130 replies to this topic

[manowater989]

I'm curious to see what you guys think, barring some sort of super-catasatrophe, the kind of nanotechnology needed to bring somweone back from cryostasis will be here sooner or later, and, when you're cryonically persevered, you can pretty much afford to wait. So, ultimately, if you were on your death bed, how confident would you be feeling about waking up again once you "go to sleep" for tonight if you knew you were going to be placed immediately under cryonics? Incidentally, this is just a side-note, not directly relating to the poll's topic, but I noticed that Alcor's website doesn't have any kind of clause guaranteeing revival upon the development of the technologies that will be capable of it. It stands to reason that nanotechnological treatments won't be free, who's going to pay for that? Maybe they'll have to set up some kind of charitable fund, but they really should make some provision for that if they're truly serious about the logistics of the patients being revived someday.

[bgwowk]

I think the poll questions are poorly constructed. The first option, "Pretty damn terrified, cryonics is a huge question mark, a total crapshot," is a non sequitur. It doesn't follow that believing cryonics is unlikely to work means you are terrified. Most of the world doesn't believe cryonics will work, and nobody seems particularly terrified about it. The second option has similar problems. Even if the technology is guaranteed to work, getting yanked out of your life and irreversibly teleported to a strange and distant place is not something to be unworried about.

Even the basic premise of the poll (the likelihood of cryonics working) is layered with complexity and unstated assumptions. What are the conditions of the preservation? What is the technology used? What is the social environment at the time of preservation? For example, a young person signing up for cryonics today will probably be preserved using much more advanced (perhaps provably reversible) technology decades in the future. They will have a very different prognosis that someone expecting to be cryopreserved in the near future.

Thomas Donaldson years ago pointed out the folly of assigning odds to cryonics for an even more basic reason: You cannot assign odds to a process the progress and outcome of which you yourself can control.

----BrianW

[Infernity]

I think that there is no much reason to be worried, just stressful, I don't like the idea of dying you know...
But there are too options:
1. One day, doesn't matter when. you'll find yourself alive, with all the life experience you had, probably remembering the moment you were so close to die, realizing you were frozen for years, probably first question comes up "What year is it now?"... However, happy.

2. ...

Not like it really matters once "you" are there...

I don't doubt that technology will able us bring back all the cryoniced people, it's just a matter of time, and once you are dead, you don't really have the sense of time.
And there is no reason to fear of total nothing, just hope for as long as you are alive that you can keep hoping.

-Infernity

P.S. why did you create it twice? http://www.imminst.o...1&t=7449&hl=&s= ...

[manowater989]

I created it twice accidentally, is there a way to entirely delete a post? I also disagree with your statement that there "is no reason to fear of total nothing", indeed, I would think that some immortalists would agree that's the only thing to truly fear, the worst fate that could possibly befall you. Of course, recovering from that state is a lot better than having it be permanent...

[Infernity]

Well, it's not hurting or anything, how was it before birth? Nothing. That's terrible thinking you'll be like this, or actually not be anything, but once it happens, just it.

It's like, you think now you can't lose your feeling and be indifferent to anything on purpose to achieve The goal of knowing all (at least I do), although I know it's what will make it the easiest to do, I can do it but I am AFRAID to do it. Fear is a feeling, so if I decide I do this- I first- needed a feeling of nobility to start it. Secondly- there will be no fear anymore, since it has lost when I decided it.
But I fear doing it now, and I know it's what I should do, but I fear also I'll never do this, but if I start- I can't go back, no intentions to go back, all focused on the goal, playing minds, thinking... Never feel, but for The goal's sake. No fear, wan no fear, just a nebulous memory of what is called feeling, not fully understanding what was so hard, but still knowing it all.
Same is with death, You fear NOW, after it, it doesn't matter, it never was.
I believe you understood nothing. No one does.

To secure peace is to prepare for war.

Leadership took of the option to delete threads. Ask them to remove Brian's reply over here and his vote if possible, and erase the other one.

-Infernity

[manowater989]

I feel the duty to once again disagree with you here. Exactly, it's not hurting or *anything*, it's nothing, which is worse than anything. Before I was born, that was horrible, because I didn't exist. It's not bad because I remember it and it was unpleasant, it's bad because I don't remember it, because I didn't exist: far worse than a situation where I do exist but is merely unpleasant. Now I have escaped from that by being fortunate enough to come into existence, and I do not intend to allow myself to be returned to oblivion. No, it's not unpleasant to me because there is no me for it to be unpleasant to, which is WHY it's far worse than anything else, not why it's "not so bad, once it happens." Do you understand what I'm trying to get at?

[Infernity]

Yeah, you can now say it is bad, nonexistence, but once it happens, you can't.

