Techies On Ice: The Coming Age of Cryonics 452
Frozen dinner writes: "SiliconValley.com is running a great article about technology workers' fascination with cryonics. From the article: "[the] otherworldly possibility of life after death [tantalizes] techies of all stripes -- mathematicians, physicists, software developers, computer programmers -- who make up a vast majority of those who have signed up for cryonics suspension. The family feud over deep-freezing baseball slugger Ted Williams has only intensified interest in cryonics in Silicon Valley and in the greater Bay Area, already a hotbed for the experimental and controversial process.""
"already a hotbed..." (Score:3, Funny)
Ice crystals? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ice crystals? (Score:3)
Re:Ice crystals? (Score:2)
Re:Ice crystals? (Score:2)
I don't know - I don't regularly freeze people.
Re:Ice crystals? (Score:5, Funny)
Teddy in the Vat
July 2002
The outlook, it was dismal for the Joyville nine that day
The year was 2502, one inning left to play.
The fan base had eroded so, this game would be the last.
The onetime national pastime's time, alas, had finally passed.
A somber group of gravediggers were warming up their arms.
They prepared to bury baseball, the big teams and the farms.
A-grieving in the bleachers the remaining faithful sat.
"If only we could liberate Ted Williams from his vat!"
For baseball's mighty slugger had been frozen when he died.
They froze his sacred arms and wrists, they froze his rugged hide.
They froze him in the hope that he might someday un-retire.
But no one thought the sport itself would sicken, then expire.
And then from many thousand throats there rose as one, a breath.
A gasp of shock, surprise and glee, of victory o'er death.
For in the batter's circle, for the multitudes to greet
In suspended animation, there hung Williams by his feet.
There was frost upon his biceps as they opened up his case.
Liquid nitrogen was dripping from the creases on his face.
How the faithful cheered their legend as the slugger was unpacked.
How he tipped his hat to greet them! How his knees and elbows cracked!
Now he stood there stiffly legged as the light began to die.
The pitcher hurled a bullet. Williams watched as it went by.
The catcher muttered softly, "You took that one like a chump."
"I'm adjusting to the temperature," he said. "Strike!" said the ump.
The tumult from the bleachers was amazing to behold.
Not a fan among them noticed that the bat was green with mold.
Now his eyes returned an icy glare, he curled his frozen lip.
Now his red socks were de-icing. Now his cap began to drip.
Then came another missive from that demon on the mound,
Showing every indication it would splutter to the ground.
But then it rose, Phoenix-like, 'til level with his belt.
"Strike two!" the umpire said, as Williams felt his shoulders melt.
In the catered suites around the park the corporate sponsors groaned.
In the press box doing play-by-play, the glib announcers moaned.
In the stands, prevailing wisdom was, the greatest one had choked.
At the plate, the catcher noticed that the batter's box was soaked.
For the frost upon the slugger's brow had turned into a slush.
His uniform was sodden and his mitt was leather mush.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now it's on its way.
And now the air's alive with a ferocious swing and spray.
Oh somewhere there's a field of dreams with bleachers by the surf.
And somewhere bands are playing on some soggy outfield turf.
Although mostly it is dusty by the plate where umpires shout,
There's a pool of mud in Joyville, for Ted Williams has thawed out.
Dale Connally (With apologies to Ernest L. Thayer.)
Re:Ice crystals? (Score:2)
If they could solve that problem tho, I'd sign up in a second.
Re:Ice crystals? (Score:3, Insightful)
uhhhhhh, if they solved that problem there would be no reason to freeze you...
Re:Ice crystals? (Score:2)
Re:Ice crystals? (Score:2)
I remember reading about experiments of this kind performed on dogs back in the early 90s. They had some successes, but 1) they didn't go down to freezing at the time of the article I'd read, and 2) there were complications in most of the test subjects (things like epilepsy on revival). They replaced some or all of the dogs' blood with a solution more resistant to freezing, if I recall correctly.
