… do I have to set up, to provide for my revival in AD 2500 or so? Should I put my money into stocks or bonds? Seriously, I’ll need spending money when the sryosurgeon awakens me in the future. I’ll also have to pay back taxes, etc. Another thing-will the US Govt. rebate my estate taxes, since i won’t really be dead? Estate lawyers, help me?
It would be pronounced Monj too and it’s French for ‘eat all’ (my favourite pastime); it’s also the name of those green peas (some people call them snowpeas) where you eat the whole pod.
A lot of people see it as Man Get Out - perception eh?
I think you’d have to set up an organisation that will pursue your wishes after you’re frozen, since you can’t legally have any wishes (other than those expressed in a will if you’re legally dead, but IANALawyer, so take that with a pinch o’ salt.
Well, I did check out the cryonics.org website and I’m sorry to say that I don’t rate it; it’s just littered pseudoscientific babble and speculation, I still really don’t believe that it’s entirely staffed by unpaid volunteers, but hey, go ahead and pay them $28,000 to freeze you if you like - if they close up shop and disappear off to Tahiti with your money, you won’t be in a position to notice or complain.
To which the response of course is “yes, but you realise that the alternative is certain death”; yes, I realise (anyone want a banana?).
If you have enough money when you die, and no relatives or friends that might need the money, why not? I would love a chance, even a very small one, to see the far future. And if the future sucks, hey, you can always kill yourself (probably).
As I’m constantly telling my students, you must cite the full URL of a web page, not the top-level domain.
So, I did your homework for you (you can thank me later.)
Here’s the page that cites a few peer-reviewed papers:
http://www.cryonics.org/fahy.html
They say:
Uh, yeah, 'cause space is such a valuable commodity on the internet that listing the citiations for paper would be an undue burden. 
I don’t get paid either and I’m not a member, but I’m giving it some serious thought.
My relationship is that of interested observer of some of their posts. No scientific credentials or I wouldn’t be posting here, but in professional journals.
The idea of freezing my head only is disturbing. I wouldn’t want my loved ones to see me like that or even visualize me that way.
As far as freezing all of myself for $28k or even buying insurance policy or annuity, I think it is worth it for myself. I can afford to do it moneywise. Its just one of those many things I would like to do, but haven’t made it high enough a priority, thus am complacent, apathetic about the idea.
If someone were to hand me a credible policy that clearly specified all the details about how I would get from near death to frozen state without messy complications, I would do it.
Basically I want to get involved, but I want to get involved in better physical fitness plan now also, but find myself flapping on the internet instead of taking action to extend my lifespan the healthy way.
Its one of those things I guess I was hoping to bring up to group and get extrinsic motivation from this forum.
Have you ever been on fence, and hoped someone would give you some encouragement?
Silly to expect encouragement from the previous writer above who is negative about this thread.
I’d be delighted to give you encouragement and real help in a program for extending your life.
I just don’t think freezing’s the answer. Fitness is. That gives you the best chance of living long enough, and more importantly, being in good enough physical condition to take advantage of life whatever life extending technologies occur in the future.
More importantly, in my eyes, it gives you the best shot of being healthy and active and getting a lot of quality of life for the best part of your lifespan.
The “damage-free” freezing process that a03 is referring to is, I believe, vitrification: described on the Alcor site as a process by which a high concentration of anti-freezing chemicals are introduced into the body, and then frozen extremely rapidly so that the body’s tissues turns into a cryogenic glass without the body’s water having time or opportunity to turn into ice.
If this trick works, it pretty much takes care of most of the damage that freezing causes. The problem to date has been to avoid said chemicals doing more damage than the freezing process itself, and cooling rapidly enough that water molecules don’t have time to get together and create ice. The supposed “breakthrough” is in dealing with those two problems: the first through chemical additives that help reduce the amount of toxic chemicals necessary and the second through methods that can cool Alcor’s “cryopatients” extremely rapidly.
If nothing else, Alcor believes it works, as they’ve already started doing this to people who are just getting their heads frozen. It hasn’t been adopted by any of the other groups, though, because it doesn’t work for whole-body suspension yet. Takes too damned long to freeze.
As for whether to do it? Why not? What could possibly be wrong with trying this? I find the argument that “a small chance is better than no chance” pretty damned persuasive. Does this mean that one shouldn’t live a healthy and lengthy life? Hardly. Does this mean that one shouldn’t attempt to leave one’s mark through other means? No way, as you can’t rely on this technique. The only objection that I can think of as being valid is a religious one, and frankly sorting out how this works is God’s problem, not mine. I’m more worried about the theological implications of teleportation than cryonics.
This might be the only time in history where you actually can “take it with you”.
Would you like a banana?
