Member Profile: Aschwin de Wolf

[FEATURED ARTICLE]

Cryonics, 3rd Quarter 2011

By Cairn Erfreuliche Idun

LIKEABLE Everyone I know who has expressed an opinion about Aschwin likes him.

Brilliant, hardworking, effective and dedicated to improving cryonics also apply to Aschwin. That combination benefits cryonics – benefits all of us. One of our public figures who relates well to a wide range of humanity increases our acceptance profile.

This is a story of dream parents, a carefree youth, a dance between music and philosophy, activism, cryonics, love, and career.

1974 Aschwin was born in the university town of Leiden in the Netherlands to wonderfully accepting, tolerant and supportive parents. Religion did not play a large role in his family.

YOUTH “I had a carefree youth. My parents had little interest in drinking, smoking, quarrelling, or authoritarian childrearing. As a consequence, there were no serious obstacles to pursuing my own interests, provided that I attended school and stayed clear from criminal activities, which did not take much effort.” Reading was encouraged. His mother (and uncle) exposed him to some offbeat music. Grandparents were equally tolerant and supportive.

“I was never a real outsider at school. I got along with a wide variety of personality types and enjoyed outdoor activities. In particular, I liked swimming and basketball.”

Horror and post-apocalyptic movies captured his youth. “This interest persists today, but I have come to recognize that I was less interested in the blood and gore than in the atmosphere, cinematography, soundtracks, and the transgressive and survivalist elements in those films.”

Young teenage musical preferences ranged from Pink Floyd, Deep Purple and newer 80’s bands. He even became a DJ at a local “pirate” radio station. Other activities included video games (on the Atari console and Commodore 64 computer) and American pro-wrestling.

High school was likewise care-free. His first girlfriend liked Madonna and ironically introduced him to the 1980’s new wave and ‘gothic’ music and lifestyle by expressing her dislike for it. “My favorite band became The Cure and my favorite “color” became black.”

Progressive activism, and animal rights in particular, dominated a short but intense period during the late 1980s. In time he “became less prone to ‘doctrinaire thinking’ and was gradually alienated from this scene.” What I retained from my activist years was a sustainable life-style, a preference for small do-it-yourself initiatives, little fear of not conforming, and an aversion to formal education.”

At 16 years old, still in high school, Aschwin moved out of his parent’s home. “This did not indicate any dissatisfaction with my parents at all, but I felt it was time to live on my own.”

Since his mid-teens Aschwin has been saddened by the inevitability of decay and death. His music choices reflected those themes – apocalyptic folk music and doom metal. At the same time, Aschwin remembers this period of life as his happiest. “One reason why I am intrigued with the idea of rejuvenation is that it severs the relationship between physical age and psychological age.”

1993 One week in a Trappist monastery in Zundert (to reflect on his future and life) led to Aschwin’s decision to study political science at the University of Amsterdam.

UNIVERSITY Students were expected to master the materials on their own – if they were not capable of doing that, they did not belong at university. Attendance was not compulsory. Passing the exams was all that mattered. Aschwin liked this system.

He specialized in Public Administration, developed an interest in economic approaches to morals and politics, and further deepened his knowledge of philosophy. Beyond his studies, Aschwin enjoyed most of his remaining time in Amsterdam – exploring the world of experimental music and watching obscure movies with his girlfriend.

FIRST CONTACT Aschwin first read about cryonics after discovering the Extropy Institute in the late 1990’s. “The argument in favor of cryonics seemed quite straightforward and reasonable to me but I did not feel a strong personal need to research it more extensively or relate it to myself until some years later.”

U.S. “As the millennium drew closer I became increasingly dissatisfied with Dutch culture and Amsterdam in particular. I was interested in politics, but I did not want to become a politician or public official. I was interested in philosophy and economics, but I disliked academic culture.” He immigrated to the United States in the year 2000. Having almost graduated, he intended to complete his degree in the United States. And he did – via multiple flights back to Amsterdam.

“For a while I thought about pursuing my Ph.D., but the areas that interested me at the time (ethics, economics, game theory, evolutionary biology) destined me to a life in academia, which I did not want, or as a scholar at a public policy think tank, which was more appealing to me, but not appealing enough to pursue further formal education.”

