Cryonics

[ciphergoth]

I'm considering signing up with the Cryonics Institute. Are you signed up? I'd be interested to hear your reasons why or why not. It does of course sound crazy, but when you press past that initial reaction to find out why it's crazy, I haven't heard a really satisfactory argument yet, and I'm interested to hear what people think. There are many reasons it might not work, but are there reasons to think it's really unlikely to work? How likely does recovery need to be for it to be worth it?

Comments

[xmakina.livejournal.com]

Time would be my biggest concern. It's all well and good sinking $30,000 or whatever stupid numbers they're asking for but the fact is you could need to be stored for over 100 years, minimum. The idea that the building will remain perfectly operational, both in terms of infrastructure (power, vehicle access etc.) and commercially (bankruptcy, staff mis-management, embezzlement) is exceedingly slim.

Also, the Republicans really don't like people fucking with life and/or death so don't be surprised that if we did find a way to resurrect frozen bodies the Republicans wouldn't promptly ban it and order all bodies to be destroyed.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

These are both very plausible worries, I think (though I think it could well be less than 100 years).

- The tanks need topping up with liquid nitrogen once a week and they store some onsite for emergencies, so it would take a hell of an infrastructural problem to thaw the corpscicles.

- Commercially is a bigger worry. Liquid nitrogen is cheap, and CI invest a lot of money very conservatively on your behalf when you get frozen, so it's not as certain as it may seem that they'll go bust and thaw you out, but it's by no means certain that they won't.

- Your last point is also a real worry, but I couldn't go so far as to say it was *more likely than not*. Doubtless someone somewhere will eventually propose this, but I'd be a little surprised if it got all the way to being made into law.

[djm4]

I've no wish to live on indefinitely. When I die, I die; I'm genuinely not interested in coming back. My memes may live on after me, if they're worthy, and that's really all that matters. I find it very unlikely that keeping my physical body viable (either before, during or after cryonics) will represent an efficient use of anyone's resources.

I realise I may be highly unusual in that.

[lolliepopp.livejournal.com]

IAWTC

Life is for living, not for trying to cheat.

L
x

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

We've had this conversation before, and I'm short on time, but it's an awful lot of money on a very long shot - and there are things I'd rather the money went on things that are of proven benefit to human life.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Would you do it if CI offered it to you for free? Imagine that if you don't accept, they'll only spend the money on some other cryonics-related pursuit - you're not offered the option of for example donating the money to Oxfam.

[zotz]

The consensus is, as far as I can tell, that microscopic cracks from the freeze-thaw process do fairly comprehensive destruction in spite of the measures taken. I've never heard anyone even speculate about how it might be possible to reverse it.

Also, the record of incorporated organisations for keeping their commitments over the sort of timescales we're talking is the opposite of good. My guess is that for one reason or another all of their bodies will thaw, intentionally or otherwise, over the next few decades.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

The consensus is, as far as I can tell, that microscopic cracks from the freeze-thaw process do fairly comprehensive destruction in spite of the measures taken.

Obviously freeze-thawing a kidney is much easier than doing the same with a brain, but a rabbit kidney has gone through this full cycle and the rabbit it was implanted in lived, so it's not obvious that these cracks are a show-stopper. Would these cracks result in information-theoretic death?

[wight1984.livejournal.com]

I'm very sceptical of the science behind it but that's not what bothers me.

I find the idea of spending tens of thousands of pounds at a shot at preserving my life after death to just be very hard to justify. That's hardly pocket change.

Skipping right past the issue of whether it's better to spend money on enjoying myself now rather than a gamble on extending my life, I wonder how many people's lives could be extended/saved using that money in more conventional means.

I'd rather the world's resources went to helping people who need that money right now rather than to give privileged people hope for life after death.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

These things bother me too.

[clarisinda.livejournal.com]

Aside from the high likelyhood that it just won't happen at all, more frightening is the thought that I might be revived but in a less than perfect, healthy state. Worst case scenario would be regaining consciousness but having a non-functioning body, and not being able to do anything about that.

[grahamb.livejournal.com]

This is of course, worst case.

Say you're thawed out and you had significant brain damage. The cleaners unplug your freezer in 2039 by accident for 2 weeks and they don't tell anyone. Assume you can specify a clause in your contract where if you have >40% brain damage you'd like to be thrown back in the frozen peas just in case sometime in the 39th century they can fix brain damage.

