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Father of Cryonics Dies at 92, Frozen in Cryonics Institute
- Ronkdar 15y agoAs absurd as cryonics sounds, without fanatics (as some might call them) pushing for it, it will never exist. "If you don't ask, then the answer is always no." Hopefully we'll see you again some day, Ettinger.
- MikeCapone 15y agoIf you believe that your personality is encoded in the patterns of your physical brain, cyronics doesn't sound absurd at all.
- Ronkdar 15y agoIMO, the absurd part is, how do you bring a 93 year old dead person back to life? How long until we get this technology? Who's to say that there will be a consistent flow of money to keep this person frozen until that time? (it's not cheap) I think that eventually we'll probably figure this stuff out, but that now is far too early to start freezing people.
- nova 15y agobut that now is far too early to start freezing people. Why, do you think there's something to lose? Our best shot at preserving the pattern of information that makes your identity as a person, or just rotting/reduced to ashes.
- MikeCapone 15y agoI don't think most fans of cryonics think that they'll just be unfrozen and brought back in the same body. With advanced enough technology, the brain patterns can be scanned and either emulated in a virtual world, or they can be reproduced in a new body that won't age in the same way that our bodies do (because the diseases of aging happen in an evolutionary blind spot, after we reproduced).
- MikeCapone 15y agoAnyone wanting to know more can check Bostrom's Whole Brain Emulation Roadmap: http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/3853/brain-emulation-roadmap-report.pdf http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/3... Very technical, but gives a good idea of what is required.
- bh42222 15y agoIMO, the absurd part is, how do you bring a 93 year old dead person back to life? Or to put in another way, what is more likely: That the future can bring back a dead old and then frozen brain, or that they can reconstruct an individual just by brute force computer simulation, no need for anyone to be frozen? If the later is as likely as the first, what exactly is the point of freezing? Perhaps you might be better of trying to create interesting things which will make the distant future more likely to want to simulate you in high precision? Or perhaps Aubrey DeGray would be much better off applying his impressive brains to getting an MD and going into basic research, instead of being a cheerleader for his ideas with only a Gerontology PhD.
- MikeCapone 15y agoAubrey's foundation funds tons of lab research that wouldn't be otherwise done, as well as editing a very well regarded journal about human aging (Rejuvenation Research). The fact that he isn't in a lab doesn't make him any less of a scientist; sometimes having the ideas and doing the high-level synthesis work is more valuable than doing lab work that any number of people can do. I suggest you read his book (amazon: Ending Aging) and then make up your mind about his ideas, rather than after having only heard the soundbites.
- bh42222 15y agoI have red his book, it's like nails on a chalkboard to my brain. My problem with it? I know too much. I am not an MD but I work with them, I write medical R&D software. If you are passionate about the subject, step out of the Aubrey lake and dive into the huge ocean that is next to it. It's not nearly as optimistic, but is much more relevant.
- MikeCapone 15y agoYou've basically said nothing. Could you add some specifics to your criticism of Aubrey's thesis? And please don't assume that I don't know any biology.
- joejohnson 15y agoApparently he also froze his two wives... that might be awkward if they all get reanimated.
- Roritharr 15y agoI honestly wonder if the second one thought of that.
- JoshTriplett 15y agoLet's hope they all get to deal with that awkwardness at some point in the future, because it beats the alternative.
