How Not to Get Ahead in Cryonics: Using Google Ngram Technology to Expose Flawed Decision Making in Cryonics

By Mike Darwin The High Price of Mortality

The slate of human experience is wiped clean approximately every two generations (~ 50 years). This so far inescapable fact has had disastrous consequences for both cultures and civilizations. While it is possible to mitigate some of this loss by the expedient of the written word, and more recently through the use of other information storage and retrieval technologies, the fact remains that the bulk of the experiential information accumulated each generation is lost with the death of that generation.

Experience is difficult to encode in the written word, or in other symbolic systems, such as mathematics, in large measure because these mechanisms do not allow for recording the full bandwidth of the available and necessary information. The juxtaposition of emotion, facts and narrative; and their integration within the minds of the individuals who have acquired them, cannot yet be captured on any recording medium. Arguably, the most important commodity that is being lost with the extinction of each generation is wisdom, which may be described as “making the best use of available knowledge.” The loss of wisdom, as well as the loss of the vast body of knowledge accumulated in the billions of individual human minds, and which is not written down or recorded, is one of the most powerful arguments in favor of practical immortality, and an end to human dying.

Institutional Memory

Aside from the written and the recorded (spoken) words of those who precede us, perhaps the most valuable defense against the loss of wisdom with the passing of  generations is institutional memory. Institutional memory is an amalgamation of facts, ideas, experiences, values, know-how,  and ideology distributed amongst a discrete group of people. Because individuals die, institutional memory requires the continuing transmission of this amalgam of knowledge, values and experiences amongst members of the group that embraces it. Another way of describing institutional memory is that it is the equivalent of oral culture, the dominant way humans passed information from generation to generation in preliterate times, using tools such as folktales, aphorisms, ballads, and songs. The continuity of character, behavior and values that cultures, societies, nations, corporations and religions frequently exhibit over long periods of time, is made possible, in large measure, by the mechanism of institutional memory.

Cryonics, the cryopreservation of terminally ill people for the purpose of medical time travel, is still a nascent undertaking 44 years after the first man was cryopreserved in 1967.[1]  In the two generations that have passed since the first patient was cryopreserved, a substantial reservoir of experience has been accumulated. During the first 20 years of cryonics, the learning curve was quite steep, and a broad range of dangerous errors and paths to failure were identified.

The Rules of Engagement

Figure 1: Cryonics Society of New York President Curtis Henderson

Many of the lessons learned during this initialization period concerned the conditions under which patients should be accepted by cryonics organizations for initial treatment (cryoprotection and solidification) and long term care (indefinite storage in liquid nitrogen).  The first of these lessons was learned by Curtis Henderson, President of the Cryonics Society of New York (CSNY), and is known as the “no third-party funding rule,” which prohibits the practice of accepting patients funded by a third party, such as a spouse, child, or sibling of the patient who was to be relied upon to make yearly, or other periodic payments, in lieu of providing the funds required for establishing a trust account, or other financial vehicle to provide for the indefinite cryogenic care of the patient in a lump sum.[2] This practice almost invariably resulted in the failure of the interested third party to continue making payments for long-term care, usually in a relatively short period of time. As a consequence, the cryonics organization responsible for the patient found itself in the position of either having to continue the patient’s indefinite care at their own expense, or to conventionally dispose of the patient’s “remains,” with the attendant moral, emotional, and sometimes legal complications.[3]

On the heels of the “no third-party funding rule” other, related lessons were learned, such as ensuring informed consent was  present, never accepting at-need cases without guaranteed funding,[1]and not accepting at-need cases where the authority of the interested party to make the decision for cryopreservation on behalf of the patient was in doubt, or likely to be contested. An additional, and critically important lesson learned during these difficult early years of cryonics, was that the security of those patients already cryopreserved, as well as that of the cryonics organization’s existing members, trumps the interest of the patient at-need and his next-of-kin, or other interested parties.  In those instances where there is a clear risk to existing members or patients from accepting an at-need case, that case must be declined.

Loss of Institutional Memory

These “rules” or “codes of conduct,” were incorporated into the institutional memory of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation (Alcor) by the participation of people who were mentored by Curtis Henderson, and by CSNY Secretary Saul Kent, as well as by the direct and indirect participation of these men in the culture of the organization, and as respected advisors.  With the cryopreservation of Jerry Leaf in 1991, and the subsequent schism of Alcor in 1992,[4] much of Alcor’s institutional memory was lost. Alcor’s management at that point consisted almost exclusively of people who had had no firsthand experience of the costly and traumatic failures that resulted from accepting at-need cases, absent proper vetting and careful assurance of adequate funding and informed consent.

In mid-January of 1993 Alcor accepted a severely depressed man as a member, who had presented to the organization asking for assistance in committing suicide via dehydration, so that he could be cryopreserved. This gentleman was not terminally ill, but rather sought to use cryopreservation as a “desperation method” of reaching effective treatment for his longstanding psychiatric problems.

