116 replies to this topic

[Lazarus Long]

Shannon writing a letter to ascertain interest without a commitment to pay is probably a better place to start anyway. It certainly has a better chance of passing muster here.

The proposal I have been asking for those interested in making this happen to submit to the membership is one that not only addresses how much but how the funds are to be used and I will tell you up front that I for one, am against seeing this organization underwrite this entire proposal.

I have suggested from the start that you need to look at the funds that we might provide as a means to acquiring even more funding, that would mean a larger volunteer effort and donations from multiple organizations. Whether or not this one candidate is amenable then would not be the beginning or the end of the effort.

BTW, it is just my personal opinion but I think you are estimating too low as to the real fiscal demands of this idea. I also will never agree as a voter, let alone a Director to a proposal that commits that percentage of the organization's funds. It is a good idea and if it is as good as you think, and has as much potential support as you believe then why not put it to the test of needing to acquire additional support from multiple organizations?

BTW, the letter would not be subject to much textual editing but making promises in this organization's name are legal liabilities and that is subject to a review and approval process to be valid. So again I ask you:

What is wrong with first just testing the waters and determining respectfully the level of interest and concerns on the part of the prospective candidate without making promises?

[Shepard]

Yeah, I'm with Lazarus on this one.

[veritasbh]

LL & WG - my concern is just putting the cart before the horse. What's the point of determining his interest if the funding is not there?

And who's to say that this guy is the ideal candidate, other than his age? What if he's racist/sexist/perverted/obnoxious/etc? What do we even know about this guy other than a soundbyte or two? While it would be nice to save the 'world's oldest man', ideally we'd just need someone born prior to 1900, and we'd get almost the same ROI, in terms of historical perspective. As of 9/26/07, there are 75 known 110+year olds (www.ghg.org), about 35 of which live in the U.S/Canada. You can probably get another 100 or so if you lower the age to 108 (born prior to 1900). Perhaps one (or more) of these would be a better candidate?

I agree that we shouldn't foster all our attention on this one individual. Logistically, it just doesn't work well - half way round the world, which WILL involve additional costs as well as additional legal/societal/language hurdles, etc. I am of the opinion if funding was established first, not only would interest follow, but you may even have a choice of candidates among all the centenarians. With all the Prize hoopla, developing a sort of C-Prize, to fund a 'deserving' 100+ year old person's cryopreservation might be a 'sticky' enough idea to work. I love this idea actually...putting this project in the context of choosing an ambassador from the 19th/20th Century to whatever society exists in the future. Someone with a rich historical perspective, and who is also eloquent and enthusiastic. This profile would be invaluable for publicity purposes prior to freezing as well. I am a fan of this idea, and would commit $500 (1%?) or so personally to such a C-Prize. Take a page from the M-Prize's playbook and instead of the 300, we would have the '100 Club'. 100 people/organizations contributing 1% ($500) each to finance the cryopreservation of a 100+ year old person. It has a nice ring to it. Perhaps this commitment could also count towards ImmInst's yearly dues (thus not impacting too greatly on ImmInst's existing funds, while allowing ImmInst to encourage participation of such a project)?

If the C-Prize/100 Club idea doesn't float your boat, what else is there? Let's say for argument's sake, we know of an ideal candidate who would want the big freeze. Let's also say Imminst may be willing to contribute a portion (seed money, if you will), but not the whole cost. Let's say 15% to get the ball rolling. I would be willing to bet we might be able to get a 'discount' from the organization that does the cryopreservation for the publicity and whatnot, call that another 15%. Where's the other 70% going to come from? What other organizations might be interested in helping sponsor such a project? Any ideas? Anybody have a contact in either the American Cryonics Society or the Cryonics Society of Canada? Maybe a small grant from the Los Angeles Gerentology Research Group (who maintain the site which lists supercentenarians, mentioned above). Maybe the National Centenarian Awareness Project group? Who else?

[eternaltraveler]

i think it's more reasonable to take a large chunk of the money out of our funds, and raise some by other means. Although I am of the opinion that we should actually use the vast majority of imminst's funds for something. It isn't meant to be sitting around gathering dust. If we are saving it for a purpose we should know exactly what that purpose is.

