Francisco César Pinheiro Rodrigues
Lawyer, retired principal judge and writer. He’s a member of IASP (Instituto dos Advogados de São Paulo)
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DOCTRINE
1.10 “CRYONICS”: A POLEMYC PLUNGE INTO THE FUTURE
FRANCISCO CÉSAR PINHEIRO RODRIGUES
When Alberto Santos Dumont, on October 23rd, 1906, in the fields of Bagatelle, Paris, got to raise in the air his phantasmagoric and awkward “14-Bis”, he couldn’t imagine that in that very moment he was casting the seeds of a future branch of Law, the Aeronautical Law, accepted as an autonomous branch in the most recent Brazilian constitutions.It is amazing to know nowadays that, in the second flight, on November 12th of the same year, the apparatus flew 220 meters in 31 seconds, in the “vertiginous” 2-meter height. It was Humankind’s first controlled flight. A speed – 37.5 km/h – that was slightly inferior, of course, to the “14 Bis” great-great-great-grandchild, the supersonic Concorde.The evolution, as we may see, was fast. In May, 1927, Charles Lindbergh made the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight, from west to east, proving the human being’s creative speed, at least in the technical area. Those who occasionally have watched a documentary film on the history of rockets, would certainly get amazed with the disorientation of those initial artifacts that, contradicting the engineers’ calculations, seem like gigantic serpent fireworks, deprived of the slightest notion of the place where they were going to fall. In those ancient documentaries it is impossible not to laugh – seeing the escape speed of the legs of technicians, engineers and workers – much higher, on the ground, than the “14 Bis” speed on the air. Filmed at a distance, the men look like desperate ants, running away from the probable place of impact of that machine that was crazy and also mortal, because it was filled with tons of fuel.In spite of that difficult beginning, in 1969 the “Apollo 11”, a spacecraft designed to carry astronauts, landed on the Sea of Tranquillity in the Moon. Something at first inconceivable, for many – even for those with a scientific education – because spacecrafts don’t have flaps that may have influence on their steering. Flaps are useless in the vacuum. As somebody has already remarked, air is the enemy of the rocket and vacuum is the enemy of spacecrafts. And we shouldn’t forget that when the rocket is set in motion, our planet isn’t motionless. Earth’s rotation speed is significant. We aren’t centrifugally “spat” into space because of gravity. The shortest calculation error in the project and the spacecraft crew would be lost in the huge vacuum in a one-way trip. How was such voyage calculated with no errors? Today, the task is very easy, compared to the project of sending a spacecraft carrying astronauts to the planet Mars.The rocket “nuts” – don’t forget the chief one, the German Von Braun – didn’t know, at that time, that they were launching not only their rockets but also the foundations of another branch of Law, the Space Law, equally raised to recognition by the Constitution legislators (Art. 22 of the Federal Constitution, 1988).Von Braun was so important to the prudent North-American people – who were not acquainted with the rocket technology at that time – that the launching bases of the “V-2” (rockets that tormented London in World War II) could be destroyed by the Royal Air Force, provided that the dorms where the scientists lodge were spared. A detail that raised difficulties to the British pilots, forcing them to get dangerously near to select their targets. But the English pilots, though frustrated with the restraint, showed that they were a good shot. Von Braun and his associates survived the air raids and, when the war was over, were requested to work in the United States, urging the space conquest.A technological advance that, I suppose, is still going to shake our civilization – with obvious influences on the juridical area – maybe in a much deeper scale than the invention of the airplane or the rocket, is in the use of low temperatures as a way to preserve human bodies affected by severe accidents or diseases that are still incurable. Our children maybe won’t, but at least our grandchildren who graduate in Law will have to pore over the creation of new juridical rules to discipline the prickly field of cryogenics, or cryobiology, in the item of conservation of human beings in extremely low temperatures for a future thawing. Consequently, there will be, in a remote future, a “Cryonics Law”.The preservation of fruit, meat, fish, semen or fertilized ova in an extremely cold temperature is routine nowadays. Such activities are connected to cryogenics. However, for the “science” or technique – still incipient – of preservation of human beings no specific term has been coined yet in Portuguese. And the natural way for this “christening” seems to be the “Portuguesecizing” of the English word cryonics, adopted by Robert Ettinger, a North American Physics Professor, in his book The prospect of immortality, published in 1964. The access to information on that subject in the internet is only possible using the keyword cryonics.“Criônica”, therefore will be the probable designation of that latest research area in Portuguese. Anyway, the word is of the least importance and the subscriber hereto doesn’t object to the use of any other term that may be best chosen by authorized minds in the academic world.Even the most tolerant reader must be wondering: - What causes the author of this article to look for such an odd subject? Isn’t this issue better located in a science fiction magazine?In fact, the subject fits both spaces. And in the Medical one as well. I ponder, as a justification, that the Law graduates are also entitled to speculate on the future, though the Law is usually remembered only after the pioneer work of scientists and inventors. And only when the first conflicts of interest arise. Law is like the night-clubs’ bully doormen or the police officer: it is called only after the first fights start on the floor. Since in Brazil, at least, there hasn’t already been any legal conflict connected with the freezing of people for a future reviving – and not even the deliberate freezing in itself – it is natural that even the word is unknown here. And I satisfy the reader’s curiosity as to the source of the subject.Several months ago I read in the international news section of a newspaper published in São Paulo that an English lady, probably with an incurable disease – the news was very concise, almost telegraphic - , had contacted a company, or an entity in England that is dedicated