On 01 February, less than a month after he became a member, he was cryopreserved by Alcor after discharging a .38 caliber handgun into his head.[5] Since he had purchased the bulk of the life insurance funding for his cryopreservation shortly before he ended his life, he was underfunded, and Alcor received only a fraction of the required minimum funding. On 11 April, 1993 Alcor cryopreserved a member who had signed up with end-stage AIDS. Alcor failed to properly validate this member’s life insurance funding, and in this case there was no financial compensation to the organization This despite the patient having been placed into cryopreservation after a costly and technically demanding standby, with continuous ECMO transport during the drive from the Bay Area, where the patient arrested, to Alcor’s cryoprotective perfusion and storage facilities in Southern California.[6]

In the intervening decade Alcor experienced marked internal conflict, with 4 Presidents, acting Presidents, or interim management teams succeeding each other, often under acrimonious circumstances. There was also increasingly heavy turn-over of staff with each round of management changes. In 1993 Jerry Lemler, M.D., a psychiatrist who had recently joined Alcor as a member, was selected as President and Chief Executive Officer by the Alcor Board of Directors. Dr. Lemler had not had prior extensive contact with cryonics. Within a short while of assuming the Presidency of Alcor, Lemler had hired onto the Alcor staff his wife, his daughter, and his son-in law.

Figure 2: Dr. Jerry Lemler, M.D., President and CEO of Alcor during the Ted Williams cryopreservation.

Several additional staff members with no prior experience in cryonics, and who were also recent Alcor members, were also brought on board during this period.

The Lure of the Magic Bullet

Within two years of the publication of The Prospect of Immortality[7] it was already apparent to the activists running the newly formed cryonics organizations that the idea of cryonics was not going to follow the trajectory of rapid acceptance anticipated for it in Ettinger’s book. Since widespread public acceptance was not forthcoming, the response to this state of affairs, by a broad cross-section of the few people genuinely interested in the idea at that time, was to look for a single, powerful event; a “magic bullet” of sorts, that would slay public distaste for, and resistance to the idea of cryonics, and usher in the era of acceptance.

The first iteration of the “magic bullet solution” was that when the first man was cryopreserved, that would “break the ice,” so to speak, by bringing the idea to the attention of the public, and making it seem something that someone had done, and that was, therefore, doable. When Dr. Bedford was cryopreserved in 1967, and the much anticipated on-rush of cryonics members and patients failed to materialize, the next iteration of the magic bullet solution was to posit that cryopreserving a celebrity – preferably a beloved and iconic one – would be the key to opening the flood gates of public acceptance for cryonics.

Figure 3: The shiny brass ring of credibility and celebrity?

Late in 2000, John Henry Williams, the son of baseball icon Ted Williams, approached Alcor about making cryopreservation arrangements for his father. At that time, Ted Williams had been through multiple and very serious health crises, and was suffering from congestive heart failure and end stage renal disease, the latter of which was being managed by thrice weekly in-home hemodialysis treatments. The prognosis for an 81 year old man with these medical conditions is bleak, and survival is typically in the range of months, to a year or two at most. Nevertheless, John Henry failed to complete the required Alcor paperwork, and to provide the necessary funding for his father’s cryopreservation.

During the period of time that elapsed from his initial contact with Alcor, John Henry remained in touch with the organization, and made at least two trips to Alcor’s facilities. John Henry was also thoroughly acquainted with Alcor’s required policies and procedures for securing cryopreservation arrangements for his father.[2] Despite many admonitions to do so, John Henry failed to make arrangements for his father, and on 05 July, 2002 Ted Williams experienced cardiovascular collapse, and shortly thereafter went into cardiac arrest.[8] Ted Williams was a patient on the operating table in Alcor’s facilities in Scottsdale, when it was determined by the author that there was no Alcor paperwork, and no transfer of funds to Alcor to provide for either the immediate, or the long term care of the patient.

In the run-up to Ted Williams’ cryopreservation, it was apparent that the management of Alcor, including its Board of Directors, considered the public relations “bonanza” that would result from the cryopreservation of a celebrity of his magnitude, with the added advantage of Williams being a “beloved icon,” and a genuine American war hero, as paramount. In a world of marginalized people pursuing and an even more marginalized idea, cryopreserving Ted Williams was seen as the equivalent of grabbing the brass ring of public credibility and celebrity for cryonics.

Figure 4: John Henry (L) and Ted Williams (R).

In fact, the chartered jet air ambulance flight which transported Williams from Northwest Florida, to Scottsdale, Arizona had been charged to the American Express card of Alcor President Jerry Lemler. In the days that followed, it became clear that John Henry was refusing to pay for his father’s cryopreservation, as well as the ~ $10K air ambulance charge. In addition, Bobby Jo Ferrell, Williams’ daughter by a marriage previous to the one that had produced John Henry, and his sister Claudia,  was unhappy, and seemed intent upon contesting her father’s  cryopreservation with the objective being to have him cremated.