Re:Ice crystals? (Score:2)
Re: Ice crystals? (Score:2)
I saw something like this a while ago, too (yes, on TV, and it made sense). And yes, this prevents the cells from being crushed by ice crystals.
But for a frog, this is just a few months. How are you going to keep cells alive for decades without "feeding" them?
Re: Ice crystals? (Score:2)
By cooling them down to liquid nitrogen temperatures after they've been frozen. Metabolism, like most other chemical processes, is *very* strongly dependent on temperature. Reaction rate tends to be tied to it exponentially, so in a very cold environment, the cell will effectively be in stasis.
Then make it colder! (Score:2)
The colder it is, the fewer chemical reactions take place in the cell. A cell whose molecules aren't bouncing around doing anything doesn't need food to maintain its current state.
'samatter, didn't you see Ice Age? :-)
Defrosting. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you have nanotech, you should be able to rebuild the body to any degree you like, atom by atom.
I personally think that we aren't likely to reconstitute the frozen bodies. A solution requiring less miraculous technology would be to slice up the brain and map out the synapse connection patterns and strengths to load into a computer-emulated brain. This would require very hefty amounts of computing power, but if we were reviving people at all, we'd be at a point where we had the resources necessary.
I'm not hopeful for the frozen, though. Firstly, between the time you die and the time you're frozen, I strongly suspect that the brain will likely have degraded to the point where most of the critical information in it has been lost. Secondly, I'm doubtful of any cryonics company keeeping its frozen members stored under the required conditions for the century or two they'll be waiting for revival.
Re:Defrosting. (Score:2)
Why? Information about the original state of the system would be permanently lost in the crystallization process.
--
Tim Maroney tim@maroney.org
Choice of words (Score:5, Funny)
Wouldn't that be the worst place to put a frozen body?
COBOL programmers. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:COBOL programmers. (Score:2)
after all we know how big an impact y2k had....
Re:COBOL programmers. (Score:2)
Re:COBOL programmers. (Score:2)
Re:COBOL programmers. (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, this just goes to show how messed up the english language is. At some point in time, it became acceptible to unthaw our frozen dinners.
For more examples of how messed up we really are, take a look at this forward I received not long ago (source unknown):
The bandage was wound around the wound.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
Since there is no time like the present, he decided it was time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
To help with the planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of injections, my jaw got number.
Upon seeing a tear in the painting, I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
quicksand can work slowly
boxing rings are square
a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
In what language do people recite at a play, and play at a recital?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, yet a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
Yes, in American English, your house can burn up as it burns down, you fill out a form by filling it in, and an alarm goes off by going on.
That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible; when the lights are out, they are invisible.
And, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.
Just the head? (Score:2)
On the other head, waking up on top of a genetically engineered body sounds like fun.
Here's a thought. Today you pay for the freezing, but isn't the thawing going to be much more expensive? How do you pay for that?
Cryonics will fail (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's assume the technical problems are solved..
As long as the service of being cryogenically preserved is a commodity, unsubsidized by the government or most insurance, the rich, prominent, and powerful will be the people self selected to undergo the service.
These people will also set up bank trusts, etc. to preserve their interests as they lie dead and frozen. They will influence politics to preserve their property rights as they lie dead, concentrating more and more property and political control in the hands of the dead and their trustees.
I can even imagine the trusteeships being battered back and forth in the marketplace, as the companies that control the wealth of the dead compete with each other.
All in all a fucked up scenario. What do people think about existing or prospective national and international law to deal with this problem? Mind you, I'm partial to the belief that either we have to live in a differnet economic system, or we must make cryogenics a state supported medical service available to all - decided by lot, democratic selection, condition of health or some other scientific standard.
Heinlein: "The Door into Summer" (Score:2)
Re:Cryonics will fail (Score:2)
Since they freely admit they're not technologically able to accomplish that right now, there's no reason to legally consider the frozen participants as anything other than "dead".
