31 replies to this topic

[adbatstone]

You did research? Really? Show me one reinvigorated cryonic victim. Just one. No, don't show me a frog that was frozen. Show me a cryonics victim, that was drained and pumped with fluid, then thawed. I'll show you a mass of water damaged tissue. No amount of research is going to refute that result. Ever. The cryonics scam is science used as snake oil in a 'belief' and 'trust' system that 'science' will overcome those problems some day in order for the 'dead' to rise again. Bull. Life is gone. It is not coming back to a dead body. Frankenstein was a book and people knew it yet it spawned belief systems of stupidity. So does cryonics.

That is the same old line you guys have used for years. Heart Transplants, CPR and Laser Surgery is nothing compared to what you quacks claim. Small minds fall for the kind of crap that you fall for. It will never happen. Cryonics is nothing more than a cult. You are no more than a Johnny come lately who missed out on the Jim Jones party and who missed out on the freaks in Rancho Cucumonga who killed themselves so alien spaceships can come get them and their white tennis shoes. Why don't you join the circus?

Enough with cryonics already. It doesn't work. You're all suckers.

Edited by adbatstone, 19 February 2005 - 04:07 AM.

[Infernity]

Gee, just don't blow up by optimism adbatstone...
I cannot see a reason that's not going to work.
Did you see something that humanity did not succeed? Everything we want to do- we are doing, some are done and some are not (yet).
Don't despise cryonics, everything is possible. This- - is even reasonable.
The same as you think that soon we won't have that body which is humanistic (which I believe there's no reason to change it so it won't happen), so cryonics will soon be arrived, much more necessary than a different body in my opinion.

Yours
~Infenrnity

[Chip]

While conspicuous consumption wastes much, while some die at a vary young age due to not enough life support, I find cryonics to be much like what the author of this thread suggests as well as perhaps somewhat criminal. It's hard enough to make myself of value to justify my being alive let alone justifying the energy and time to maintain my frozen remains. I suppose though it could prove to be the livelihood of some "service providers" as there is a market. Is it W.C.Fields I'm recalling as having made a statement about such folks?

[DJS]

Adbatstone, there is a very popular saying within the cryonics community that I think you need to contemplate:

"Cryonics is a grand experiment. So far the control group isn't doing too well."

Why can't people get their mind around this notion? [huh] Cryonics beats the alternatives.

Why not roll the dice when you're playing with house money?

[jaydfox]

Seriously folks, let's keep some perspective. Cryonics is only currently "expensive" because the number of procedures performed annually is on the order of dozens, not millions. Millions of funerals a year, and the costs tend to get pretty "low", if you consider $8,000 to put a lifeless lump of useless biochemicals in the ground. That's how much my father's funeral cost, anyway, and that didn't include the plot, which was another $1,300.

With an economy of scale, let's say with even a mere few thousands of procedures a year, and cryonics costs for neuro-suspension could come down to less than double the cost of a funeral. Given tens of thousands of cyronic suspensions a year, and costs for full body suspension could come down to double the cost of a funeral.

With millions of people, the costs could be competitive. In other words, there would be NO EXTRA financial costs. Unless you have religious objections, there's no difference between cryonics and funerals. And what are your chances of being revived 100 years from now if you were buried! Zero, zilch, zip, none. That's better than a 1% chance of cryonics working, and anyone with a serious background in biology and nanotech can tell you that the odds are probably even better than 1% that cryonics can restore a body to life, with memories and personality mostly intact.

Now, whether the "soul", that subjective, first-person "I" was preserved, that's a question that cannot be answered today, as it's at least as much a philosophical question as a scientific one (even in materialism, since we still don't have a solid idea of qualia), but hey, let's say there's only a 10% chance that your "I" is preserved. Now we're looking at a 0.1% chance that you'll be revived, at worst, though I suspect it's at least a couple percent. That's a lot better than a 0% chance. It's infinitely better, in fact. For no extra cost. Cost/benefit ratio? ZERO! No cost, inifinitely better chance of being revived!

Alex Chiu's rings? We've already covered it, to death (warning, this link is to the Free Speech Forum. I've done my best to warn you).
http://www.imminst.o...137&t=4357&st=0

Bottom line? No verifiable evidence that Chiu's rings work. All anecdotal evidence so far is hogwash. Lifespan studies, including disease rate studies, are required. Given the huge potential for the placebo effect and hypnotism/brainwashing, we can't even trust the anecdotal evidence if it were controlled, which it isn't. Chiu has made no effort to establish either a scientific theory or a scientific study of the ring's "efficacy". It's not even science in the broadest of definitions.

To top it all off, if you really believe in Alex's rings, then you have to buy the third ring, or the other rings are completely useless! And only Lazarus Long and I have the secret of constructing the third "Ring of Power" (warning, another link to the Free Speech Forum)!