to this new and odd activity of preservation of human beings in liquid nitrogen – minus 196º Celsius – up to moment when science will be able not only to cure the disease, but also to repair the damage caused by the prolonged freezing.The news also said that the price demanded for the preservation of the whole body was very high – save that the newspaper committed a mistake, it was US$ 800,000. So, since she didn’t have such amount of money, the lady hired the company just to preserve her head (“neuro-suspension”), implying a cost reduction to US$ 300,000. She surely relied on the future possibility, though a remote one, of a “body transplant”.Seemingly, the lady has paid dearly because, currently in California there is an entity named “Alcor Life Extension Foundation” that charges one hundred and twenty thousand dollars to preserve the whole body. A reduction that seems to be a large progress, in terms of diffusion of the idea – taking for granted that it is a serious entity. The exotic side to the initiative doesn't imply dishonesty. And, for what I’ve read, a huge enthusiasm is transmitted to those people interested in turning the mere possibility into reality.Since it was a news on an actual fact, not a science fiction joke, or horror literature - provided that it was an unlikely irresponsibility of the newspaper – , I got interested in the issue as a subject for a future fiction work, without thinking in the legal developments.The backers of the revolutionary novelty are supported by the theoretical possibility of preservation of cells, in the liquid nitrogen temperature – minus 196º Celsius, as I’ve said – up to the moment when not only the disease will be easily cured but also the damages caused by the freezing will be restored. With the occasional “bonus” of an indefinite prolongment of life in case the aging process is detained or restored.It is no news that the extreme low temperature paralyzes the activities of the cell-destructing toxins. And in cold regions there are cases of people found apparently dead, with a severe hypothermia, frozen for two or three hours, who, when properly heated and with the aid of medicines, are able to return to their normal condition. And, as I’ve said, the freezing of bovine and human sperms is a scientifically trivial procedure and there is no evidence that the calves and persons conceived with frozen sperm are in any way inferior to those conceived as usual.The large technical problem in cryonics – let’s adopt, at least for the moment, this designation – resides in the fact that our cells contain a high percentage of water. And when water freezes there is the building of crystals provided with edges that pierce the cell membrane. As I’ve deduced, in the freezing process, water also “leaks”, freezing outside the cells, among them. With the changing from water into ice crystals, there is an expansion of the liquid; something similar to the rupture of pipes that take water to the houses in the cold climate Countries. In order to minimize such cell damages, the entities that currently freeze human beings remove the individual’s blood soon after the decease, injecting in the individual’s arteries and veins a substance named glycerol, which mitigates the problem of crystal building. And they soak the bodies in anticoagulant agents, allowing the water to remain in very low temperatures without freezing. Those liquids are at least similar, I suppose, to those utilized in the vehicles’ radiators in cold Countries.The enthusiasts of cryonics have their stakes in the invention of a future technique that will solve the ice crystals problem. Much larger problems, they say, have already been solved by humankind. Why would this sole one be unsolvable?Another approach of the new pioneers is in the future use of nanotechnology, that is, the technique of creation of microscopic “machines” that, when injected immediately after thawing, would repair, one by one, the damaged cells. As far as I know, the person who developed the speculations concerning this ultra-revolutionary outlook – nanotechnology, reconstruction of things in the molecular level – is a man named Eric Drexler, who published a book entitled Engines of Creation, and a more technical work entitled Nanosystems.The use of nanotechnology (nano comes from the Greek nânos, meaning dwarf) for the repair of millions of cells that were damaged by freezing is, from the intellectual point of view, more difficult to “be swallowed”. The manufacture of such “machines” seems to me something to be thought just in the very remote future, far beyond one century. It is certain that genetic engineering already works in the molecular level, changing the position of genes inside the cromossomes, but it is too much to believe that so soon those microscopic “machines” may be created – in protein, moreover! – and will be able to repair, one by one, the damaged cells.The champions of this new technique, nanotechnology, – which would be, in Biology and other areas, more revolutionary than the computer chip – argue that some viruses already do that without a previous universitarian education. Those minute beings adhere to a bacterium’s membrane, drill a hole there, inject their ADNs inside the bacterium and it starts generating, not new bacteria, but new viruses. They become “factories” or “wombs” of invading viruses.How nature gets such ingeniousnesses is actually a mistery. Religious people have a name for that. And a larger mystery is the very anatomy and physiology of the vertebrates. But we, human beings, “instructing” a “gadget” created by Man, to repair the cells damaged, or cause the creation of healthy duplicates of those cells themselves will be a task for a very remote future, if we get there.I have nothing against this ambitious intention to utilize nanotechnology. The world has nothing to lose, except time, with such projects, but I suppose that science will solve the frozen cells’ impairment problem following another route: preventing the building of crystals.Someone with common sense may ask: “how is it that there are people in the USA who risk their money in such adventure when the technicians themselves confess that they haven’t already “ressucitated” any patient?The answer is simple. If the patient suffers from an incurable disease and just waits for death to be buried or cremated, the percentage of chance to return to life is zero. If someone is frozen and “awaken” within fifty or one hundred years, the chance will be higher than zero, because scientific evolution is getting faster. In theory, at least, this fast freezing followed by a return to the status quo is perfectly possible, provided that