Extreme Cryogenics (Thinking of the VERY Distant Future).

Factual Questions
1

Not to let you down if you believe in cryogenics, especially if you are going to have yourself frozen. But it just isn’t going to work. What makes you think you’ll make it to the future that way? If the tanks don’t fail, the company will probably go out of business before you are resuscitated. And then you’re out on the curb. Sorry for being blunt. But it’s true.

Anyway I did still hear something interesting on the Science Channel (so sorry no cite:)). According to the late great Professor Stephen Hawking, information is never truly lost, except perhaps in a black hole.

If I understand that correctly, you could resurrect just about anyone, when the technology permits. I don’t know who they would resurrect in the late future. I’m thinking maybe Washington and Shakespeare, what the heck. And maybe whatever is left of the cryogenic set, since they did have dibs on it. But that might be all, if even that.

But am I wrong? Or am I misinterpreting the term “information”?

:):):slight_smile:

2

You are basically describing Frank J. Tipler’s Omega Point concept.

I doubt it would work, if for no other reason than black holes eating the necessary information at some point.

3

When I read of someone with more money than sense freezing their remains to be resurrected at some point in the future when a cure has been found for whatever killed them, I wonder why they think anyone would want to.

If we assume that a future generation will develop the required technology (and that is doubtful) we also have to assume that there will be a reason, other than pure scientific research, for them to bring back to life an individual from the past who has nothing to offer them. I really cannot think of one.

4

Why do we have medicaid or medicare, then? I’m just saying, we’ve decided to help people who offer nothing to us but did something for us in the past.

As for cryonics companies failing, sure, that’s a high risk. But do you know what risk is even more certain? Your fate without cryonics.

5

The information is never lost, but it might be spread out over a very large area. And the area over which the information is spread could potentially be expanding at the speed of light. Good luck catching up to all of the information you need.

6

I’ve thought about it a little bit, and Jim, your whole premise is somewhat short sighted, because you honestly can’t really imagine societal change or take seriously the possibility that the technologies that would allow for cryonics revival will most likely really exist.

And not in some distant, unfathomable future, but likely this century.

I can justify that argument, but let’s focus on the important bit.

Hypothetically, it’s next year, and due to an unfathomable breakthrough, the first cryonics patient has been revived. Not just revived - rebuilt, with a brand new (robotic) body. They are definitely in possession of all their memories and the upgrade has made them arguably the smartest person alive.

This has happened in the United States, and some calculations show the process could be scaled to be performed for a cost of $500,000 a person.

What are the general public of the United States going to do? Think about it.

Are they going to

a. Quietly go to the existing hospitals and doctors, accepting terminal diagnoses and deaths of their loved ones like they do today with resignation and statements of “they passed away”
b. Try to sign up for private cryonics in mass, but only a few have the money, and all the rest do (a)
c. Demand that the government interpret the Bill of Rights “right to life” as ensuring :
(1) compulsory cryonics care for anyone who needs it, to be funded by the federal government
(2) protection of the preserved in mass vaults, guarded by the military, until the patients can be revived
(3) guaranteed revival for all citizens of the United States who need it, with a long waiting list in practice
d. Form groups of “deniers” who deny that the revived are really the same person as before, despite not being able to show this with any evidence, and that true followers of religion will go to their death when it’s “their time”.
I think I know where the overwhelming majority of the populance would fall. Well, ok. Eventually. Though it might take a generation of death before the majority is actually for the sensible option.

And in that kind of environment, the previous cryonics patients - ones from what might be 50 to 200 years before - would also get revived, eventually.

7

Yes, you are. When physicists are talking about “information” they are not talking about memories or data but instead talking specifically about the “information” that is in the physical structure of nature. If you hard format a hard drive or run a powerful magnet over it, the information stored on it is most certainly lost. So are the memories encoded within the thought patterns of the brain when someone dies or the brain is severely damaged by trauma or illness.

There is a more prosaic problem with cryopreservation, though. The freezing process destroys cells from within as ice crystals expand and puncture cell membranes and damage organelles within the cell. This includes neurons and their connections (axons) to other neurons. It is within these connections, and the characteristic potentiation that develops in each individual cell with time, that memories are stored. When the cells and connections are damaged, memories are destroyed. Even if you had some magic nanotechnology that could go in and knit all of the damage wrought by expanding ice crystals, you could not return the cells to the exact configuration of their pre-cryogenic state, and it is expected that even basic functional memory would be severely impared, not withstanding detailed declarative (semantic and episodic) memory. In other words, you’d essentially be resurrecting an almost blank slate with only a very tenuous perception of past experiences.

Some people have suggested the use of cryoprotectorants to protect cells, and in fact these are used in the processing and storage of individual cells for experiements and therapies. However, they all inhibit the normal function of water in the cell, and most are toxic to living organisms. There is no way to infuse a living brain (or one that you would like to return to life) with such cryoprotectants in sufficient concentration to preserve a frozen brain. There is no expectation among neuroscientists that it will ever be possible to resurrect a cryogenically frozen head.

Setting the science aside, there is the existential horror of being resurrected in a world in which all family and social connections are long dead, where technology and society have evidently advanced far beyond current experience, and unless there is some way to reproduce the rest of the body via some kind of cloning process, being stuck in a “brain in a box” experience, notwithstanding the psychic shock and other ramifications of no longer having a body and the somatic experiences which go along with it.

