting a single aspect of standby to provide our members with a simple incremental program for setting up their own standby arrangements. Proper standby arrangements can seem like an overwhelming task, so our goal is to help you by breaking down the process into “bite-sized” pieces that can each be easily accomplished in a reasonably short time with a minimum of effort. Some tasks will be more involved than others, but remember - in an emergency situation, even the smallest step taken today can prove to be a lifesaver tomorrow.

STANDBY TASK: CHECK-IN APP

We're excited to announce that the Cryonics Institute's Check-In App for Android devices is now available on Google Play.

The Check-In App is designed to call for help when you can't, making it an ideal addition to your standby notification tools. The app is a simple alarm system that checks in on you at pre-selected intervals throughout the day. If you don't respond to one of the scheduled alarms, after a short interval, the app will automatically send out an emergency text message to up to 5 pre-selected contacts.

This simple to set up and use app can also be used by non-cryonicists to check in on an elderly loved one who may live alone, or for yourself in situations when you aren't around other people, like a long trip, camping or other solo activities.

The app costs 99¢, with all proceeds to be used for future upgrades, depending on how popular it is with our members. We encourage you to try the app for yourself, and if you like it, please recommend it to other cryonicists, or for friends and family members who live alone, or spend significant time alone.

As always, we appreciate and value your comments and suggestions - to comment on the app, or to report a bug, please email us at cryonicsnews@gmail.com.

Get the CI Check in App Here

Don’t wait to make your plans.
Your life may depend on it.

Suspended Animation fields teams of specially trained cardio-thoracic surgeons, cardiac perfusionists and other medical professionals with state-of-the-art equipment to provide stabilization care for Cryonics Institute members in the continental U.S.Cryonics Institute members can contract with Suspended Animation for comprehensive standby, stabilization and transport services using life insurance or other payment options.

Speak to a nurse today about how to sign up.

Call 1-949-482-2150

or email tabitha@suspendedanimationinc.com



WORLDWIDE CRYONICS GROUPS LIST

Help us stay up to date

If you live in one of the countries listed, we’d appreciate if you would please take a moment to contact the groups listed in your country to confirm their details. Also, if you know of, or are considering starting a support, standby or other cryonics-related group in your area, please send details to cryonicsnews@gmail.com.

AUSTRALIA: The Cryonics Association of Australasia offers support for Australians, or residents of other nearby countries seeking information about cryonics. caalist@prix.pricom.com.au. Their Public Relations Officer is Philip Rhoades. phil@pricom.com.au GPO Box 3411, Sydney, NSW 2001 Australia. Phone: +6128001 6204 (office) or +61 2 99226979 (home.)

BELGIUM: Cryonics Belgium is an organisation that exists to inform interested parties and, if desired, can assist with handling the paperwork for a cryonic suspension. The website can be found at www.cryonicsbelgium.com. To get in touch, please send an email to info@cryonicsbelgium.com.

BHUTAN: Can help Cryonics Institute Members who need help for the transport & hospital explanation about the cryonics procedure to the Dr and authorities in Thimphou & Paro. Contacts : Jamyang Palden & Tenzin Rabgay / Emails : palde002@umn.edu or jamgarnett@hotmail.co Phones : Jamyang / 975-2-32-66-50 & Tenzin / 975-2-77-21-01-87

CANADA: This is a very active group that participated in Toronto’s first cryopreservation. President, Christine Gaspar; Vice President, Gary Tripp. Visit them at: http://www.cryocdn.org/. There is a subgroup called the Toronto Local Group. Meeting dates and other conversations are held via the Yahoo group. This is a closed group. To join write: csc4@cryocdn.org

QUEBEC: Contact: Stephan Beauregard, C.I. Director & Official Administrator of the Cryonics Institute Facebook Page.

Information about Cryonics & perfusion services in Montreal for all cryonicicts. Services available in French & English:
stephan@cryonics.org

FINLAND: The Finnish Cryonics Society, (KRYOFIN) is a new organization that will be working closely with KrioRus. They would like to hear from fellow cryonicists. Contact them at: kryoniikka.fi Their President is Antti Peltonen.

FRANCE: SOCIETE CRYONICS de FRANCE Roland Missionnier would like to hear from cryonicists in Switzerland, Luxembourg and Monte Carlo, CELL: (0033) 6 64 90 98 41, FAX: (0033) 477 46 9612 or rolandmissonnier@yahoo.fr

Can help Cryonics Institute Members who need help for the transport & hospital explication about the cryonics procedure to the Dr and authority in Toulouse Area. Contact : Gregory Gossellin de Bénicourt / Email : cryonics@benicourt.com Phone : 09.52.05.40.15

GERMANY: There are a number of cryonicists in Germany. Their homepage is: www.biostase.de (English version in preparation.) if there are further questions, contact Prof. Klaus Sames: sames@uke.uni-hamburg.de.

INDIA: Can help Cryonics Institute Members who need help for the transport & hospital explication about the cryonics procedure to the Dr and authority in Bangalore & Vellore Area. Contacts : Br Sankeerth & Bioster Vignesh / Email : vicky23101994@gmail.com Phones : Bioster / 918148049058 & Br Sankeerth / 917795115939

ITALY: The Italian Cryonics Group (inside the Life Extension Research Group (LIFEXT Research Group)) www.lifext.org and relative forum: forum.lifext.org. The founder is Bruno Lenzi, contact him at brunolenzi88@gmail.com or Giovanni Ranzo at: giovanni1410@gmail.com

JAPAN: Hikaru Midorikawa is President Japan Cryonics Association. Formed in 1998, our goals are to disseminate cryonics information in Japan, to provide cryonics services in Japan, and eventually, to allow cryonics to take root in the Japanese society. Contact mid_hikaru@yahoo.co.jp or http://www.cryonics.jp.

NEPAL: Can help Cryonics Institute Members who need help for the transport & hospital explanation about the cryonics procedure to the Dr and authorities in Kathmandu. Contact : Suresh K. Shrestha / Email : toursuresh@gmail.com Phone : 977-985-1071364 / PO Box 14480 Kathmandu.