[Infernity]

Jay,
What's the idea in linking these sentences to the Free Speech Forum? [huh]

And only Lazarus Long and I have the secret of constructing the third "Ring of Power"

Ha...?!

Yours
~Infernity

[jaydfox]

Sorry Infernity, it might be a little hard to follow unless you read that thread (and it's long, 160 entries!).

If you'd like, I can lay out the scientific case that proves that Alex's minions are either lying or lying. There's no third option where they might be telling the truth. However, laying such a case should be done in the free speech forum, so as to avoid clogging up these scientific fora with more of Alex's garbage.

[Infernity]

Jay,

If you'd like, I can lay out the scientific case that proves that Alex's minions are either lying or lying.

Thanks, only if you feel need to. I never believed those "miracle rings" anyway so I am not the one you should prove it to. I'd like to read it, but again- only if you feel need to...

However, laying such a case should be done in the free speech forum, so as to avoid clogging up these scientific fora with more of Alex's garbage.

Oh yeah, silly me, I should have get it .

Yours truthfully
~Infernity

[jaydfox]

Okay, since we're in the cryonics forum, let's stay on topic. I'm guilty myself, so nobody should feel I'm pointing fingers. But let's get back on topic: cryonics. There's a link to the rings topic that adbatstone posted, so if that's what you want to discuss, discuss it there.

Is cryonics a scam? Well, scam's not a fair word here. Scam implies taking someone's money through intentional fraud.

Cryonics institutes have spent millions of dollars on defending their practice in court, so they're hardly turning a profit. Besides, they offer their procedures at as close to cost as possible: no 200%-500% markups here! (*cough* magnets are cheap *cough*)

And their employees have signed up as well: they've put their money where their mouth is. A lot more money than $25.

So even if they actually knew that they were lying, they're not in this for the money. By the way, if anything's a scam, a previously mentioned person's "invention" falls more into this category: selling an unproven "technology" for profit. But before I get myself in more trouble, back to cryonics.

As if it weren't enough that cryonics would not qualify as a scam if they were lying, let's consider the very, very likely case that they are not lying. They honestly believe that cryonics can work. It's not a guarantee, and they have never made any claim of a guarantee. A certain previously mentioned person HAS in fact claimed that his invention does work. No such claim has ever been made with cryonics. So again, who's scamming whom? I'll let the facts speak for themselves.

Is cryonics a scam? In this case, look who's asking the question!

[advancedatheist]

If cryonics is fraudulent, who is getting rich off of it? The people who have devoted their lives to cryonics have often done so at considerable financial hardship.

[jaydfox]

If cryonics is a scam, so is every major world religion: offering hope without a guarantee. And most of those religions are the ones turning out the fine citizens accusing cryonics of being a scam.

[Chip]

I read the blurb at http://www.alcor.org/problems.html

I find it interesting that volunteers are paid a modest amount. Does not sound like volunteers to me. I also find the statement that they will not fail financially due to investments mainly from donations, to be spurious when they also state that they lack the capital for expansion. Sounds like a beyond the grave social security privitization plan with no say as to how the investments are managed by the "patient" or their family. I also wonder why they state their goal as furthering "suspended animation" as cryonics is not that. Furthermore, it does not sound fiscally responsible to consider that an insurance plan could cover the costs. How many years of paying that insurance are necessary to qualify for the treatment? Which is it, an insurance plan or one time outlay of cash? If any one would care to detail the costs that would be appreciated. I am not interested enough to research this in depth.

According to the data at that web page, some of the staff do not elect to sign up for the process. Also, it looks to me that directors and some of the other staff probably make enough money to compensate for their having signed up and paid their fees, which I suspect is discounted for their employees.

As far as the immortality rings go, I take that as a quick example that such scams do exist, not a claim to authenticity but rather support that one should question paying money for something that claims it might accord immortality to the payees. Oh, there is the other threads that I could go look at concerning that but, again, I am not that interested.

I see no mention at their site or by any of those discussing this here to what I consider the main argument against pursuing cryonics (at least for myself). How can one justify preserving their own body as well as can be managed after death when current human affairs alllow many to die at a young age?

There is a Sci-Fi book called "This Perfect Day" by Ira Levin (the main protaganist is called "Chip"). The world is run by a huge computer. People are managed from day one with a drug and diet regimen that is administered by the computer complex. They enjoy excellent health and much leisure time but all are killed at age 30 (if I remember correctly) to keep the population manageable, at least that is what they are led to believe. The story pans out much like Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End" where destruction and reformulation of the over-seeing governing system is practically inherent in its design. Chip, in "This Perfect Day," discovers that a small group of people live in the computer complex. Most are over a hundred years old, some over two hundred, due partly to receiving implants from the multiple donors available as most outside die young. The book depicts an extreme case of elitism. I find it quite feasible that the case for cryonics as a chosen option may be fostered by an overt valuing of the self. Is our individual life more important than the quality and longevity of life in general, for other humans and the other species of our biosphere? I do believe we will come to have a governing system on this planet. I suspect that if it really works, the degree of compassion for all life will be rewarded while elitism will be shunned. The justification for privileges for a few are many and varied and often quite fantastical, IMHO. The reason and logic against it seems irrefutable to those who are fortunate enough to have gained the insight.