I fear of it as much as I fear to do the smart move of releasing my feeling for the ultimate intentions.
After I do- it doesn't matter.

I think that's the only reason I don't do it, since it has something that is being applied also in death, I try to keep distance from it, as you can imagine.

I will be stressful knowing I am going to die, but cryonics calms me a lot.

-Infernity

[DJS]

I chose null vote. I didn't like the limitations the poll imposed on me.

I would rather it have said: How confident are you that cryonics will work?

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
-----------------------------------------------------------
My choice in this case would have been 80%. Of course, like everyone here, I would like to avoid cryonics at all cost.

[jaydfox]

Well, the interesting thing is, I'm actually very confident that cryonics will work for other people. Don knows what I mean by this, I think. That's one reason I advocate it so strongly, even though I don't think it'll do me any good.

Objectively, reviving a copy of a person is just as good as reviving the original person, and I suspect that the technology will exist someday to even revive people frozen without good protocols, e.g. people just frozen without good circulation or cryoprotectants, etc. I suspect that the person revived will have slight differences, similar to the slight differences between a person in the year 2004 and the year 2005. A person frozen with poor technology back in the 1970's will more likely be as different upon revival as a person from 1995 compared to the same person in 2005. In other words, there could be noticeable changes to personality and quality of memories, etc.

But of course, subjectively, I hold only a very, very, very small probability that the person will subjectively be the same person, dependent especially on the method of revival; hence I don't think it will do me much good. But then again, I'd take that very small chance over the 0% chance of revival if I'm buried or cremated.

[bgwowk]

That's an interesting perspective. Do you have similar concerns about hypothermic surgeries today, were you to need such a procedure? Faced with the prospect of being cooled to lower and lower temperatures, and then brought back, at what temperature do you think subjective survival might cease?

---BrianW

Edited by bgwowk, 01 August 2005 - 12:18 AM.

[Jay the Avenger]

The only thing that matters is that cryogenics gives you a >=0.0% chance of revival.

Whatever the actualy percentage may be, it simply does not matter since there are no suitable alternatives to draw comparisons with.

[John Schloendorn]

I'd say we don't even know that the chance is greater than 0, and that still makes it a highly rational choice ;-)

[Mark Hamalainen]

Given that being frozen kills you, it couldn't hurt to be cryonically frozen after you've been pronounced dead by other causes. I wouldn't have the procedure done until then, as I'd prefer to spend my last days of time and effort on more realistic plans for life-extension.

If you value other people's lives though, it may be preferable to donate the money to research that could save others, rather than waste it on a crapshot. I hope it never comes to that decision for me...

[jaydfox]

That's an interesting perspective. Do you have similar concerns about hypothermic surgeries today, were you to need such a procedure? Faced with the prospect of being cooled to lower and lower temperatures, and then brought back, at what temperature do you think subjective survival might cease?

Actually, I do have similar concerns about hypothermic surgery, but my concerns aren't as grave. I consider the odds much lower that "I" might not come through in such a case, low enough that I wouldn't let my concerns prevent the surgery, under the right circumstances. For example, if I have days to live without the surgery, and years or decades to live with, then I'd do it.

On the other hand, if I had months to live without the surgery, and a year to live with, I might not do it. Hard to say at this point, I'm still studying the philosophy, and my neurology is horribly inadequate. But yes, like trying to determine where the "atmosphere" ends and space begins, I can't give a definite answer. I consider sleep to be a quick ride up to 20,000 feet, deep sleep maybe to 30,000. Comas and hypothermic surgery might be a ride at a couple to a few hundred thousand feet. Questionable, definitely, but probably still okay. Cryonics is probably several hundred to a thousand miles up. Some scientists still consider that part of the atmosphere. I don't. But it's all relative.

In the case of the subjective "I" that I'm concerned about, however, it's not a question of relativity. Either I'm preserved, or I'm not, and it's not a question of functional retention of memory and personality.

[DJS]

I can't give a definite answer. I consider sleep to be a quick ride up to 20,000 feet, deep sleep maybe to 30,000. Comas and hypothermic surgery might be a ride at a couple to a few hundred thousand feet.

I'm sorry Jay, I know you're just using this as analogy and don't mean anything by it, but the picture this painted of my head was that of souls leaving the body and ascending towards heaven.... I know, I know, I'm a jerk. [lol]

[jaydfox]

I'm... You... I... okay, I'm not gonna comment.

[DJS]

See what a hypocrite I am. That was a pot shot. [lol]

[Infernity]

Well Mark, it is what you would want to do as being alive, saving people. It really doesn't matter (for you of course) if you will eventually die... Unless of course they will be grateful and try to do anything to bring you back.
If there is no return- it really didn't matter.