the proper technique is discovered.In 1966, a Japanese scientist, Isamu Suda, froze a cat’s brain after soaking it in glycerol. One month later, he carefully thawed the brain. Submitted to an EKG, the machine recorded traces of some brain functions. At least this is told in an Internet page, “A short History of Cryonics”, written by Charles Platt. The Japanese scientis’s thesis, according to the author, would have been published in Nature magazine, a renowned periodical in the Biology field.There is also a good justification, or excuse, for the non-freezing so far of patients maintained in refrigeration: they are people bearing incurable diseases, almost always cancer, the disease for which there is still no safe treatment. To thaw patients, at the moment, as a demonstration, would be an irresponsibility and breach of contract. The entity’s commitment is thawing the person when the disease will be perfectly curable and the technique able to restore the damages caused by the cold itself will be applied. We must have in mind that the extreme cold may also cause fractures.As the enthusiasts of cryonics say, some dogs were unfrozen, apparently with no damage, but only a few hours after being frozen.As we see, we are rather in a gamble situation. And since a good part of mankind likes to gamble, we suppose that very soon we will have some gamblers, here in Brazil, staking their money.A problem that still hinders the diffusion of this unusual attempt to survive is the financial cost. The entities that at first were devoted to that activity received from the patients’ relatives the promise of a monthly contribution for the defrayal of the service of preserving the body in liquid nitrogen. As thermally insulated as the body was in the box _”dwar” – some of the environment heat penetrates in the aluminum container, causing part of the nitrogen to evaporate. So, there is the need to add more liquid nitrogen from time to time, costing money, not much, because nitrogen in itself is well supplied in the nature.The experience, however, proved that this financial system wasn’t proper. The “dead person’s relatives soon lost their interest in applying their resources in something that was so uncertain – and conflicting with their own interests. If the “nutty old man” really “wakes up” – they seemed to think – won’t he demand the inheritance money back? And, without resources for the maintenance of the bodies, the patients ended up unfreezing.In 1978, a demand arouse in the Unites States, severely shaking the already small trust of people in the fable of freezing people. The episode was known as “The Chatsworth Scandal”.Robert Nelson, the first “cryonaut”, a strong enthusiast of the subject, maybe a honest man who previously was a mere technician of TV sets, was the founder of “CSC – Cryonic Society of California”. Either in good or bad faith, he was accused, by the relatives of one of his patients, of negligence in the patients preservation, allowing them to thaw. Journalists, police officers and medical examiners obtained a warrant to examine the basement of the company and found out that the bodies were only partially frozen, resulting in the sentencing of CSC to pay high damages, together with the funeral agent who helped him in the works of preparation of the patients.At the Court, Robert Nelson alleged that the patients’ relatives who didn’t pay for the maintenance were the same claiming they were victims of pain and suffering. Those ones, on their turn, argued that they didn’t pay exactly because they didn’t trust in the business earnestness. As I infer – because I don’t have means to examine the case deeply – the issue got similar to the old dispute over who came first: the egg or the hen.Anyway, the case had a ruinous repercussion to the cryonics reputation but it was useful to prove the system’s mistake of putting in the hands of the relatives of the “dead person” the task of paying for the patient’s maintenance. Thus, the tireless enthusiasts of the novelty started demanding advanced payment.The new financial technique, however, presented the drawback of requiring a high allowance for something that was so uncertain. And the relatives of the “nutty old man” had good reasons to be against this decrease in their financial prospects. Even because, let’s admit, the field is, in thesis, promising to every sort of swindler. How may one know if the “ice businessman” is really acting in good faith? Who may confirm that the “company” will be operating within twenty, thirty or fifty years?Again, the bold North Americans found a more ingenious financial way out: the patient, well before the end, even before getting ill, makes a life insurance, appointing the “freezing” entity as the beneficiary. With a relatively low monthly premium, a thirty-five year old man is able to nourish within himself the idea of being almost everlasting – assuming that within fifty or one hundred years the aging process will be reversed by means of genetic engineering. And the likely heirs will not feel themselves at risk, provided that their beloved father makes a will expressly determining what his children will definitively inherit after the freezing.The few entities working in that area in the USA advise the applicants to hire the insurance as soon as possible because, the younger they are, the smaller will be the premium demanded by the insurance companies. Remember that people suffering from severe diseases aren’t accepted by insurance companies, and if one omits the disease in the proposal, the compensation won’t be paid.As time went by, the entities in the sector also learned that they had to operate in a more professional basis, decreasing the financial risks of a compensation claim that may ruin any company. If one of those companies has to pay a high compensation, it will be deprived of the funds required to maintain the other patients who have nothing to do with that procedure, and who will see their hopes thawed together with their physical shapes.Thinking about that, the companies started operating in distinct segments: some of them just take care of the first operations, soon after the patient’s death. Others only take care of the preservation. Distinct company objects and assets. If one relative thinks that his/her father was “pressed” to sign the agreement when he wasn’t able to discriminate what he was doing because of his frail conditions – and he/she convinces the court of that – , the compensation will be sentenced only to the company that made the agreement with the patient. The entity in charge of preserving has nothing to do with this defect of the will, with that demand, and won’t be shaken at the