Over the following months, Ted Williams’ cryopreservation became an international news story,[9] and the unfolding and acrimonious legal battles that accompanied it[10-14] became the subject of countless articles and editorial cartoons. Serious issues of consent, let alone informed consent, were raised in the media. A consequence of this, and of the very public legal maneuvering that ensued, was that what can only be described as a firestorm of unfavorable publicity engulfed both the Williams family, and Alcor. On 18, August 2003 Sports Illustrated magazine published a sensational story titled “Questions and Allegations About the Alcor Life Extension Foundation Extend Beyond the Williams case,” containing gruesome allegations about the conduct of Ted Williams’ cryopreservation, as well as the subsequent cryogenic care he received at Alcor.[15] The source of these allegations, a disgruntled former Alcor employee named Larry Johnson, subsequently published an equally sensational and gruesome book, Frozen, alleging all manner of misconduct on Alcor’s part, not just in its handling of  Ted Williams, but also with respect to a number of other of its patients.[16]

Culturomics and Google Ngrams

Three months ago, Michel, et al., published the paper founding the new discipline of culturomics in Science, entitled, “Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books.”[1] The authors selected 5,195,769 digitized books (~4% of all books ever published) from Google’s cache of 15 million, based upon the quality of the scans, and their ability to obtain the necessary relevant metadata, such as the year and place of publication. This is a staggering amount of data, and even using large numbers of humans to perform searches, the sheer quantity makes it impossible. As the authors point out, if a single individual “were to try to read only English-language entries (in the corpus of the books they used) from the year 2000 alone, at the reasonable pace of 200 words/min, without interruptions for food or sleep, it would take 80 years.”

They then subjected this data to a wide range of analyses and were able to demonstrate the effect of disparate social, political and cultural events on the frequency of both regional and international word usage in books within the Google corpus. Their data also showed, among many other things, dramatic changes over time in the speed with which the culture adopts and discards celebrity, as well as a many fold increase in the speed with new technologies are being accepted into the culture. Google (the company) actively encourages its users to experiment with Ngram technology using words/ideas that are of interest to them. This is exactly what the author did, initially with the word “cryonics” as the sole search term in the Google English language corpus. [Note: the data presented here are based only on Ngrams of the Google English language corpus.] The results are shown in Figure 5, below.

The High Price of Institutional Amnesia

Figure 5: Ngram of the word “cryonics” from 1964 to 2005.The areas of the plot with red lines adjacent to them are the immediately evident major discontinuities that initially provoked the author’s curiosity.

In the course of trying to understand the Google Ngram plot for cryonics, I was struck by two features that seemed in want of explanation; a drop, followed by plateau in its usage in the period from ~ 1980 to ~ 1990, and a sharp decline in the frequency of its usage starting at around 2003 and continuing through to 2005, and perhaps beyond. These are two obvious discontinuities that commanded attention, and demanded explanation, even with a cursory inspection of the data. My subsequent course of action was to generate a subjective/objective time line of what I considered to be important historical events in cryonics (see Table 1, above). The importance of some of these events would be difficult to contest, such as the publication of Ettinger’s The Prospect of Immortality in 1964, Dr. James H. Bedford’s cryopreservation in 1967, the Chatsworth debacle in 1979 wherein the loss of the 9 Cryonics Society of California (CSC) patients at Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California became a highly visible public scandal in 1979, the Dora Kent incident in 1987, and the cryopreservation of Ted Williams in 2002. These events, for good or ill, attracted enormous media attention, and also resulted in books that either mentioned these issues, or used them as background themes, or plot mechanisms in stories and novels.

Figure 6: Scaling Ngram measured cultural penetration.  The plot of communism vs. capitalism vs. Christianity  (A) shows the relative degree of cultural importance of these three idea-systems in the culture, from the period of 1964 to ~2005. By comparison to major ideologies and religions, celebrity resulting from film acting (Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Day and Paul Newman) or writing/performing popular music (Michael Jackson) barely register in the cultural realm of books (B).

In looking at the Ngram in Figure 5, it is important to understand that the absolute numbers are relatively small, being between 0.00000000 and 0.000004000% of the ~ 4 billion or so digitized words in the currently accessible Google English language corpus. For comparison, I’ve prepared two other plots, one of communism and Christianity (use of the “proper” case is essential to obtaining meaningful data, in this case capitalizing “Christianity”). The other is of four celebrities, all of whom had career arcs over roughly the same historical period; Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Day, Paul Newman, and Michael Jackson.  These Ngrams provide some scale, and show the relative “power” in terms of frequency of word usage, that each subject has had in the culture. Obviously, when dealing with individual names, a number of complicating or confounding factors can cause problems.

There are a number of people named Adam Smith, who have made their way into books, either as real historical individuals, or as fictional characters, only one of whom is the influential 18^th century political economist and social philosopher. There are undoubtedly also other “Paul Newmans” and “Doris Days” who appear in books, and to the extent they do so, they may be considered confounders of precision.  However, in most instances, the subject being evaluated is sufficiently unique, and the magnitude of the signal generated in the data is sufficiently large, that it is possible to have a good degree of confidence in the relative value of their data signatures in the Ngrams generated using their names, in the context of the time period.