-Infernity

[Mark Hamalainen]

Well Mark, it is what you would want to do as being alive, saving people. It really doesn't matter (for you of course) if you will eventually die... Unless of course they will be grateful and try to do anything to bring you back.
If there is no return- it really didn't matter.

-Infernity

If you've already assumed that the chances of being revived from death are nill, then grateful people bringing you back wouldn't factor into the equation. Knowing that you wouldn't make it to escape velocity, which is something that many or even all of us may one day face, what would you do with the rest of your time?

[bopper]

I feel that cryonics beats not trying. I mean if you dont do it, then you die and thats the end of it. And no one here wants that, especially me, I cry at night thinking about it. Atleast in Cryonics you still have a fighting chance of coming back, you know.

[Infernity]

Well Mark,
If I knew I wouldn't ever return, I believe I really wouldn't care. At least I realize nothing really matters, but as a human being that just tries to survive, I'll let nature overtake me and try to help anyway, just for case they will find a way to bring, try hard etcetera.

No honor, no pride, no benefit, just human, know what I mean?

-Infernity

[Mark Hamalainen]

Is that human nature? Personally I can't stand the term human nature, what does it even mean? People use it all the time, but I think it is a fallacy.

It may be in some individuals nature to uphold some code of honour or pride, for others maybe not. Certainly we have built in inclinations towards certain behaviors, but I don't see why they should be considered immutable.

[bgwowk]

jaydfox wrote:

In the case of the subjective "I" that I'm concerned about, however, it's not a question of relativity. Either I'm preserved, or I'm not, and it's not a question of functional retention of memory and personality.

Functional retention of memory and personality is the only objective, measurable criterion for personal survival. Any other criterion is essentially religious, which is to say untestable, and therefore subject to arbitrary whim.

If a century ago someone suggested some of the things done in medicine today (such as stopping brain activity for hours), I'm sure there would have been lively philosophical debate about it. But objective reality ultimately carries the day, and nobody today dares call healthy survivors of brain inactivation illegitimate continuations of dead people. So it will be in the future with any medical process that preserves functional retention of memory and personality. There's nothing like a living, breathing demonstration to push philosophical questions of identity into metaphysical irrelevance.

osiris wrote:

If you've already assumed that the chances of being revived from death are nill....

Ah, yes, the infamous circular argument against cryonics

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

When will people learn that this is just name-calling?

Osiris, the question is not whether dead people can be revived. The question is whether people cryopreserved under ideal conditions ARE really dead. Contemporary legal labels are irrelevant to the question of cryonics. The question of cryonics is whether the intrinsic physical state of a cryonics patient is one that is treatable with foreseeable medicine or not. That is a pure science/engineering (not metaphysical) question. It is the answer to this question that determines whether the label "dead" is appropriate, not the other way around.

----BrianW

[treonsverdery]

Manowater your name goes with the technology

I thought of a new cryonics idea that might be beneficial. during the 20th century freezing big things caused voids n cracks visualize dried lumber. efforts are being made to create vitrification, sudden noncrystalline glass phase frozen tissue that has not added volume due to the way water freezes.

many body tissues are more compressible, recoverable or less precious than others.
using a thermal hologram areas of physical stress relief may be placed at either intervals or better, along less valued tissues as imaged with MRI. That way when freezing a brain the gray matter skips freeze fracture compression





a little like a hologram of regularly spaced pressure relief voids
http://scd.mm-a1.yim...ge/13866405.jpg

Treon

[Mark Hamalainen]

I have no doubt that we will eventually be able to reanimate a cryogenically suspended body. However difficult it is, it doesn't require the breaking of any known physical laws.

Osiris, the question is not whether dead people can be revived.

So actually, that is the question. Or more precisely, why should I suspect that reviving my dead body will actually bring "me" back to life. Believing that it can is a religious belief, in that it is currently unfalsifiable.

[bgwowk]

osiris wrote:

Or more precisely, why should I suspect that reviving my dead body will actually bring "me" back to life. Believing that it can is a religious belief, in that it is currently unfalsifiable.

A dead body cannot be revived by definition. Perhaps you really meant to ask

Or more precisely, why should I suspect that reviving my *cryogenically suspended* body will actually bring "me" back to life. Believing that it can is a religious belief, in that it is currently unfalsifiable.

?

If so, that is an absurd assertion because by all objective criteria, a revived body retaining all personality and memory traits of the suspended person (even the same atoms as the suspended person) *is* the suspended person.

Think about it. On what basis does medicine declare any procedure a success? The patient wakes up, thanks the doctor, and goes on with their life as they remember it. It is on this basis that short periods of "suspended animation" are accepted as part of medicine today. To arbitrarily assert that somewhere between 60 minutes and 60 years of suspended animation, the revived person becomes a zombie rather than a legitimate continuation of the original person is ridiculous.

