Cryonics: Would you freeze yourself?

merper · Jan 6, 2008

A friend and I were talking recently and somehow we got onto the topic of cryonics. He pointed out that freezing yourself is surprisingly reasonably priced these days. I hadn't really checked up on the topic in a long while, but when I did, it turns out he's right. For anywhere from $30-180k(not pocket change, but consider it your final investment), various companies promise to, upon your death, freeze your body or just your head and store it indefinitely until such a time where it can be revived. I did a little research, and the most reputable corporation is this one:

http://www.alcor.org/

These guys actually store the first "cryonaut" who was frozen in the 1960s, along with about a 100 others(with 1000 more who have prepared the paperwork and set aside funds to be frozen upon death). They seem to have put some serious thought into this, especially the financial aspect.

Apparently, back in the 70s, cryonics took a lot of flak because of the payment scheme, wherein if a stored person's relatives stop paying the fees(or died and didn't set up a system for paying), the patient's cooling was unhooked, and they basically threw them away. Alcor sets aside and invests 50% of the payment in a trust, which they are legally allowed to touch only to maintain and ultimately revive the patient, allowing a means to ensure the patients stay frozen.

While this lowers some of the risk, it obviously doesn't mitigate it. First, of all, revival technology still has to be invented. There's no indication this can't be done, but it will be decades at least - possibly centuries - until we come close to Futurama style on/off preservation. Second, you also have to trust the company and society in general to stay solvent and functional through however many years you stay frozen. Also, you have to trust them not to become evil and just unhook you, while claiming you are still frozen to keep collecting checks. Finally and perhaps most importantly, you have to trust that someone is going to be willing to unfreeze you. Future historians may be interested in your memory, but why would 22nd century android overlords want to bring back some (possibly bodyless) old geezer with outdated knowledge and talents and rejuvenate him.

There's a lot of uncertainty in there, but the thought of it still sounds enticing. If you have some spare cash, and are old or have some incurable disease, what's the downside?

small axe · Jan 7, 2008

There's a lot of uncertainty in there, but the thought of it still sounds enticing. If you have some spare cash, and are old or have some incurable disease, what's the downside?

If you believe in an "afterlife" (no, let me change that -- If there is in fact an afterlife) you may have condemned yourself not to experience it, by imprisoning yourself in a piece of freezer-burnt meat.

But let us assume you do not have any hope for there being an afterlife, in any of the dozens or hundreds of forms human consciousness has imagined or expected it ...

What if you have condemned yourself to centuries of horrible suffering, as your frozen brain maintains some tortured form of consciousness? "What Dreams May Come?" as the Bard asked.

Now, you might counter with "Perhaps there will be centuries of HAPPY dreams!" Indeed. Flip a coin then, heads is Hell, tails is not. Is that a gamble you're willing to risk?

Perhaps your head will awake, but simply no longer be "you" ...

Some would gladder gamble not on freezing your head and returning to a life in which you might be chattel or slave or mocked freak ... but in going on to a better life in the afterlife (and I suppose no one needs to mock and reject THEIR OWN imagined "afterlife" ... since that is only the limitation of their own Imaginations on display here.)

Certainly, human Intellect has dreamt of Afterlife far longer -- and far deeper -- for thousands of years ... than some crackpot notion of freezing one's head.

Have you seen the dvd TIMOTHY LEARY IS DEAD ??? It shows them sawing off that merry acidhead's ... merry head.

Thanks, but no thanks. Live well, live good, live long, and wait for God and/or Nanotechnology and TransHumanism to give unto you what an ice bucket and a hacksaw cannot, perhaps.

merper · Jan 8, 2008

Well, technically you are dead at the point they freeze you. They essentially wait till you die(also meaning you can take out a life insurance policy and legally have that pay for your fees) and then have a special team rush you to their facility in Arizona where freezing and storage takes place. There's no brain activity at this point, so there's no reason to expect dreams or nightmares or anything else. The theory is that, if physicalism is true, and that all that is you is physically encoded into the neurons of your brain, and not "a soul" or even some transitory brain wave, then as long as the brain is preserved, you can be restored once more at some point. Note that you have the option to store your entire body and not just your head, which personally, is what I would go for.