Figure 7: The frequency of the occurrence of the word cryonics in all books published from the period 1965 through 2005, as determined by a Google Ngram search. (A) Publication of The Prospect of Immortality in 1964, (B) Cryonics Reports Begins publication and the various Cryonics Societies are formed, (C) Cryopreservation of the first man, James H. Bedford, (D) Publication of We Froze The First Man, and a spate of media-visible cryopreservations, (E) First Annual National Cryonics Conference held in 1968 attracts widespread media attention, (F) In 1973, Trans Time, Inc., (TT) and its partner non-profit, the Bay Area Cryonics Society (BACS) become active in the San Francisco Bay Area and attract national media attention, while Alcor and its for profit Manrise Corporation, become active in Southern California, developing much of the perfusion platform used by TT, (G) Trans Time peaks in media & marketing activity, having launched the bulk of its marketing efforts by this time, (H) The Chatsworth Scandal becomes public, resulting in strongly negative international media coverage, (I) Alcor becomes reactivated, begins publication of Cryonics magazine and there is the public debut of “scientific-medical” cryonics, with images released to the media showing cryonics as a medical procedure; photos of cryonics patients are no longer used for promotional purposes, (J) The Cryonics Institute begins to be more media-visible with articles and images appearing in the national media. Emphasis on CI’s lower price begins to become a source of comparison with Alcor, (K) the Dora Kent incident occurs with a resulting firestorm of international media coverage, followed by the Thomas Donaldson lawsuit against the Attorney General of the State of California, (L), Alcor shifts the paradigm of communicating cryonics to the public by redefining death and providing extensive, and technically detailed information packages to media, and to those members of the public who inquire; Cryonics Reaching for Tomorrow is published, and used as the core promotional tool by Alcor, (M) Jerry Leafs experiences sudden cardiac arrest from a heart attack in 1991, and is cryopreserved, (N) Schism of Alcor, and subsequent creation of CryoCare and CryoSpan as competing cryonics organizations in 1992, (O) Demise of CryoCare and CryoSpan in 1999-2000 (effective end of scientific cryonics), (P) Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams is cryopreserved by Alcor in 2002, (Q) Ben Best becomes President of the Cryonics Institute, (R) A story in Sports Illustrated alleges Williams was mistreated at Alcor, the story become international in scope, and the ongoing litigation amongst the family over issue of Williams’ cryopreservation is further highlighted .

When I applied the list of significant historical events I had generated for cryonics to an Ngram plot for the word cryonics, I obtained the results shown in Figure 7, above. The two large negative discontinuities in the use of the word cryonics coincided with two widely and negatively publicized events: the Chatsworth debacle, and the cryopreservation of Ted Williams; H and P in Figure 7. The baseball career of Ted Williams ended on 28 September, 1960, and yet his Ngram plot shows steadily increasing fame over the ensuing 4 decades, with a plateau period from ~ 1991 to ~ 1993. In order to understand this, I obtained and read two of Williams’ biographies, and this lead me to do a search of multiple media databases, in order to track his public (media) visibility.

I quickly discovered that the “primary” sources for most of the media attention surrounding Williams were articles originating in The Boston Globe, and the New York Times. The New York Times proved the most comprehensive and the most duplicated database (for instance, Los Angeles Times articles about Williams during this period are usually the same ones that appeared in the New York Times, although sometimes with different headlines). I created a compilation of all the feature articles that appeared about Ted Williams in the New York Times for the period 1981 through 2010 (excluded from this listing were many statistical articles which appeared in the Times) from the New York Times online archives (key words: “Ted Williams,”) and the data set for this is present as Appendix A, at the end of this article. I also prepared a compendium of all English language published books by, or primarily about Williams, based on a search of the Library of Congress index. Finally, I similarly prepared a plot of articles that featured the Alcor Life Extension Foundation as their primary subject, using both the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times archives as the database (keywords: Alcor Life Extension Foundation) for the same time period, and the data set for this is present at the end of this article as Appendix B.

Figure 8: Correlation of major media articles (●) and books by about Ted Williams (A-H). The books relating to Williams were: A Williams, Ted, and John Underwood. Ted Williams’ Fishing the Big Three: Tarpon, Bonefish, Atlantic Salmon. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982. ISBN 0-671-24400-0. B Baldasarro, Lawrence (ed.). The Ted Williams Reader. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. ISBN 0-671-73536-5. C Linn, Ed. Hitter: The Life And Turmoils of Ted Williams. Harcourt Brace and Company, 1993 then as a Harvest paperback 1994. ISBN 0-15-600091-1. D Williams, Ted, and Jim Prime. Ted Williams’ Hit List: The Best of the Best Ranks the Best of the Rest. Indianapolis: Masters Press, 1996. ISBN 1-57028-078-9. E Williams, Ted, and David Pietrusza. Ted Williams: My Life in Pictures (also published as Teddy Ballgame). Kingston, N.Y.: Total/Sports Illustrated, 2002. ISBN 1-930844-07-7. F Cramer, Richard Ben. “What Do You Think Of Ted Williams Now? – A Remembrance“. Simon & Schuster, 2002. ISBN 0-7432-4648-9. G Halberstam, David. The Teammates. New York: Hyperion, 2003. ISBN 1-4013-0057-X. H Montville, Leigh. Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero. New York: Doubleday, 2004. ISBN 0-385-50748-8. I Updike, John. Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu: John Updike on Ted Williams. New York: Library of America, 2010. ISBN 978-1-59853-071-1. Articles about the Alcor Life Extension Foundation  that appeared in the LA Times(● = LAT), and the NY Times (● = NYT) are plotted on the Alcor Ngram data set. Where there was a tight cluster of articles there is a number adjacent to the points, in matching color). Key events are A = Dora Kent, B = Thomas Donaldson Lawsuit, C = schism of Alcor, D = Cryopreservation of Ted Williams and E = Sports Illustrated article is published.[15]

All three of these datasets were applied to the Ngram plots of Ted Williams, and of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, as shown in Figure 8, above. From 1990, until his cryopreservation in 2002, Williams was the subject of many media articles and a significant number of books, both of which reflect his growing celebrity for his phenomenal performance as a baseball player, and to a lesser extent, his colorful personal life and his charitable activities. These facts go a long way towards the impressive and fairly consistent increase in his fame over the course of his life after the end of his career as a player. I do not have sufficient knowledge of either Williams, or of the sport of baseball, to be able to attach any significance (if indeed, there is any) to the discontinuity in his curve of rising fame, which appears during the interval of ~ 1990 to ~1993-4. Ted Williams’ fame peaks at around the time of his cryopreservation in 2002, and declines steadily thereafter.