It's a form of unreasoning prejudice, really. Can you imagine the kinds of persecution and rights deprivation such beliefs could lead to? Wait a minute, I don't have to imagine it. I can already see it in the way cryonics patients are regarded today.

Of course in the long run these questions will resolve themselves. Whenever medicine *actually demonstrates* a new record in resuscitation or "suspended animation", it is always accepted as a legitimate life saving act. Zombies only exist in thought experiments, not real medicine.

---BrianW

[Mark Hamalainen]

A dead body cannot be revived by definition

Thats semantics.

If so, that is an absurd assertion because by all objective criteria, a revived body retaining all personality and memory traits of the suspended person (even the same atoms as the suspended person) *is* the suspended person.

There is no objective criteria for perceptual awareness.

To arbitrarily assert that somewhere between 60 minutes and 60 years of suspended animation, the revived person becomes a zombie rather than a legitimate continuation of the original person is ridiculous.

It would be, but then, I never asserted that the revived person would be a zombie...

On what basis does medicine declare any procedure a success? The patient wakes up, thanks the doctor, and goes on with their life as they remember it.

What if I destroyed you and then assembled two identical copies within the margin of error of cryonics? Or cryonically froze you, assembled a copy, and then woke up both? Do you think there is some sort of spiritual tie of your conscious perceptual awarness to to the specific atoms of your frozen body? If so, prove it.

What distinguishes the reanimation of a dead body from the birth of a new body? I don't expect to be reincarnated in a newly born body, so why should I expect to be reincarnated in a dead body which is repaired to functionality again? Our current knowledge of physics suggests the existence of a mutliverse/configuration space in which countless instances of our bodies would be present, why would I expect to wake up in one in particular after being cryogenically frozen? What is it about being frozen that is different from any other form of death? It makes reconstructing a functionally equivilant copy easier, thats all. So you're using the molecular remains of the dead person to reconstruct the new copy, that makes you assume that it will be the same person that died that wakes up?? That is a religious, unfalsifiable belief.

I keep saying that I'll stay away from these sorts of debates, but its hard to when you're continually and unjustifiably acused of having absurd ideas. Who are the people that are hedging their bets on unfalsifiable beliefs here, really?

[bgwowk]

That's semantics.

Without rigorous semantics, arguments go in circles. Do not use the word "dead" unless you really mean not revivable with memory and personality intact (information theoretic death). Otherwise the word "dead" has multiple meanings, and is saddled with a bunch of metaphysical baggage. Dissing cryonics by calling its subjects dead is begging the question.

There is no objective criteria for perceptual awareness.

Exactly. That's why anyone who claims a patient who survives with full retention of memory and personality did not really survive is full of nothing but hot air. No one in the history of suspended animation in medicine has questioned these procedures once people actually started waking from them.

What if I destroyed you and then assembled two identical copies within the margin of error of cryonics?

My beliefs on this subject are well-known, but they are irrelevant to this discussion which concerns ONE patient revived by straight-forward means (removal of preservation solution, restoration of homeostasis).

What distinguishes the reanimation of a dead body from the birth of a new body?

This question is extremely unclear. If you cannot agree to only use dead to mean information-theoretic death, then I'm going to have to insist you stop using the word "dead" completely. Please describe the condition to which you refer in precise physical terms, not a label with metaphysical implications.

What is it about being frozen that is different from any other form of death?

Same objection. The question presupposes a metaphysical conclusion (that cryonics involves death).

I said:

To arbitrarily assert that somewhere between 60 minutes and 60 years of suspended animation, the revived person becomes a zombie rather than a legitimate continuation of the original person is ridiculous.

And you replied:

It would be....

Now we are getting somewhere. So you agree that philosphically there is no difference between 60 minutes and 60 years of suspended animation?

---BrianW

[Set]

I have looked over Alcor's website and found their work fascinating.
Myself and fiancée are also signing up with them.
I'm in awe as to why people here feel its almost a zero chance of survival.
The new methods they are using are very impressive and these methods will only get better over time.

Maybe I'm more confident of my survival because I've already contemplated this and it took me about 1 hour to come up with a solution.
I'm leaving an extra 80,000 dollars to be used ONLY for my reanimation.
I'm also leaving another 10,000 dollars in a bank account for myself upon reanimation. Along with any information I feel necessary on a DVD to myself (I hope I can find something in the future to play this DVD on hehe).

I think if you go into cryonics unprepared you might not come back out.
The 80,000 may not cover the entire cost of reanimation but I bet its going to help a heck of alot when they choose who they can revive.

I don't believe in religion, I believe in science.
Therefore this is my "religious" death and burial.
I wont stop working towards immortality, but this is one heck of a good back up plan.

Osiris we think alot alike.

No idea how this thread turned into a religious / soul debate.