I don't really see any gamble with any sort of afterlife. If there is one, then clearly there is something more to you than a body and you really will be permanently dead. If there isn't, as per my own beliefs, then this offers you a slim chance of return as compared to nothing at all. Just because humankind has been searching for the meaning of an afterlife since its inception doesn't mean they have gotten any closer to verifying its existence - it just means they fear death. In fact, I think the most thought out argument is the Buddhist view that the afterlife is happiness without thought, or essentially non-existence.

Of course, I'd prefer to be around for some transhumanist technology that lets me live for 1000s of years, but if mitigating circumstances take me out before then? I don't see that big a distinction between this and that.

small axe · Jan 8, 2008

merper said:
Well, technically you are dead at the point they freeze you.

Yeah, I understood that.

Let me ask you: since you seem to embrace the idea, do you see any advantage (and I mean in the process of life-preservation only, I don't mean the legal or financial issues etc) to having them "kill" you in a controlled way and THEN freeze your head?

I seem to recall that they killed Tim Leary in a controlled, scientific manner, figuring that would help protect his brain from possible damage or trauma.

They essentially wait till you die(also meaning you can take out a life insurance policy and legally have that pay for your fees) and then have a special team rush you to their facility in Arizona where freezing and storage takes place.

There's no brain activity at this point, so there's no reason to expect dreams or nightmares or anything else.

Well, "no reason to expect" only if you're presuming that ALL human consciousnes is, is brain activity. I think in certain rare situations, haven't coma patients etc come back from what the doctors THOUGHT was "no higher brain functions" etc only to realize the person WASN'T a vegetable etc?

If it happens ONCE, that suggests that medical science is assuming more than it should about human existence.

I wouldn't want to be a frozen head tortured for 500 years because some guy in a lab coat "assumed" there is nothing to consciousness but brain functions. You know what happens when we "assume" ... it makes an ass of them and a tortured frozen brain locked in hell of you!

The theory is that, if physicalism is true, and that all that is you is physically encoded into the neurons of your brain, and not "a soul" or even some transitory brain wave, then as long as the brain is preserved, you can be restored once more at some point.

Is that a "theory" in a scientific sense?

Because then I'd ask you for your support in evidence and experimental proof.

Note that you have the option to store your entire body and not just your head, which personally, is what I would go for.

Me too. Even from a purely materialist perspective, one might think that your brain has demonstrated it functions attached to its own body ... and not a hypothetical machine or clone body of the future. Better to receive in transplant your OWN heart than a stranger's etc.

I don't really see any gamble with any sort of afterlife. If there is one, then clearly there is something more to you than a body and you really will be permanently dead.

We needn't argue our personal beliefs here, and let's not. But if there IS an afterlife, it may be the product of a billion years of natural evolution, in which lifeforce/soul is able to go on into an afterlife ONLY if allowed a natural process of dying and disintegration back into nature.

For a billion years + ... living creatures have lived, died, and gone on ... and suddenly freezing yer brain is a clear INTERRUPTION of the natural processes, yes?

Freezing you may be totally destroying Nature's delicate processes of ferrying us into an afterlife.

If there isn't, as per my own beliefs, then this offers you a slim chance of return as compared to nothing at all.

Agreed.

Just because humankind has been searching for the meaning of an afterlife since its inception doesn't mean they have gotten any closer to verifying its existence - it just means they fear death.

Well, there you've presumed without any rational support for your position. People can want to LIVE without their motive being "fear" of death. You're just assuming a tawdry motive there.

It's like suggesting that people have babies only because they want to pass on their genes to future generations, an equally tawdry interpretation of human love and devotion.