I am not against cryonics as a science. I believe that any funding for such go into basic research to make the idea feasible, if possible, for all humans. I think that is better served by not reaching for the "pie in the sky" too quickly. If we can somehow get our priorities straight, then our sciences will blossom with many options we can only guess at now. The great similarity in DNA amongst all humans tells me that elitism, the considering of a few or the self as more priveleged than others, is most likely usually spurred by the second-order cybernetic quality of humans and their society. A marketing ploy for any enterprise is to offer and stress its value to consumers. I suggest the best course to immortality is to serve humanity and life in general. Otherwise, the logic exists to consider the elitists as violent. Blow back becomes a risk. How will you defend your preserved body from those who are denied such an option? Help them get the option too. I dare say, such a strategy faces the concept that money is based on a zero-sum game and ultimately not the right tool for the job. I wonder how the investments Alcor has made, a trust in the permanence of current human social experiments and their scripts, their adopted token exchange systems, will fare.

My father passed away recently. Cryonics was suggested to me as an option (though highly remote). My father would hear nothing of it. He also shunned burial in a plot and was cremated. We spread his ashes in a nature preserve he helped secure. During his life he worked with foreign aid to combat diseases of impoverished people. He also defended endangered species and helped bring back as well as secure habitats for much life. It is fitting that his elements and remaining compounds should course through life he helped defend. Cryonics would have been blasphemy in his eyes. I cater to the same secular humanism that was his predominant practice, I too consider it to be a sign of spiritual lacking to embrace cryonics while many die all too easily.

Chip

[jaydfox]

I see no mention at their site or by any of those discussing this here to what I consider the main argument against pursuing cryonics (at least for myself). How can one justify preserving their own body as well as can be managed after death when current human affairs alllow many to die at a young age?

If that's the case, then one could argue the same thing for supporting cancer research. $10 billion in cancer research this year, and what will come of it? Ten thousand people might receive therapies that let them live six months longer in pain and suffering before they kick the bucket. That's $1,00,000 to buy someone an extra six months. A few hundred people might be lucky enough to actually be cured and live an extra five or ten years (as compared to a world in which we spent that $10 billion on doughnuts and beer) before something else kills them, since let's be honest, most cancer patients are old enough that if it wasn't the cancer, it would be something else like heart disease or Alzheimer's.

That same $1,000,000 could feed a few thousand starving people in Africa for a year. So cancer research is a glorious waste of money. So is research to make cars safer. So is research to make toys and food safer. So is research to make computers run faster. So is research to make planes faster, safer, and more fuel efficient. So is research to make cars pollute less. So is research to make workers more efficient at their jobs. So is research to increase agricultural output. So is research to increase the efficiency of our food, power, and retail infrastructure.

By your logic, any money that isn't being spent on helping the poor is money that is being wasted. But if we operated on that logic, we'd still be in the middle ages or worse. How could we ever develop the technology to make the world a better place if all we did was help the poor? Most poor people have a better standard of living today than the kings of centuries gone by.

You can't save everybody, because if you try, more people die than if you did nothing. You save the people you can save, and you get on with your life and making life better for everyone, not just the unfortunate. You strike a balance.

Curing aging breaks this model. It would actually cost less to cure aging than to research cancer, and it would save thousands times more lives in the long run. It would actually save more lives per dollar than trying to save starving people in Africa!!! By your logic, anyone not pouring all their spare money into a cure for aging is wasting their money.

But in the end, people are selfish. What good does it do so save the whole world and lose your own life. And if cryonics doesn't cost a dime more than a funeral, then it's not like they're wasting any money, are they.

But to get cryonics as cheap as a funeral (only ten grand, a mere $10,000), we need a market of scale. Then we could maybe save their lives, maybe not, and it wouldn't affect the "economy" of saving other people's lives. A win-win situation. Nothing to cry foul about.

How can one justify preserving their own body as well as can be managed after death when current human affairs alllow many to die at a young age?

Not an issue. That's why we haven't addressed it. But it can be addressed. We're not ignoring that question because we're afraid to answer it. We're not addressing that question because it's a pointless question. Nothing is justifiable under that logic.