I think 20,000 would be reasonable to take out of imminst's funds for this project. And we (I guess me ) ) need to figure out a much better estimate of actual costs. Probably betting the total including everything being in the 35-40 ball park isn't too far off.

[eternaltraveler]

I'll also pledge 500 dollars toward this project.

[bgwowk]

Per the post about 19th century "ambassadors", there are at least two people already cryopreserved who were born in the 19th century. It would not be a first. The oldest cryonics patient at time of cryopreservation was Stanley Penska, cryopreserved in 1996 at the age of 99 years. The oldest cryonics patient in absolute terms is James Bedford, cryopreserved in 1967, born April 20, 1893.

Interestingly, since Mr. Tanabe was born in 1895, James Bedford is actually now the world's oldest "living" man, not Mr. Tanabe.

[Shannon Vyff]

I'll pledge $1000.00 for this project (this particular one, if he is interested).

It is easy to take out the offer of $28,000 and just change it to an offer of 'helping with the process' if he and his family are interested.

Help, of course can be in many different forms.

If there is a positive response from his family, then we can go from there, I know there are many who will support this--not only that, but ImmInst if it so votes, has the funds to pay for the suspension price.

If we are in contact with the family, we can gauge how willing they are-- also with the help of someone (Basho? or we can look around) to translate, we can: A. educate them more and B. find out about the laws such as if it will be even possible at all to fly the body out, etc.

[Neurosail]

Per the post about 19th century "ambassadors", there are at least two people already cryopreserved who were born in the 19th century.  It would not be a first.  The oldest cryonics patient at time of cryopreservation was Stanley Penska, cryopreserved in 1996 at the age of 99 years.  The oldest cryonics patient in absolute terms is James Bedford, cryopreserved in 1967, born April 20, 1893. 

Interestingly, since Mr. Tanabe was born in 1895, James Bedford is actually now the world's oldest "living" man, not Mr. Tanabe.

If the "first in~last out" theory holds true, then James Bedford would be the oldest man alive in the future and the longest in cryo-suspension.
He may set two world's records at the same time. [thumb]

So this also means that the "world's oldest man" is already in cryo-suspension.

[basho]

I noticed CI currently has one Japanese member: CI membership stats.

Is there a cryonics association in Japan?

I thought there used to be a very small one, more like a hobby site, but the website no longer exists. It was called the Metamorphosis Society. Here's the archive.org entry: web.archive.org/www.kanon.to/ms.htm

The article extract below mentions that "attempts to establish a cryonics provider here have met with resistance". I wonder what sort of resistance that was?

metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/448/feature.asp. Page down to "Leap of faith":

Perhaps the most revolutionary idea to catch on in the realm of death is not dying at all. Cryonics, a movement born out Robert Ettinger's book "The Prospect of Immortality," involves placing the body in a suspended state by cooling it to -320F (-196C) in the hopes that man will one day be able to perform "reanimation." While attempts to establish a cryonics provider here have met with resistance, that hasn't stopped a handful of Japanese from becoming faithful followers.

"In my younger days, I thought humankind could defeat death. Of course, I couldn't find how we could. I think the first answer to my question was written in this book," explains Hikaru Midorikawa, a soft-spoken 43-year-old IT engineer and founder of Japan Cryonics Association and the Metamorphosis Society, of the seminal book based on Ettinger's dream of extending human life.

Describing himself a futurist, Midorikawa says his goal is to see the future and make it a better place by helping to create a sustainable environment. He hopes to join the more than 100 people, including American baseball star Ted Williams, who have already been suspended in vats of liquid nitrogen.

"In Japanese culture, the average person feels cryonics is something spooky and something strange," admits Midorikawa. "But I don't think this is a logical area, it's more a feeling or an atmosphere."

[Shannon Vyff]

Great, Basho, thank you for the time and research. It looks like there are some in Japan that would also be able to help with this, the CI member even, perhaps. At the very least this shows that Ben will know of the protocol in place for a Japanese member.