Easy fix (Score:3, Insightful)
There's an easy fix to your dystopian scenario...
Join them.
Or get your butt to work on revival and repair technology *NOW*, so they don't accumulate too much power. The shorter they stay under before they can resume their lives, the better off you will be.
-- Terry
there are a few people at my workplace (Score:2)
Just maybe (Score:2)
All the while, the heads are getting more and more expensive to keep around, and if they were ever brought back to life, I would imagine there would be some serious bill left to pay. (like Valentine from Cowboy Bebop)
However, It is probabbly more interesting to note that this honestly is not much different than people of the ancient times burying their bodies in particular ways, adorned with jewery, in the hope of another life to come. Our case it has simply shifted the hope from a mysterious entity or belief in a higher order of the universe to ourselves and our competence in shaping the future.
All the while, maybe after several million years, future archeologists will come, find a head in a vat, and muse over the silly-ness of the past.
p.s. they should shoot the vats into space. natually cold, and probabbly survive much longer if the world was to end in our own hands. I am certain when WW3 rolls around, the last thing on people's minds is to keep some silly dude's head preserved in liquid N2
Re:Just maybe (Score:2)
The bit I don't understand: (Score:5, Interesting)
What possible motivation would any future society have to thaw these people out? Why would we need more people, especially those who can't accept their own mortality?
Sure, you'd thaw out one or two just to show you could, and you'd probably thaw out the interesting people like Walt Disney. Hey, you might even pull a person or two out of the fridge every so often to do historical research (wouldn't that be great -- you wake up in a room with a history grad student who asks you to explain why your generation felt it necessary to fuck the planet seven ways 'till Sunday and leave it for later generations to clean up).
Getting back to my original point, I don't see how this sort of thing would ever effect more than a few tens of people over a long timeline. Simply put: the future doesn't want you.
Personally, I believe that the cycle of life is the only thing that drives social and technological evolution. The greatest mistake we could make as a species would be to short-circuit this cycle for the sake of our own greedy, short-sighted interests.
Re:The bit I don't understand: (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The bit I don't understand: (Score:2)
Anyway, Larry Niven has the interesting answer - his "Gil 'The Arm' Hamilton" stories (collected in flatlander, i think) of a detective on future, overpopulated earth occasionally mention the slightly illegal process of thawing out those hopeless sods who had themselves frozen centuries ago in the hopes that the future could revive them ("corpsicles") and taking their organs to be sold on the organlegging black market.
Ick. I think I'll take atmospheric or solar cremation (or, you know, normal creation, if the others are still too expensive....).
Re:The bit I don't understand: (Score:2)
So in 100 years when computing time is too valuable, you thaw out a bunch of geeks. Since they don't know anything about the new technology, you put them to work factoring the nth digit of PI rather than waste your valuable quantum computing cycles.
Ice....its not just for a cup of Jolt anymore.
Re:The bit I don't understand: (Score:2)
The concept is this: The State (big evil Commie entity) has no use for "Corpsicles" as they are called. It doesn't know how to thaw them either. It also has similarly useless convicted felons. So, The State supercools the corpsicles to near-absolute-zero and runs current through their brain so it becomes a superconductor. Then they interrogate the brain and see if they have a useful personality. If so, they take a felon and wipe its brain. Then they dissect (and destroy) the corpicle's brain and read its personality into a computer. The corpsicle's personality is then written into the felon's brain. Then the brain is force-fed a ton of useful knowledge and behavioural modification for a job.
The new person, the Corpsicle in a felon's body, has no rights. Both the body and mind are legally the property of a dead person, ownership transferred to the state. The Corpsicle's are used as State slaves, often for one-way interplanetary exploration and seeding. Space travel is slower then light, so the Corpsicles never know the world they're leaving behind, and never will see it again.
