# Will my frozen head with Alcor Life Extension be brought back to life in the future? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 27, 2002, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-frozen-head-with-alcor-life-extension-be-brought-back-to-life-in-the-future/121055 "2002-07-27T02:32:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jason1234567892001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Jason1234567892001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jason1234567892001)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2002, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-frozen-head-with-alcor-life-extension-be-brought-back-to-life-in-the-future/121055/1 "2002-07-27T02:32:30Z")
If I froze my head with Alcor Life Extension, will it be brought back to life in the future? ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2002, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-frozen-head-with-alcor-life-extension-be-brought-back-to-life-in-the-future/121055/2 "2002-07-27T02:39:25Z")
Well, if you don’t get the hang of creating a thread on the SDMB, you might not have a head to freeze for later thawing. 😃 Seriously, no one knows. Even Alcor … \*Cryonic suspension is an experimental process whereby patients who can no longer be kept alive by today’s medical capabilities are preserved at low temperatures for medical treatment in the future. **Although this procedure is not yet reversible** , it is based on the expectation that future advances in medical technology and science will be able to cure today’s diseases, reverse the effects of aging, and repair any additional injury caused by the suspension process. \* (Emphasis mine.) Source: [http://www.alcor.org/AboutCryonics/index.htm](http://www.alcor.org/AboutCryonics/index.htm) ---
**Author:** ![tiny\_ham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@tiny\_ham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiny_ham)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2002, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-frozen-head-with-alcor-life-extension-be-brought-back-to-life-in-the-future/121055/3 "2002-07-27T02:40:49Z")
Man, when you have to go…just go. I’ll buy ya a beer on the other side. People…let’s stop with the freezing. Please! ---
**Author:** ![I\_forgot\_my\_username](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecd19e/32.png) [@I\_forgot\_my\_username](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_forgot_my_username)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2002, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-frozen-head-with-alcor-life-extension-be-brought-back-to-life-in-the-future/121055/4 "2002-07-27T03:02:08Z")
Are you sure you have not already frozen your head? ---
**Author:** ![mazzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@mazzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mazzer)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2002, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-frozen-head-with-alcor-life-extension-be-brought-back-to-life-in-the-future/121055/5 "2002-07-27T06:57:13Z")
On a more serious note, I imagine that _if_ they are ever able to thaw you and attach your head to some sort of mobility device, those first people thawed will have to face serious challenges to their civil rights, along the same lines as other minority groups whose humanity society has questioned, i.e. Blacks, Jews, gays, etc. ---
**Author:** ![rsa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@rsa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsa)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2002, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-frozen-head-with-alcor-life-extension-be-brought-back-to-life-in-the-future/121055/6 "2002-07-27T10:35:08Z")
> [@](#): > > Although this procedure is not yet reversible, it is based on the expectation that future advances in medical technology and science will be able to cure today’s diseases, reverse the effects of aging, \*\*and repair any additional injury caused by the suspension process. \*\* That’s a pretty big “expectation” since freezing your body would rupture all of its cells. I don’t have an expectation that future advances will be able to reverse being run over by a steam roller. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2002, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-frozen-head-with-alcor-life-extension-be-brought-back-to-life-in-the-future/121055/7 "2002-07-27T18:51:10Z")
> [@](#): > > …and repair any additional injury caused by the suspension process. You mean like the removal of your body below the neck? Or the fact that the freezing process has ruptured most or all of your body’s cells? That’s quite alot to expect. When pressed on these points, cryogenics guys usually just wave their hands and say something about nanotechnology, which is still a pipe dream, and when it does come around will almost certainly not be the universal panecea that its advocates expect it to be. IMHO it’s far, far more likely that Alcor will go out of business long before technology ever advances to the point where revivial might be feasible. > [@](#): > > On a more serious note, I imagine that if they are ever able to thaw you and attach your head to some sort of mobility device, those first people thawed will have to face serious challenges to their civil rights… That’s an important point. Let’s say that someone’s brain gets revived and put into a robotic body. Who owns the body? How will the revived person pay for his/her new body? (you think a cutting-edge cybernetic mobility unit is going to be cheap?) If the person can’t pay, can the body be reposessed? If yes, what happens to the brain? If no, can the person be forced into indentured servitude to pay for his/her revival? If not, then how would you ever find someone willing to finance such a system? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2002, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-frozen-head-with-alcor-life-extension-be-brought-back-to-life-in-the-future/121055/8 "2002-07-27T19:54:08Z")
I was actually thinking of posting a thread in IMHO asking for mominations for “Best Scam Ever”. Alcor will be my nominee. The Director of Alcor was on _60 Minutes_ a couple weeks ago. His patter went something like this, “It’s like buying a lottery ticket. There odds are long against you. But the payoff is huge. But if you don’t buy a ticket, you have 0 chance of winning.” Of course, SOMEONE wins the lottery, so the analogy is inappropriate. And the huge payoff is guaranteed to… Alcor. It’s not even illegal. Greatest…Scam…Ever! Every cell frozen to to this low a temperature is destroyed down to and including the DNA within the cell, according to an expert that CBS hired to comment on this. I can’t recall what the price was, I think something like 50K gor the head. Hell, I’d spend the 50K on lottery tickets LONG before I spent it on this. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2002, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-frozen-head-with-alcor-life-extension-be-brought-back-to-life-in-the-future/121055/9 "2002-07-27T21:13:11Z")
Hmm. If I remember correctly, by freezing cells very slowly, the cryogenics people can keep large ice crystals from forming, and leave cell membranes intact. Isn’t that what they do to frozen sperm cells and zygotes? ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2002, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-my-frozen-head-with-alcor-life-extension-be-brought-back-to-life-in-the-future/121055/10 "2002-07-28T03:27:09Z")
[More than you probably wanted to know about The Effects of Freezing on Cells in Suspension](http://www.asymptote.co.uk/process/cryo/cryoguide/report/effects.htm). FWIW, they use cryprotectants such as glycerol when freezing [boar’s semen](http://www.ucd.ie/~ofrss/agricul/animals/1059.html) and [horse semen.](http://www.uoguelph.ca/research/news/animals/equine/oct96.html) I love the Internet.