point of risking the company object thereof.As we may see, when this odd activity reaches Brazil, the legal issues to be solved will be many. Mainly in the criminal area, for freezing the patient as soon after death as possible is in the core of this new activity. In many cases, the presence of paramedics – the future patient starts wearing a bracelet, or a collar, for the fast finding and calling of the technicians – beside the impending corpse, waiting, alert, will be able to characterize inducement to suicide. A patient with the first symptoms of “Alzheimer’s disease” will find it convenient to be frozen before his/her brain gets fully damaged. Technically, there will be a suicide. And the “team” of the preserving entity will hardly be free from the suspicion of homicide or inducement to suicide. Another problem: if a criminal is frozen, is he/she under limitation during that time? The laws, as we see, must be deeply changed, mainly with the creation of surveillance mechanisms for the entities, maybe with the work of the Attorney General office. “And now this, on top of everything else!”, will be the reaction of any member of parquet.The religions will rise against the idea. They will say: “And the soul, how does it remain? During the freezing years, where will it be?” A Buddhist will say that it was reincarnated. So, how can we bring it back, leaving the new body it is in?It all sounds now as idle digression or almost as an insult. But I’m sure that Mankind will follow this way. Whether it is correct, I don’t know. Even because, especially if it is correct, social problems will arise, including the populational increase. Something that may minimize the development of that activity is the prospect, increasingly larger, of genetic engineering to change the aging process of people still alive, causing the cells to renew as if it was a young body. And also the cure of diseases that are currently incurable. But certainly there will be incurable diseases, even with genetics engineering. And maybe diseases that are still unknown.One thing is certain: mankind longs for immortality. In any possible way. Spiritual or material. Previously, only material because there were no alternatives. Now, with this mere enticement of a biological eternity, hundreds or thousands of people will try to embark in this adventure, provided that it is economically viable. They will purely and simply take the risk. Including the risk of “waking up” in a fully different world, something that is, for many, exciting, not sad. They assume that the “new world” will be less hostile than the current one because it will be more civilized. Men and women from the stone age waking up in the elegant Paris.There will always be the adventurers. The vikings risked their lives through the seas, without being excessively prudent, even without a compass.For many, life is excessively short. Even now, with an average expectancy of seventy-five years of age. Up to the twenty, the “yearling” happily goes at a gallop through the world, neighing and kicking in joy – if it is lucky in the “choice” of parents. Then, it falls in the rough fight for survival. It fights to support the family, rarely working in something it really likes to do. Reaching the retirement age, it would be able to make what it really likes to do, but then, it realizes that its strengths are reaching the end, waving goodbye. And it dies frustrated.Cryonics will be essential for the Space conquest. For mankind to reach other solar systems, even in our galaxy, spacecrafts must carry extremely longevous people, in view of the huge distances. And no astronaut expects to live, at this moment, three hundred or four hundred years.Ars longa, vita brevis, has always been the artists’ complaint. And don’t argue that our children and grandchildren will complete the works started by us. No! They are born with other concerns. And they are entitled to them. The parent is, say, a bright scientist, with a long work project in front of him/her. The child, however, prefers to ride a motorcycle, write poems, construct buildings, design cars or write law books. Each generation coming into the world is a new barbarian invasion, someone said. The scientist’s work will be, maybe, finished by a stranger. And a long time later, because he/she maybe won’t be so “devoted”. Even a doctor, dedicated only to his/her profession, will hardly be able to embrace all the medical knowledge of our time. And this limitation, for some, “hurts”. If, for one hand, there are people who rebuke that excessive intellectual curiosity, others defend it, saying that such curious people are the salt of the earth. Others would like to be fluent in several languages. For such curious people, our current life range isn’t satisfactory. There are those who enjoy living and are willing to fight for a very larger life range.So far, “eternity” was restricted to the soul, or memory. It had to do with leaving a good reputation on the earth. Writing a book, painting a famous picture, composing an unsurpassed music, being nominated for the Oscar. At least the name of one street or on a bench in the square of some little town in the inland. Or even, paradoxically, if there is no other alternative, committing a famous crime, murdering a statesman or a rock singer.Mankind doesn't accept the idea of nothingness. People turn restlessly in their tombs, half discarnate, grinding their teeth, fake or real, just to think that no one will remember them as important persons.This is mankind. And for that reason, I have no doubt that, even here in Brazil, entities will arise – honest or dishonest, as in every other activity – that will exploit this never fulfilled longing for a much longer and certainly more promising life in unknown times. If they wake up somewhat weak-minded – in case they wake up – what can we do? And the insurance companies will be interested in that void that hasn’t been filled for the time being. The doctors themselves, currently cautious as to the subject – because they fear to get discredited – will take a better look into the technical possibilities. They will certainly conclude that the task of saving mankind from the diseases and from pain does not necessarily imply restricting their mission to the use of the technical resources currently available.I close this writing with a request. If, occasionally, some doctor or scientist reads this article and is interested in the subject, I would be very interested in knowing his/her arguments. Mainly if they are opposed to the actual possibility, even in the future, of a successful unfreezing. After all, I’ve only read articles published by the enthusiasts of the idea.