[bgwowk]

adbatstone wrote:

Show me a cryonics victim, that was drained and pumped with fluid, then thawed. I'll show you a mass of water damaged tissue. No amount of research is going to refute that result. Ever.

Last time I looked, living tissue contains mostly water. Your claim that water damages tissue doesn't hold water. Can you be more specific?

The cryonics scam is science used as snake oil in a 'belief' and 'trust' system that 'science' will overcome those problems some day in order for the 'dead' to rise again.

Such venom. Did a cryonicist do something terrible to you in a previous life?

Bull. Life is gone. It is not coming back to a dead body.

This is a name calling, not a scientific argument. Saying dead people can't be revived is a circular argument because the definition of death is "can't be revived"! See http://www.alcor.org.../hesdeadjim.htm It's quite funny.

You are no more than a Johnny come lately who missed out on the Jim Jones party and who missed out on the freaks in Rancho Cucumonga who killed themselves so alien spaceships can come get them and their white tennis shoes.

The freaks in tennis shoes were from Rancho Santa Fe, not Rancho Cucamonga. I work in Rancho Cucamonga! [tung]

Your caricatured view of cryonics is far displaced from reality. If you want the facts, read:

http://www.alcor.org...ltimetravel.htm

I wrote that article, and if you have any questions, I can answer them. I am a professional cryobiologist and organ preservation expert by trade. As Alan Alda says in the ads for "The Aviator", who are you?

---BrianW

[Chip]

You misunderstand me, jaydfox. I do not oppose research, as I stated. No need to defend against something I did not attack.

Cancer is a neat example. Why aren't Burzynski's proven methods to combat cancer adopted widely? Why has it been apparently actively suppressed? How come doctors in hospitals working on cancer patients are not interested in and/or aware of ellagic acid? Why aren't blueberries, cranberries, and other phyto-anti-oxidant containing plants promoted as a prophylactic by those who claim to be combatants of cancer? How came "Gerson Therapy" seems like dirty words to many doctors treating cancer despite the positive clinical trial results? What about the general theory and explanation offered for Gerson therapy that seems to simply escape doctors treating cancer? Why are the pollutants and the stress of unsound environmental management not addressed by many who claim to combat cancer in preference to the knife and expensive drugs and radiotherapy? Could it be that the great war against cancer, which received perhaps its largest boost in funding simultaneously with a great investment in killing people in Vietnam by the US, could largely be a scam?

Gee, before in this thread you stated that the cost of cryonics would be only a little more than twice the cost of a funeral. Now you state it is not a dime more than the cost of a funeral. You also changed your former statement of a funeral cost from $8,000 to $10,000. Seems the information you cite is conveniently amenable to the fervor of your commitment to the cause.

Hmmmm. I'm sorry. If you want me to trust as to your perspective as to what is meaningful logic, you will need to adhere to such a bit more pronouncedly rather than appearing as an unquestioning believer who is more concerned in defending their opinion than remaining consistent to their own communications. [lol]

From Alcor "At the present time the technology required for the realization of our goal far exceeds current technical capabilities." I think the odds of preserved dead now being revived later is less than winning the lottery. People do buy lottery tickets. I don't. I rarely gamble at all any more but when I do, I usually prefer to not invest in long-shots.

BTW, my dad at 82 was entirely healthy. His face was wrinkled but his body lean and strong. It was only the cancer that did him in though I would add that the socio-psychological environment was not conducive to finding a cure quick enough. It does not bode well for you to go and lump cancer deaths as acceptable because it only happens in old age where something else might happen too. That is purely crass, jaydfox. Really, quite a morose and sick opinion.

[Chip]

Hi Brian W.!

I read that article you wrote. It is not a scientific treatise, I'm sure you are aware. Mind telling us what your income is? Do you work in the field full-time? Do you think maybe your perspective might be biased to seeking more financial reward by convincing others of the feasibility of something Alcor admits "far exceeds current technical capabilities?"

[jaydfox]

Gee, before in this thread you stated that the cost of cryonics would be only a little more than twice the cost of a funeral. Now you state it is not a dime more than the cost of a funeral. You also changed your former statement of a funeral cost from $8,000 to $10,000. Seems the information you cite is conveniently amenable to the fervor of your commitment to the cause.

Before we start flaming:

Millions of funerals a year, and the costs tend to get pretty "low", if you consider $8,000 to put a lifeless lump of useless biochemicals in the ground. That's how much my father's funeral cost, anyway, and that didn't include the plot, which was another $1,300.

That comes out to $9,300, all things considered. Not quite $10,000, so I apologize. I make no representation that this is the median cost of burying one's dead, but I've seen other estimates that confirm that $10,000 is very close, and probably a bit low. Besides, my point was that, without an existing market of millions of dead people every year, funerals would not be so "cheap", but would cost as much as cryonics.