Here's my problem. I've no idea what the laws in the country where you're thawed out are going to be and what those laws will permit. If you're thawed out and you're going to live the rest of your life in significant pain or some kind of living hell whereby you are confined to a hospital bed (assuming there's a health service) watching endless re-runs of Eastenders.

Welcome to the "Few-Cha"!

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

It's easy to imagine scary scenarios, and lots of people in this thread have done it. But I see no reason to think that this is likely, or even plausible enough to assign real weight to.

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

I haven't yet, because I procrastinate, but do intend to.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

They say that many, many more people die meaning to get around to it than are cryopreserved. You and I may be among them...

[uberredfraggle.livejournal.com]

One of my big thoughts is brain damage. I personally wouldn't do it.

Death scares me enough, having to do it twice would be awful. :p

[ajva.livejournal.com]

I think it's a fascinating idea, really. I love the thought of seeing what the world is like in 200 years' time. :o)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

If it does work, I'd love it if you were there to join me in the future. Are you tempted to sign up?

[duranorak.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't argue that it was crazy - it's your money, your choice, your belief or hope in science, and that's fine. Not wanting to do it myself (I don't want to come back) doesn't mean I think it's somehow ideologically unsound of you to want to.

Once again, this fence is surprisingly comfortable :)

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

I am sitting on that fence with you :D

[akicif.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to see this. You're almost the last person I'd ever expect to fall for a revamped Pascal's Wager.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

The reason I ask is precisely because I want to hear the arguments against. You think survival through cryonics is vanishingly unlikely. Why?

[skullculture.livejournal.com]

Hell, if you can spare the money and you're interested, go for it. Could be the best science fiction film you ever watched.

So what if it's a long shot? A small chance of survival versus zero chance of survival is a good bet at any price.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

A small chance of survival versus zero chance of survival is a good bet at any price.

Well, that's not strictly true. I wouldn't consider paying a witch doctor to resurrect me after my death, even if it were very cheap. So it's only worth going for if you think the chances of coming back are big enough to weigh against the costs. OTOH the costs are much less than people assume.

[calum]

I think the simple answer is..

Is it worth it, to you, to spend that sort of money on a longshot.. as opposed to leaving that money to someone you care about, or an organisation you care about.

I do think its a longshot, but its not an impossibility

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Why is it that despite these proposed better uses of the money, we are prepared to get a curry delivered from time to time, but not to spend money on the possibility of billions of years more life? Why not draw the cost from the curry fund instead of the "saving the world" fund?

[mooism.livejournal.com]

I don't want to wake up in a future where

• everyone I know is dead (or frozen)
• society has changed enough that taboos and expected behaviour are utterly different from what I'm comfortable with
• language has evolved enough that I have to relearn English
• technology has evolved far enough that I haven't the faintest idea how to use it
• nobody shares my taste in music

Basically, future shock would send me insane.

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

Paul, is this some kind of premature midlife crisis? :p.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

What do you mean, premature? I am coming up to my 39th birthday!

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why it would be sensible to sign up right away. It seems v unlikely that you'll die in the next 20 years or so. Why not wait until later?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Because you pay for it through life insurance, so it's cheaper to buy now while I'm healthy - and it means I'm covered in case of the unexpected.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

You are not just betting on the techincal possibility of survival through cryonics. As others have said you're betting on the social, economic, political circumstances of every date between now and your putative resurection. Including the survival of the relationship between the insurers and cryonics, the UK and the US, the funeral directors, your executers (who can legally just decide to not do it once you're pronounced dead) and your own economic circumstances of being always able to pay an increasing life insurance premium right up to your death.

And if you get through that you're betting that all the research to make some kind of resurraction possible will happen without a) them experimenting on your remains and b) too many other people in the world getting frozen as it gets more likely to work creating a last in first out scenario, or a legal change to stem the overpopulation, or a Niven-esque organ harvesting future or or or.

Yes, I think the idea is mad. As a fish. An atheist fish having a mid life crisis. With knobs on.

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

I think you sum up a lot of the problems very nicely here, and I could make an even longer list, I think. But I dont think it is very accurate to describe this as an atheist mid life crisis. P has been talking about this for as long as I have known him.

