I’m sure many of you have heard about people who paid large quantities of money to have their bodies cryogenically frozen before they die in hopes that they might one day be brought back to life. Did they waste their money, or is it it physically possible that one day we could have the technology to resurrect them?
Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.
It seems like a fairly regular occurance here in California for one of these companies to become insolvent and unable to pay their electric bill. The thawed out bodies and heads are shown on the local news being hauled off by the coroner for burial or cremation.
Sounds like a desperate waste of money by people who are unable to face the inevitable.
I sometimes feel I post too many explanations of the ‘fringe’ ideas. But I guess that’s just because I remember them after reading them.
Here’s the story, the way the cryonicists tell it.
The present best hope for eventual revival is nanotech. The assumption is that someday tiny robots will be built, approximately the size of a large organic molecule. These will be able to repair both the cause of death and the damage done by the freezing process by literally reassembling cells atom by atom.
Nanotechnology is not entirely out of the realm of possibility. Things like this could show up in the next century.
What seems most implausible is the idea that we will know enough about human biology to program the gadgets. We’d have to enable them not only to build a cell from scattered pieces, but also be able to diagnose what’s wrong with each cell when they arrive.
Of course, it also seems unlikely that every part of the phenomenally complex cell network we call the brain could be reassembled so accurately that the deceased consciousness would come back as if from a long nap.
I have a wild book called “Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition” at home. Cryonics is just part of the way out futurism it details.
“If you prick me, do I not…leak?” --Lt. Commander Data
Cecil dealt with this in a column. (don’t know which one) Most of those frozen are thawed out when their estate runs out of money. I think this is a way of fleecing suckers and their descendents.
It’s pretty hard to say that the money is a ‘waste’ when you are DEAD. Especially if you have no family to leave it to.
Anyway, a lot of these people don’t just pay out a large swack of cash, they simply buy annother insurance policy, and add $40-$50/mo to their expenses. If they sleep easier because of it and can afford it, great.
There’s another factor here, and that is that being frozen may make it easier for your spouse or children to deal with your death. If they can believe that you’ve got a chance of living again then the pain may not be so great.
Also, knowledge that when you die you’ll be frozen may make LIVING more enjoyable. Some people carry around a morbid fear of death, and if this helps them ease it by letting them believe that there is at least some tiny chance for immortality, then hey, great.
This is a personal thing. For some people, it might make the pain worse. Let them decide for themselves.
I don’t know about the idea of being frozen making life more enjoyable. There was a fellow featured in the L.A. Weekly a while back touting cryogenics and how he was going to be able to come back to life long after we’uns were long departed - he had a pretty smug attitude about it. Trouble was, he didn’t want to do anything to mess up his current body any more than necessary and so had sworn off all the things that make life interesting - getting in a car and driving up the coast, for example; or any thing else except sitting safely in his apartment waiting for his meeting with the Jolly Green Giant, ho, ho, ho! Is that all there is?
I have to disagree here. It seems more likely that cyrogenics would make it difficult/impossible for the survivors to move on. If the grieving widow really believed that the cyrogenics would work, wouldn’t that keep her from even considering going out and meeting someone new? She would be frozen in time, herself, waiting for hubby. Even if she believed he would be revived hundreds of years in the future, she would be constrained because either she would be planning to meet him there or she would know that he would look her up in the public record or via decendents and know if she got remarried or had more children or whatever. Furthermore, if the widow was smart enough to know that it would never happen, then there wouldn’t be any comfort in the knowledge that he “wasn’t really dead.” Belief in a positive afterlife provides the same comfort values without the complications and the expense.
Cryogenics isn’t a scam; the people who promote it really believe in the concept, and I doubt it turns much of a profit. What really might be a scam is if some outfit persuaded people not only to pay for the freezing, but also to place their estate in the cryogenic company’s control “until you’re revived”.
Happiness is where you find it; maybe you should look somewhere else.
I know a couple of guys who are really into Cryogenics. Both are extremely sharp, slightly eccentric people. (Sounds like a good description of most SD board members.) One of the fellows is fairly famous in a few fields; his name is Ralph Merkle. He was one of co-inventors of public key cryptography, and is biggie in Nanotech today. A quick search engine should find info about him; among other things he’s pretty passionate about this freezing game.
These guys have a special medical bracelet that notifies emergency folks to rush them to a freezing center. The theory is that just because today death is forever doesn’t mean it will in 100 years.
Frankly I believe them. I’ve played with the idea of getting frozen. Once I had kids, I got to thinking it was kind of a selfish thing to do, unless you did it for the rest of your family as well. I mean, would you get medical coverage for yourself and not your kids?
Here’s a link to Alcor, a leading Cryonics firm.
As Saltaire said, the nanotech people are supportive of the cryogenics idea. Eric Drexler had a section on it in his book [ul]Engines of Creation[/ul]. The book is on-line and the relevant section is at:
http://www.foresight.org/EOC/EOC_Chapter_9.html
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