In fact, I think the most thought out argument is the Buddhist view that the afterlife is happiness without thought, or essentially non-existence.

Oh, but Buddha himself made some comment to the effect that "Those who say Nirvana is to live forever, do not know; those who say Nirvana is to cease, lie" ... or something to that point.

And you just said that "without thought" is essentially "non-existence" ?!

You're taking an awful lot of things on mere assumption, you know?

Of course, I'd prefer to be around for some transhumanist technology that lets me live for 1000s of years, but if mitigating circumstances take me out before then? I don't see that big a distinction between this and that.

There's a HUGE distinction.

In one scenario you are DEAD ... and then "you" come back to life. That's beyond Science Fiction, that's ... Metaphysics. You're one little jot and tittle from the Old Testament prophets raising the dead by jumpstarting a corpse's kundalini!

In the other, you don't DIE, you simply transfer into another form (whether the same human body, but self-repairing and immortal via nanotech repair ... or an artificial machine body)

Now, I don't mean to scat on your frozen head thing, okay? I just see it as crude, destructive technology and not a very good bet.

If there is an Afterlife (and I believe there is personally, but you don't, so lets not argue) ... you'd be trusting a crude primitive little machine to give it to you (the freezer tech, whatever it is) ...

No evidence it works, none at all.

I'd be trusting the Universe, the best, smoothest running, most miracle-full "machine" in Existence ... to carry on just as smoothly as it did when we came into Being as ... Aware Beings.

We don't need to argue religion or spirituality, my friend: my MACHINE (the Universe performing its natural functions without human interference) is and has shown itself to be vastly superior in the creation of Life and Consciousness ... than yours.

Zelenka · Jan 8, 2008

I ruled out the possibility of Cryogenics, even if I had remotely considered it before, after watching Cold Lazarus by Denis Potter.

I just don't trust humanity enough to do what is intended with me, even supposing I did the 'get frozen just before you die of some terminal illness which the folks of the future will cure' thing. I don't trust machines either. I mean, one good power cut and you're mush. The company running the cryostore goes into liquidation, and you're mush. they decide they have too many people in their freezers and so want to cut down those who weren't Nobel Prize winners, and I'm mush anyway.

I have a thing about people in the future messing with my body / remains anyway, which has come from watching Tony Robinson and his crew in Time Team. I won't even allow myself to be buried for that reason. I want to be cremated. The idea of my bits showing up on some TV show in the future, waved around by a long haired West Country archaeologist in a gaudy sweater really freaks me out. I know I wouldn't actually be aware of it being done, but I still don't want it.

Plus, the population of the world is expanding all the time, and so in the future, if it continues at the same rate and we don't have a massive epidemic of bird flu or blue tongue or something to kill off a huge chunk of the population, does anyone really need me wandering around as well, using up their resources and probably only contributing a few anecdotes about the past?

That's how I feel about it anyway. And that's before I even get into thinking about the afterlife / no afterlife question.

Shadow_Ferret · Jan 8, 2008

I hate the cold.

merper · Jan 8, 2008

Well, "no reason to expect" only if you're presuming that ALL human consciousnes is, is brain activity. I think in certain rare situations, haven't coma patients etc come back from what the doctors THOUGHT was "no higher brain functions" etc only to realize the person WASN'T a vegetable etc?

Well, there's such a thing as no higher brain function and no brain function at all. The latter is the case when you're dead. Your brain can't function without blood flow. I don't really see that as a questionable matter. The only question is whether there is some "you" apart from the brain, that can still function and, as you noted, you and I disagree on that point. Physicalism is a scientific theory in that it can be disproven if we reconstruct the brain's hardware piece for piece and find functions missing(something we should be able to pull off and test on this half of the century). Whether this creates a new person each time you turn it off and on, or the person themselves is physically encoded into the brain could also be tested.