NETHERLANDS: The Dutch Cryonics Organization http://www.cryonisme.nl) is the local standby group and welcomes new enthusiasts. Contact Secretary Japie Hoekstra at +31(0)653213893 or email: jb@hoekstramedia.nl

* Can help Cryonics Institute Members who need help, funeral home, transport & hospital explication about the cryonics procedure to the Dr and authority at Amsterdam with branches in other cities. Contact : Koos Van Daalen / Phone (24 Hours) +31-20-646-0606 or +31-70-345-4810

NORWAY : Can help Cryonics Institute Members who need help for the transport & hospital explication about the cryonics procedure to the Dr, funeral home and authority at Sandvika. Contacts : Gunnar Hammersmark Sandvika Begegravelsesbyraa / Phones : 011-47-2279-7736

RUSSIA: KrioRus is a Russian cryonics organization operating in Russia, CIS and Eastern Europe that exists to help arrange cryopreservation and longterm suspension locally, or with CI or Alcor. Please contact kriorus@mail.ru or daoila.medvedev@mail.ru for additional information or visit http://www.kriorus,ru. Phone: 79057680457

SPAIN: Giulio Prisco is Secretary of the Spanish Cryonics Society. Website is http://www.crionica.org.sec. He lives in Madrid and he’s a life member of CI and is willing to serve as a contact point for Europeans. He can be contacted at: cell phone (34)610 536144 or giulio@gmail.com

SWITZERLAND:
www.CryonicsSwitzerland.com or www.ria.edu/cs

UNITED KINGDOM: Cryonics UK is a nonprofit UK based standby group. http://www.cryonics-uk.org Cryonics UK can be contacted via the following people: Tim Gibson: phone: 07905 371495, email: tim.gibson@cryonics-uk.org. Victoria Stevens: phone: 01287 669201, email: vicstevens@hotmail.co.uk. Graham Hipkiss: phone: 0115 8492179 / 07752 251 564, email: ghipkiss@hotmail.com. Alan Sinclair: phone: 01273 587 660 / 07719 820715, email: cryoservices@yahoo.co.uk

Can help Cryonics Institute Members who need help, funeral home, transport at London. Contact : F.A. Albin & Sons / Arthur Stanley House Phone : 020-7237-3637

INTERNATIONAL: The Cryonics Society is a global cryonics advocacy organization. Website is www.CryonicsSociety.org. They publish an e-newsletter FutureNews. Phone: 1-585-643-1167.

Meet Wove, An E-Ink Touchscreen Computer That Wraps Around Your Arm

Take your iPad, turn it into a slap bracelet and you’ve got Wove, the first computer that can roll up and wrap around your wrist. Wove is the first product from flexible electronics company Polyera. It functions a lot like a smartwatch, but with the added ability to curve and bend.

Read the full story at TechCrunch.com
Scientists Discover 238 Genes That Could Significantly Extend Human Lifespan

After 10 years years of rigorous investigation and research, scientists from the University of Washington and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging have found 238 specific genes that, when removed, significantly extend the replicative lifespan of yeast cells.

Read the full story at Collective Evolution.com
First two-qubit logic gate built in silicon

University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Keio University engineers have built the first quantum logic gate in silicon, making calculations between two qubits* of information possible and clearing the final hurdle to making silicon quantum computers a reality. “What we have is a game changer,” said team leader Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor and Director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility at UNSW.

Read the full story at Kurzweilai.net
Neuroscientists simulate tiny part of rat brain in a supercomputer

82 scientists and engineers simulate 37 million synapses in massive Blue Brain Project. The Blue Brain Project, the simulation core of the European Human Brain Project, released today (Oct. 8) a draft digital reconstruction of the neocortical microcircuitry of the rat brain. The international team, led by Henry Markram of École Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne (EPFL) and funded in part by the Swiss government, completed a first-draft computer reconstruction of a piece of the rat-brain neocortex — about a third of a cubic millimeter of brain tissue containing about 30,000 neurons connected by nearly 40 million synapses.

Read the full story at Kurzweilai.net
Protein-folding discovery opens a window on basic life processes

Biochemists at Oregon State University have made a fundamental discovery about protein structure that sheds new light on how proteins fold — one of the most basic processes of life. Even the process of thinking involves proteins at the end of one neuron passing a message to different proteins on the next neuron. The findings, announced today (Oct. 16) in an open-access paper in Science Advances, promises to help scientists better understand some important changes that proteins undergo.

Read the full story at Kurzweilai.net
Chemical transformation of human astroglial cells into neurons for brain repair

May lead to drugs that restore brain functions lost after traumatic injuries, stroke, or diseases such as Alzheimer's

Researchers have succeeded in transforming human support brain cells, called astroglial cells, into functioning neurons for brain repair. The new technology opens the door to future development of drugs that patients could take as pills to regenerate neurons and to restore brain functions lost after traumatic injuries, stroke, or diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Previous research, such as conventional stem-cell therapy, has required brain surgery, so it is much more invasive and prone to immune-system rejection and other problems.

Read the full story at Kurzweilai.net
Fusion reactors ‘economically viable’ in a few decades, say experts

Could replace nuclear reactors and fossil fuels

Fusion reactors could become an economically viable means of generating electricity within a few decades, replacing conventional nuclear power stations, according to new research at Durham University and Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, U.K. The research, published in the journal Fusion Engineering and Design, builds on earlier findings that a fusion power plant could generate electricity at a price similar to that of a fission plant and identifies new advantages in using new superconductor technology.

Read the full story at Kurzweilai.net
Self-assembling material could lead to artificial arteries

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) have developed a new bioinspired process using self-assembling organic molecules that can develop into complex tubular tissue-like structures. The process could lead to creating synthetic tissues that emulate veins, arteries, or even the blood-brain barrier, and that exhibit dynamic behaviors found in biological tissues like growth, morphogenesis, and healing.

Read the full story at Kurzweilai.net
How to grow a functional 3-D mini-brain for 25 cents

An easy-to-make 3-D testbed for biomedical research such as drug testing, testing neural tissue transplants, or experimenting with how stem cells work

Brown University scientists have developed a “mini-brain” — an accessible method for making a working sphere of central nervous system tissue and providing an inexpensive, easy-to-make 3-D testbed for biomedical research such as drug testing, testing neural tissue transplants, or experimenting with how stem cells work. (No, they don’t think. Yet.) Mini-brains (cortical neural spheroids) produce electrical signals and form their own synapses. “We think of this as a way to have a better in vitro [lab] model that can maybe reduce animal use,” said graduate student Molly Boutin, co-lead author of a paper on the research in the journal Tissue Engineering: Part C. “A lot of the work that’s done right now is in two-dimensional culture, but this is an alternative that is much more relevant to the in vivo [living] scenario.”