The Ngram plot for Alcor maps that of Williams to a surprising, and to me wholly unexpected degree. It may even be argued that the rise in fame, or cultural penetration for both subjects (Alcor and Williams), reflects not only media exposure, but an increased appreciation by the culture with the passage of time, for the worth or value of the accomplishments of both subjects. However, it is wise to remember that it is quite possible to acknowledge accomplishment without embracing it; and such acknowledgment may be negative, as well as positive. To understand this, it is only necessary to do Ngram plots for “Adolf Hiltler,” and “John Edgar Hoover” (J. Edgar Hoover). The data in Figure 8 would seem to show that the Dora Kent incident in 1987, the schism of Alcor in 1992, and the cryopreservation of Ted Williams in 2002, all had a significant negative impact on the cryonics Ngram data signal. The Dora Kent incident is represented on the polot by the cluster of articles 5 articles about Alcor that appeared in the LA Times in 1988 (Dora Kent A and the resulting press 5●●●●) and the cryopreservation of Ted Williams, and its aftermath, in 2002-5 (D-E).

Figure 9: Ngram plot of “Ted Williams” and “cryonics” (B).”The strong correlation of the downturn in the frequency of the word cryonics appearing in books associated with an increase in the frequency of the appearance of Ted Williams’ name is apparent in the Ngram above. The plot for cryonics is also displayed separately (A) to better show the magnitude of the effect, since it is not possible to manipulate multiple sets of Google Ngram data within the Google Ngram program. There is a similarly strong correlation between the cryopreservation of Ted Williams and the downturn in the appearance of the word cryonics in books published subsequent to the negative publicity that resulted from the Williams case, as can be seen in Figure 9, above.

Finally, I prepared an Ngram plot of the words “Cryonics Institute” (CI) over the same time period. I was unprepared for what I saw, principally that while the Ted Williams cryopreservation had a strong negative impact on cryonics as a whole, and especially on Alcor, it had only a moderate, transient negative impact on CI. What’s more, at no time did it suppress CI’s steady gain relative to Alcor, or its absolute growth over time. It could even be argued that Alcor’s decision to cryopreserve Ted Williams under clearly hazardous conditions has improved CI’s standing in the culture, dramatically! The apparent specificity and sensitivity of these data continue to surprise me.

Figure 10: Ngram plot of the words “Cryonics Institute” (CI) over the 1980 to 2008 time period.

Summary

In cryonics, it is extraordinarily rare to obtain reliable feedback of any kind, except that which comes in the terminal phase of a cryonics organization’s life cycle, when it ceases to be able to provide cryogenic care for its patients. What is more, making comparisons between cryonics organizations is difficult in terms of examining variables such as net and gross income, membership statistics, and other aggregate data that are used to adjudge and compare the health of most other businesses and corporations. This is the case because of fundamental differences in price structure, approach to delivering human cryopreservation services, lack of disclosure, and the inevitable distortions that occur in all self-generated data from small enterprises.[3]

Thus, other than individual subjective assessment, and to a very limited extent, assessment based on one of a few objective markers known to precede the demise of all previous cryonics organizations, such as steadily reduced frequency of edited magazine and newsletter production, ending in failure to publish at all; followed by abandonment of patient cryogenic care (CSC, CSNY), or effective refusal to take on additional patients (Trans Time), there has been no way to gauge the performance and the health of cryonics organizations in anything approaching real time.

The data presented here suggest that the Google Ngram is possibly a sensitive and specific method for evaluating the cultural penetration of not only the idea of cryonics itself, but of the established individual cryonics organizations. Furthermore, the Ngram data seem to provide this feedback (both beneficial and adverse), with a lag time of approximately 1-2 years. It would thus seem prudent to apply this measure at frequent intervals in the future, both to validate its accuracy, and to provide feedback to direct both the intermediate and long term actions of the management of cryonics organizations. Arguably, it may also be used as tool to hold the management of cryonics organizations accountable for their decisions and actions.

References

1.            Larsen D: Cancer Victim’s Body Frozen for Future Revival Experiment. In: Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles; 1967.

2.            Darwin M: Interview with Curtis Henderson: http://www.alcor.org/cryonics/cryonics8107.txt. Cryonics 1982(12).

3.            Perry R: Suspension Failures: Lessons from the Early Years: http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/suspensionfailures.html. Cryonics 1992. 4.            Darwin M: Jerry Leaf enters cryonic suspension: http://www.alcor.org/cryonics/cryonics9109.txt. Cryonics 1991, 12(9):19-25.

5.            Whelan R: Beginnings of Winter: Suicide and Cryonics The tragic case of patient A-1401: http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/casereport9304.html. Cryonics 1993, 14(4).