[sub](Off to wash my socks now).[/sub]
I have a question:
Suppose that at some point in the future, the technology advances to a level where techniques are discovered that make it possible to freeze anybody (still alive) and reliably revive them, but the technicians say that it won’t be possible to defrost the corpsicles from our time because they simply weren’t preserved in the right way.
What will Cryonics.org do with their unrevivable corpsicles?
Probably the same thing hospitals do to people who don’t survive medical treatment that wasn’t performed in the right way. Perhaps Cryonics should provide discount funeral services for those not properly preserved or revived. 80% discount on ceramic caskets when purchased with $28k preservation plan if contracted within 30 days.
Ever been pressured to buy expensive, top-of-the-line casket when you were grieving? Leaves bad taste in mouth.
Where did the word 'corpsicles" come from? Not Cryonics.org. Probably Straightdope. com
Mange: sure. I’d probably like you to explain how this banana works and why it’s more likely to increase the chances of revival than the lack of said banana, but I have nothing against it. Without using the word “magic”, of course, if you want to be intellectually honest in your comparison to cryonics.
As I said earlier, what the hell else am I going to use this money for? I’m dead. Dead dead dead.
As for the unrevivable corpsicles scenario, the answer is rather simple: keep them on ice on the off chance that somebody figures out how to revive them as well. They paid for it, and what the hell does it matter to them? As mentioned earlier, they’re not going anywhere. They’ve paid up already, and there’s no reason to think that there won’t be additional scientific growth.
Sure beats the odds of trying to revive someone after cremation or burial, that’s for sure.
I’m not exactly sure how the banana will work, but I feel sure that somebody in the future will be able to work it out, probably using nanomechanics or some other technology that we can’t even dream of right now; yes, you really should eat the banana, there’s no good reason not to.
SF writer Larry Niven, I think (he certainly uses the term a bit, but I can’t be sure he invented it).
Three suggestions:
[li]Bequeath it to a worthy person.[/li][li]Bequeath it to a worthy organisation.[/li]Spend it on something you enjoy now, while you’re alive.
Hrm… well, upon examining the brilliantly put-together reasoning you’ve given for eating the banana vs. not eating the banana…
I’ll eat the banana. Then I’ll get frozen. Again, what the hell do I care? I’m dead either way. But I might not be dead later. Quite a bit like Pascal’s dilemma, except I don’t have to change my behavior in the slightest except to save up “X” amount of dollars for your banana and my freezer.
You’re just slightly misrepresenting the case for cryonics, though. The basic idea of cryonics, near as I can figure it is “we’ll use the best technique that we know to preserve the body relatively intact to make it easier for (as you said) someone to take a stab at reviving it in the future”. It’s that “relatively” in there that’s the big question, but it’s the “best technique that we know” part that’s the answer. Burial does not ensure the structural integrity of the body, so it’d be a hell of a lot harder to fix the damage that that causes. Cremation pretty much renders it impossible as far as I can figure. Still, who knows? Maybe there will be a method that allows for the wholesale revival of people, frozen or unfrozen. (The frozen folks will have their trust funds to pay for it though.)
As for your other suggestions…while they may indeed be worthy or useful for society or my family, neither even remotely change the possibility of the “I’m dead” factor changing at any point in the future. I hate to sound selfish, but I’d rather “bequeath” my money to myself. As a03 noted, it isn’t even that expensive.
It has been a while since I studied trusts however I seem to recall rules against perpetual trusts which suggest you wouldn’t be able to take it with you after all. There would also be difficulties with the enforceability of any contractual relationship you entered with the cryonics firm.
Ned: Alcor and The Cryonics Institute (The two companies I’ve looked at that seem the most stable and legitimate) seem to have things set up well enough. Of course, they could be planning to take the money and jet off to tahiti, but both seem to have been around long enough that if they were going to “do the jet thing” they would have done so by now.
Actually, would it be possible to set up a corporation to take care of your assets until the time of your revival? Even if trusts can’t exist in perpetuity, corporations can.
Interesting point.
Being revived 20 to 50+ years from now will put one into a completely different socio-economic lifestyle than one is accustomed to now. When a person is released from long prison term, his financial estate is not usually enough to support him for several months or years while he searches soul. He must adjust to new life style, groping for survival.
It will be an adjustment to be revived even 10 years from now. Prepare to be relieved of present comfort zone and to enter into new, exciting journey of life. Forget your present affluence and start all over again. Your skills will be antiquated since revival won’t include an injection of contemporary education and training.
Remember the Commodore 64? And all the time you spent learning to program in basic. Then came Dos. Then Windows. Your internet participation skills will be obsolete. You will be like infant in many lifeskill areas. Like reviving a lifetime blacksmith today. What if Lincoln were to be revived today? or Columbus.