Read the full story at Kurzweilai.net


Feature Story

Cryonics: Looking Past the Next Step

By J.T. Ruby

The concept of Cryonics has been featured in countless fictional movies, television shows, comic books and novels. And why not? The idea of dying and being brought back to life at some time in the future is a fascinating concept for any culture. As new technologies prolong and save lives, it is easy to imagine that a full cryonics solution may not be too far out of our grasp.

The idea of reanimating a human is science fiction for now, but the pace of medical innovation is inspiring. Advancements like therapeutic hypothermia, where active medical treatments maintain a particular body temperature to improve survival in a traumatic emergency, demonstrate the potential of using cold temperatures to prolong lives. Until that breakthrough happens we let Hollywood producers and writers dazzle us with imaginative and futuristic worlds while we wait for the science to catch up to the science fiction.

Weeping Water: a Novel

As a writer, I embraced the idea of cryonics as the subject for my first novel, Weeping Water. The story takes place in the not-too-distant future when cryonic reanimation is a refined, everyday process. It is a booming new industry that is plagued with the growing pains of any new venture, like corporate greed and political influence. The two main characters, Annie and Elliot, died in different decades but have been reanimated at the same time. The story follows their struggles re-integrating into society and adapting to a new world where their freedom is not guaranteed.

Weeping Water isn’t about the technology of cryonics so much as it is about people from different walks of life and how they would be influenced by this new miraculous but disruptive technology.

While exploring ideas for this book, I first I imagined writing a story about the first person who was successfully reanimated in the context of our modern world. What an interesting idea! There are a few things that have really captured the imagination of the entire world – Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, the young man standing in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square and the end of World War II. There will be more of these someday; the first human to walk on Mars, the Earth’s first contact with an alien civilization and I expect that the first human to be reanimated will be among those landmark moments. While that idea would make for an interesting story, for me it was the ‘what happens next’ question that really fascinated me as a writer.

The first thing I did was look for some context. In 1996 a sheep named Dolly was the first successfully cloned animal. There was instantaneous praise from a portion of the scientific community just as there was condemnation from other scientific organizations. A debate was stirred up, followed by a series of ethical questions about cloning and whether or not scientists should experiment with human cells. In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a ‘Declaration on Human Cloning’ that prohibited all forms of human cloning, describing the concept as "incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life."

Cryonics may not have these same ethical issues, but as my book points out, bringing a human back to life is just the first step. What happens after they open their eyes again? That’s the next step.

To be clear, Weeping Water does not take a stand against cryonics, it simply asks the questions and lets the reader determine whether these bigger issues are legitimate or not.

My Inspiration

A few years ago I was reading an article about vitrification. The idea of using a chemical treatment to protect human cells from the damage of cold temperatures was an interesting technology. I had no idea that if you just placed a human into liquid nitrogen their cells would flash freeze and the ice crystals would damage or destroy the cells. Obviously, in this scenario, reanimation would be extremely difficult. But vitrification seemed to be a potential workaround to one of the bigger challenges of bringing a cryonically preserved human back to life.

Up until I read that article, my only exposure to cryonics was through films such as Woody Allen’s Sleeper and the Tom Cruise drama Vanilla Sky. But this article was technical and opened my eyes to progress that was happening in real life, not just fiction. The Cryonics industry was real, and it was moving forward, so I thought to myself as a writer, "what if someday in the near future, this actually happened?" What would that world look like? You wouldn’t just bring back one person. After the first person was reanimated, millions of people would suddenly sit up and take notice.

The moment a medical journal or private organization like the Cryonics Institute announced the successful reanimation of a human being it would dominate international headlines, social media and conversations around water coolers in every corner of the world. An industry would be created in an instant. People around the world would sign-up knowing that the possibilities of prolonged life or a second chance awaited them. Potential customers would increase their life insurance to pay for the procedure and life insurance companies would likely raise their rates accordingly. Companies would be fighting for patents or technology licences. The government would get involved, albeit slowly. Eventually they would impose regulations and pass laws.

Smaller industries would likely spin off – insurance, lawyers defending the rights of the formerly deceased, psychiatrists would likely have to create new treatments for patients with post-reanimation trauma disorder and no doubt a reality TV show following recently reanimated people as they re-integrate into society would be created. It was these ideas that inspired me to write Weeping Water. The more I considered the idea the more it became obvious that this book had many different stories to tell.

Relationships

At first I put myself in the position of someone who had been reanimated. Once you opened your eyes and were lucid enough to put thoughts together – you would wonder and be amazed that you were alive again. I have a feeling this would only last for a short period of time because after that reality set in, you would be looking for your loved ones; family, spouses, children and friends.

The relationships you had with loved ones could determine if you were able to embrace your new life or send you into a deep depression. If your reanimation didn’t occur for hundreds years you would have to just get over it. Maybe you had accepted this reality before you had passed away. But imagine twenty, thirty or even fifty years after your death you return to a world where your family, your kids, friends; have grown old, lived their lives, retired and maybe even passed away themselves. You’re still the same age but now your children are older than you. How do you reunite with those people? How do you reconnect with them in a meaningful way? After any long period of absence, it would be traumatic, no matter how prepared you were.

Political Influence and Corporate Management

Any popular technology or product invites competition and a revolution in cryonics would be no different. A successful reanimation would not only inspire entrepreneurs it would also spawn a series of related industries.

As the CEO of the company owned this technology you would have a monopoly and therefore charge anything you wanted for this service. After all, you can’t put a price on seeing loved ones again. But as newer competitive technologies emerged over time, the competition would force your company to focus more on the bottom line and begin cutting costs. But where? Certainly the executives that ran the company wouldn’t take a pay cut. So it would be people lower on the corporate food chain – maybe the Doctors and Nurses that eased the patients back to a healthy life. Cut too much and you couldn’t afford the best doctors anymore and then you might have subpar professionals that might reduce the successful yields of reanimation.

In the United States there would likely be lobbyists working behind the scenes to get laws passed that would prevent competition and ensure relaxed laws or tighter laws whichever benefitted your company.

Capitalizing on technology is not a bad thing, it drives innovation. But there is nothing to say that this industry as a business wouldn’t be unlike any others. There is also the consideration of how it would affect the larger health care system. Imagine how an online company like Uber has disrupted the transportation system of every large city in the world. There are battles going on in City Halls across the country trying to adapt and put laws into place that allow Uber to compete with taxi services. And that is just transportation. A company that owned the reanimation technology might spin that off into other unforeseen medical technologies – this could cause patent battles, technology licencing, inviting excessive government regulations or maybe worse, no government intervention.