Given tens of thousands of cyronic suspensions a year, and costs for full body suspension could come down to double the cost of a funeral.

With millions of people, the costs could be competitive. In other words, there would be NO EXTRA financial costs.

No, I didn't change my story. "NO EXTRA financial costs" means the same as "doesn't cost a dime more". Yes, I said that with tens of thousands of cyronics suspensions a year, the cost would be double.

I also said that with millions, the costs could be competitive, with no extra costs. And since millions of people die every year, there is certainly an existing market that could support my claim.

And before you ask, I am not affiliated directly with any cryonics outfit, either as a volunteer, a member, or a marketeer. My only association is that I am a paying Full Member (and Director) of the Immortality Institute, which supports cryonics on principle.

[bgwowk]

Chip wrote:

read that article you wrote. It is not a scientific treatise, I'm sure you are aware.

Treatise: "a formal piece of writing that considers and examines a particular subject"
In science, we would call that a "review article." No, the article I wrote is not a review article. It was a book chapter written for Imminst's book and its expected readership. If you want scientific journal articles about cryonics, there's a list with Pubmed links at

http://www.alcor.org/sciencerefs.html

Mind telling us what your income is?

You first! [lol]

Do you work in the field full-time?

I work in mainstream cryobiology full-time, not cryonics.

Do you think maybe your perspective might be biased to seeking more financial reward by convincing others of the feasibility of something Alcor admits "far exceeds current technical capabilities?"

Since I've had my perspective for two decades, and still haven't figured out how to make money from it, I don't think so! On the other hand, if you accuse me of wanting to convince people to look at this because the feasilibity is a strong function of the number of people that support it, and many lives depend on the feasiblity, I'd be guilty.

You wrote about the odds of "cryonics working". At this end, today, in purely technical terms, "cryonics working" means adequately preserving the physical basis of memory and personality. As someone who knows more about the pertinent science than just about anyone in the world right now, I'd be surprised if cryonics, under the best conditions today, were not doing that. The hard part, IMHO, is keeping "patients" around long enough to get the job finished in the face of enormous sociological obstacles of indifference and hostility. In that sense, the long odds of cryonics are a self-fulfilling prophesy.

---BrianW

[jaydfox]

From Alcor "At the present time the technology required for the realization of our goal far exceeds current technical capabilities." I think the odds of preserved dead now being revived later is less than winning the lottery. People do buy lottery tickets. I don't. I rarely gamble at all any more but when I do, I usually prefer to not invest in long-shots.

I'm curious as to why you believe this. What do you think of the possibility that nanotechnology will one day be able to manipulate matter at the molecular/atomic level?

Reviving frozes bodies through strict biochemical processes does seem next to impossible, so I'd be inclined to agree with you if nanotech were not an option. But nanotech is an option. It might not be advanced enough in 50 years, or even 100 years, but do you seriously think that we'll never have the ability to manipulate individual atoms at will? Remember, at the temperatures used in cryonics, the state of a brain stored today will be almost indistinguishable from the state of that brain in a thousand years. Chemical process won't apply. The only thing that will materially matter is radiation damage. And that takes thousands of years to add up. Just moving the storage tanks deep underground would obviate that concern, if it is a concern at all.

Like Brian said, the main concern is not whether we can revive people. That's a question of whether mankind's technology will someday stop advancing, and there's no remotely plausible theory that it will, short of us becoming "gods", at which point we won't need further technology.

The real question is whether a person is "preserved", and like I said, that's an open-ended question on several fronts. Do we have the technology today to preserve memories, personality, etc.? If Brian says yes, that's good enough for me. He's the expert, not me.

Do we have the technology today to preserve the "soul"? That's anybody's guess, but neither you nor I can say with anything resembling authority that the odds are lower than the odds of winning the lottery. I personally put the odds pretty low, but given the inherently unknowable nature of the question with today's technology, and the presumable advanced technology of tomorrow, I'm willing to wager that the odds are about 10%. In other words, I feel the odds are about 1 in a million, but there's a 10% chance that I'm wrong about the nature of "I", in which case, technology will someday be powerful enough to restore that "I" to its proper tabernacle. And 10% is good enough for me, since I think the odds of restoring a person from cryonics are probably at least 50-50. But for the sake of conservatism, I only assumed a 1% chance earlier.

Others here may argue that the odds that I'm wrong are much greater than 10%. If they are, then that only makes the case for cryonics that much stronger. Any person claiming the odds are about the same as the odds of winning the lottery is single-handedly claiming to know the answer to a question that has plagued mankind for millenia. People have made such claims about technology since time immemorial, and have invariably been proven wrong.