DOCTRINE
1.10 “CRYONICS”: A POLEMYC PLUNGE INTO THE FUTURE
FRANCISCO CÉSAR PINHEIRO RODRIGUES
When Alberto Santos Dumont, on October 23rd, 1906, in the fields of Bagatelle, Paris, got to raise in the air his phantasmagoric and awkward “14-Bis”, he couldn’t imagine that in that very moment he was casting the seeds of a future branch of Law, the Aeronautical Law, accepted as an autonomous branch in the most recent Brazilian constitutions.It is amazing to know nowadays that, in the second flight, on November 12th of the same year, the apparatus flew 220 meters in 31 seconds, in the “vertiginous” 2-meter height. It was Humankind’s first controlled flight. A speed – 37.5 km/h – that was slightly inferior, of course, to the “14 Bis” great-great-great-grandchild, the supersonic Concorde.The evolution, as we may see, was fast. In May, 1927, Charles Lindbergh made the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight, from west to east, proving the human being’s creative speed, at least in the technical area. Those who occasionally have watched a documentary film on the history of rockets, would certainly get amazed with the disorientation of those initial artifacts that, contradicting the engineers’ calculations, seem like gigantic serpent fireworks, deprived of the slightest notion of the place where they were going to fall. In those ancient documentaries it is impossible not to laugh – seeing the escape speed of the legs of technicians, engineers and workers – much higher, on the ground, than the “14 Bis” speed on the air. Filmed at a distance, the men look like desperate ants, running away from the probable place of impact of that machine that was crazy and also mortal, because it was filled with tons of fuel.In spite of that difficult beginning, in 1969 the “Apollo 11”, a spacecraft designed to carry astronauts, landed on the Sea of Tranquillity in the Moon. Something at first inconceivable, for many – even for those with a scientific education – because spacecrafts don’t have flaps that may have influence on their steering. Flaps are useless in the vacuum. As somebody has already remarked, air is the enemy of the rocket and vacuum is the enemy of spacecrafts. And we shouldn’t forget that when the rocket is set in motion, our planet isn’t motionless. Earth’s rotation speed is significant. We aren’t centrifugally “spat” into space because of gravity. The shortest calculation error in the project and the spacecraft crew would be lost in the huge vacuum in a one-way trip. How was such voyage calculated with no errors? Today, the task is very easy, compared to the project of sending a spacecraft carrying astronauts to the planet Mars.The rocket “nuts” – don’t forget the chief one, the German Von Braun – didn’t know, at that time, that they were launching not only their rockets but also the foundations of another branch of Law, the Space Law, equally raised to recognition by the Constitution legislators (Art. 22 of the Federal Constitution, 1988).Von Braun was so important to the prudent North-American people – who were not acquainted with the rocket technology at that time – that the launching bases of the “V-2” (rockets that tormented London in World War II) could be destroyed by the Royal Air Force, provided that the dorms where the scientists lodge were spared. A detail that raised difficulties to the British pilots, forcing them to get dangerously near to select their targets. But the English pilots, though frustrated with the restraint, showed that they were a good shot. Von Braun and his associates survived the air raids and, when the war was over, were requested to work in the United States, urging the space conquest.A technological advance that, I suppose, is still going to shake our civilization – with obvious influences on the juridical area – maybe in a much deeper scale than the invention of the airplane or the rocket, is in the use of low temperatures as a way to preserve human bodies affected by severe accidents or diseases that are still incurable. Our children maybe won’t, but at least our grandchildren who graduate in Law will have to pore over the creation of new juridical rules to discipline the prickly field of cryogenics, or cryobiology, in the item of conservation of human beings in extremely low temperatures for a future thawing. Consequently, there will be, in a remote future, a “Cryonics Law”.The preservation of fruit, meat, fish, semen or fertilized ova in an extremely cold temperature is routine nowadays. Such activities are connected to cryogenics. However, for the “science” or technique – still incipient – of preservation of human beings no specific term has been coined yet in Portuguese. And the natural way for this “christening” seems to be the “Portuguesecizing” of the English word cryonics, adopted by Robert Ettinger, a North American Physics Professor, in his book The prospect of immortality, published in 1964. The access to information on that subject in the internet is only possible using the keyword cryonics.“Criônica”, therefore will be the probable designation of that latest research area in Portuguese. Anyway, the word is of the least importance and the subscriber hereto doesn’t object to the use of any other term that may be best chosen by authorized minds in the academic world.Even the most tolerant reader must be wondering: - What causes the author of this article to look for such an odd subject? Isn’t this issue better located in a science fiction magazine?In fact, the subject fits both spaces. And in the Medical one as well. I ponder, as a justification, that the Law graduates are also entitled to speculate on the future, though the Law is usually remembered only after the pioneer work of scientists and inventors. And only when the first conflicts of interest arise. Law is like the night-clubs’ bully doormen or the police officer: it is called only after the first fights start on the floor. Since in Brazil, at least, there hasn’t already been any legal conflict connected with the freezing of people for a future reviving – and not even the deliberate freezing in itself – it is natural that even the word is unknown here. And I satisfy the reader’s curiosity as to the source of the subject.Several months ago I read in the international news section of a newspaper published in São Paulo that an English lady, probably with an incurable disease – the news was very concise, almost telegraphic - , had contacted a company, or an entity in England that is dedicated to this new and odd activity of preservation of human beings in liquid nitrogen – minus 196º Celsius – up to moment when science will be able not only to