And that’s just in the United States! In China there are no enforceable trademark laws or intellectual property protections. Ill-equipped businesses would likely undercut Western technology and offer a lower quality service for a much lower price.

Summary

Science and science fiction work in synergy – science makes discoveries and science fiction writers extrapolate that technology into an imaginative futuristic world where new and exciting things happen. Science in return can be inspired by what writers imagine and turn those ideas into reality.

Throughout Isaac Asimov’s writing career, he wrote of outlandish technologies in his books: video calling, microwave ovens, self-driving cars, LCD TVs, some of these as early as 1964. Of cryonics Asimov famously said, "Though no one can quantify the probability of cryonics working, I estimate it is at least 90%…"

If the mind of writers like Isaac Asimov can look out decades into the future and predict things like self-driving cars then who is to say that cryonics won’t happen, but when it does we just need to be sure we are ready to take that next step.



J.T. Ruby is the author of the science fiction thriller Weeping Water

For more information about Weeping Water please visit jtruby.com



Suspension Checklist

You’ve signed up for cryonics - what are the next steps?

Welcome Aboard! You have taken the first critical step in preparing for the future and possibly ensuring your own survival. Now what should you do? People often ask “What can I do to make sure I have an optimal suspension?” Here’s a checklist of important steps to consider.

Become a fully funded member through life insurance or easy pre-payments

Some members use term life and invest or pay off the difference at regular intervals. Some use whole life or just prepay the costs outright. You have to decide what is best for you, but it is best to act sooner rather then later as insurance prices tend to rise as you get older and some people become uninsurable because of unforeseen health issues. You may even consider making CI the owner of your life insurance policy.

Keep CI informed on a regular basis about your health status or address changes. Make sure your CI paperwork and funding are always up to date. CI cannot help you if we do not know you need help.

Keep your family and friends up to date on your wishes to be cryopreserved. Being reclusive about cryonics can be costly and cause catastrophic results.

Keep your doctor, lawyer, and funeral director up to date on your wishes to be cryopreserved. The right approach to the right professionals can be an asset.

Prepare and execute a Living Will and Power of Attorney for Health Care that reflects your cryonics-related wishes. Make sure that CI is updated at regular intervals as well.

Consider joining or forming a local standby group to support your cryonics wishes. This may be one of the most important decisions you can make after you are fully funded. As they say-”Failing to plan is planning to fail”.

Always wear your cryonics bracelet or necklace identifying your wishes should you become incapacitated. Keep a wallet card as well. If aren’t around people who support your wishes and you can’t speak for yourself a medical bracelet can help save you.

Get involved! If you can, donate time and money. Cryonics is not a turnkey operation. Pay attention and look for further tips and advice to make both your personal arrangements and cryonics as a whole a success.

Keep up to date! Read CI Magazine and follow the simple “STANDBY WORKBOOK” exercise in each issue.

Membership Benefits

Why join the Cryonics Institute?

Welcome Aboard! You have taken the first critical step in preparing for the future and possibly ensuring your own survival. Now what should you do? People often ask “What can I do to make sure I have an optimal suspension?” Here’s a checklist of important steps to consider.

  1. Cryonic Preservation
  2. Membership qualifies you to arrange and fund a vitrification (anti-crystallization) perfusion and cooling upon legal death, followed by long-term storage in liquid nitrogen. Instead of certain death, you and your loved ones could have a chance at rejuvenated, healthy physical revival.

  3. Affordable Cryopreservation
  4. The Cryonics Institute (CI) offers full-body cryopreservation for as little as $28,000.

  5. Affordable Membership
  6. Become a Lifetime Member for a one-time payment of only $1,250, with no dues to pay. Or join as a Yearly Member with a $75 inititation fee and dues of just $120 per year, payable by check, credit card or PayPal.

  7. Lower Prices for Spouses and Children
  8. The cost of a Lifetime Membership for a spouse of a Lifetime Member is half-price and minor children of a Lifetime Member receive membership free of charge.

  9. Quality of Treatment
  10. CI employed a Ph.D level cryobiologist to develop CI-VM-1, CI’s vitrification mixture which can help prevent crystalline formation at cryogenic temperatures.

  11. Locally-Trained Funeral Directors
  12. CI’s use of Locally-Trained Funeral Directors means that our members can get knowledgeable, licensed care. Or members can arrange for professional cryonics standby and transport by subcontracting with Suspended Animation, Inc.

  13. Funding Programs
  14. Cryopreservation with CI can be funded through life insurance policies issued in the USA or other countries. Prepayment and other options for funding are also available to CI members.

  15. Cutting-Edge Cryonics Information
  16. Members have access to both the Cryonics Institute Newsletter and Long Life Magazine online, as well as our Facebook page, member forums and more.

  17. Additional Preservation Services
  18. CI offers a sampling kit, shipping and long-term liquid nitrogen storage of tissues and DNA from members, their families or pets for just $98.

  19. Support Education and Research
  20. Membership fees help CI to fund important cryonics research and public outreach, education and information programs to advance the science of cryonics.

  21. Member Ownership and Control
  22. CI Members are the ultimate authority in the organization and own all CI assets. They elect the Board of Directors, from whom are chosen our officers. CI members also can change the Bylaws of the organization (except for corporate purposes).

    The choice is clear: Irreversible physical death, dissolution and decay, or the possibility of a vibrant and joyful renewed life. Don’t you want that chance for yourself, your spouse, parents and children?

CI is the world’s leading non-profit cryonics organization, bringing state-of-the-art cryonic suspensions to the public at the most affordable price. CI was founded in 1976 by the “father of cryonics,” Robert C.W. Ettinger as a means to preserve life at liquid nitrogen temperatures. As the future unveils newer and more sophisticated medical nanotechnology, it is our hope that the people preserved by CI may be restored to youth and health.

CI BULLETIN BOARD

VISIT US ONLINE

Letters Welcome

One of our goals for the CI Newsletter is to provide a forum for member outreach and opinion in addition to the existing online forums. If you have comments to share, feel free to write us at cryonicsnews@gmail.com. We may introduce a letters column if response is favorable, so if you do write, please indicate if your letter is approved for publication or not.


Writers Wanted

Got something to say?

The CI Newsletter is looking for submissions from our readers! If you’ve got a great idea for a story, please forward it to: cryonicsnews@gmail.com.