[Chip]

So far, I doubt that nanotechnology can or will be able to resuscitate current preserved bodies with memories intact, if any, or for bodies that are preserved with available technology for quite some time to come. I am no expert at all but I am quite the generalist and from my understanding of memory and neuroscience (I have an interest in the mathematical characteristics and have studied current models extensively) it works along the principles of holography which suggests it is not cellular but actually intracellular, distributive in nature. I doubt if the current preservation techniques sustain the intracellular environment enough that memories or personalities can be retrieved. In fact, I doubt if that could be the case unless one is eased into death while simultaneously undergoing cryonic suspension. Dying first and then being put in the chambers or whatever most likely leads to quick loss of memory and personality. That which is us is gone quick. If nanotechnology proves to be magical, allowing us the "ability to manipulate individual atoms at will" then it is moot to consider the science. I read Dr. Donaldson's short attempt at a scientific discourse concerning cryonics feasibility linked to by Brian, http://www.alcor.org...ldsonBrief.html and he thinks the revivability will be feasible within decades. Hard for me to believe this. We may be able to revive bodies but I suspect that unless the original preservation techniques can be greatly advanced, the result would be brain dead individuals that would have to learn all from scratch.

I think Brian's first post here is fairly accurate. Certainly the original author of this thread has/had an extreme opinion. I also appreciate the explanation of the costs for funerals as not as I garnered from your posts as well as not strictly in accordance with your original estimates, jaydfox, but cremation makes the cost of dealing with the dead cheaper and the cost factor would have to be adjusted in such a manner to make cryonics less economical with inclusion of that option. I've long thought that I would like my body ground up and then digested aerobically, to minimize disease pathogens, and then used to help fertilize areas where humans would not come into contact necessarily with the resulting plant growth. IF that option could be made real then the cost of disposing of my remains may be even cheaper.

Brian, my wife and I currently average about $5 per month more than legally qualified low income (for medicare and food stamp purposes), about 24k or a little less per year. It is risky to live at this level of income and I hope to change that soon by getting decent employment again for myself and my wife recently gained her CNA certificate which should help. I would love to work full-time on my social theory, modeling of past social evolution and developing the software my theory tells me is possible to provide a, perhaps, more rewarding way to socialize now but one must do what one can. I hope to get into a position that allows me to continue to practice my software and computer hardware skills.

[bgwowk]

So far, I doubt that nanotechnology can or will be able to resuscitate current preserved bodies with memories intact, if any, or for bodies that are preserved with available technology for quite some time to come.

I certainly agree with the "for quite some time to come" part. Reversing cryonics as practiced today will require technologies so incredibly advanced that it's hard to even envision the kind of world that would accompany them. But the specific technologies, radical as they are, are still foreseeable and within the bounds of known physical law.

If you really want to know how far technology will go before it bumps into physical law, and what it means for the world in general, then you must read

http://www.foresight.org/EOC/

and especially

http://www.foresight..._Chapter_9.html

to see what it means for cryonics.

I doubt if the current preservation techniques sustain the intracellular environment enough that memories or personalities can be retrieved. In fact, I doubt if that could be the case unless one is eased into death while simultaneously undergoing cryonic suspension. Dying first and then being put in the chambers or whatever most likely leads to quick loss of memory and personality. That which is us is gone quick.

I think you are confusing cerebral ischemic injury with memory erasure. There is no reason to believe that the physiological changes that make resuscitation difficult after a few minutes cardiac arrest today are erasing the molecular basis of memory, especially when you consider the fact that actual cell death typically occurs hours later as a result of apoptosis. Think of stopping a car engine in winter weather, and thick oil sludging up the engine preventing restart. That's a mechanical analog of cerebral ischemic injury. Just because you have trouble starting an engine doesn't mean all the parts have disintegrated.

This is mostly moot for cryonics under ideal circumstances anyway, because life support equipment restarts blood circulation and oxygenation within the 4-6 minute resuscitation window of even today's medical technology.

http://www.alcor.org...arySupport.html

If nanotechnology proves to be magical, allowing us the "ability to manipulate individual atoms at will" then it is moot to consider the science.

No magic. Just physics. Science is still necessary to tell us whether we are going to be reviving an original person or merely an amnesiac close. Although I would be surprised if cryonics under excellent conditions today weren't preserving memories, I still can't prove it.

I read Dr. Donaldson's short attempt at a scientific discourse concerning cryonics feasibility linked to by Brian, http://www.alcor.org...ldsonBrief.html and he thinks the revivability will be feasible within decades.

Actually the decades assertion is in the "editors notes" by Robert Bradbury. Both Donaldson and I would sharply disagree with Bradbury on that one.

I'm sorry to hear about your income situation. I was only kidding when I said, "You first!" But since you did anyway, I'll just say that I'm fortunate to earn an income that is typical for a research scientist in my career stage, but still much less than my buddies in graduate school that stayed in medical physics and who are now raking in 6 figures doing radiotherapy support services! Would you believe I left that field in the early 1990s because I thought cancer would be cured by now, and radiotherapy would be obsolete! A victim of my own optimism. A cryonicist epitaph?