I believe this is what it really boils down to. If you think that there is something else waiting out there after your death, then it is worth taking a risk. If there isn't, then this offers you a slim chance of return. It's not the same as saying there are no risks - Which is why it would be ridiculous for some young healthy kid to have himself killed and frozen just to see what the future is like. But if there is nothing beyond this life any chance to return to it is better than none. If you've lived out your life, then I think the upsides for attempting a second go at it outweigh the down.

There is no telling what will happen to you in the future, that's for sure. I do want to point out that overpopulation is not at all an issue. As countries develop, citizens start having less and less kids, so much that UN estimates expect the population to peak mid century and start declining afterwards.

I have a few more thoughts on this. I'll add them later.

veinglory · Jan 8, 2008

The down side is that it doesn't work, at all, in theory or practice, in any way or any time. Ice crystals destroy your cell membranes and you ain't never coming back from that. It's cheap because most people know this.

merper · Jan 8, 2008

The down side is that it doesn't work, at all, in theory or practice, in any way or any time. Ice crystals destroy your cell membranes and you ain't never coming back from that. It's cheap because most people know this.

Turns out most people are - as they usually are - misinformed:

http://www.alcor.org/cryomyths.html#myth2

There's a bit more detail on this page:
http://www.alcor.org/AboutCryonics/index.html

And lest you think that this is just a scheme foisted by the company:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitrification

Cryobiology is very much a mainstream field, and though they aren't so fond of their cryonic cousins due to some silly feud between the two, there's no real debate on the preservation side. Whatever Cryonics may be, it is not a snake oil claim.

The institutes pursuing the work now are really dedicated to their vision. If they fail and lose all their money somehow, well you get unplugged, but hey you were a goner anyway. If they succeed in staying solvent, then there's little reason to expect them to turn on you and start reviving you to perform weird experiments - I'm not cynical enough about human nature to believe that, at least. The chances of you staying frozen and transferring hands to someone who seriously wishes you harm are very minimal. If you have some irrational fear against being frozen or your body being touched, that's your right, but IMO trusting science is a better bet than placing your faith in one of the gods in some religion out there.

This quote really sums up my view point:
"Cryonics is an experiment. So far the control group isn't doing very well."
— Dr. Ralph Merkle (inventor of public key cryptography), an observation made during public talks about cryonics.

small axe · Jan 8, 2008

But everything has a sleazy side, I guess. Here's a music video about a chick who has to dance ... just to pay for the freezer rent for her head.

http://www.videocodezone.com/videos/d/don_henley/everything_is_different_now.html

JoNightshade · Jan 8, 2008

I don't really see a moral dilemma with the practice. I'm pretty sure even if you're revived you'll die of natural causes eventually, and if you're not revived your body will eventually be irretrievable and you will be dead. So it's not like you're depriving yourself of an afterlife. I also trust God to sort that kind of stuff out. He knows what he's doing.

On the other hand, like Shadow Ferret, I HATE COLD. With a passion. I would never willingly subject myself to being frozen. I don't care if I would know it or not, I just wouldn't.

Also, I'm not that attached to my mortal existence. I do happen to believe in an afterlife, so it's no biggie if I die.

Mac H. · Jan 8, 2008

There is a good alternative to Cryonics, for those who don't like the cold:

http://www.timetravelfund.com/

Mac

merper · Jan 8, 2008

I guess this is probably an issue for another thread (another forum?) but, since it seems so tied into this and other life extension methods: What's so attractive about the afterlife? I've done extensive research on the concept, most recent being this online lecture series on the Philosophy of Death offer by Yale:

http://open.yale.edu/courses/philosophy/death/downloads.html

I've also looked into the afterlife of most of the major religions, perhaps reading them somewhat erroneously as noted by Axe above. Still though, it is my conclusion that consciousness after some time becomes utterly tiring. Not after 50 or 100 years(hence my support of life extension), but after 100,000 or a million or billion years - at some point, things will just get boring. From this view, there is no difference between Abrahamic concepts of heaven and hell, and Hinduism and Buddhism's afterlives seem ill-defined. At the very least, any state that is monotone, with no contrasts seems very unappealing to me.