WAKE-UP CALL In 2002 he accompanied his girlfriend to Geneva, Switzerland. While there, he suspected that he had a serious illness. It turned out to be a trivial medical issue, but it made its mark. “This event triggered more systematic unease about the prospect of aging and dying. It occurred to me that if something serious was going on, I would have been too late in making cryonics arrangements.”

IT’S TIME Aschwin read Robert Ettinger’s The Prospect of Immortality and found it persuasive and exciting. He purchased additional literature online and shared it with his girlfriend. They returned to the U.S., attended the 2002 Alcor Conference, were impressed by the speakers and the Alcor membership and began their sign-up process right then and there. Aschwin completed his sign-up in late 2002 and received his bracelet in January 2003.

Afterwards, he began leading a healthier lifestyle and now makes a concerted effort to keep his caloric intake low and to cut down on carbs. He also gets moderate exercise and prefers walking to alternative forms of transportation.

WHAT AN IMPACT Since signing up, Aschwin has helped support cryonics in any way he can. Accordingly, cryonics has significantly impacted both his professional and personal life. In 2003 he attended a week-long Alcor cryonics training course. This led to his employment at Suspended Animation, Inc., in Florida from 2004 to 2007.

LOVE At the 2006 Alcor conference he met Chana Williford. Love led to giving up his job at Suspended Animation and moving to Phoenix, Arizona.

But Aschwin was eager to prove that this was not motivated by any desire to discontinue work in cryonics. In fact, he explains that “meeting Chana eliminated the tension between pursuing cryonics and having a meaningful personal life as well.”

PORTLAND They became engaged while on a trip to Portland, Oregon. Though they spent the first year of their marriage in Phoenix, their strong attraction to the Portland area led to yet another move in 2008.

“Living in Portland is perhaps the closest I can think of to combining the good things I remember about Europe and the good things that drew me to the United States.”

A LAB OF THEIR OWN In their self-founded Portland lab, Advanced Neural Biosciences, Inc., Aschwin conducts research in cerebral ischemia and neural cryobiology. Alongside Chana, he seeks to coordinate the need for simple and cost-effective procedures and good evidence-based care.

“In our lab we make an attempt to model a typical cryonics case to determine which procedures work and which do not. Our research so far has strongly corroborated that time and temperature are of the essence and strongly supports Alcor’s practice of standby and stabilization. The best news is that the intervention that matters the most, rapid induction of hypothermia, is relatively straightforward to understand and implement.”

An interest in low-cost alternatives to cryonics has led Aschwin to also work with Dr. Michael Perry. They have conducted some exploratory research on fixation of the ischemic brain, but Aschwin does not yet feel comfortable with chemical fixation of the brain as an alternative form of biopreservation.

WHEN DOES HE SLEEP? He also writes for the cryonics blog Depressed Metabolism, serves on the Alcor R&D committee, edits Cryonics magazine, and is a member of the Asset Preservation Group.

Aschwin believes that our presentation of cryonics is vitally important to its acceptance into the medical mainstream. “I strongly endorse the vision of cryonics as a form of experimental critical care medicine. People such as Dr. Brian Wowk, Ben Best and I have made concerted efforts to present cryonics in a neutral fashion without tying it to any  ‘ism,’ including atheism, immortalism, and transhumanism. Too often cryonics is associated with belief systems and technologies that are not a necessary element of cryonics. If we want to make cryonics more mainstream we need to recognize this and discourage groupthink.”

FOR ALCOR Aschwin views the most challenging aspect of cryonics as how to design and run a cryonics organization so it will last into the future. “Surprisingly, there is a lot of instant gratification and ad-hoc decision making in cryonics. A cryonics organization should be robust, dependable, and make progress in an incremental evidence-based fashion. There are still too many single-person failure risks in cryonics. Solid institutional knowledge in our field is always at risk of being lost – and to some degree, has been lost. Membership growth is not only important because it permits us to do more, but it is also necessary to recruit capable people to replace the older generations in cryonics.”