cure the disease, but also to repair the damage caused by the prolonged freezing.The news also said that the price demanded for the preservation of the whole body was very high – save that the newspaper committed a mistake, it was US$ 800,000. So, since she didn’t have such amount of money, the lady hired the company just to preserve her head (“neuro-suspension”), implying a cost reduction to US$ 300,000. She surely relied on the future possibility, though a remote one, of a “body transplant”.Seemingly, the lady has paid dearly because, currently in California there is an entity named “Alcor Life Extension Foundation” that charges one hundred and twenty thousand dollars to preserve the whole body. A reduction that seems to be a large progress, in terms of diffusion of the idea – taking for granted that it is a serious entity. The exotic side to the initiative doesn't imply dishonesty. And, for what I’ve read, a huge enthusiasm is transmitted to those people interested in turning the mere possibility into reality.Since it was a news on an actual fact, not a science fiction joke, or horror literature - provided that it was an unlikely irresponsibility of the newspaper – , I got interested in the issue as a subject for a future fiction work, without thinking in the legal developments.The backers of the revolutionary novelty are supported by the theoretical possibility of preservation of cells, in the liquid nitrogen temperature – minus 196º Celsius, as I’ve said – up to the moment when not only the disease will be easily cured but also the damages caused by the freezing will be restored. With the occasional “bonus” of an indefinite prolongment of life in case the aging process is detained or restored.It is no news that the extreme low temperature paralyzes the activities of the cell-destructing toxins. And in cold regions there are cases of people found apparently dead, with a severe hypothermia, frozen for two or three hours, who, when properly heated and with the aid of medicines, are able to return to their normal condition. And, as I’ve said, the freezing of bovine and human sperms is a scientifically trivial procedure and there is no evidence that the calves and persons conceived with frozen sperm are in any way inferior to those conceived as usual.The large technical problem in cryonics – let’s adopt, at least for the moment, this designation – resides in the fact that our cells contain a high percentage of water. And when water freezes there is the building of crystals provided with edges that pierce the cell membrane. As I’ve deduced, in the freezing process, water also “leaks”, freezing outside the cells, among them. With the changing from water into ice crystals, there is an expansion of the liquid; something similar to the rupture of pipes that take water to the houses in the cold climate Countries. In order to minimize such cell damages, the entities that currently freeze human beings remove the individual’s blood soon after the decease, injecting in the individual’s arteries and veins a substance named glycerol, which mitigates the problem of crystal building. And they soak the bodies in anticoagulant agents, allowing the water to remain in very low temperatures without freezing. Those liquids are at least similar, I suppose, to those utilized in the vehicles’ radiators in cold Countries.The enthusiasts of cryonics have their stakes in the invention of a future technique that will solve the ice crystals problem. Much larger problems, they say, have already been solved by humankind. Why would this sole one be unsolvable?Another approach of the new pioneers is in the future use of nanotechnology, that is, the technique of creation of microscopic “machines” that, when injected immediately after thawing, would repair, one by one, the damaged cells. As far as I know, the person who developed the speculations concerning this ultra-revolutionary outlook – nanotechnology, reconstruction of things in the molecular level – is a man named Eric Drexler, who published a book entitled Engines of Creation, and a more technical work entitled Nanosystems.The use of nanotechnology (nano comes from the Greek nânos, meaning dwarf) for the repair of millions of cells that were damaged by freezing is, from the intellectual point of view, more difficult to “be swallowed”. The manufacture of such “machines” seems to me something to be thought just in the very remote future, far beyond one century. It is certain that genetic engineering already works in the molecular level, changing the position of genes inside the cromossomes, but it is too much to believe that so soon those microscopic “machines” may be created – in protein, moreover! – and will be able to repair, one by one, the damaged cells.The champions of this new technique, nanotechnology, – which would be, in Biology and other areas, more revolutionary than the computer chip – argue that some viruses already do that without a previous universitarian education. Those minute beings adhere to a bacterium’s membrane, drill a hole there, inject their ADNs inside the bacterium and it starts generating, not new bacteria, but new viruses. They become “factories” or “wombs” of invading viruses.How nature gets such ingeniousnesses is actually a mistery. Religious people have a name for that. And a larger mystery is the very anatomy and physiology of the vertebrates. But we, human beings, “instructing” a “gadget” created by Man, to repair the cells damaged, or cause the creation of healthy duplicates of those cells themselves will be a task for a very remote future, if we get there.I have nothing against this ambitious intention to utilize nanotechnology. The world has nothing to lose, except time, with such projects, but I suppose that science will solve the frozen cells’ impairment problem following another route: preventing the building of crystals.Someone with common sense may ask: “how is it that there are people in the USA who risk their money in such adventure when the technicians themselves confess that they haven’t already “ressucitated” any patient?The answer is simple. If the patient suffers from an incurable disease and just waits for death to be buried or cremated, the percentage of chance to return to life is zero. If someone is frozen and “awaken” within fifty or one hundred years, the chance will be higher than zero, because scientific evolution is getting faster. In theory, at least, this fast freezing followed by a return to the status quo is perfectly possible, provided that the proper technique is discovered.In 1966, a Japanese scientist, Isamu Suda, froze a cat’s brain after soaking it in