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CI READING ROOM

Serializing Essential Works on Cryonics

Robert C.W. Ettnger's "Man Into Superman" - Chapter 3

3

From Gilgamesh to Olaf Stapledon

I will break the door of Hell, and smash the bolts;
I will bring up the dead to eat food with the living,
and the living shall be outnumbered by the host of them.
-The Epic of Gilgamesh

A sampling of legend and literature will show us some curious-and curiously distorted-supermen. They provide some positive clues as to what maybe, and also reveal crucial limitations in previous speculation and aspiration.

Gilgamesh

The oldest of all mythical supermen seems to be Gilgamesh the hero-king; lie apparently dates from Sumer, 5,000 years ago, although the epic has been put together from Babylonian clay tablets of about 650 B C.60 Already we see the central contrast and conflict between men and gods, viz., men are mortal and the gods jealously reserve unending life to themselves.

Although two-thirds divine, powerful and cunning, Gilgamesh cannot wrest from the gods their ultimate treasure. At first lie is full of arrogance and resolution (see quotation above), and he even succeeds briefly in stealing a plant from the bottom of the sea which confers immortality; but this is stolen from him by a serpent. (To this day, serpents can renew themselves by shedding their skins.) At last he is forced to accept the common human fate and the advice of an admonishing goddess:

The life thou seekest thou wilt not find, When the gods created mankind they determined death for mankind; Life they kept in their own hands. Thou, 0 Gilgamesh, fill thy belly; Day and night be thou merry; Day and night be joyous and content . . . Regard the little one who takes hold of thy hand; Enjoy the wife in thy bosom.

Thus the very earliest literature already confronts the principal problem of humanity to date-mortality-and exhibits both modes of response: resignation and rebellion, apologism. and prolongevitism. (The latter term, coined by Professor Gerald J. Gruman, refers to the will to prolong life by human effort.) (60)

Nietzsche & Orwell

Friedrich Nietzsche was the man who popularized the term 11 superman” (übermensch), and who became a patron Saint of the Nazis; he was a creature of many contradictions in his person and in his writing. It is as easy to demolish his illogic as to admire his literary bravura, but this is not our primary interest, which rather concerns any new or constructive ideas he may have had concerning the purpose of life and the quality of the superman.

The Nazi version of the Master Race was indeed close to Nietzsche’s take-off point in delineating superman; he spoke of “. . . blond beasts of prey, a race of conquerors and masters. It is interesting to note, however, from our place in history, that he regarded not the Germans but the Russians as the archetypical blond beasts of Europe, and said, “A thinker who has at heart the future of Europe will in all his perspectives concerning the future calculate upon the Jews and the Russians as above all the surest and likeliest factors in the great play and battle of forces.”’ (31)

The superman has first of all the will to power:

What is good?.. . To be brave is good.... What is good? All that increases the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man. What is bad? All that comes from weakness. (131)

The superman is strong, and his appropriate morality is a Herren-moral, a morality of the master, rather than the prevailing Heerden-moral, the morality of the herd. In the “slave morality” of the Jews and Christians, good and evil are reckoned from the standpoint of those affected by an action, while superman views good and evil from the standpoint of one who effects the action.

Superman is an aristocrat, and although in some writings Nietzsche seems to be postulating a new species of Homo Superior replacing mankind, for the most part he appears to regard superman as an occasional individual among humankind (although he said none had yet been born), and his superman seems to require lesser beings to lord it over. Superman’s habitual mien is said to be one of poise, self containment, and aloofness-aloofness, apparently, from the inferior masses.

All this sounds downright un-American, but it contains some nuggets of truth-specifically that the individual must serve himself, the “Ego whole and holy,” following his own instincts, rather than serve society. So far, so good: Judaeo-Christian morality does indeed have some peculiar inversions of values. But his failure comes not only in his self-contradictions-we should want to sacrifice ourselves for superman!but in his simplism, his massive inadequacy in analyzing motivation and the individual-societal interaction.

George Orwell’s oligarchs in 1984 are not called “supermen,” but they are disconcertingly like Nietzsche’s heroes-they exalt power above all else, and they are the spiritual descendants of the Stalinists, who in turn represent Nietzsche’s blond beasts of Europe. One of Orwell’s characters gives us the ultimate extension of the glorification of one kind of power, in his imaginary totalitarian state:

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power ... Power is not a means, it is an end.... The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. . . . How does one man assert his power over another? ... By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless be is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation ... If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face-forever.” (133)

In the grotesqueness of this reductio ad absurdum we find the measure of Nietzsche’s shortcoming: he saw only a small facet of the truth. Nevertheless, the best of Nietzsche is very good, and he made an important contribution toward exposing the illusions of the altruists.

Oriental Sages & Saints

Most supermen of history or legend fall into two general categories (each with many subdivisions): the meliorists and the apologists, those who try to subdue or outwit nature, and those who submit or try to accommodate to oppressive conditions. Among the Orientals, these are exemplified respectively by the Taoist hsien and the ascetics of India.

As Professor Gruman tells us, the Taoist alchemists of China consciously aspired to become supermen in an essentially modern sense-by using science to master the forces of nature. To quote one commentary:

“How, then, can he (man) stand coequal with Heaven and Earth? If he seize for himself the secret forces of Heaven and Earth, in order thereby to compound for himself the great elixir of the golden fluid, be will then exist coeval with Heaven and Earth from beginning to end. Such a one is called the True Man.” (60)

The hsien (the word is both singular and plural) was neither beautiful, athletic nor solemn, as is common in Western tradition: he was a shrewd, gnarled fellow, often earthy and humorous. But he supposedly had superhuman although not supernatural-powers. He could control the weather, travel at enormous speeds, change his appearance, or make himself invisible; and to cap it all he had tremendous longevity, if not immortality. The Taoists did not merely daydream; they sought to discover, and in some cases claimed to have found, practical methods of medicine and discipline to attain their goals. Unfortunately, the claims appear to have been somewhat exaggerated.

In various Indian systems, on the other hand, the emphasis was not on satisfying wants but eliminating them, subduing oneself rather than the world, leaching the soul of all restless humors and vain desires.

The best known of the Indian saints is the legendary Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. His religion ignored questions of deity and concentrated on achieving serenity through self-discipline; be preached that by attaining Nirvana, the extinction of selfish desire if not of the self, one could escape from the “wheel” of reincarnation and become nothing-or perhaps everything--by an unclear kind of union with the universe.

Such ideas still exert enormous influence in India, although often in perverted form: where Gautama counseled self-discipline, many of the dervishes and yogis following him have advocated mortification of the flesh-sleeping on beds of nails, crouching on the same rock for forty years, etc. Warped and even psychotic as these notions seem to us, they do lead sometimes to extraordinary feats and remarkable control of the body, which can almost be called superhuman.