So, what is being done with my letter? (the 28,000 can be changed to "ImmInst's help with setting it up if he is interested -- the help being non-specified till we get a response)

One think I wanted to ask everyone, was if we should put a time frame on our 'help', ImmInst will wait for a 6 month period to hear from you, before looking for another who may be interested?

[Futurist1000]

What if this guy was a soldier in world war II? That seems like a very real possiblity if he was born in 1895. He would have been about 50 when the war ended in 1945. Or maybe he would have been too old for combat?
It doesn't necessarily disqualify him. You could potentially get some negative publicity, though, if someting like that were to come out.

[eternaltraveler]

Per the post about 19th century "ambassadors", there are at least two people already cryopreserved who were born in the 19th century.  It would not be a first.  The oldest cryonics patient at time of cryopreservation was Stanley Penska, cryopreserved in 1996 at the age of 99 years.  The oldest cryonics patient in absolute terms is James Bedford, cryopreserved in 1967, born April 20, 1893. 

Interestingly, since Mr. Tanabe was born in 1895, James Bedford is actually now the world's oldest "living" man, not Mr. Tanabe.

How convinced are you that the technique used in 1967 did not result in information theoretic death? I doubt you could produce very convincing electron micrographs from James Bedford like you have more recently.

[struct]

My opinion on this:
Instead of hijacking Mr. Tanabe and freezing his head, I think it would be more meaningful to freeze someone's else head who really wants his head frozen (his head will be probably in a better shape) and set a date for reviving him/her with (our) bloody hands no matter how advanced is our world at that time. The date could be set 10 to 15 years from now (again, the criteria should be that there will be an attempt to revive him/her at that particular time (not sooner not later). If he/she dies so be it (the first sacrificed 'lamb'), if she/he lives good for him and the rest of us. My whole point here is that we should put more emphasis on reviving somebody's head than freezing it. Freezing heads does not seem that sensentional anyways; I have never heard of this James Bedford, for example, let alone the average person hearing about James Bedford. But reviving a person, I think, will be worldwide news. This way 'imminst' does not have to spend money right away but dedicate some of its efforts to revive someone (it would be nice if it's the first reviving attempt) let say in 2015.

[Shepard]

My opinion on this:
Instead of hijacking Mr. Tanabe and freezing his head, I think it would be more meaningful to freeze someone's else head who really wants his head frozen (his head will be probably in a better shape) and set a date for reviving him/her with (our) bloody hands no matter how advanced is our world at that time.  The date could be set 10 to 15 years from now (again, the criteria should be that there will be an attempt to revive him/her at that particular time (not sooner not later).  If he/she dies so be it (the first sacrificed 'lamb'), if she/he lives good for him and the rest of us.  My whole point here is that we should put more emphasis on reviving somebody's head than freezing it.  Freezing heads does not seem that sensentional anyways; I have never heard of this James Bedford, for example, let alone the average person hearing about James Bedford. But reviving a person, I think, will be worldwide news.  This way 'imminst' does not have to spend money right away but dedicate some of its efforts to revive someone (it would be nice if it's the first reviving attempt) let say in 2015.

I bet he/she would have a different opinion on this. What good is it going to do to revive a person so that they can get right back to dying? I don't see any angle where this would be advantageous.

[struct]

It's advantageous in this respect: Imminst is setting the first attempt of reviving somebody (or some of his/her senses). Let's say that person dies after few days; that's still impressive. How many people do we know that have come back to life after being frozen!?

[Shepard]

I understand the idea, but I'd imagine until people accept the idea that a large chunk of current diseases (including aging) can be reversed...it's not going to make any real difference.

[eternaltraveler]

umm, there is no way were are going to be able to revive someone's head in 15 years. And CI only does full body suspensions.

Before we start endangering human beings who are suspended it would be far more advantageous to succeed on animals. Otherwise it's just pure recklessness.

[Shannon Vyff]

Thanks Elrond, and Struct, cryonics institute does not freeze 'heads' only whole bodies--and with modern cryo-protectants 'heads' can be vitrified, different than freezing, without freezing damage. Also, if you spend a lot of time learning about where cryonics is as a science, it is a ways from bringing back people, a thousand years conservatively without the advent of advanced A.I. which could speed up the process to only a few hundred years IMO.