---BrianW

[Chip]

lol. Sounds like you have enjoyable and interesting work and I wish you well with it.

From what I understand memory is not molecular in nature but actually electrochemical relying on fringe interference patterns as in holography. A few minutes of no electrochemical activity and I believe we end up with something that is not indicative of the original state upon death sufficiently to revive any thing that could remember or acknowledge ever having existed before. Ah, I can see it now, "Great great great grandchildren, Chip is back. Here's some diapers and bottles to help you in raising him."

I will spend some time with your references. Thanks.

[Chip]

I should add that the apparent holographic nature of human memory could be totally computational and not relegated to sustainment of electrical patterns but my limited understanding tells me there is not enough room in the human skull for the molecules that would be necessary to store such. I could be mistaken. It's been a few years since I dived into the subject.

To make an analogy that may explain this further, appears human memory is stored in something equivalent to Dynamic RAM rather than static or hard disk based. Turn off the juice and it is lost just as with the DRAM we use in our computer systems.

[eternaltraveler]

Chip,

while that may be true of short-term memory, that is certainly not true of long term memory. If it was that would mean that every time someone went under anesthesia they would wake up with no memory. Furthermore there are plenty of cases where people have been revived after a period of zero brain activity. They were not blanks.

[Chip]

Yes. I appear to be mistaken. Long term memory appears to be chemical in nature. The following is copied and pasted from http://www.faqs.org/...nics-faq/part2/

2-7.  Do memories require an ongoing metabolism to support them, like RAM in
      a computer?

No.  Here's a relevant quote, supplied by Brian Wowk:

        We know that secondary memory does not depend on continued
        activity of the nervous system, because the brain can be
        *totally inactivated* (emphasis added) by cooling, by general
        anesthesia, by hypoxia, by ischemia, or by any method and yet
        secondary memories that have been previously stored are still
        retained when the brain becomes active once again.

Textbook of Medical Physiology, Arthur C. Guyton, W.B. Saunders
Company, Philadelphia, 1986

Thomas Donaldson says that brain waves of supercooled small animals
have been measured, and there are none, even though the animals still
have their memories after they are rewarmed.  He cites AU Smith, ed.
BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF FREEZING AND SUPERCOOLING, London, 1961; article
by Aubrey Smith herself, "Revival of mammals from body temperatures
below zero", pp. 304-368.

However, it appears that an hour or two of death is sufficient for degradation of the concentrations of the chemicals beyond recoverability. Here is a site that includes many opinions concerning supposed problems with cryogenics http://flatrock.org....ld_shoulder.htm

I suppose the option might be available to me via a life insurance policy payable to the cryogenic facility that would perform the work. I have two small kids and a dear wife who is 6 years younger than me and it would be unconscionable (sp?) for me to not leave such to them. If someone were willing to give me a nice lump of cash allowing me the option of cryogenics I'd use it on research concerning preserving life here and now and not just my own.

I edited this to change the second URL which I had at first gotten wrong.

Edited by Chip, 18 February 2005 - 05:41 PM.

[bgwowk]

However, it appears that an hour or two of death is sufficient for degradation of the concentrations of the chemicals beyond recoverability.

It does seem intuitively plausible that if 4-6 minutes of warm ischemia (absent blood flow) prevents resuscitation, then surely a couple of hours of warm ischemia would wipe out chemistry completely, doesn't it? But intuition in this case is wrong. The primary cause of poor resuscitation outcome after a few minutes of ischemia is post-resuscitation brain swelling that cuts off blood circulation, and other vascular pathologies. Simple measures such as post-resuscitation cooling (now beginning to be used clinically), removing part of the skull to accomodate brain swelling, or medications that supress inflammation can extend the resuscitation window to 10 to 15 minutes. Cats have been resuscitated after 60 minutes of warm ischemia by high pressure reperfusion. Living brain cells can still be cultured from human brains even after 8 hours of clinical death.

It's also notable that almost everything now known about the biochemistry of degenerative brain diseases, such as Parkinsons and Alzheimers, has been learned by studying brains removed hours after clinical death. This wouldn't be possible if brain chemistry was utterly destroyed by only a couple hours of ischemia.

What you will probably see in the future is people resuscitated with greater and greater degrees of amnesia after increasing intervals of clinical death. With hyperadvanced technology, short of something like vaporization, the line between life and death may never be clear. But if such a line is to be drawn, it's certainly going to be beyond an hour or two of clinical death.