George Bernard Shaw

For fairly tenuous reasons, one of Shaw’s comedies of manners is called Man and Superman. (54) The only really clear trait be attributes to superman is one we have already noted in myth and legend: pride and aspiration. As Shaw says in his preface, “What attracts and impresses us ... is ... the heroism of daring to be the enemy of God. From Prometheus to my own Devil’s Disciple, such enemies have always been popular.”

The protagonist in The Devil’s Disciple, in his turn, says,

“… I knew from the first that the Devil was my natural master and captain and friend. I saw that he was in the right, and that the world cringed to his conqueror only through fear. I prayed secretly to him; and he comforted me, and saved me from having my spirit broken….”

This is slightly misleading, of course: the operative words are “captain” and “friend,” not “master” except in an archaic sense. Superman welcomes a comrade in arms, and even a temporary leader, but not a substitute divinity, not just a new tyranny for the old. In essence, from this point of view, superman is not the devil’s disciple, but is the devil himself, i.e., the proud and determined spirit who will endure no shackles and accept no limits to his ambition, who will submit to no reins and willingly serve no purpose but his own. As Don Juan says in the dream scene of Man and Superman, “To be in hell is to drift: to be in heaven is to steer.”

As to other qualities of superman, Shaw is mostly vague or negative. For example, in The Revolutionist’s Handbook and Pocket Companion (an appendix to the play Man and Superman), be says:

That the real Superman will snap his superfingers at all Man’s present trumpery ideals of right, duty, honor, justice, religion, even decency, and accept moral obligations beyond present human endurance, is a thing that contemporary Man does not foresee ... he will imagine them, not as true Supermen, but as himself endowed with infinite brains, infinite courage, and infinite money.

Well, brains, courage, and money are all excellent commodities, and for that matter, no one who acquires a large increment of any of these can remain himself. As for the “moral obligations beyond present human endurance,” these seem in Shaw’s imagination to be merely the same old trumpery ideals, the central one being martyrdom for humanity. There are several references to the “Life Force,” and in the preface to Man and Superman Shaw writes:

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod….”

The last quotation above is probably closest to Shaw’s personal view. How do we know? For one thing, there are various warnings about trying to attain superhumanity; in the play, the Devil remarks about “. . . the fool who pursues the better before he has secured the good;” also, “Beware of the pursuit of the Superhuman: it leads to an indiscriminate contempt for the Human.” Furthermore, Shaw’s superman is admittedly desired mainly to perfect our social and political organization, and the author plainly thinks that all this demands is a lot of Fabian-Sbavians.

In fact, G. B. S. explicity says in his preface to Man and Superman:

“. . it is a common practice with romancers to announce their hero as a man of extraordinary genius, and then leave his works entirely to the reader’s imagination.... You cannot accuse me of this pitiable barrenness, this feeble evasion. I not only tell you that my hero wrote a revolutionists’ handbook: I give you the handbook at full length for your edification if you care to read it.”

In other words, as we might have anticipated, Shaw’s superman is Shaw himself. This is quite a letdown, but we had no right to expect anything of the play except entertainment.

The Star-Begotten of H. G. Wells

The greatest speculative writer of his era tackled the superman theme at least three times-in The Food of the Gods, Men Like Gods, and finally in Star-Begotten. Each time he served up a very thin soup, with nevertheless a flavor worth tasting. As needs must, he acknowledged the near-paradox of man trying to foresee superman:

“Let us admit,” said Keppel, “that this is attempting the most impossible of tasks. The hypothesis is that these coming supermen are stronger-witted, better-balanced, and altogether wiser than we are. How can we begin to put our imaginations into their minds and figure out what they will think or do? If our intelligences were as tall as theirs, we should be making their world now ... You make me feel like the sculptor’s dog trying to explain his master’s fife to the musician’s cat.” (178)

He also took a few roundhouse swings at the vulgarity and simplism of most attempts to read the future:

“… what do you find in all these Utopias and Visions of the Future of yours? ... First of all caricatures of current novelties-skyscrapers five thousand feet high, aeroplanes at two thousand miles an hour, radio receivers on your wrist-watch ... attempts to be startling in artistic matters ... odd little fancies about sex relations ... But these people of the future are invariably represented as being-I put it mildly-prigs and damned fools ... They are collectively up to nothing ... They have apparently made no advances whatever in subtlety, delicacy, simplicity ... They never say a witty thing; they never do a charming act. The general effect is of very pink, rather absurdly dressed celluloid dolls living on tabloids in a glass lavatory.”

He was wrong to sneer at gadgetry, which is an essential part of our salvation. We already have the two-thousandmile-per-hour planes, and will soon have the wrist radio; they are not just toys or status symbols. But he was right in calling for more subtlety and delicacy in postulating superman, and made an effort at least to hint at some possible transhuman traits: “(They will move) easily and gracefully, as one does who has no conflicting nervous impulses . . . They will be much more alive to things . . . immensely amused ... They will be busy, laughing people.” Rather frail hints, yes, but not completely empty. And in at least one passage Wells gives us a little thrill of wonder with an explicit bit. The protagonist is talking with his wife, a “Martian,” i.e. someone mutated by cosmic rays directed on earth by an alien intelligence:

At first that “fey” was a fantastic exaggeration and then it became more and more an observation ... She did not want to go (to the concert). “You used to like music.” “But I have heard music, dearest.” “Heard music? My dear, what a queer way to put things!” “. . . I’ve a feeling that I’ve done with music ... If one has taken music in-hasn’t one taken it in?”... Even with friendship, even with love, she had that same flash of interest, that rapid appreciation, and then she turned away. To what?

To what, indeed? And why should turning to something new necessarily imply the turning away from the old, even if the new is in some sense greater? An acrobat can enjoy a simple stroll; a French chef can savor simple foods. Even this one tiny vision Wells offers is probably illusion. Yet clumsy as his hints may be, he does evoke exciting feelings; be does bring superman a trifle closer to emotional reality.

Olaf Stapledon

The Epic of Gilgamesh comes to us from the relatively recent past, and while some of its concepts are on a scale of cosmic grandeur, it is generally earthbound. The epics of Olaf Stapledon span galaxies of space and giga-years of time, his novels comprising “future histories” that are in some ways unmatched in scope.

