In 1964, Robert Ettinger, a physics professor, 
published The Prospect of Immortality that set off a minor revolution in the process of thinking about the dead or, more precisely, return of the dead. If a person’s body could be frozen immediately after death — Ettinger had suggested — future technologies might make it possible to bring the same back to life. Ettinger's thesis became the rallying point of a new philosophy, or shall one call it the science of Cryonics.
This might have been just an idea when Ettinger made it but technological progress in the next few decades made it something that needed to be looked into.
Accordingly, the ALCOR Society was incorporated in the US in 1972. ALCOR (Allopathic Cryogenic Rescue) is also the name of a constellation. Five years later, its goals were redefined and its name changed to ALCOR Life Extension Foundation.
Between then and now, the foundation has preserved more than a hundred human bodies at its facilities at Scotsdale in Arizona. It has now more than eight hundred members, including several scientists and computer engineers, who have signed up for preservation of their bodies when they die.
Jerry Lemier, president and CEO of the foundation, points out that it is not freezing but vitrification that is used to preserve the bodies. This means that bodies are kept at temperatures of 130 degrees below zero without any ice formation in the system. With other technological interventions, the bodies are preserved as natural a state as possible. Second, only bodies which are not brain dead are preserved. For brain is the key to revival of life. Heart is a mere tool, a motor. And finally, the processes used have been cleared both on grounds of religion and ethics.
The Cryonists firmly believe that nanotechnology and genetic engineering will one day make it possible to bring these bodies back to life. In their view, it is like restarting an engine. The critical factor in this exercise is that the brain should not be dead. These cadavers are preserved in the same way as human embryo is stored.
Cryonics has had its critics who think it is all baloney. Jean Medawar, biologist and author, has argued that money spent on the project is "money wasted".
Cryonists counter this saying that science can make a lot more things happen than most people can imagine. After all it was no less a person that Sir Richard Woolley, Astronomer Royal of Britain, who had dismissed all talk of space travel as “utter bilge". That was in 1956, barely 53 years ago. Today, space travel looks like a future industry and Richard Branson has been selling tickets to prospective space voyagers.
Then there are the votaries who are no less eminent and vehement in their assertion of support. Futurist and author Arthur Clark, among them, had made a number of technological predictions that eventually came true. He has affirmed: "Although no one can quantify the probability of cryonics working, I estimate it is at least 90 per cent - and certainly nobody can say it is zero."
For those who are still not convinced, the Cryonists simply quote Gandhi in support of their optimism: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win."
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009
An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative
Read these article :-
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published The Prospect of Immortality that set off a minor revolution in the process of thinking about the dead or, more precisely, return of the dead. If a person’s body could be frozen immediately after death — Ettinger had suggested — future technologies might make it possible to bring the same back to life. Ettinger's thesis became the rallying point of a new philosophy, or shall one call it the science of Cryonics.This might have been just an idea when Ettinger made it but technological progress in the next few decades made it something that needed to be looked into.
Accordingly, the ALCOR Society was incorporated in the US in 1972. ALCOR (Allopathic Cryogenic Rescue) is also the name of a constellation. Five years later, its goals were redefined and its name changed to ALCOR Life Extension Foundation.
Between then and now, the foundation has preserved more than a hundred human bodies at its facilities at Scotsdale in Arizona. It has now more than eight hundred members, including several scientists and computer engineers, who have signed up for preservation of their bodies when they die.
Jerry Lemier, president and CEO of the foundation, points out that it is not freezing but vitrification that is used to preserve the bodies. This means that bodies are kept at temperatures of 130 degrees below zero without any ice formation in the system. With other technological interventions, the bodies are preserved as natural a state as possible. Second, only bodies which are not brain dead are preserved. For brain is the key to revival of life. Heart is a mere tool, a motor. And finally, the processes used have been cleared both on grounds of religion and ethics.
The Cryonists firmly believe that nanotechnology and genetic engineering will one day make it possible to bring these bodies back to life. In their view, it is like restarting an engine. The critical factor in this exercise is that the brain should not be dead. These cadavers are preserved in the same way as human embryo is stored.
Cryonics has had its critics who think it is all baloney. Jean Medawar, biologist and author, has argued that money spent on the project is "money wasted".
Cryonists counter this saying that science can make a lot more things happen than most people can imagine. After all it was no less a person that Sir Richard Woolley, Astronomer Royal of Britain, who had dismissed all talk of space travel as “utter bilge". That was in 1956, barely 53 years ago. Today, space travel looks like a future industry and Richard Branson has been selling tickets to prospective space voyagers.
Then there are the votaries who are no less eminent and vehement in their assertion of support. Futurist and author Arthur Clark, among them, had made a number of technological predictions that eventually came true. He has affirmed: "Although no one can quantify the probability of cryonics working, I estimate it is at least 90 per cent - and certainly nobody can say it is zero."
For those who are still not convinced, the Cryonists simply quote Gandhi in support of their optimism: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win."
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009
An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative
Read these article :-
Delhi/ NCR B- Schools get better
IIPM fights meltdown
IIPM