However, aside from the energy cost of maintaining cryonic temperatures, there is no particular harm in the cryopreservation of heads, and it makes no less sense than preserving a body and burying it in a plush-lined box or underground vault. On the scale of pseudoscience offenses against good sense and society, this stands as about a 2 or 3 decapitations out of a possible 10. If it makes someone’s final days more comforted by the falsehood that they may someday be resurrected and stuck in a jar, so be it.

Stranger

8

So you have clear and convincing evidence that it’s totally impossible to ever repair the damage from freezing, right? Dead is dead, right? C’mon Stranger, don’t cop out like this. You know that it’s physically possible even if you are skeptical based on your current knowledge of current capabilities.

As for your other questionable statement - so now you are imagining the capability to somehow revive someone, but think a society that could repair a human brain from a frozen, damaged sample (or build an emulation of it, more realistically) - couldn’t build a suitable surrogate body? And would trap that revived individual in a jar?

Don’t be absurd. At least be intellectually honest. One thing many of us on the boards respect about you Stranger is that you are honest about most subjects and very knowledgeable as well. Obviously, repairing a system that uses around 68 trillion synapses crammed into a 3-dimensional mess of circuitry would require difficult to imagine capabilities far in advance of anything humans have today.

But it’s not impossible, the information needed is probably still there. Though “repair” is a bit of a stretch, but scanning a brain sample and building an emulation with the memories and approximate personality traits of the original is probably at least nominally possible.

9

Hey, let’s not criticize Stranger!!!
Now, me,…I don’t know nuttin’ 'bout science…
But anybody who can discuss frozen heads and say:

deserves a prize for good writin’!
:slight_smile:

10

I guess the people who sign up for this, reason that even a one in a million shot is better than nothing.

Imagine we could unfreeze someone from the 11th century. Would we?
Yes, probably, because it would be good to hear about the 11th century from the perspective of someone who lived through it.
After a point, there might be dimishing returns “Not another 14th century blacksmith, we know all about that shit now!” but you only need one to be unfreezed for the logic of cryo to make some degree of sense.

I am not advocating for it – just arguing against some of the arguments against it.

11

The problem (as stated clearly in the referenced post) isn’t whether or not it might be possible to repair physical damage. My analogy: your computer’s memory inhabits dynamic computer chips, containing lots of tiny capacitors. Suppose your PC gets smashed up, or even loses power for a short while. Even if you fix or replace the RAM, all the contents are still gone forever.

As for resurrecting people, all those cloned bodies, tech, and labor aren’t exactly cheap, you know. While there is always demand for raw material for the gladiator pits and to sell into slavery, why bother when there is already a 2-for-1 sale at your local Body Bank with no questions asked.

12

Maybe they need to re-infuse some clean genes into the gene pool: The future populace may be contaminated from atomic war and designer genes in humans may be illegal.

Really old genes might as well be brand-new genes.

13

Recovering genes doesn’t require recovering functioning brains, though.

14

Clear and convincing evidence (human survival with memories and personality intact) from bloodless surgery, cold water exposure, and heavy anesthetic disprove the ‘ram’ hypothesis. Presently it’s thought the main data is stored in a more durable form through effective ‘weight’ on each synapse.

So no, it would be more like your hard drive platter was damaged and is now shattered but the magnetic domains are all still there. This is a recoverable situation but expensive. Also the file system used has a lot of redundancy such that if you can recover about half the data you can reconstruct all the files intact. (Human brain appears to use tons of redundancy)

15

The corpsicle population would fall into groups. Those who had sufficient assets to have survived the period since their procedure. Those who did not, but were highly valued members of their society for various reasons. Those who did not, and who simply spent all their assets on the procedure out of a belief that it was better than no chance at all.

The first group have to hope the portion of that corporate entity that currently manages their assets is not sufficiently motivated to keep managing the assets until the revivification techniques are “sufficiently reliable” to warrant the possible loss of life. (Not to mention loss of income.)

The second group would be well advised to consider whether the society that had developed really needs a great left handed relief pitcher with 280 batting average, keeping in mind the folks you expect to “raise you from the dead” can reliably be expected to repair a rotator cuff at the drive through window.

The cost of the procedure, including the unpaid debt on the maintenance for the last 150 years, at current interest rates might make the third group a whole new source of indentured servants for the new age. Mining colony anyone?

Tris

“Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance.” Bertrand Russell

16

Maybe the in the future they have wiped out poverty and people live to better themselves without being jealous of others. Perhaps they cannot understand why someone would be so greedy and self centered as to spend their fortune preserving themselves instead of helping out mankind with generous funding. Perhaps they need such a person to run for political office because the future has become boring.

17

Sex robots . . . with genuine people personalities!

Share and enjoy.

CMC fnord!

18

Background npc characters for a VR period piece set in the year 2000.

19

Okay, I am now imagining a holographic show a century or so hence.

“here we are again folks, with a random selection of people from 2020. Our celebs will read out a short biog of each candidate and you will vote on which one we will bring back from the dead; live on air.”

I will leave it to you to imagine how they go on from there :slight_smile:

20

At least if I’m a sex robot I get to have sex . . . you’re vision of the future, well it don’t sound like much fun. :frowning:

CMC fnord!.