Re:The bit I don't understand: (Score:4, Insightful)
PURE ALTRUISM. That's the beauty of the whole thing. If they wake you, it's probably good news.
C//
Re:The bit I don't understand: (Score:5, Funny)
Who might want to thaw a few... (Score:4, Insightful)
I can think of a few who might be interested.
- History departments. (Benjamin Franklin wanted to be pickled in a wine barrel after death and revivied in a century or three to see how things had come out. Wouldn't you like to interview HIM? Or see Jefferson's reaction to what the Democratic Party has become? B-) There's been a lot of history since then and eyewitnesses can help sort it out.)
- Techie version of above: Anyone trying to fix a bug in a frozen programmer's code. B-)
- Political splinter groups of many sorts.
- Charities. (If you will donate to save a random starving child in Africa, would you donate to revive someone you knew or had heard of from your own history?)
- The entertainment industry. (LOTS of possibilities there...)
- Hobbiests. (Imagine the science-fiction convention you could have with every currently-dead author and fan in attendence... B-) Now do the same with civil-war recreationists, yachtsmen, skiers, archers. Want Karate lessons from an old master?)
- Previous revivees. (History department revives historical figure, who revives his wife and children, who revive their fellow cryonics club members...)
- Anybody with a bit of money and a bee in his bonnet. Do you have any idea how RICH (by current standards) the poorest of the poor would be when tech is up to reviving people frozen by current techniques? Try this: Think of the standard of living of a current welfare recipient - food - including imported fruit virtually year-round, medical care, recorded music, cable TV, electricity, etc. Now imagine how rich someone in 1812 would have to be to afford the equivalent. (Remember: No penicillin, no refrigeration, entertainment is live and rare for anyone less than a king,
and of course:
- CURRENT cryonicists, who will revive PAST cryonicists in the hope that FUTURE cryonicists will revive THEM. (Just because they can repair somebody who died of cancer in the naughties doesn't mean that they'll be able to keep people from dying from Arcturian Whooping Sneeze in the '80s. So there will likely still be cryonicists.)
Why would we need more people, especially those who can't accept their own mortality?
"... can't accept their own motality."? Sounds like you're believing pro-death propaganda.
We know damned well we're mortal. But that's no reason not to "Rage at the dying of the light" - and then see about repairing or replacing the lightbulb - as many times as possible.
Do you WANT to die? You can ALWAYS arrange it.
Re:why perform CPR on a drowned person? (Score:2)
The copy of the social contract in my EULA didn't mention an obligation to revive long-dead and effectively useless people.
To the contrary, it said that I will live, add my unique contribution to society and give rise to a new generation. Then I'll die. This paradigm has worked really, really well for the last 10 billion years or so, so I'm not going to fuck with it.
People who are so afraid of death or who feel their lives weren't long enough need therapy to cure their over-inflated feeling of self-importance.
Re:The bit I don't understand: (Score:2)
Re:The bit I don't understand: (Score:2)
I only wish I'd had the idea for this scam first.
Stevis
Re:The bit I don't understand: (Score:2, Funny)
I can think of lots of uses for severed heads:
Re:The bit I don't understand: (Score:3, Insightful)
Every day we revive people who are "dead" under any definition any doctor would have recognized until this century.
It's considered routine medicine now, just like chess playing is not "AI" any more because we know how to do it.
Every disease conquered, every accident prevented is a step closer to immortality.
Re:That's Easy - Money (Score:3, Insightful)
If you were to allow people to set up unmanaged estates to continue on in perpetuity, you'd end up with a large portion of the world's wealth owned by dead people. It'd only be a matter of time before the living adjusted the laws and raided the funds (and who's going to stop them? The corpsicles?)
Cryonics... (Score:2, Interesting)
People try to debunk it as much as possible, but in truth, it's becoming more of a reality. Think stem cells. If you can harvest a few stem cells from a frozen body, and then help patch and repair the old body with them, could we not come back from the dead? Of course, as many have already stated, ice crystals screw ya up pretty bad, by breaking cell walls into little bitty bits. But, there are chemicals that help to keep this to a minimum, and, possibly in the future, low enough to not matter. So, cryo is a very plausible possibility.