Many ImmInst members do support the research of better preservation of mammals and revival techniques by donating to the research that Alcor and Cryonics Institute. You can check this technical blog done by scientists working at Alcor:

http://depressedmeta....wordpress.com/

but also there is much you can learn at both Alcor and Cryonics Institute's web sites.

[Liquidus]

umm, there is no way were are going to be able to revive someone's head in 15 years.  And only CI does full body suspensions.

Before we start endangering human beings who are suspended it would be far more advantageous to succeed on animals.  Otherwise it's just pure recklessness.

I'm with Elrond on this one, at least on the point of reviving someone even if they only live for a few days. IMO, those who have vested themselves into cryonic suspension should be given the ultimate respect, at least in my perspective. I think it's more challenging to go through with being frozen after death, than it is to just conform and adhere to natural death 'protocol', at least when you consider the stigma some people have likely had to deal with leading upto their 'death'. Sure it would be cool to revive a frozen patient, but not at the expense of them only being alive for a couple of days, and then dying, that basically defeats the entire points of cryonics. If I die before aging is cured, I'll likely get myself cryopreserved, and it's with the intent of being revived into a fully functional/healthy body.

The whole point of cryonics, at least to me, is that natural death is not an acceptable end to existence, and there should not be any 'sacrifices' in any capacity, even for observational purposes. All who have been preserved, must be respected, and must be given the equal opportunity to be revived. If the technology is not feasible in 15 years, so be it, as long as it doesn't change the state of those who are preserved, it would make no difference to them if it's 15 years from now, or 150 years from now. If I look at the world and assume I'm never going to get old and die from old-age, 15 years and 150 years seems like the blink of an eye, especially when you consider our planet is a measly 4.54 billion years old (150 compared to 4,540,000,000). I think it's important to consider that the defeat of aging, and the prosperity of cryopreservation means that 'time' no longer has value in the scope of human existence, and in that sense, we should not place a time frame on how long it might take, but rather consider ourselves lucky that such technologies exist today, and newer/better technologies are likely to start appearing in the near future.

Leave the experiments to animals. Once they start reviving various species of animals with positive results (showing the same personality signs, learned behaviors from before the cryopreservation, etc...), then human initiative could be approached.

[Neurosail]

My opinion on this:
Instead of hijacking Mr. Tanabe and freezing his head, I think it would be more meaningful to freeze someone's else head who really wants his head frozen (his head will be probably in a better shape) and set a date for reviving him/her with (our) bloody hands no matter how advanced is our world at that time.  The date could be set 10 to 15 years from now (again, the criteria should be that there will be an attempt to revive him/her at that particular time (not sooner not later).  If he/she dies so be it (the first sacrificed 'lamb'), if she/he lives good for him and the rest of us.  My whole point here is that we should put more emphasis on reviving somebody's head than freezing it.  Freezing heads does not seem that sensentional anyways; I have never heard of this James Bedford, for example, let alone the average person hearing about James Bedford. But reviving a person, I think, will be worldwide news.  This way 'imminst' does not have to spend money right away but dedicate some of its efforts to revive someone (it would be nice if it's the first reviving attempt) let say in 2015.

Ben Best (the president of CI) made the same mistake about neurosuspension on the SA Conference DVD when he said they would reattach the head to a new body. Sorry, but that is wrong.

The idea isn't to freeze someone's head, neuropreservation is to save someone's brain.

Cryopreservation that is focused on doing the best possible job to preserve the human brain is called "neuropreservation." The brain is a fragile organ that cannot be removed from the skull without injury, so it is left within the skull during preservation and storage for good ethical and scientific reasons. This gives rise to the mistaken impression that Alcor preserves "heads". It is more accurate to say that Alcor preserves brains in the least injurious way possible. As a practical matter, cephalic isolation (or "neuroseparation") is performed by surgical transection at the sixth cervical vertebrae. Non-cryopreserved tissue is handled in accordance with member wishes. Cremation is common.

The idea is to regrow a new body around the brain sans the head.

