Cryonics Myths
alcor.org
alcor.org
https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/216900...
There is also some interesting work spurred by the Brain Preservation Prize:
http://www.brainpreservation.org/small-mammal-announcement/
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cryobiol.2015.09.003
"We describe here a new cryobiological and neurobiological technique, aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation (ASC), which demonstrates the relevance and utility of advanced cryopreservation science for the neurobiological research community. ASC is a new brain-banking technique designed to facilitate neuroanatomic research such as connectomics research, and has the unique ability to combine stable long term ice-free sample storage with excellent anatomical resolution."
"Can memory be retained after cryopreservation? Our research has attempted to answer this long-standing question by using the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, a well-known model organism for biological research that has generated revolutionary findings but has not been tested for memory retention after cryopreservation. Our study's goal was to test C. elegans' memory recall after vitrification and reviving. Using a method of sensory imprinting in the young C. elegans, we establish that learning acquired through olfactory cues shapes the animal's behavior and the learning is retained at the adult stage after vitrification. Our research method included olfactory imprinting with the chemical benzaldehyde (C6H5CHO) for phase-sense olfactory imprinting at the L1 stage, the fast-cooling SafeSpeed method for vitrification at the L2 stage, reviving, and a chemotaxis assay for testing memory retention of learning at the adult stage. Our results in testing memory retention after cryopreservation show that the mechanisms that regulate the odorant imprinting (a form of long-term memory) in C. elegans have not been modified by the process of vitrification or by slow freezing."
This is why I like HN...
There must be a better way to convince the masses, but so far no billionaire or government has stepped forward with a serious effort here, and I doubt such a thing will occur in our lifetimes.
My point is, other avid cryonicists should study serious and effective approaches, and abandon the "rational" one. But hey, making it up high on the hacker-news top-10 is a good start.
Individual people are replaceable, and don’t belong outside of their own time. If you want to advocate cryonics for the masses, think about what you would do if you had to live in a world with the reanimated masses of the 18th century. Because that’s the kind of mess you propose to inflict on our future descendants.
But I do want to see spaceships bringing people beyond the boundaries of human life spans.
I don't one can reasonably hope for faster-than-light travel. But cryonics is a technology that looks, at the very least, feasible.
Yet you undertake continual efforts to remain alive, embracing the use of food and medicine - technologies developed purely and entirely to stave off naturally occurring death.
I feel that you haven't fully examined your own position on this matter.
You're the one who hasn't fully examined my position on this matter, judging by your bizarre strawman argument.
Sounds like Riverworld. I think it could be quite interesting. But anyway, whether it's a potential mess or not is something for our future descendants to decide on.
Advocating cryonics today doesn't imply that our descendants, even if they have the technology, will accept the resurrection of masses. We have immigration laws today, I'm sure the same concept could be thought up for "people outside their own time", if it ever is an issue.
Perhaps some are motivated by narcissism, but I'd like to think my fellow cryonicists are motivated by hope, and a belief that the future will be a warm and welcoming place. If the future is narcissistic, I wouldn't want to be revived anyways.
I would gladly revive a non famous person from the 18th century - diversity in thought doesn't seem to be a mess to me. And any future that would revive me would necessarily agree - I'm just betting there are enough people like me when resurrection is possible. And if everyone is like you, I'd gladly opt to be dissected and studied instead.
And if that's not enough for you, maybe future generations will have the opportunity to reanimate your corpse in a 25th century hospital and torture it some more to see what they can recover from the brain cells that survived the ordeal? Feel free and sign up for that if you want, but I'm out.
I see no reason why anyone with the ability to re-animate/heal cryo-preserved strangers would do so.
So if preserved people from the past survived long enough, it seems like historical interest could motivate people to re-animate them. There may be other motivations but that's one.
Maybe only a small selection would be reanimated at any one time. But that might others to revived later.
There's no corporate or legal or NGO structure in the business that will last long enough that anyone will care, and even if they do the cooling system failover will not work in the particularly hot summer of 2074.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-edybFkBiO4 -- Rod Steiger as Mr. Joyboy, the masterful mortician at work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoZ5dTQa_2E -- Liberace as a funeral home salesperson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaGtDJo5R5o -- Aimee Thanatogenos visits Mr. Joyboy and his mother
Also we don't know how long this needs to work. If it happens at all I expect it'll be in much less than 200 years. (Yes, of course that's a big if.)
See also Alcor's reply to "Who will revive patients?": http://alcor.org/FAQs/faq01.html#whowillrevive
There is no active cooling system; cryonics patients are passively cooled with liquid nitrogen. The only regular maintenance needed is adding more liquid nitrogen, and the storage dewars can last for many months before replenishment is needed.
It’s much cheaper (not to mention more fun) to make more babies.
No people will care because that's what they do and that's why we have schools, hospitals and the like in all countries, not because there is a legal structure requiring them.
The purely logical, rational side of me wants to say "why should I make an assumption that 21st century norms about the inevitability of death will hold true or are even valid at all?" so I should just do the least presumptuous thing and get frozen.
But on the other hand, what does the quality of life look like for a 21st century human reanimated in 2300 or 2500 or whatever? If history (or Black Mirror) tells us anything, at best, I'll live out my immortal life as some sick museum exhibit/circus curiosity, with no possibility of the kind embrace of death unless some rebellious young person happens to take pity on me.
But that's also assuming humans keep on being Sapiens and don't transcend their present biology/mindset.
But then, of course, how lonely is it to live in a world where I'm one of the last humans tethered to my un-enhanced, primitive biology?
And so on...
I think a big myth people need dispelled is that cryonics is really expensive. It's not a very expensive gamble to take, and it's pretty easy to see that it's worthwhile for many people.
Not that I've tried, but I guess detaching a head at the base has less potential to damage than would opening and removing the whole skull.
E.g. people found drowned in icy water with no pulse. "Six of nine survivors (66.7%) had minor neurological sequelae with Glasgow outcome scale (GOS) 5 (low disability)" (the rest worse). It's not clear to me from the table what the longest time with no breathing or pulse was among those six best-off survivors. But here's a popular account of another case: http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/child-survived...
Those were the top two google hits that came up. It's not my field, but it doesn't seem plausible to me that much of our identity is encoded in evanescent patterns of electrical activity or such. (As opposed to your short term working memory.) If you can nail down the molecules, the information is bound to be there in their arrangement.
This procedure is not yet reversible because of other damage (not caused by ice) including biochemical effects of the vitrification solution — but it eliminates ice damage and the preservation of fine structure is excellent.