Of course, i just wanna see Walt Disney die of a heart attack after he's rejuvinated, when he sees what crap his company's gone to. :P
Re:Cryonics... (Score:2)
This is not a question of a little minor damage that can be "patched up." This is like putting the corpse in a blender. On high speed. Sure, there are chemicals that can prevent this, like those frogs have... except that humans don't have those chemicals in our cells! No, not even Walt Disney's head. It doesn't matter how cool stem cell research is. If every single one of those cells has been ruptured, and you wait a thousand years... well, it's more likely that you'll get hit by lightning and an asteroid simultaneously.
Re:Cryonics... (Score:2)
I think that more than just coming back, most of these people want to come back with their memories and knowledge.
How would you like to be told all your life that you are geneticaly the same as J.P.Morgon? The banking world isn't the same, and the tricks he used to get rich won't work. Worse yet, everyone knows it, so they will be watching it. In the end people expect things from you that you can't deliver, and you end up middle class despite the great start in the previous life. (identical twins raised apart is probably a good place to start with guesses of what will happen, but only a start)
Uh? (Score:3, Funny)
Ultimate Case Mod? (Score:2)
Who wants to live forever? (Score:2)
'Who wants to live forever, Forever is our today, Who waits forever anyway?'
While at first I can see the desire to live forever / have some semblance of life restored after a frozen death... the real key to having a real life after such an event is to have everyone that is important to you to be frozen along side you. After all, what good is a "life" if you cannot adapt to the future and you're stuck in it alone?
Re:Who wants to live forever? (Score:2)
Shifting feet: I know of at least one person who is into this whole thing; he has the bracelet and everything.
Oddly, he's one of those guys who spends 80 hours a week at work. I find it rather ironic that he's hoping for life in the future while he's busily not living the one he has in the now.
Re:Who wants to live forever? (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever that's supposed to mean. I think it was Voltaire that said, "What is too stupid to be said, is sung."
Anyway, I disagree with you. It's shortsighted to say that's the only worthwhile thing in life are your current friends and family. Do you also think no one should travel and experience new cultures, if you "cannot adapt" to them and you're "stuck" in them alone? And with all the new knowledge and history, time travel would be 100 times more stimulating than spatial travel.
Re:Who wants to live forever? (Score:2)
Re:Who wants to live forever? (Score:2)
And anyway, someone who has a terminal attachment to their friends would do best to jump off a cliff young... people have a nasty tendency to die before you otherwise.
Science and religion (Score:2, Insightful)
However, my belief is that religion is there for the purpose of humanities mental well-being. Humans don't want to believe that when they die they are truly gone and done with. As science slowly replaces religion for the explanation of the unknown, do you think science will also replace religion's other duties, such as moral control, peace of mind, and "understanding" of things greater than us?
"Science," my ASS! (Score:2)
It's just a bunch of egomaniacs with more money than reasoning ability.
Science is not a conscious entity. Science cannot replace anything. Science is not even a thing. Science is just a way of looking at what's around us and trying to find explanations -- form hypotheses, perform experiments to confirm/rebut; repeat.
If I were someone in the future with the resources to perform the bringing back to life thing, the last people I'd want to bring back are yahoos and morons who just happened to have lots of money a thousand years ago.
Re:"Science," my ASS! (Score:2)
Science is not a conscious entity. Science cannot replace anything. Science is not even a thing. Science is just a way of looking at what's around us and trying to find explanations
Isn't religion somewhat close to this idea?
My point is people need a psychological way of coping with things... this is a "scientific" way for people who don't believe in God.
Human Concentrate (Score:2)
Maybe rip out some organs if need be, after all, they should be able to just grow some new ones in the future.
