LIFEPACT:   AN INTRODUCTION

By Linda Chamberlain

Copyright © 1989 by Linda Chamberlain.  All rights reserved.

A frequent question from those new to cryonics is:  Why should people of the future want to reanimate those of us frozen back in the twentieth century?

It's a good question.  Often asked with chilled skepticism, it reflects an anxiety that no answer exists, fear that no serious thought has been given to finding a solution, and reluctance to brave the psychological challenges or the financial burden of cryonic suspension unless a persuasive answer is offered.  The asker becomes, if anything, even more apprehensive if the response is a string of luke warm, unsatisfying platitudes.

THE POSITIONS FOR "TROUBLE FREE" REANIMATION AND REHABILITATION.

There's the argument that future society will have developed a spirit of universal benevolence in order for the species to have survived... but the history of humankind's last two thousand years does not leave all questioners atingle with enthusiasm for such an answer.  We are just as likely to awaken in a world storm tossed with political and military challenges and technological threats, as in a benign world of peace and calm in which the problems of rehabilitating twentieth century cryonicists are the only dilemmas.

Then, there's the offering that the wonders of nanotechnology will have made reanimation extraordinarily easy and insignificant of cost... but immediately after World War II many scientists expected nuclear energy to become so inexpensive it would render our world unimaginably rich. They enthusiastically painted a world free of all strife and trouble... but still we wait.

Even if it becomes simple and cheap to repair those who are frozen, it remains simpler still to let them be, to let them stay frozen.  Even if reanimation becomes trivial, rehabilitation could be time consuming, a costly pursuit for other humans.  Did you say we will have "artificial people", androids, to take care of that? But if the androids possess the intelligence to help us in the way we need, they may be able to seek other outlets more rewarding or perhaps engage in wars to liberate themselves.  If they are so docile and unimaginative that such would not occur to them, they may not be ideally suited to help us back onto our feet.

Another hope is that those of the future will be fascinated with our first hand tales of a pre-life-extension era.  No doubt they will go to any length to revive us, sit us down around a campfire (simulated by a miniaturized fusion reactor?), and, spellbound, listen breathlessly while we spin our tales of horror about living in a deathist society!  More exciting than a Steven King novel! But, wait, the world in which we awake will have probes going deep into Jupiter's atmosphere, to every corner of its many "moons", to other stars.  Uploading technologies will be evolving, and an exodus into non-biological forms will be on the horizon if not already taking place.  There will be these and so many other things of incredible interest to pursue that listening to the tales of those who had to fight smog and freeway traffic will be unbearably lackluster.

EARLY ATTEMPTS AT PREPLANNING FOR REANIMATION AND REHABILITATION.

Some cryonicists, as a backup, have provided rewards, as part of their trusts, for persons who bring them back.  The legal rules against perpetuities, of course, make this difficult for even the most clever planner.  But even if such problems did not exist, imagine the difficulties of providing an incentive to those living in a century we can barely imagine, where such advances as nanotechnology may create a culture where the coin of the realm renders our offerings insignificant to those future citizens.  It is appropriate that we offer ­something to someone, but what should it be?  Where will our friends of the future place value? Providing today for what will be valuable tomorrow is no easy task.

THE COMPELLING CASE FOR SOLVING THIS PROBLEM NOW.

Is there, then, no stronger, more persuasive answer to this question? Is there no truly seductive incentive for our friends of the future to WANT to see us reanimated, rehabilitated and re-educated?  The answer is: yes.  But the answer requires more than a philosophical argument.

There is, in all of the above positions, an implied attitude of "Let's take care of getting ourselves frozen and the future will take care of itself."  The fable of the astronomer who fell into a hole and broke his neck while gazing at the sky is the basis for the moral "Take care of the little things, and the big things will take care of themselves." But if we all looked at our feet and no one pondered the sky there would be no astronomers, and if we do not concern ourselves with how we are to be reanimated, how we are to be rehabilitated, there is a good chance we will be disappointed in the outcome.

This is not to belittle the efforts of the current cryonics organizations.  The goal and the task of creating the technologies needed to get us suspended, to get us aboard the vehicle headed for the future, is no small or easy mission.  But they cannot be expected to do everything for us.  An though many of us have always assumed our cryonics societies would sooner or later take on this mammoth task, why should we put one more burden on their already weary shoulders?  And what if a cryonics society should crumble under the tremendous burden. It has happened before.  The future may see many new organizations formed around the world, perhaps they will not all survive.  And what of their suspended members?

And why rely solely on the goodwill or the curiosity or the abundance of those in our future?  Why leave our fate in their hands when we can focus our own energies and our own resources, now, to develop our own reentry system.  If we sit like couch- potatoes, depending blithely on the attitudes, social mores and legal structures of the future, we may become cryo-potatoes, waiting a lot longer than we would want, perhaps arriving at a port of entry less inspiring than if we had taken pains to design it in advance.