...we do not believe revival of neuropatients will involve anything as primitive as cloning or transplants. It seems much more likely that the patient's own cells will be prodded into regrowing the body that belongs around the brain in a reprise of the natural process that made the body in the first place. This could be done by combined natural and specialized growth programs, and also augmented by direct synthesis of scaffolding and cell placement by nanomedicine.

I just wanted to clear that up, it is a common mistake.

BTW I agree with struct that we should go for someone who wants to be cryopreseved.
A contest like Omni Magazine had in 1992, might be a better idea. What if LE magazine held the contest? I wonder about the required membership dues and who would pay them for the winner. Both Alcor and CI have membership dues and it wouldn't be fair to the other members if the winner/ sponsor didn't pay the dues. Also current members (like me) couldn't try to win, because if a member won, it would look like an inside job (fraud) so the winner of a contest would have to be a person not affiliated with Alcor, CI, ImmInst, or other sponsors. The media would be watching for that!

I think that revival will be about 1,000 years IMHO. The technology to repair the brain and the brain itself isn't understood yet. We don't even know how the brain functions or where self-awareness is located in the brain. We got a lot to learn before revival attempts could be made.

[Neurosail]

Here is the bio on James Bedford.

[struct]

umm, there is no way were are going to be able to revive someone's head in 15 years. And only CI does full body suspensions.

Before we start endangering human beings who are suspended it would be far more advantageous to succeed on animals. Otherwise it's just pure recklessness.

Sure, real sheep (maybe mice) is going to get defrosted first but the general public doesn't seem to get very excited about these great achievements on other animals. We already have extended life significantly in worms, butterflies, mice, etc and that news almost has fallen in deaf ear.
At some point (hopefully) there will be 'the first human defrosting attempt' and that will be risky anyways. It's unlikely that the perfect conditions will be reached at a particular time because the time after that is supposed to be more advanced in technology, and so on.
However, I don't have a strong opinion on this matter yet (freezing/defrosting); it was just had a quick thought about it. On the other hand trying to save the World's Oldest Living man seem to me advanturous and a little bit reckless. Right after that he won't be the World's Oldest Living man for sure (for some it may get interpreted as if 'imminst' killed him) His fragile body may complicate the freezing procedure and his chances of making it back would not be so great (or should I say--close to 0). His cells' damages, even though at a lower rate, will continue during suspension. Freezing someone does not qualify yet as success if you don't revive him and picking the World's Oldest man for reviving it's an extraordinary challange.

[Liquidus]

  At some point (hopefully) there will be 'the first human defrosting attempt' and that will be risky anyways. It's unlikely that the perfect conditions will be reached at a particular time because the time after that is supposed to be more advanced in technology, and so on. 

While perfect conditions will probably not be present in the first attempts, I would imagine that it would be put off long enough (general technology will continue to advance regardless). When the time comes for the first human attempt, I would be willing to wager that it will have a high mathematical probability of working. I think the exposure of it not working would probably be bad news for the movement in general, as opposed to reviving the first person on the first attempt and then allowing the news to explode onto the global scene.

I base this theory off what they're doing in france with the LHC (not too long ago, scientists thought this experiment would be suicide, let alone feasible for at least thousands of years). There's a potential for a blackhole to open, but it wouldn't be large enough, and the percentages of it happening are very, very low. In that sense, I think the cryonics institutes would wait until the mathematical probabilities are very high for success, which is probably relative to the advancements of technology.

[eternaltraveler]

His fragile body may complicate the freezing procedure and his chances of making it back would not be so great (or should I say--close to 0).  Right after that he won't be the World's Oldest Living man for sure (for some it may get interpreted as if 'imminst' killed him)

Firstly cryonics no longer involves freezing (at least of the brain). Modern cryonics involves vitrification. Furthermore how could his legal death from natural causes be interpreted as imminst killing him? It is ridiculous to think we would perform a cryonic suspension on a legally living person. It doesn't take place until legal death has been pronounced by the patient's physician.

His fragile body may complicate the freezing procedure and his chances of making it back would not be so great (or should I say--close to 0). His cells' damages, even though at a lower rate, will continue during suspension

At vitrification temperature molecules no longer move around, they just vibrate in place a bit. For all practical intents and purposes cell damage is stopped.