Written from 1930 to 1950, Stapledon’s efforts by the calendar belong to the modern era of science fiction (dating from the old Amazing Stories magazine of Hugo Gernsback, beginning in 1926), but Stapledon does not convey a modern flavor; there is something distinctly quaint and old-fashioned in his writing, in both the approach and the particulars. None the less, he may have contributed more than any other single writer to concepts of superman.

To begin with, besides conveying a sense of wonder and awe with unusual effectiveness, be tried repeatedly to remind us of the open-endedness of life and the mounting magnitude of future challenges, as opposed to the stagnant utopias of many authors: “The mental and spiritual advances which, in your day, mind in the solar system has still to attempt, are overwhelmingly more complex, more precarious and dangerous, than those which have already been achieved . . . Out of every victory shall come that which makes a greater struggle necessary.” (161)

Like many others, he tended to emphasize ethical and emotional aspects of superman; but unlike most others, he sometimes managed to pin down a few particulars, if not in full, at least in hints. One of his stories concerns a superdog-as capable as man intellectually, but trapped by his still canine nature. His “Second Men”-the first in a chain of successors of homo sapiens-have a generalized emotional and aesthetic sexuality and other differences: “. . . the lusty admiration which at first directs itself solely on the opposite sex is the appropriate attitude to all the beauties of flesh and spirit in beast and bird and plant.” Parental interest is also universalized, and there is a “…. . passionate spontaneous altruism ... wars were so hampered by impulses of kindliness toward the enemy that they were apt to degenerate into rather violent athletic contests, leading to an orgy of fraternization.”

Occasionally he managed a strikingly concrete example of alien attitudes, as when he mirrored our sexual neuroses in those of another society, one in which the act of eating is both sacramental and shameful, something to be performed only in private and never mentioned in polite society:

He saw with the mind’s eye an early Neptunian couple engaged upon an act which to them was one of shocking licentiousness and excruciating delight, but to the Terrestrial eye was merely ridiculous. This guilty pair stood facing one another, their mouth-aprons removed. From mouth to crimson mouth there stretched a curious fruit, not unlike a much-elongated banana. With mobile lips both he and she were drawing the object into the mouth, and eating it progressively. They gazed into each other’s kindled eyes, their cheeks aflame. Clearly they were both enwrapped in that exquisite sweet horror which is afforded only the fruit that is forbidden. (161)

While this has serious flaws, it has the inestimable virtue of being definite. Elsewhere, he often presents his suggested superhuman traits in name only, with nothing of detail or consequence. His “Fourth Men” are great brains forty feet in diameter, who nevertheless do not seem very bright. His “Fifth Men” are built of improved bone, muscle, and nerve tissue, but of unspecified capabilities; much worse than this, their faculty of telepathy is almost totally unexplored in its implications. (Later writers, to be sure, have not done much better; this is an immensely rich lode for someone willing to do some real work.)

In general, Stapledon is very weak in technology, gadgetry, biology, and psychology. As a writer, be can neither plot nor characterize. In short, he is little more than an amateur philosopher. Yet he grappled manfully with themes that intimidated those better qualified; he forged ahead where the professional hung back or turned aside. He insisted that there is a Big Picture, and he took it seriously. If there is something slightly Quixotic about the mismatching of his goals and capabilities, still he deserves our respect and gratitude.

Sherlock Holmes & Nero Wolfe

Detective stories have given us many supermen. Lately they tend to be superhuman mostly in the hardness of their skulls (being knocked unconscious at least once in every adventure, with nary a concussion) and in their ability to handle alcohol and women. A few, however, have shown talent that is not clearly bogus; probably the best known is the eccentric genius of Baker Street.

Of Holmes’ personality traits, the outstanding is vanity; he is always posturing and soliciting flattery, as Dr. Watson frankly concedes. In fact, we get the impression that Holmes has chosen his tawdry and ill-paying profession because it gives him endless opportunity to strut and to humiliate others, both colleagues and criminals. We may again dubiously reflect: Does the superman require a foil? If a legitimate foil (the criminal) were lacking, would he seek victims elsewhere? Could be tolerate a world full of peers?

As to Holmes himself, it is doubtful; still, vanity is not his only motivation-another is the legitimate one of selfactualization, the employment of his powers and skills. These stem mostly from memory, perceptivity, and deductive reasoning.

His memory is amazing, but selective: he knows the characteristic appearance of the ash from every brand of cigar, but nothing of literature or astronomy. “You see, I consider that man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose ... It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent ... there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before.”

Holmes’ perceptivity never comes across very clearly. It is partly training; the detective has schooled himself to notice such things as a man’s fingernails, coat-sleeves, boots, trouser-knees, shirt-cuffs, the callosities of his forefinger and thumb. He even makes a practice of counting the stairs in every staircase he climbs, and twits Dr. Watson for overlooking this! (There is some pretty queer furniture in that little attic.) But the perceptivity also depends on natural talent, and is largely unexplained. Holmes can “. . . by a momentary expression, a twitch of a muscle or a glance of an eye, fathom a man’s inmost thoughts.” Unexplained, but fair enough. In 1970, a book appeared called Body Language, which attempts to make explicit some of the ways in which we can “read” people; it isn’t easy.”

As to Holmes’ famous faculty of “deduction,” this is the core of Doyle’s writing success: in each story he bravely spells out the workings of the detective’s genius for the reader to admire. Naturally, these chains of inference are ridiculous, for example:

I knew you came from Afghanistan ... Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor, then. He had just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan. The whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished. (38)

Although the links of logic in Holmes’ chains of reasoning have the strength of limp spaghetti, the principle is correct: a keen sense of relatedness, and the confidence to use it will be an important part of the intellect of any respectable superman.

Rex Stout’s super-detective, Nero Wolfe, is a little more convincing than Sherlock Holmes, and more amusing, although there are many points of similarity or analogy. Wolfe is fat rather than lean, and addicted to orchids rather than cocaine; Holmes tends to asceticism, Wolfe to self indulgence; both are misogynists, probably to simplify the storytelling. Wolfe’s vanity is equally monumental; his assistant, Archie Goodwin, tells him. “You regard anything and everything beyond your control as an insult,” which is really a very impressive comment, in a low keyed way.

Wolfe’s memory is even more phenomenal than Holmes’, and with no nonsense about overcrowding the attic. The fat man can recall long conversations verbatim. On one occasion he found it necessary to know a telephone number that had been dialed in his office; although he had paid no particular attention at the time, he was able to recall the occasion to mind, remember the sounds of dialing, and reconstruct the number from the remembered sounds! This is.delightful, and the author must have a bit of genius himself to imagine such a thing.