So my question to all you believers is where do you expect to go? Where do you even want to go that is better than what we have now?

Edit: Ooh, here's one of my favorite Assimov's shorts that does this view justice, if you haven't come across it.

http://destructionoverdrive.blogspot.com/2005/06/last-answer-by-isaac-asimov.html

small axe · Jan 9, 2008

Well, who knows, Heaven or Nirvana may be like the best acid trip or the highest high or the greatest moment of love and joy and pride and happiness you've ever experienced ... undiminished across a billion years. Bliss.

'After our finite journey TO God ends, our infinite adventure IN God begins ...'

People complain (and Buddha and Christ observed) that the treasures of this world are illusions, they fade and attachment to them are false and become chains of bondage.

Some people envision or have the imagination or the inspiration or aspiration to experience something Beyond ... to Transcend. (And all those things I list, some call mere make-believe, and others experience and so need not doubt)

Others seem to lack that.

So my question to all you believers is where do you expect to go?

Where do you even want to go that is better than what we have now?

One of those questions reveals the Heights of human Imagination.

The other might stun me with dismay that it so utterly lacks human Imagination.

And again, I use "Imagination" not to mean the make-believe and the unreal ... but rather to mean Mankind's ability to Imagine and grasp unexplored wonders of Reality.

Where do you even want to go that is better than what we have now?

I'd like to visit alien worlds and alien civilizations, myself. I'd like to see the Answers to some cosmic Mysteries.

I'd like to stand and watch the physical Universe go out ... cold and dark from entropic heat death. And then it's like you've gone to a July 4th fireworks show, right?

And you see the bright and firey firework fade away against the night, and stand staring up at the cold starry heavens beyond and you breathe a satisfied sigh.

"That was beautiful," you say. "But it's done. Is it time to go?"

"Well," your Mom says behind you, and hugs you tight and laughs with your Dad and older brothers and sisters. "That was just the first firework, you know. They go on and they get better. And when they are finally done, we can all go home and have ice cream and pie."

And that's just the beginning to the Best It Gets. which never ends.

Now ... I hope the heads in their ice buckets can be there too someday. The more the merrier, and why lock anybody out?

But I think I know the better machine to get there.

And deep down insde I think that in a Universe where infinite Creativity reigns ... part of the infinite Realization of All is that somebody gets lost and somebody never gets there to share it.

Because souls wanna laugh and souls want something worth crying over too. It's how reality is.
Its tragic beauty.
It's tragic beauty.

merper · Jan 9, 2008

The other might stun me with dismay that it so utterly lacks human Imagination.

I'm guessing this is in reference to "better than we have now?" That definitely wasn't intended to limit itself to life on Earth as we know it. Traveling the stars, seeing galaxies rise and fall in some body that can keep chugging for a few billion years would be fun. But I think the only shot to achieve any of that is by keeping on living - and if it doesn't come in the first 80 or so year limit, then your only shot is to preserve yourself so that you can be returned when it does.

scarletpeaches · Jan 9, 2008

I live in Scotland. I don't have to.

Stacia Kane · Jan 9, 2008

If they guaranteed they could bring me back? Heck yeah!

Scarlett, how are you doing up there? I assume you still have power?

scarletpeaches · Jan 9, 2008

I have superpowers.

small axe · Jan 9, 2008

merper said:
I'm guessing this is in reference to "better than we have now?" That definitely wasn't intended to limit itself to life on Earth as we know it.

Okay. I took your comment literally. "What we have now." This world, this stuff, today. I can imagine far better. I can imagine Transcendence.

I didn't mean you cannot, but I did assume you meant what you wrote as you wrote it, and I replied.

