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

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.