What about backwards compatiblity? (Score:3, Funny)
Just stay away from France (Score:2)
In France the law states that bodies must be buried or cremated, so cryonics effectively isn't legal.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1870301.s
There was also another discussion on this topic more recently on the BBC's site.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/2133961.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Just stay away from France (Score:2)
HR tools (Score:2)
My first thought after reading the headline was that, instead of firing workers in a downturn, some conpanies would freeze them instead.
Practical Joke for Future Archeologists (Score:2)
Why save the whole body? (Score:2)
Re:Why save the whole body? (Score:2)
Re:Why save the whole body? (Score:2)
So? You would rather be 80 again, get a new disease, be frozen, be 81, be frozen, and finally you release you are as old as Santa Claus has haven't even grown a decent beard.
Re:Why save the whole body? (Score:3, Insightful)
Star Trek Trivia Question: Does Captain Kirk die every time he steps into the transporter and gets rematerialized elsewhere?
UNIX Trivia Question: Does your program halt when it calls fork(), and you kill -9 the parent process, but not the child process?
I'd say "no" in both cases, as I believe that a copy of the data in my brain, running on a copy of my brain, is indistinguishable from me.
They do it for the bracelets, baby (Score:2)
Of course that 133 Pentium doesn't seem so much like a Tiny God [penny-arcade.com] anymore, some kid keeps on h4x0ring the AC to 5 degrees C, and your neighbors hit the deck everytime they see Undómiel throw on his black trenchcoat.
Life in the fast forward lane (Score:2)
Cryogenics could be possible (Score:3, Interesting)
On the show, researchers put a living frog in the freezer. After a day,
they took the frozen frog out and let it "thaw" out. I was amazed
to see that the frogs heart started to beat again(after an hour or so).
After several hours it was moving around again! I think if researches
could harness this wonder, we may have the potential to "really"
utilize cryogenics for something useful (i.e space exploration?)
and not for freezing people that are already dead!
Re:Cryogenics could be possible (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Cryogenics could be possible (Score:3, Funny)
They died, but the frog has got a large research grant from IBM.
graspee
Don't see the point (Score:2)
One useful application: (Score:2)
Not for me (Score:2)
Throwing yet another pack of spoilt hamburgers into the trash
Count me out.
Think about it... (Score:5, Funny)
Cold is very important to californians (Score:2)
O
o
Cryonic funeral service. (Score:4, Funny)
Reanimation odds (Score:2)
But if it ever works, it's probably going to be more like recovery from backup onto new hardware than a restart.
Metacomment (Score:2)
You know what? It's a beautiful sub-scalding day in Florida and I'm leaving the office early to sit under a live oak and do some asanas. Blow your money on cryonics or enjoy this day--it's your choice.
metareply: people spend as much per year on coffee (Score:3, Interesting)
Civilization would have to fall far for liquid nitrogen production to fail- you don't need electricity to keep the dewars cold, you just need to top them off each week.
What do they give you when you're thawed? (Score:2)
What now?
All your friends are dead (save for the ones who were frozen, probably not many), your stuff is long gone, and your money...well, I haven't heard of any of these cryogenic companies socking away cab fare for their clients. What bank would preserve your accounts while you're technically dead?
My point is, yes you're thawed and alive, but your life basically sucks. And nobody knows you, or cares about you. Suddenly immortality doesn't sound so appealing...
Re:What do they give you when you're thawed? (Score:2)
Probably any number of folks alive at 1900 would give an arm to be alive today, friends or no.
C//
Re:What do they give you when you're thawed? (Score:2)
1) "We checked your portfolio. You have a current net worth of $245 MILLION DOLLARS."
"Wow! Could you get me a newspaper? I want to check on how each of my stocks did."
"Sure. That will be $250 MILLION DOLLARS."
2) "You were frozen in 1958? We're amazed!"
"Yeah. How's President Eisenhower doing?"
"He's dead."