[olethros.livejournal.com]

Been thinking about this. I've been trying to go through layers of thoughts, abstracting each one, until I reach some principles I'm pretty happy with. I think I've gotten it down to this.

Risks: These are, at this point, unknowable. You must assume that you are an early adopter. There are plenty of scary stories, and they aren't excuses to avoid doing this - although they can be weighed in some way against the costs and benefits.

Benefits: I think we must assume that the likelihood of success is small, again because we must assume that you are an early adopter. With the risks separated out, and likelihood aside, the magnitude of the benefits look pretty high in the context of day to day life (I would not like to die tomorrow) though less high in the context of long term plans (I think I'd like to be immortal, but I'm okay constructing my life on the basis that I will live, age, and eventually die.)

Costs: Manageable, and small compared to the magnitude of the benefits. What I can't shake here is the feeling that there are many things that maybe - just maybe - will improve my life markedly if only I spent $30 a month on it.

So I reckon it's not clear to me why this $30 a month is a better investment than, say, $30 a month in the lottery in the hope that I have an AWESOME retirement, or $30 a month on not-medically-proven diet pills that maybe, just maybe, will make me a fitter and happier person without having to do that annoying exercise.

I think I can envision a future where the risks are better known, the benefits better enumerated, and the costs balanced well against them both. At this point, I think I'm comfortable enough with the picture I have of my current lifespan that I'm not willing to be an early adopter for something else, even though that means foregoing any possibility of success.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

I find the scenario outlined in Transmetropolitan (forget exactly which issue) to be extremely plausible (>90%) given the assumption that the necessary technology comes into existence, and I would rather not live like that.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I think this may be The Logical Fallacy of Generalization from Fictional Evidence

[fizzyboot.livejournal.com]

What practical difficulties are there for someone in the UK to sign up for cryonics? Such as, if you were dying, would you need to be transported to another country to do the freezing procedure?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

From the people I've spoken to, it's much harder. There's a funeral directors in London who will do the initial cooling and packing for transport, but on the whole it is not a well-trod road, and the practical difficulties may turn out to be close to insurmountable.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Apropos of the question posed elsewhere - if it was _free_, sure. What have I got to lose? I'm not worried about coming back to life in the future and not liking it; in any remotely likely scenario, death will remain an option.

Call me an atheist but I don't go for this "when it's your time to go, you've got to go" crap. I intend to go kicking and screaming.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Call me an atheist but I don't go for this "when it's your time to go, you've got to go" crap. I intend to go kicking and screaming.

Thank you. I've been reading lots of transhumanist blogs and such, and people say that if you talk about things like life extension and cryonics, people argue in favour of death. I can't say I'm surprised that it turns out to be true, but I'm sort of struck. I'm a little pissed off that some here seem to think I'm a recent convert to the anti-death side of things - those who have known me for long enough know that I have never intended to go gentle into that entirely unallyoedly bad night.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lj_sucks_/]

I'm not convinced that the person revived in 200 years would, in any meaningful sense, be *me*.

Sure, that person would have my brain, might even have my memories... but there would have been a several hundred year discontinuity in consciousness. A several hundred year discontinuity in all neural activity whatsoever, in fact. Who's to say that the reinstated thought patterns would even resemble yours?

If you're working on a document and I turn off your computer, stick in a Windows 7 CD and turn it on again, in what sense have I saved your work?

[lovingboth]

As well as what they said...

I think it is likely that even if - and it is an enormous if - the process worked, it would change personality and memories. Something would be brought back, but it would not be 'you'. It certainly would not be you in a society like 'this'. Possibly you'd be woken up to be put on trial for what you, as a 20th Century human, did to the planet.

The other basic problem is who cares what long dead people want? Especially after you've got their money.

If I wanted to make money in an evil manner and did not want to promise life after death via paying to be audited, promising the hope of life after death via cryonics would be a good second choice. When people say it's crap, I can say 'Oh no it isn't, science will sort out all these problems'. Who's going to complain if I feed your remains to the cat? You're the one I have the contract with, and you're dead.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I definitely don't want to put money towards a scam, so if you can find any interesting links that suggest they might be a scam I'd like to read them.

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

What is the scentific consensus on cryonics? Is there one? Are respectable academic scentists signed up?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

There isn't a consensus, AFAIK. Some scientists signed up.