Traveling the stars, seeing galaxies rise and fall in some body that can keep chugging for a few billion years would be fun.

And I agree. Again, I was just replying to your previous comment:

Still though, it is my conclusion that consciousness after some time becomes utterly tiring. Not after 50 or 100 years(hence my support of life extension), but after 100,000 or a million or billion years - at some point, things will just get boring.

I was suggesting that Existence, far from becoming 'boring' might instead become evermore wonderful and exciting.

But I think the only shot to achieve any of that is by keeping on living - and if it doesn't come in the first 80 or so year limit, then your only shot is to preserve yourself so that you can be returned when it does.

Well, we've already agreed to disagree over there being an Afterlife, so no harm no foul.

I'd only suggest that someone who is agnostic about there being an Afterlife (whatever it might consist of) might not see that CRYONICS is 'the only shot to preserve yourself' ...

The first issue is: what is 'your self' etc ... (see my preceding comments to that point)

That aside, a strict materialist STILL might suggest some better technique for preserving "you" ...

Suppose (this being a Sci Fi sub-thread) that someone decided that "you" are not a lump of brain-meat that can be frozen ... but that "you" are a specific pattern of bio-electrical energy (whether existing separately from the brain or not) ...

An illustration might be:

if "YOU" are a broadcast radio signal (a specific signal of EM energy) then it would be wiser to capture and record the radio signal ... than to simply superfreeze the radio receiver itself, and expect the radio to still have the signal inside it when it's thawed in 500 years.

An agnostic might indeed embrace MY position:
1) the Universe itself has created Human Consciousness ...
2) since freezing a brain cryonically for centuries then restoring it to life has NOT been tested or observed successfully even ONE TIME ...
3) but the Universe (unimpeded by human technology) has obviously created human consciousness BILLIONS OF TIMES, across many tens of thousands of years ...

... It makes more rational and scientific sense to NOT intrude into life-processes we do not even comprehend.

You can DOUBT whether an Afterlife exists, but only because you are already alive. And the human technologies YOU are counting on to restore you TO LIFE ... know absolutely zero about how to create or maintain or re-start Life the Universe created.

Trusting in the Universe's approach to Life (rather than the infant technology of cryonics) isn't an issue of "religion" ... it's an issue of sane rational thought, I submit!

Can you respond to that line of reasoning?

joyce · Jan 9, 2008

Everyone and everything that I love would be dead. The world is messed up enough now so I have no desire to reside in a more screwed up place. My answer is no.

DeaconBlu · Mar 24, 2008

I want my dogs life

How about his life span?

Are nick tags off limits to good natured ribbing? No, seriously, I 'd like to know before I get in more trouble around here.

What about Ray Kurzweil's immortal download theory? By 2030 we'll have nanobots giving us life to 125. From there we build machines that will build better machines so we can download our minds into huge boxes. Think of Second Life only with real lives. You'd be digitized and backed up in case of a crash. You'd be immortal and able to read anything new that got published. Your intelligence would be without limit because you'd have eternity to learn new things. Your capacity for stored knowledge would be endless unless you couldn't pay your bill.

bluntforcetrauma · Mar 24, 2008

Bodies without souls walking around? No thanks.

DeaconBlu · Mar 26, 2008

beezle said:
They saved Hitler's brain, you know.

The Russian's did?

Cryonics: Would you freeze yourself?

merper

small axe

memento mori

merper

small axe

memento mori

Zelenka

Going home!

Shadow_Ferret

Court Jester

merper

veinglory

volitare nequeo

merper

small axe

memento mori

JoNightshade

has finally arrived

Mac H.

Board Visitor

merper

small axe

memento mori

merper

scarletpeaches

Stacia Kane

Girl Detective

scarletpeaches

small axe

memento mori

joyce

I'm really shy...

DeaconBlu

bluntforcetrauma

Esquire

DeaconBlu