“We should staff our organization with people with a strong documented commitment to cryonics who have the knowledge and character to protect and grow our organization. A professional cryonics organization that is extremely fragile is not progress.”

Aschwin is a strong proponent of Alcor resuscitating its own research program and improving its standby capabilities. “During the 1980s and 1990s Alcor was the leader in cryonics technologies because of its own research and development. Alcor has become more dependent on (proprietary) technologies from other labs. I also would like Alcor to improve its own standby and stabilization capabilities and conduct periodic systematic reviews of casework.”

COMMUNITY Aschwin has attended the first two “Teens & Twenties” gatherings for young cryonicists and feels that “it is very important to provide the means for existing cryonicists to meet each other. Obviously, it is natural for people with such unorthodox interests to want to meet. If we want cryonics to continue growing it cannot just be a bunch of free floating propositions and self-interested individuals; there needs to be a stronger community.”

“We have put some effort into creating a sustainable cryonics infrastructure in the Pacific Northwest. We now have basic regional standby capabilities and a research lab. Our aim is to make this area one of the most active life extension locations in the United States.”

FRIENDS AND FAMILY “I have been quite open about my cryonics arrangements with family and other friends. Since my family lives in the Netherlands, persuading them to make cryonics arrangements is more complicated because I also feel a corresponding responsibility to ensure that the distance will not result in a dreadful case. Alcor and CI accept non-U.S. members, but I do think that an independent or satellite cryonics facility for Europe is a realistic and desirable goal.”

TO HOBBIES Even with his extensive cryonics involvement, Aschwin maintains wide-ranging hobbies and interests. He enjoys (experimental) music, film, craft beer, and natural wine; writes a well-respected blog about spontaneous fermentation and is himself a home brewer; does a fair amount of traveling and has a special interest in Northern culture and the arctic. He also organizes the local Dutch Culture and Language Meetup.

BACK TO PHILOSOPHY And, of course, he remains particularly interested and involved in analytic philosophy and economics. “Of all social sciences, economics still intrigues me because its postulates can be reconciled or contrasted with biology in a way that leads to meaningful questions.”

Aschwin seeks to “prevent embracing any principle that makes me too inflexible or dogmatic. I like to see myself as an empiricist and feel a lot of affinity with people who have self-applied that label.”

“In terms of interacting with people and institutions, I place a high value on non-coercion and privacy. I used to be more ideological about this, but I have increasingly come to recognize that holding this up as a (short-term) political ideal may not be realistic considering the possibility that evolution allows for the survival of different kinds of irreconcilable outlooks.”

“Culturally, I am not much of a transhumanist and am more interested in the past. One thing that Chana and I bonded over when we met is that we had little interest in science fiction or futurism.”

TO OTHER MEMBERS “Cryonics is not a simple consumer product yet. Personal survival may be more dependent on decisions you make for yourself and helping others than exogenous events. In particular, older members often die under circumstances far different from what they anticipated, and it is important to think about this now. At the very least, become active in your local cryonics group, or if it does not exist, establish one yourself. Not all people can afford to be completely open about their cryonics arrangements, but some people are unnecessarily guarded – sometimes to their own detriment.”

PERSUADING OTHERSWhen discussing cryonics with noncryonicists, he recommends to “keep in mind that not all arguments against cryonics are crazy. In my experience, people are more receptive to cryonics when you sympathize with their concerns and show how they can be addressed, instead of dismissing them as ignorant or irrational.”

“The case for cryonics is generally presented in mostly negative terms – the objective of preventing (or eliminating) death. I think that cryonics might appeal to more people if they really think they have something to gain from it. I think the prospect of rejuvenation in particular should appeal to a lot of people.”

“Maybe many people are not quite persuaded by our arguments because we have a tendency to be excessively future-oriented. As the popularity of (genetic) genealogy shows, many people actually do not wish a hard break with the past.”

LOVE AND HOME In 2010 Aschwin and Chana enjoyed a month-long (delayed) honeymoon in Europe. After returning to the U.S. they purchased a beautiful condominium in their favorite Portland neighborhood. “This was a strange experience for us because we made considerable progress at a time when other people were struggling. We feel very lucky to be alive and we just want to keep living.”