6.            Jones T: The Suspension of A-1399: http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/casereport9306.htm. Cryonics 1993, 14(6).

7.            Ettinger R: The Prospect of Immortality: http://cryonics.org/book1.html. New York City: Doubleday; 1964.

8.            Goldstein R, Thomas,T. Jr.: Ted Williams, Red Sox Slugger And Last to Hit .400, Dies at 83: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/06/sports/ted-williams-red-sox-slugger-and-last-to-hit-.400-dies-at-83.html?ref=tedwilliams. In: New York Times. New York City; 2002.

9.            Freezing Time; Ted Williams: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/11/opinion/freezing-time-ted-williams.html?ref=tedwilliams. In: New York Times. New York City; 2002.

10.          Fight for Williams’s Remains: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/sports/baseball-fight-for-williams-s-remains.html?ref=tedwilliams. In: New York Times. New York City; 2002.

11.          Friends Say Williams Wanted to Be Cremated: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/11/sports/baseball-friends-say-williams-wanted-to-be-cremated.html?ref=tedwilliams. In: New York Times. New York City; 2002.

12.          Janofsky M: Even for the Last .400 Hitter, Cryonics Is the Longest Shot: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/10/us/even-for-the-last-.400-hitter-cryonics-is-the-longest-shot.html?ref=tedwilliams. In: New York Times. New York City; 2002.

13.          Williams’s Daughter Asks For Aid Against Freezing: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/12/sports/baseball-williams-s-daughter-asks-for-aid-against-freezing.html?ref=tedwilliams. In: New York Times. New York City; 2002.

14.          No Will Is Filed for Estate of Williams: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/16/sports/baseball-no-will-is-filed-for-estate-of-williams.html?ref=tedwilliams. In: New York Times. New York City; 2002.

15.          Verducci T: Tip of the iceberg? http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1029492/index.htm#ixzz1GA99wCCQ. In: Sports Illusrated. 2003. 16.          Johnson L, Baldyga S: Frozen : my journey into the world of cryonics, deception, and death. [New York]: Vanguard Press; 2009.

Appendix A: Ted Williams in the New York Times

THE DOCTOR’S WORLD March 31, 1981, by Lawrence K. M.D., Science – 1267 words.

PLAYERS; THE 2 LOVES OF TED WILLIAMS August 10, 1982, by Ira Berkow, Sports – 875 words.

Sports People; Williams Honored November 11, 1988.

SPORTS OF THE TIMES; An Evening With The Kid November 12, 1988, by  Ira Berkow,

Sports BASEBALL ’91; 1941: An Unmatchable Summer April 7, 1991, by Ray Robinson,

Sports SPORTS PEOPLE: BASEBALL; Williams Recovering From Apparent Stroke December 27, 1991

Question Box, by Ray Corio, May 4, 1992 Williams Selected July 2, 1992

ON THE SIDELINES — POLITICAL MEMO; Looking to Baker to Save Bush Anew by Michael Wines, July 15, 1992

Ted Williams Offers Collectors’ Items by Richard Sandomir, May 11, 1993

ON THE SIDELINES — POLITICAL MEMO; Looking to Baker to Save Bush Anew by Michael Wines, July 15, 1992 Williams Selected July 2, 1992

Question Box by Ray Corio, May 4, 1992

SPORTS PEOPLE: BASEBALL; Williams Recovering From Apparent Stroke December 27, 1991

Sports of The Times; Hit .400? The Dinosaur Who Did It by Dave Anderson, July 13, 1993

LEGENDARY NAMES VIE FOR AN HONOR November 28, 1993

BASEBALL; Ted Williams Suffers Stroke February 22, 1994

BACKTALK; From .400 to 75, and Still Battling by Dave Anderson, May 22, 1994

Tunnel Named For Williams AP, December 16, 1995

Ted Williams Has Advice for Belle March 26, 1997

BASEBALL: SPRING TRAINING NOTEBOOK — RED SOX; Williams Spends a Day In the Florida Sunshine March 25, 1998

Sports of The Times; On the Other Side of the River, Another Hailing of Champions by Harvey Araton, October 25, 1998

Sports of The Times; A Familiar Idol Talks About His ‘Idol in Life’, by Dave Anderson, October 29, 1998

Fans Seeking Fame, Not Infamy, for Shoeless Joe Jackson November 27, 1998

Food; Batter Up by Molly O’Neill, May 30, 1999

BASEBALL; Mets Toss Aside Piazza’s Comeback Script, by Jason Diamos, June 12, 1999

70TH ALL-STAR GAME: NOTEBOOK; Williams and Fenway: They Still Click by Jack Curry, July 14, 1999

ON BASEBALL; In Spite of Itself, the Grand Old Game Still Thrives, by Murray Chass, July 15, 1999

BASEBALL; Williams Looks Back, and Forward George Vecsey,  January 12, 2000

PLUS: BASEBALL; Ted Williams, 82, Hospitalized November 5, 2000

PLUS: BASEBALL; Williams to Receive A Pacemaker November 7, 2000

Sports of The Times; Ted Williams Still Living On His Terms by Ira Berkow, November 9, 2000