Here is a site that includes many opinions concerning supposed problems with cryogenics http://flatrock.org....ld_shoulder.htm

I couldn't find a single specific "problem" in any of these articles. All the criticisms presumed the folly of cryonics was obvious without any explanation necessary.

I suppose the option might be available to me via a life insurance policy payable to the cryogenic facility that would perform the work. I have two small kids and a dear wife who is 6 years younger than me and it would be unconscionable (sp?) for me to not leave such to them.

Apples and oranges. Life insurance and insurance purchased for cryonics may be legally the same, but the purposes are completely different. Your first priority is to make sure the immediate needs of your family are met. Your second priority is to purchase insurance against calamities, such as health catastrophies, or the economic catastrophy of your death. Your third priority is to protect not just yourself, BUT YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY, from the health catastrophy of running out of contemporary medical options (i.e. cryonics). Of course such a decision must be weighted by the perceived likelihood of cryonics actually working.

If someone were willing to give me a nice lump of cash allowing me the option of cryogenics I'd use it on research concerning preserving life here and now and not just my own.

What could possibly be a more powerful contribution to the "here and now" than a method for stopping people from dying from almost anything? It would be like a de-facto cure for everything. No more terminal illness. In the words of Drexer 20 years ago, "Perhaps the time has come to awaken from the final medical nightmare."

---BrianW

[Chip]

I did not state that site listed the problems, only opinions about "supposed problems." Careful, you may be so enamored of cryonics that you disregard being of integrity in defending it. They reorganized their web site and the URL is now http://flatrock.org....ld_shoulder.htm

Brian, wouldn't it be nice if more effort could be placed into improving the technology of cryonics? What about the evidence that conspiracies to supress technologies that would lead to less people ever contracting terminal diseases (earlier in this thread I attempted to mention some concerning cancer) exist? Wouldn't it be nice to organize ourselves in such a way that the most promising life enhancing technologies, including cryonics, could be facilitated by magnitudes? It is my hope that the experimentation my social theory suggests will help us to remove the basic causes of many of these poor prioritizations and the misinformation dissemination, the preservation of ignorance so there are dependent markets of "suckers." What about all of the dangers that exist as human teleology is mainly targeted to bringing death to people? Are you aware that currently and most likely for all of human history most science is targeted towards weaponry? Want me to go find the statistics for you? In terms of dollars and cents, us Homo saps have long placed magnitudes more towards facilitating death than life.

Ever see the article by Bill Joy "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" http://www.wired.com...e/8.04/joy.html (It;s not a quick read, eleven pages at that web domain). There are problems more pressing than cryonics, problems I believe have a common factor that if we can find a way to address them sufficiently can lead to great improvement in lessening the chances for death. I know it is difficult to discern, the nature of society being that we can not observe it objectively, but I hold that we will come to consider all of humanity's social technology to date has been broadly characterized by anarchy when we come to learn what organization really is and apply that knowledge to finding greater life respect and longevity. I will hold that as a priority for myself at least because that is where I begin to have some expertise, starting with work that my father did. It's possible that I just be deluding myself as that possibility also exists for your apparent stressing of cryonics as the solution to all terminal diseases. I want you to be ever more successful with your work but if you disregard the contextual environment, you may find that you and others will never get the option of cryonics as death may come all too easily without the means to get to the suspension tank in time. The necessary social machinery that maintains those suspension tanks is also questionable. As far as I can tell, human social experiments have continuously grown shorter and their dissolution and reformulation has often been quite violent. I guess you could say I am kind of working towards making cryonics more feasible also but as a consequence of solving a global problem that keeps it and many other life enhancing possibilities from blossoming.

I think it is thoroughly amazing that a very large portion of the population of what is considered to be the greatest super-power military-might on the planet, actually want and expect massive death and calamity. This appears to be well entrenched within our current administration. What caused this and how do we prevent it from materializing and how do we materialize the opposite hope that we can become ever more long lived and with space and freedom and health for all existing humans and their children as well as the other life of our biosphere, riches not even measured or treasured by existing economic means? If we always hope for future beings to bring solutions to dangers we have now, not ever work on addressing them directly, will they ever get solved? If not and they are allowed to increase in potential destructive force, no matter how well cryonics is made to work, it will not save us. Cryonics is not the only technology we should be looking at and it is not the most important, at least for me. With your learned expertise, sounds like it is good that you continue to pursue it but, give me and others a break. If you don't have expertise about all technologies good or bad, it is not rational of you to denounce any but your own as the best.

Chip

[bgwowk]

I'm just trying to build long-term life support systems. If you can reduce the number of people getting sick enough to need such systems, certainly more power to you! We all must exert our effort where we feel it will be most leveraged.

I interpreted your earlier "here and now" comments as a generic dismissal of cryonics, but I see now that you were actually advocating something specific. Your goals are laudible, and I wish you luck.

---BrianW