Of course, the reader is convinced of Wolfe’s genius more by intimidation than persuasion: witticisms, ten-dollar words, bits of arcane information concerning French cuisine-these tend to overpower us. As for bard-core performance, instead of Holmes’ chains of inference we have flashes of insight, associations of ideas more tenuous or more remote than a non-genius would entertain. In one story, for example, be was led to the identification of a culprit by a slight similarity between the true and assumed names. (162) This is fair enough, even if particular examples are dubious, this is a proper attribute of superior man.

Modern Science Fiction

Sorting out the supermen of modern science fiction is a staggering task, and there is no pretense here of fairness, let alone completeness; only a very few that are useful and accessible are touched on. There is endless duplication, often with trivial variations; who has priority or who is most innovative is difficult to decide.

We must remember also that superman is not the only theme in science fiction, and some of the best writers have bad indifferent success with it. Robert Heinlein, for example-in my opinion the best of living science fiction writers-has never produced any notable supermen, except for the very modest extrapolations in Beyond This Horizon. (71) His most ambitious effort, the human Martian in Stranger in a Strange Land, was an absurd hodge-podge of mysticism and occult powers.

In 1939 The New Adam by the late Stanley G. Weinbaurn was published, and by his own account intended to produce a classic which would avoid the error, which he attributes to Nietzsche and Wells, of merely accentuating human qualities . (75) The product is nearly a total catastrophe, the one touch of originality being the double mind of the superman: he can follow two trains of thought at once, see both sides of a question simultaneously-although he has a single identity-and can engage his two minds separately or in conjunction. This is somewhat intriguing in potential, but the theme is only stated and never developed. (Something vaguely like Weinbaum’s superman has actually been created, by surgically splitting the brain of a monkey, which then can carry on two different tasks at once.”’ The surgical fusion or separation of identity or of consciousness remains one of the most important problems of biology and philosophy.)

In the forties, A. E. van Vogt gave us Slan!, one of the grand-daddies or godfathers of a huge and still proliferating clan of supermen, whom we might characterize as the white-hat cowboys of the space age in fiction. They are all-American boys, Tom Swift types with a few biological improvements and a paranormal power or two. He also wrote The World of Null-A. under the influence of Korzybski’s General Semantics Seminar; null-A stands for non-Aristotelian, the idea being that human minds are inferior because they are enslaved to Aristotelian or single-valued logic, whereas the real world is many-valued and there are many alternatives besides “A” or “not A” in a given proposition. Van Vogt’s contribution was real, but it was not the actual delineation of supermen; rather, it was a kind of intricate and fast-paced adventure which, in spite of all the silliness, evoked a formidable feeling, the mood of wonder and marvel that leaves the reader just a little changed.

Arthur C. Clarke has produced brilliant and enchanting visions, at least three of his stories involving supermen. Yet, ungrateful and ungracious as it may seem to say so, his creations also lack substance; their merit is chiefly in mood and sense of adventure.

The main transhuman element in one of his books, The City and the Stars, centers on the storage of personalities in electronic data banks; since the personality patterns can be impressed onto new bodies at will or stored indefinitely, this constitutes immortality. This is a good idea, if not an original one, but badly flawed. Clarke seems to think it more or less self evident that identity resides in the patterns of the personality and memory, so that if my pattern is impressed on a robot, the robot becomes I. However, this is definitely not self evident, and probably not even true. See, for example, reference (45).

Clarke’s most ambitious super-race of mutated men occurs in Childhood’s End. In this story, the children of a century or so hence, suddenly show paranormal powers (clairvoyance, telekinesis, etc.) and, even more important, merge into a kind of hive mind to form a single transcendental entity, which leaves earth and the parent generation without a backward glance. Yet, powerful as the story is, everything is done with mirrors; we are not given even semi-explicit reasons for either the strengths or the weaknesses of the new entity.

Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man, finally, is notable for its attempt to flesh out the concept of mental telepathy. The “peepers” or mind-readers of the story interact with ordinary people and with each other in ways that are emotionally and socially interesting, even if the developments are often halting and unconvincing. (12) At least be has tried to come to grips with some specifics. Imagine, for example, the poignancy of unrequited love when the parties can read each other’s thoughts. Imagine the challenge of a group conversation of peepers, in which skeins of thought are interwoven in patterns involving space dimensions as well as time, visual constructs as well as auditory. Bester has made these, at least to some degree, explicit, and has shown the way for more ambitious efforts.

Summary

Toting up the score, and paying some attention also to examples not specifically mentioned here, we seem to have something like this:

  • Ethical aspects of superman have often been stressed, and the types described usually fall into one of two classes: the social superman, who is a paragon of altruistic virtues, and the amoral superman, who is generally pictured as cold and calculating.
  • Intellectual qualities are primarily limited to memory and capabilities of computation.
  • Emotional aspects are infrequently investigated, except for the common trait of pride or arrogance; when they are, an emphasis on warmth and empathy is sometimes shown, more often coolness and serenity.
  • Emergent traits, those which are more characteristically superhuman, are often fantasies of the paranormal, extrasensory perception and “psi” powers.
  • Development of superman is usually through biological evolution, natural or technologically assisted.

All this is fairly useful, as far as it goes, but much is missing. Some of the apparently overlooked or under-emphasized aspects will be discussed in subsequent chapters. Probably the most striking weaknesses in the literature center on time scales, euthenics, and immortality.

Natural evolution, even assisted by eugenics (planned breeding), is generally slow. Stapledon imagined billions of years were required to produce his Last Men, and modern science-fiction writers blithely create galactic societies with only slightly modified people in them. But it is clear that genetic engineering will produce radical alterations in a very few centuries at most. Change will not be gradual, but explosive; we are on the verge of a sharp discontinuity in history.

“Euthenics” refers to improvements in the current generation, in existing-even mature or elderly-individuals. There is reason to believe that unlimited change and development is possible even for you and me (see Appendix), and this opens vistas that hardly anyone has looked into; heretofore it has been almost universally assumed that each generation, and every species, has an inexorable and limited destiny fixed by its hereditary character. The possibility of correcting errors-both of nature and our own blundering--changes the ground rules and the viewpoint completely. Most especially, we must consider the feedback or bootstrap process by which our instincts, drives and motivations can be consciously modified by successive iteration.

Finally, few writers have tried to deal with indefinitely extended life, and those few have missed many of the implications. The chief implications concern the sanity and outlook of the individual, which will be among our main concerns.

NEXT ISSUE:

CHAPTER FOUR:

Changes in the Chassis

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