PLUS: BASEBALL; Ted Williams Leaves Hospital November 22, 2000

PLUS: BASEBALL; Williams to Have Heart SurgeryBaseball January 15, 2001

AMERICAN LEAGUE: ROUNDUP; Ted Williams Is ‘Progressing’ April 30, 2001

PLUS: BASEBALL; Ted Williams Is Back in Hospital January 25, 2002

Williams Is Out of Hospital January 29, 2002

PLUS: BASEBALL; Frail Williams Makes A Surprise Visit February 18, 2002

PLUS: BASEBALL; Frail Williams Makes A Surprise Visit February 18, 2002

Batsman Nonpareil July 6, 2002

BASEBALL: YANKEES NOTEBOOK; Jeter May Not Be Sidelined Long by Tyler Kepner, July 6, 2002

Sports of The Times; For Ted, The Eyes Had It by Dave Anderson, July 6, 2002

BASEBALL; Williams Leaves Behind An Unmatched Legacy by Murray Chase, July 6, 2002

BASEBALL; A Gift for Hitting and a Passion for Sharing It by Buster Olney, July 6, 2002

BASEBALL; Boston Tips Its Cap on the Day the Legend Dies by Fox Butterfield, July 6, 2002

Sports of The Times; For Williams, A Joy Found In the Debate by Ira Berkow, July 6, 2002

Ted Williams, Red Sox Slugger And Last to Hit .400, Dies at 83 by Richard Goldstein and Robert MCG Thomas, Jr., July 6, 2002

BASEBALL; Fight for Williams’s Remains July 7, 2002

SPORTS MEDIA; Memories of Williams Spanning the Decades by Richard Sandomir, July 7, 2002

BackTalk; It’s the Little Things That Made Williams Special by John Underwood, July 7, 2002

BASEBALL; On Day for Yankees, Praise for Old Red Sox Foe by Tyler Kepner, July 7, 2002

Stepping Up to The Plate, by Bob Herbert, July 8, 2002

BASEBALL; Williams Memorials Are Set July 8, 2002

BASEBALL: NOTEBOOK; Giambi Defeats Sosa In Home Run Derby by Jack Curry, July 9, 2002

BASEBALL; Ted Williams’s Son No Stranger to Controversy by Richard Sandomir, July 9, 2002

The Perfectionist at the Plate, David Halberstam, July 9, 2002

Even for the Last .400 Hitter, Cryonics Is the Longest Shot by Michael Janofsky, July 10, 2002

BASEBALL; Williams Returns, at Least in Spirit by Jack Curry, July 10, 2002

Freezing Time; Ted Williams July 11, 2002

BASEBALL; Friends Say Williams Wanted to Be Cremated July 11, 2002

BASEBALL; Williams’s Daughter Asks For Aid Against Freezing July 12, 2002

Sports of The Times; In Baseball Romance, Little Room for Reality by Harvey, July 14, 2002

Ideas & Trends: Just Chillin’; Putting Mortality on Ice by Henry Fountain and Anne, July 14, 2002

BASEBALL; Legends’ Images Often Change in Death by Richard Sandomir, July 15, 2002

BASEBALL; No Will Is Filed for Estate of Williams July 16, 2002

BASEBALL; Executor Says Williams’s Will Doesn’t Give His True Wishes by Richard Sandomir, July 17, 2002

BASEBALL; Williams’s Children Seek Court’s Help by Joe Callahan, July 18, 2002

Sports of The Times; Extended Family Unites in Tribute by George Vecsey, July 23, 2002

BASEBALL; Note Dated 2000 Says Williams Wanted His Remains Frozen by Richard Sandomir, July 26, 2002

BASEBALL; Daughter to Continue Fight to Have Williams Cremated by Richard Sandomir, July 27, 2002

Analysis Shows That Williams Did Sign Note by Richard Sandomir, August 9, 2002

BASEBALL; Williams Fight Goes to Court August 14, 2002

Fight Over Williams’s Frozen Body May End Soon by Richard Sandomir, September 26, 2002

Sports of The Times; Bonds Sure to See Fewer Strikes Than Williams Did in 1946 Series by George Vecsey, October 19, 2002

Daughter May Drop Fight Over Ted Williams’s Body by Richard Sandomir, December 20, 2002

BASEBALL; Williams Children Agree to Keep Their Father Frozen by Richard Sandomir, December 21, 2002

THE LIVES THEY LIVED; The Batter Who Mattered by John Updike, December 29, 2002

BASEBALL; Report Says Facility Beheaded Williams by Richard Sandomir, August 13, 2003

BASEBALL; Ted Williams Tale Gets Stranger by the Day by Richard Sandomir, August 14, 2003

No Charges Against Williams’s Kin by Richard Sandomir, August 19, 2003

John H. Williams, 35, Ted Williams’s Son by Richard Sandomir, March 10, 2004

BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Whether Sweet or Cranky, He Was Always a Slugger by Charles McGrath, May 7, 2004

SPORTS BRIEFING: COURT NEWS; Ted Williams Legal Fight Comes to an End by Richard Sandomir, June 17, 2004

What Boston Won, What Boston Lost by Nicholas Dawidoff, October 30, 2004

Suddenly We Have a Name for a Frozen Stadium Treat by Joyce Wadler, with Joe Brescia and Melena Z. Ryzik, November 18, 2004