"OMIGOD! THAT MEANS RICHARD NIXON IS PRESIDENT!"
For the doubters (Score:2)
Sure, we there is a problem with ice crystals. Sure, we haven't actually brought anyone back. Heck, maybe the companies that offer this service won't survive until these discoveries are made. Maybe it will never be possible to bring someone back from the dead that were frozen with today's primitive techniques. Even if it is, why would our decendents do it?
Then again, you're dead. Any odds are good, don't you think?
Skeptic's Guide to Mortality (Score:5, Insightful)
Coming to grips with mortality- this is the biggest personal issue that every one of us will have to deal with. It can be especially difficult for people who don't believe that there's an afterlife waiting for them. To contemplate the end of our selves in this world is frightening; to not convince yourself that there is life after this world requires a special kind of bravery. This site is here to try to share the thoughts that have allowed me to understand and accept the situation.
I went through a time when I was thinking about Cryonics. And other times when I've gone through paralyzing anxiety about death in general. This site is the result of all that, and might help others in the same boat.
Medical school and "we've always done it this way" (Score:3)
"Dammit! We had to suffer, let them suffer too" seemed to be the reaction from older generations of doctors. Some anti-cryonics people seem to be saying the same thing "We had to accept death, we had to suffer, no one gets to try to skip it." But why should death after after 80 years (121 the longest provable lifespan) be acceptable? We are starting to know about how lifespan works, why not try to extend it? In the past, when death after a few decades was inevitable, societies needed to come up with rules and ideas that kept people from wigging out over death. But you don't need the exact same rules if death doesn't have to happen in the same way.
Maybe 50 years ago it was noble to teach a young child to accept their upcoming death by leukemia. Nowadays that would be considered almost child-abuse, because childhood leukemia has a 95%+ cure rate. I think it is terrible when a child suffers through years of chemo and cancer treatment only to die- I see little that is noble about it. but I see little that is noble about death for anyone, and I don't believe we should give in just because "thats the way it always was." Living to 80 would look good to people who could only expect 40 years, and I wouldn't have wanted my ancestors to say "we only got 40 years, why should you have more?" Why shouldn't I think that 160 is a fine goal for next generations of people?
And I doubt future generations of people will resent the frozen few to the point of refusing to treat them. Why? For the same reasons we today don't resent our "past generations" from getting heart transplants or stroke treatments. In part it might be pragmatic- refuse treatment for the elderly and you might not get treatment yourself- but I think mostly it is because we want to be kind. We don't tell people- "hey, you're eighty now, that's all you get, you have to die." I don't know that future people will say to the cryonically suspended "you lived 40 or 80 years, thats all you'll get."
A science of curosities... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not everybody would suffer this fate, of course. But anybody with any technical skills (from cars to software) better be prepared for a nasty case of chrono-shock. Then there would be those people who are curosities, who would have it made in the future. Lets freeze Elvis or somebody... He's always good for a laugh. A president who could give you first hand accounts of the history he shaped. But you and I? Better keep walking past the good ol' cryo tube and live life in the here and now.
So why aren't you signed up? (Score:3, Interesting)
600 people are signed up.
Many have said here that they oppose it. I am curious about the
reasons in particular you are not signed up.
Many who are signed up don't think reanimation is particularly
likely. They see all the risks, all the undeveloped technology.
They might feel that their estimation of the chances of it working
are one in a thousand or less.
Yet they are signed up because, simply put, the odds of success
if you don't do it are absolutely and surely zero, barring
religious faith in a non-material immortal soul.
If you don't do it, you're food for worms and permanently dead.
If you do it, you may also be permanently dead, but it's hard
to argue that you can be really sure there is no chance.
We simply don't know enough to say that it will work, but we
also don't know enough to say that it won't work. Predictions
that it will surely work as as doubtful as other famous early
scientific speculation, but predictions that it surely won't work
are as valid as the similar negative predictions that "experts"
have made over the years. Most were right (so far) but many were
also wrong.