We need to develop, now, a system designed to assure we will be reanimated as soon as possible, in friendly, supportive, comfortable surroundings.  We need to involve ourselves in organizing a covenant for a successful and satisfying rehabilitation, reeducation, and reentry into the culture and the technologies of our future.  We need to build a network which works from both ends of the reanimation tunnel, linking together even those who take a short, easy trip via suspended animation many decades hence as well as those of us who struggle with the first, faltering steps of it now.

This is a complex matter, and there will necessarily be many different facets, but if each aspect is treated as a piece of an enormous, elegant puzzle, an overall pattern will become increasingly visible, financially within our grasp, and psychologically fortifying.

L I F E P A C T:  A COVENANT FOR REANIMATION.

Cryonics organizations are growing rapidly.  With time this expansion will become explosive.  Presently, a sense of community links members within each cryonics group as they attend monthly meetings, annual get-togethers, and the like.  But unless great care is taken to keep this sense of community alive, growth could result in depersonalizing valuable inter-relationships.

A lifepact between individuals--a promise to assist in getting each other frozen, to work toward an early and comfortable reanimation and reentry into society--is something which exists already--if unspoken in some cases--between spouses, close friends, and long time cryonics associates.  Part of Lifepact's charter will be to help mature, formalize, and give legal power to these interpersonal assurances.

But what of the person without family, close friendships, or long term working relationships from which to form personal lifepacts?  What of the person who joins a cryonics society after learning of a terminal illness, who does not have time to create such relationships?  What about average viewers of talk-shows who lack the courage to embrace the concept of cryonic suspension because they lack confidence in the assurances that future generations will welcome them warmly, because they fear being strangers in a strange land, because they cannot imagine why anyone in the future would want to bring them--complete strangers--back to life?"

Lifepact, a proposed organization, solves this problem.  Lifepact members will not depend on the mercy or the curiosity or the affluence of those in the future... Lifepact members will be welcomed back by other Lifepact members.

Members make a lifepact, a contingent contract, with the Lifepact organization: in return for the care, attention, and assistance they receive, they guarantee to repay Lifepact for the cost of their reanimation and rehabilitation, and/or to work in assisting other Lifepact members not yet reanimated.  The crux of the lifepact is simple:  members (who themselves have been reanimated and rehabilitated) have an obligation to reach out, to assist other Lifepact members still in suspension.

Some cryonicists may choose to formulate personal lifepacts in addition to contracting with the Lifepact organization.  There will be many scenarios and numerous variations developed over the years ahead, but no person being frozen today need be alone and forgotten.  The Lifepact organization will provide the means by which those in the future will have the incentive--a debt to be repaid--to reach back through time and offer helping hands to others still suspended.

One can argue about the speculative nature of an endeavor to be sustained in the future by the commitments of those who are yet to be reanimated, but most will agree that such a system offers a greater chance of workability than some vague hope that "those of the future will take pity on and reanimate us".

This, then, is the essence of Lifepact.  It unites those of us who wish to develop an organization, now, comprised of members of all cryonics organizations, working cooperatively to take care of our future needs for reanimation, rehabilitation, and reentry into society.

WHAT, SPECIFICALLY, WILL LIFEPACT DO?

The above mentions an enormous picture puzzle with an overall pattern. There isn't room in an introductory article like this for exhaustive detail, but the following is a summary of what will be covered in greater detail in a booklet, now in preparation.

1.  ­Membership Contract Development­.  "Full" members will have executed a contract with Lifepact as briefly outlined above.  In a way, until such a contract is ready to be signed, there can be no full members. None-the-less, in the interests of stepping around a "chicken and egg" dilemma, we will proceed to form the organization and then create the contracts.

No single contract will be acceptable to all members, and many variations will need to be made available.  Members who require more guarantees and greater assurances will understand that those demanding less may find themselves reanimated sooner, but Lifepact members will be offered flexibility in these contracts to ensure individual satisfaction as to such things as reanimation criteria, assurances for limitations on memory and identity loss, safeguards against feelings of undue servitude or unjust treatment, and options for repayment to be chosen upon reanimation, to suggest only a few.

2.  ­Data Gathering­.  Rehabilitation will be easy for some and hard for others.  Only part of the problem will be related to native adaptability.  The reanimation process may leave us with extensive losses of memory and a great deal to be regained in the way of physical and mental capacities.  This is the reason the rehabilitation process must receive so much attention.  It will be advisable for Lifepact members to set down in writing as complete a personal history as possible.

In addition to helping fill gaps in memory, this will aid Lifepact in matching those being reanimated with those further into the adaptation process, so those helping with rehabilitation in payment of their own recoveries may be paired with those most like themselves.  Extensive questionnaires will be needed, and tests such as the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) will be helpful where these can be administered.