glycerol. One month later, he carefully thawed the brain. Submitted to an EKG, the machine recorded traces of some brain functions. At least this is told in an Internet page, “A short History of Cryonics”, written by Charles Platt. The Japanese scientis’s thesis, according to the author, would have been published in Nature magazine, a renowned periodical in the Biology field.There is also a good justification, or excuse, for the non-freezing so far of patients maintained in refrigeration: they are people bearing incurable diseases, almost always cancer, the disease for which there is still no safe treatment. To thaw patients, at the moment, as a demonstration, would be an irresponsibility and breach of contract. The entity’s commitment is thawing the person when the disease will be perfectly curable and the technique able to restore the damages caused by the cold itself will be applied. We must have in mind that the extreme cold may also cause fractures.As the enthusiasts of cryonics say, some dogs were unfrozen, apparently with no damage, but only a few hours after being frozen.As we see, we are rather in a gamble situation. And since a good part of mankind likes to gamble, we suppose that very soon we will have some gamblers, here in Brazil, staking their money.A problem that still hinders the diffusion of this unusual attempt to survive is the financial cost. The entities that at first were devoted to that activity received from the patients’ relatives the promise of a monthly contribution for the defrayal of the service of preserving the body in liquid nitrogen. As thermally insulated as the body was in the box _”dwar” – some of the environment heat penetrates in the aluminum container, causing part of the nitrogen to evaporate. So, there is the need to add more liquid nitrogen from time to time, costing money, not much, because nitrogen in itself is well supplied in the nature.The experience, however, proved that this financial system wasn’t proper. The “dead person’s relatives soon lost their interest in applying their resources in something that was so uncertain – and conflicting with their own interests. If the “nutty old man” really “wakes up” – they seemed to think – won’t he demand the inheritance money back? And, without resources for the maintenance of the bodies, the patients ended up unfreezing.In 1978, a demand arouse in the Unites States, severely shaking the already small trust of people in the fable of freezing people. The episode was known as “The Chatsworth Scandal”.Robert Nelson, the first “cryonaut”, a strong enthusiast of the subject, maybe a honest man who previously was a mere technician of TV sets, was the founder of “CSC – Cryonic Society of California”. Either in good or bad faith, he was accused, by the relatives of one of his patients, of negligence in the patients preservation, allowing them to thaw. Journalists, police officers and medical examiners obtained a warrant to examine the basement of the company and found out that the bodies were only partially frozen, resulting in the sentencing of CSC to pay high damages, together with the funeral agent who helped him in the works of preparation of the patients.At the Court, Robert Nelson alleged that the patients’ relatives who didn’t pay for the maintenance were the same claiming they were victims of pain and suffering. Those ones, on their turn, argued that they didn’t pay exactly because they didn’t trust in the business earnestness. As I infer – because I don’t have means to examine the case deeply – the issue got similar to the old dispute over who came first: the egg or the hen.Anyway, the case had a ruinous repercussion to the cryonics reputation but it was useful to prove the system’s mistake of putting in the hands of the relatives of the “dead person” the task of paying for the patient’s maintenance. Thus, the tireless enthusiasts of the novelty started demanding advanced payment.The new financial technique, however, presented the drawback of requiring a high allowance for something that was so uncertain. And the relatives of the “nutty old man” had good reasons to be against this decrease in their financial prospects. Even because, let’s admit, the field is, in thesis, promising to every sort of swindler. How may one know if the “ice businessman” is really acting in good faith? Who may confirm that the “company” will be operating within twenty, thirty or fifty years?Again, the bold North Americans found a more ingenious financial way out: the patient, well before the end, even before getting ill, makes a life insurance, appointing the “freezing” entity as the beneficiary. With a relatively low monthly premium, a thirty-five year old man is able to nourish within himself the idea of being almost everlasting – assuming that within fifty or one hundred years the aging process will be reversed by means of genetic engineering. And the likely heirs will not feel themselves at risk, provided that their beloved father makes a will expressly determining what his children will definitively inherit after the freezing.The few entities working in that area in the USA advise the applicants to hire the insurance as soon as possible because, the younger they are, the smaller will be the premium demanded by the insurance companies. Remember that people suffering from severe diseases aren’t accepted by insurance companies, and if one omits the disease in the proposal, the compensation won’t be paid.As time went by, the entities in the sector also learned that they had to operate in a more professional basis, decreasing the financial risks of a compensation claim that may ruin any company. If one of those companies has to pay a high compensation, it will be deprived of the funds required to maintain the other patients who have nothing to do with that procedure, and who will see their hopes thawed together with their physical shapes.Thinking about that, the companies started operating in distinct segments: some of them just take care of the first operations, soon after the patient’s death. Others only take care of the preservation. Distinct company objects and assets. If one relative thinks that his/her father was “pressed” to sign the agreement when he wasn’t able to discriminate what he was doing because of his frail conditions – and he/she convinces the court of that – , the compensation will be sentenced only to the company that made the agreement with the patient. The entity in charge of preserving has nothing to do with this defect of the will, with that demand, and won’t be shaken at the point of risking the company object thereof.As we may see, when this odd activity reaches