We do know that when you take frozen brains and examine them
under the electron microscope that all the structures that modern
science believes to be important are still discernable. The
information about the connections is all there. The connections
are damaged of course. Many cell walls are ruptured, many dendrites
are sliced, but it's still clear what they were connected to.
If I cut a PC-board in half, the circuit would be ruined, but I
can certainly re-solder it, or build a new PC board and put the old
chips on it. The information is still there, and so it is with
frozen tissue. This is a matter of fact, not speculation, so to
say it's impossible to repair this seems nonsensical. Hard?
Certainly. Expensive? Quite possibly, though if it's all nanotech
and software it's only expensive to do it the first time. But
impossible? That's an extraordinary claim.
You might speculate there is more to the brain then the position of
all the neurons and how they are interconnected and all their receptors.
But that would be pure speculation. Science doesn't yet know enough about it
at all, not enough to say what can or can't be done.
So given that, why take the alternative of certain death over any chance,
no matter how slim? Is it the money? Is it that people are grossed
out?
Of course there are many things that could go wrong. The company holding
you could fail. (Though storing you is remarkably cheap. All it takes
is a liquid nitrogen truck once a week to top up the tanks.) The world
could change so that your descendents, friends or curious people have
no desire to revive you. The world could change to a place you are
incapable of living. Could. None of these are certain either. That
being cremated is final -- that seems pretty certain.
So what's your reason?
Re:Lemme see.... (Score:2)
True, but given the fact that all of our subjects are dead before we even get this far, this seems like the least of our worries.
Personally, I think the people who want to be frozen need therapy to deal with their oversized egos.
Also... (Score:3)
Freezing: Making things cold.
Is: I forget -- ask Bill Clinton.
That should clear that up. Done and done!
-1 Overrated, huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:ted Williams (Score:2)
Re:ted Williams (Score:2)
Re:I guess that gives... (Score:2)
Re:ST:TNG (Score:2)
In the case of that first season episode: a confused housewife, a singer looking for a party, and a rich Texan financier with a cowboy hat. I guess they just missed the other ships housing a bunch of frozen computer geeks and eccentric scientists (probably because they were all dressed up like trekkies and that would be too self-referential).
And then you can add eugenic super villians, famous baseball players, and hunch backed nuclear power plant owners to the list of the stereotypically frozen.
Skepticism is Valid, Your Arguments Are Not (Score:3, Interesting)
Wrong.
There is no proof that the sun will rise in the east tommorow, though I think most of us fully expect it to.
However, there is ample proof that humans can live well beyond 75 years. There have been humans that have lived as much as 150 years, twice the hard limit you suggest. Indeed, my own grandmother lived to 101, and lived fully independently until she was 98. My great grandmothers on both sides made it into their mid-nineties
Cryogenics may or may not pan out. I think it is far more likely that the energy, or money, will run out and the freezers will be shut down than that anyone will be revivied, but even if the probability is only one in one billion that a frozen human will ever be revived, that is infinitely greater than the probability of someone buried in the earth, or creamated, ever returning from the grave, Christian, Islamic, and other assorted mythologies notwithstanding.
Re:We're also going to build huge fuck-off pyramid (Score:2)
Besides the people living into their hundreds?
That could be a very solid barrier that no amount of gene therapy and wishful pseudoreligious pride in technology can repair.
On the other hand, there's decent evidence that evolution doesn't drive most creatures to have long lifespans. Gorillas live to about 35; chimps can reach their late 50s - I think it safe to assume that our most recent common ancestor lived at most into its 50s. Considering that evolution added 40% to 100% to the max age in a few million years, and with life expectancies in the 30s for primitive man, there's no reason to believe that it was biochemical cutoff instead of minimal effect on natural selection that stopped the increase in max age.
Re: (Score:2)
We have previously frozen people walking around (Score:3, Insightful)