3.  ­Support Groups­.  Those whose partners, children, or parents have been suspended will find meaningful associations with others in the same situation.  They are in vastly different positions from those whose loved ones have died and must take the attitude, "Get over it!  Life goes on!"  These Lifepact members will find a commonality of interest in how those to whom they are close will adjust, awakening to wonders we ourselves can hardly conceive. The dying will find satisfaction in knowing there is a group within which those still living can work toward a time when they will be back together again.

4.  ­Revocable Donations Of Personal Property To A Museum-Library.­ The question of "taking it with you" comes up again and again in the context of cryonics.  There are many personal items which would facilitate adjusting to a strange new land, and financial resources, if they can be conveyed into the future along with us, will always be useful.  From the above title of this section, it is apparent that this has nothing at all to do with trusts.  Fred Chamberlain spoke on this at a Lake Tahoe Life Extension Festival years ago, but a complete treatment, with forms to make it workable, was never published.  The booklet mentioned above will give all the details.

In the simplest terms, one donates items of an appropriate kind for use in a Lifepact Museum or Lifepact Library.  Lifepact promises to retain possession of such items in perpetuity, and the donation is designated "revocable at any time while I am alive." Some items can be marked "not to be opened before some given date" on the basis of the personal information or the nature of the ideas contained, so in this way one might be able to convey highly personal items into the future and recover possession of them with no exposure at all.

5.  ­Favorable Publicity For Cryonics­.  When America was first being colonized, only the bravest took to the new frontier. Most stayed home, fearful of stepping from the ship unable to speak the language, uneducated in the way of life, without trade or means of making their way in the new world.  Even hardships and squalor, due to their familiarity, were preferable to the waiting, lurking unknowns.

This same psychological barrier holds people back from seeking the frontier of the future.  Like vacationers preferring to travel as part of an organized tour, with a guide who speaks the language and knows the local customs, more people will find venturing into the future a comfortable and exciting plunge if the welcome is warm and congenial. If reeducation and reentry is among friends, in a supportive environment, more people will embrace the idea of making such a trip.

Lifepact is a "People helping people" organization, a "helping hands across time" philosophy.  All cryonics talk-show participants can stress these positive and supportive aspects of their memberships in Lifepact in addition to discussing their particular cryonics organizations.  The image of such an organization will act to dispel the distrust that audiences so often harbor and capture the imaginations of more viewers.

HOW WILL LIFEPACT INTERACT WITH EXISTING CRYONICS ORGANIZATIONS?

 Lifepact, like cryonic suspension organizations, will need great stability to endure over decades, over centuries.  It can profit from the energies and ideas of members from all cryonics societies. Widespread support by cryonicists can also bring immediate benefits to their suspension organizations.

    (a)  Lifepact will attract new members to cryonics societies by appealing to those who otherwise would see cryonic suspension as risky, a "one way ticket with no hotel or dinner reservations on arrival". Lifepact gives warmth to what, without it, might appear a cold and uninviting journey, with no "welcome mat" at the destination.

    (b)  Lifepact allows cryonics organizations to give their members confidence that concrete approaches are being developed for reanimation and rehabilitation, without the cost of diverting energies from current efforts to perfect freezing and storage technologies.   Lifepact will be an independent organization so that it may serve members of all existing cryonic suspension organizations.

    (c) The Lifepact concept will support cryonicists in their efforts to sell the concept of being suspended to journey into the future by reassuring the listener--whether it be a one-on-one conversation between friends, or a talk-show viewed by millions--they need not face the future alone or helpless.

There need be no conflict between the efforts of the suspension organization and those of Lifepact, which will not engage in suspension activities but be concerned solely with establishing and managing lifepacts for repayment of the unknowable costs of reanimation and rehabilitation.  The payment, as stated above, is promised to be made by the member after being reanimated and rehabilitated.  Many possible scenarios will exist in the future.  The three listed here are just for illustration.

    (a)  If a cryonics organization of the future can take care of members' reanimations and rehabilitations without need of additional funding, then Lifepact's contracts with members of that organization will solely have been "backups"

    (b)  If a cryonics organization, at some future time, has the technological capability for reanimation/rehabilitation but lacks the funds, Lifepact may be able to serve as the bridge through which funds are provided and later repaid.

    (c)  If a cryonics organization has been able to maintain its members in storage but does not possess the capabilities for reanimation, Lifepact may be able to finance this, perhaps contracting the work to cryonics organizations which are better equipped.

Lifepact and cryonics societies will be partners in reanimating and rehabilitating suspendees who are also members of Lifepact. It will not be a competitor in any sense.  It will be a partner, ally, co-supporter of cryonics organizations and of individuals.