Brazil, the legal issues to be solved will be many. Mainly in the criminal area, for freezing the patient as soon after death as possible is in the core of this new activity. In many cases, the presence of paramedics – the future patient starts wearing a bracelet, or a collar, for the fast finding and calling of the technicians – beside the impending corpse, waiting, alert, will be able to characterize inducement to suicide. A patient with the first symptoms of “Alzheimer’s disease” will find it convenient to be frozen before his/her brain gets fully damaged. Technically, there will be a suicide. And the “team” of the preserving entity will hardly be free from the suspicion of homicide or inducement to suicide. Another problem: if a criminal is frozen, is he/she under limitation during that time? The laws, as we see, must be deeply changed, mainly with the creation of surveillance mechanisms for the entities, maybe with the work of the Attorney General office. “And now this, on top of everything else!”, will be the reaction of any member of parquet.The religions will rise against the idea. They will say: “And the soul, how does it remain? During the freezing years, where will it be?” A Buddhist will say that it was reincarnated. So, how can we bring it back, leaving the new body it is in?It all sounds now as idle digression or almost as an insult. But I’m sure that Mankind will follow this way. Whether it is correct, I don’t know. Even because, especially if it is correct, social problems will arise, including the populational increase. Something that may minimize the development of that activity is the prospect, increasingly larger, of genetic engineering to change the aging process of people still alive, causing the cells to renew as if it was a young body. And also the cure of diseases that are currently incurable. But certainly there will be incurable diseases, even with genetics engineering. And maybe diseases that are still unknown.One thing is certain: mankind longs for immortality. In any possible way. Spiritual or material. Previously, only material because there were no alternatives. Now, with this mere enticement of a biological eternity, hundreds or thousands of people will try to embark in this adventure, provided that it is economically viable. They will purely and simply take the risk. Including the risk of “waking up” in a fully different world, something that is, for many, exciting, not sad. They assume that the “new world” will be less hostile than the current one because it will be more civilized. Men and women from the stone age waking up in the elegant Paris.There will always be the adventurers. The vikings risked their lives through the seas, without being excessively prudent, even without a compass.For many, life is excessively short. Even now, with an average expectancy of seventy-five years of age. Up to the twenty, the “yearling” happily goes at a gallop through the world, neighing and kicking in joy – if it is lucky in the “choice” of parents. Then, it falls in the rough fight for survival. It fights to support the family, rarely working in something it really likes to do. Reaching the retirement age, it would be able to make what it really likes to do, but then, it realizes that its strengths are reaching the end, waving goodbye. And it dies frustrated.Cryonics will be essential for the Space conquest. For mankind to reach other solar systems, even in our galaxy, spacecrafts must carry extremely longevous people, in view of the huge distances. And no astronaut expects to live, at this moment, three hundred or four hundred years.Ars longa, vita brevis, has always been the artists’ complaint. And don’t argue that our children and grandchildren will complete the works started by us. No! They are born with other concerns. And they are entitled to them. The parent is, say, a bright scientist, with a long work project in front of him/her. The child, however, prefers to ride a motorcycle, write poems, construct buildings, design cars or write law books. Each generation coming into the world is a new barbarian invasion, someone said. The scientist’s work will be, maybe, finished by a stranger. And a long time later, because he/she maybe won’t be so “devoted”. Even a doctor, dedicated only to his/her profession, will hardly be able to embrace all the medical knowledge of our time. And this limitation, for some, “hurts”. If, for one hand, there are people who rebuke that excessive intellectual curiosity, others defend it, saying that such curious people are the salt of the earth. Others would like to be fluent in several languages. For such curious people, our current life range isn’t satisfactory. There are those who enjoy living and are willing to fight for a very larger life range.So far, “eternity” was restricted to the soul, or memory. It had to do with leaving a good reputation on the earth. Writing a book, painting a famous picture, composing an unsurpassed music, being nominated for the Oscar. At least the name of one street or on a bench in the square of some little town in the inland. Or even, paradoxically, if there is no other alternative, committing a famous crime, murdering a statesman or a rock singer.Mankind doesn't accept the idea of nothingness. People turn restlessly in their tombs, half discarnate, grinding their teeth, fake or real, just to think that no one will remember them as important persons.This is mankind. And for that reason, I have no doubt that, even here in Brazil, entities will arise – honest or dishonest, as in every other activity – that will exploit this never fulfilled longing for a much longer and certainly more promising life in unknown times. If they wake up somewhat weak-minded – in case they wake up – what can we do? And the insurance companies will be interested in that void that hasn’t been filled for the time being. The doctors themselves, currently cautious as to the subject – because they fear to get discredited – will take a better look into the technical possibilities. They will certainly conclude that the task of saving mankind from the diseases and from pain does not necessarily imply restricting their mission to the use of the technical resources currently available.I close this writing with a request. If, occasionally, some doctor or scientist reads this article and is interested in the subject, I would be very interested in knowing his/her arguments. Mainly if they are opposed to the actual possibility, even in the future, of a successful unfreezing. After all, I’ve only read articles published by the enthusiasts of the idea.
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