Please Don’t Call the Customers Dead by Richard Sandomir, February 13, 2005

Why Suzuki’s Magic Number Is Really 56, Not .406 by Alan Schwarz, May 1, 2005

Who’s a Latino Baseball Legend? by Richard Sandomir, August 26, 2005

To Play Is the Thing by David, August 28, 2005

Sculptor Throws a Curve With Slugger’s Head by Richard Sandomir, September 5, 2005

Sports Briefing December 9, 2006

Baseball’s Devil May Not Be in the Details by Alan Schwarz, February 10, 2008

Essay by John Updike Defined Heroism in Ted Williams by Charles McGrath, September 26, 2010

Appendix B: Alcor Life Extension Foundation in the Los Angeles Times

  San Francisco Journal; Chilling Answer to Life After Death

January 20, 1989 – By KATHERINE BISHOP, Special to the New York Times – U.S. – 853 words

  Review/Television; On Aging, or Rather Avoidance of It

August 17, 1992 – By WALTER GOODMAN – Movies – 587 words

  SUNDAY, APRIL 17, 1994; Not Their Fault

April 17, 1994 – Magazine – 88 words

  Deathstyles of the Rich and Famous

January 12, 1997 – By DOUGLAS MARTIN – Week in Review – 810 words

  Futurist Known as FM-2030 Is Dead at 69

July 11, 2000 – By DOUGLAS MARTIN – U.S. – 862 words

  The Way We Live Now: 4-22-01: Design; Freezing Time

April 22, 2001 – By Abby Ellin – Magazine – 836 words

  BASEBALL; Fight for Williams’s Remains

July 7, 2002 – 186 words

  BASEBALL; With Cryonics, Hope Runs Ahead of Reality

July 9, 2002 – By PHILIP J. HILTS – Sports – 755 words

  BASEBALL; Ted Williams’s Son No Stranger to Controversy

July 9, 2002 – By RICHARD SANDOMIR – Sports – 802 words

  Even for the Last .400 Hitter, Cryonics Is the Longest Shot

July 10, 2002 – By MICHAEL JANOFSKY – Front Page – 1626 words

  BASEBALL; Friends Say Williams Wanted to Be Cremated

July 11, 2002 – By RICHARD SANDOMIR – Sports – 737 words

  Freezing Time; Ted Williams

July 11, 2002 – Opinion – 393 words

  Casting a Cool Eye on Cryonics

July 11, 2002 – By JESSE McKINLEY – Arts – 570 words

  BASEBALL; Williams’s Daughter Asks For Aid Against Freezing

July 12, 2002 – 451 words

  Ideas & Trends: Just Chillin’; Putting Mortality on Ice

July 14, 2002 – By HENRY FOUNTAIN and ANNE EISENBERG – Week in Review – 1096 words

  They’ve Seen the Future and Intend to Live It

July 16, 2002 – By BRUCE SCHECHTER – Technology – 1228 words

  BASEBALL; Executor Says Williams’s Will Doesn’t Give His True Wishes

July 17, 2002 – By RICHARD SANDOMIR – Sports – 1110 words

  BASEBALL; Note Dated 2000 Says Williams Wanted His Remains Frozen

July 26, 2002 – By RICHARD SANDOMIR – Sports – 1153 words

  BASEBALL; Daughter to Continue Fight to Have Williams Cremated

July 27, 2002 – By RICHARD SANDOMIR – Sports – 515 words

  Daughter May Drop Fight Over Ted Williams’s Body

December 20, 2002 – By RICHARD SANDOMIR – Sports – 410 words

  BASEBALL; Williams Children Agree to Keep Their Father Frozen

December 21, 2002 – By RICHARD SANDOMIR – Sports – 974 words

  BASEBALL; Report Says Facility Beheaded Williams

August 13, 2003 – By RICHARD SANDOMIR – Sports – 760 words

  BASEBALL; Ted Williams Tale Gets Stranger by the Day

August 14, 2003 – By RICHARD SANDOMIR – Technology – 1000 words

  No Charges Against Williams’s Kin

August 19, 2003 – By Richard Sandomir – Sports – 281 words

  Odd Outpost of Icy Immortality in Sunshine State

October 14, 2003 – By RICHARD SANDOMIR – U.S. – 1040 words

  John H. Williams, 35, Ted Williams’s Son

March 10, 2004 – By RICHARD SANDOMIR – Obituaries – 314 words

  Sports Briefing

March 14, 2004 – 405 words

  SPORTS BRIEFING: COURT NEWS; Ted Williams Legal Fight Comes to an End

June 17, 2004 – By Richard Sandomir – Sports – 299 words

   INSIDE THE NEWS; Please Don’t Call the Customers Dead

February 13, 2005 – By RICHARD SANDOMIR – Health – 2066 words

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[1] Guaranteed in practice means cash in hand, or equivalent – a bond, property transfer, etc.

 

[2] I met with John Henry during this period and repeatedly urged him to immediately complete the core Alcor paperwork and provide the minimum funding required. I shared with him my experience in caring for hemodialysis patients with medical histories similar to that of his father, and explained that an unexpected infection, or sudden cardiac arrest could occur at any time – and that his father was at extraordinarily high risk for both.

[3] Given the recent history of large enterprises such as Wall Street Investment Banking firms and major Western Banks and mortgage franchises, this statement is probably grossly unfair!