Freezing someone does not qualify yet as success if you don't revive him and picking the World's Oldest man for reviving it's an extraordinary challenge.

I don't see much more difficultly from reviving the worldest oldest or a 20 year old in terms of revival. I suggest you do some reading on exactly what cryonics is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics

[bgwowk]

How convinced are you that the technique used in 1967 did not result in information theoretic death?

I'm not convinced. A full characterization of the situation would be "potentially the world's oldest man". What makes Bedford interesting is that his care, like all cryonics patients, continues on the presumption that he may eventually be recoverable. He could therefore be characterized the world's oldest person that is still being cared for, albeit with prognosis unknown.

By the way, it is a sobering thought that perhaps as many as half of all cryonics cases occur under conditions worse than Bedford. Due to the difficulties of doing cryoprotective perfusion after long periods of ischemia with no standby or stabilization before transport, any case coming in from Japan on the budget discussed for this one would fall in that category.

You are of course absolutely right that the timescale for revival of anyone cryopreserved today even under the best conditions is very far in the future. Also, people seem to have this picture that one day a cryonics organization is going to pick patient, try to revive them, and then be famous for the first revival of a cryopreserved human. It won't happen like that. Cryonics is a last-in-first-out technology, where the people cryopreserved with the most advanced technology will be revived first. The first humans revived from cryopreservation probably won't even be cryonics patients, but people undergoing some form of perfected suspended animation for a defined time period and objective that might not even be medical (e.g. space travel). Once medicine gets good at pulling people in and out of such states in real-time, cryonics organizations might begin reaching back and trying to recover people cryopreserved years earlier with more crude technology. People cryopreserved longest ago, with the worst technology, will be among the last to be revived. It may almost be anticlimactic, though not for the individuals involved.

[struct]

Sure it would be cool to revive a frozen patient, but not at the expense of them only being alive for a couple of days, and then dying, that basically defeats the entire points of cryonics

During those couple of days a team of doctors/technicians will stand by the patient and once he is pronounced legally dead (again) they can freeze him again (sorry, I should say 'cool him again'), so what's the big deal!?

[bgwowk]

Sure it would be cool to revive a frozen patient, but not at the expense of them only being alive for a couple of days, and then dying, that basically defeats the entire points of cryonics

During those couple of days a team of doctors/technicians will stand by the patient and once he is pronounced legally dead (again) they can freeze him again (sorry, I should say 'cool him again'), so what's the big deal!?

This scenario is make-believe. It cannot be done, even if you want to do it. Sorry.

People cryopreserved with today's methods are way, way beyond any kind of recovery with near-term technology.

[struct]

I am just curious bgwowk: What's your opinion on 'molecules just vibrating in place a bit' after vitrification/cooling (considering that the cell is made up of many and different kinds of molecules; and, on top or bottom of it, there are many kinds of cells)?

Edited by struct, 09 October 2007 - 01:38 AM.

[Bruce Klein]

If Tomoji Tanabe says publicly he wants cryonics, plus personally pays for a non-trivial % of the cost then I think ImmInst should match that % up to $5,000 US.

[bgwowk]

I am just curious bgwowk: What's your opinion on 'molecules just vibrating in place a bit' after vitrification/cooling (considering that the cell is made up of many and different kinds of molecules; and, on top or bottom of it, there are many kinds of cells)?

At the glass transition temperature, the solution viscosity rises to about 10^12 poise. The Stokes-Einstein Equation says that diffusion will be very, very slow at that viscosity. I once calculated using the Stokes-Einstein equation and Arrhenius equation that a certain fast biochemical reaction that takes one second at body temperature would take billions of years below the glass transition temperaure.

The caveats to all this are that ice nucleation (formation of embryonic ice crystals on the molecular scale) can still proceed rapidly until ten or twenty degrees below the glass transition temperature, and not everything inside a living thing will necessarily have the same glass transition temperature. I guess that is what you are alluding to. There is some circumstantial evidence that lipid phases in certain plant seeds may remain mobile below the water/cryoprotectant glass transition temperature, but I don't think anybody is worried about this for mammalian cells.