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

[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?

[akicif.livejournal.com]

I've just spent an hour on trying to dig up stuff, but I've not come across anything that allows me to say anything other than "But that's so far out it's not even wrong!".

To put it simplistically, ignoring the socio-economic side of things, there's:

The freezing problem (frozen body parts don't conduct heat very well: add to this that freezing too slowly causes crystallisation and destruction on the cellular level, freezing too quickly can cause out-gassing and destruction on the cellular level.

The state problem: we have no idea at all where to even begin recording the state of the brain at any given instant, let along how to restore it.

And, for me the killing point:

The tone problem: cryonics true believers seem to score fairly highly for engineers' syndrome - at least to the level of intelligent design believers and climate change denialists.

I really think, that what you've got right now is a bad case of timor mortis conturbat me (all the stronger for not having had it earlier in your thirties): many of your replies above seem to indicate that you want to be told that this is a good idea, rather than whether or not it's a good idea.

I'd be tempted to say, go ahead and spend the money if it makes you feel better in yourself, it's probably worth it for that alone, but don't expect anything useful to come of it.

But in all honesty, if you want a prolonged lifespan, some of the answers seem to be coming into range anyway, and you're just enough younger than me that they may do you some good....

[djm4]

...I've not come across anything that allows me to say anything other than "But that's so far out it's not even wrong!"

I've been consciously trying to avoid that phrase but yes, that's how I feel about most of it, too.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I'm astonished. How so?

[djm4]

When I read about this, I keep coming across arguments that (to my mind) amount to:

'The current level of scientific knowledge is at X. We need to be at Y. We will get from X to Y by [tech].'

But either no one fills in the [tech], or it's written as equivalent to 'we will deploy magic pixie dust, which we will find at the end of the rainbow'.

So what I'm left with is two statements with which I agree, and a solution which either isn't there at all (in which case I can't argue against it) or which employs a solution that's so unscientific I can't argue against it. It might be possible to find magic pixie dust at the end of the rainbow. I don't believe that it's possible to get to the end of the rainbow to check, because to me it's in the nature of rainbows that you can't get to the end of them, but that means that I can't argue for or against the presence of magic pixie dust at the end of them.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

I think what you're saying they're saying summarises to:

1. CollectFreeze heads
2. ????
3. ProfitImmortality!!!

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

But that's just old-fashioned wrongness. If someone in 1950 says we'll all be using jetpacks in 2000, that's not "not even wrong", it's just wrong.

Re: the link in my last para

[akicif.livejournal.com]

I realise that by conventional standards Dr de Grey's considered to be somewhere on the fringe, but I have a feeling that he's still closer to the right track than the CI lot.

(Kinda-sorta-disclaimer for where my gut feeling comes from: back in the days when I was working on drug design by molecular modelling, we came across a compound that would simultaneously inhibit ACE (angiotensin converting enzyme) and collagenase, thereby potentially knocking two problems on the head - for a while one of my colleagues thought we were onto something and went chasing other systemic defects that could be fixed by kicking various zinc carboxypeptidases into touch (round about then, the company funding the research was bought over by another company who were only interested in artificial sweeteners and I went off to work elsewhere). but it did look for a while as if there could be fairly simple fixes to quite nasty problems of ageing....)

Re: the link in my last para

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised that you take Dr de Gray seriously given that he takes cryonics seriously.

Re: the link in my last para

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Oops. I've obviously not been keeping up. The main thrust of his argument used to be that there were a fairly small number of intracellular processes that caused most of the symptoms of age, and if you could knock these out then the problem would become significantly more tractable.

Re: the link in my last para

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is his position, but he also thinks that cryonics is at least worth taking seriously. I didn't ask him if he was personally signed up.

Re: the link in my last para

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Yes, he's still doing that work and gave a fascinating presentation on it at ExtroBritannia a few months ago, but he has also spoken at a cryonics conference in support.

Re: the link in my last para

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Have found a transcript of a presentation by him on his work and on cryonics.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

The last para is the kicker, to me. I think (assuming the crash doesn't happen) that investing your $30,000 and spending it on life extension when you are old and grey offers a much better expected return. Especially since, while you get old and grey, cryonics will be improving; worst case, you might get a much better, cheaper freeze.