- lsparrish 15y agoThis is, as he put it, a "high class problem" :)
- reasonattlm 15y agoThe scientist's open letter on cryonics, signed by people such as Gregory Stock, Stanley Shostak, Ralph Merkle, Eric Drexler, Aubrey de Grey, Gregory Benford, and a range of researchers in the life sciences you're probably less familiar with, but who are household names in their fields. http://evidencebasedcryonics.org/scientists-open-letter-on-cryonics/ http://evidencebasedcryonics.org/scientists-open-letter-on-c... A layman's introduction to cryonics: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2001/11/cryonics.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2001/11/cryonics.php Lots of deeper technical details can be found at Alcor (which maintains a better web presence than the Cryonics Institute): http://www.alcor.org/sciencefaq.htm http://www.alcor.org/sciencefaq.htm The basic process is pretty similar between all modern cryonics organizations. Important to note is that freezing is out, vitrification is in. That makes a large difference to cellular structural integrity. See: http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/vitrify.html http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/vitrify.html
- barry-cotter 15y agoI was kind of horrified how bad the arguments against cryonics are[0]. As far as I can tell noone has ever gone to the trouble to seriously and in good faith argue against it, they just apply the absurdity heuristic and say its advocates are freaks/frauds etc. (And yet I have not made my contract of immortality with the cult of the severed head.) [0]lesswrong.com/lw/1r0/a_survey_of_anticryonics_writing/
- ciphergoth 15y agoWhat stops you signing up? If it's "cryocrastination", read this: "I know more people who are planning to sign up for cryonics Real Soon Now than people who have actually signed up. I expect that more people have died while cryocrastinating than have actually been cryopreserved. If you've already decided this is a good idea, but you "haven't gotten around to it", sign up for cryonics NOW. I mean RIGHT NOW." - http://lesswrong.com/lw/wq/you_only_live_twice/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/wq/you_only_live_twice/
- Shenglong 15y agoI'd like to quote one of my favorite songs: "You could not feel sadness if you've never tasted joy; that's the curse of humans - born in passion you destroy" While I find the concept of cryonics fascinating, and feel the science should be researched more, I also feel death is important. Not only is it a natural part of life, but it's also the catalyst that enables enjoyment. I'd be extremely apathetic towards everything if I knew I'd live forever. And then, there comes the sociological problems associated with resurrecting the dead. Edit: Some people seem to have misunderstood: My comments about living forever is in direct reference to what's stated in the article, not what's realistic.
- lincolnq 15y agoI agree that there are problems, but at any given time, with the choice between life and death, would you really ever pick death? Check out "Transhumanism as Simplified Humanism": http://singinst.org/blog/2007/06/16/transhumanism-as-simplified-humanism http://singinst.org/blog/2007/06/16/transhumanism-as-simplif...
- bryanlarsen 15y agoYou've bought into your mind's rationalization. Death is scary, so society and your own mind builds all sorts of weird rationalizations to make it less so. I don't know how old you are, but your current life expectancy is likely much greater than the number of years you've already lived. So the difference between of life without cryonics and life with it is "I will probably live a long time" and "I will probably live a very long time." There is still death in a world with cryonics. Traumatic accidents will still put people beyond recovery, the same with some diseases. Many people will be frozen but never reanimated. In the first world in 2011, death occurs but is rare. Cryonics will increase the rarity but that's all.
- Shenglong 15y agoI'm pretty young, yeah, and perhaps I'll see things differently when I'm older. As for my comments about "living forever", I'm directly referencing what they stated in the article, rather than what's plausible. I'm fully aware of the differences. I'm just trying to illustrate that, at least psychologically, the worth of life is depreciated.
- torstesu 15y agoI forsee a terrible dispute when Ettinger and his two wives are brought back to life. Poor man.
- bryanlarsen 15y agoWhen the alternative is eternal death, I'm sure he'd love to have the dispute.
- torstesu 15y agoImplying that to freeze himself, he had to bring along his two wives. Does not compute.
- bryanlarsen 15y agoWhat doesn't compute? The alternative to bringing along his two wives is condemning them to eternal death.
- ChuckMcM 15y agoObjection, asserting facts that are not in evidence :-) Some folks will tell you that death is merely a transition to an alternate form of living. Some folks will tell you that if your cells are cryogenically frozen can get defrosted later. Both ideas are taken on faith, they may both be true, they may neither be true. If someone reading this is pursuing a writing career in fiction I would be love to read a story about a bunch of souls, who have died, have had their mortal remains frozen, and now as dead people been able to see that there is an afterlife, but they can't go there because their mortal remains might be reanimated and they would go back, how they deal with it and what they do. Do they figure out a way to 'break' the cryonics system, allowing them to decay and move on? Do they go insane stuck between heaven and earth? Do they wander the planet vicariously living through other people's experiences. Maybe a TV series in there somewhere.
- rictic 15y agoSome folks will tell you that death is merely a transition to an alternate form of living. Some folks will tell you that if your cells are cryogenically frozen can get defrosted later. Both ideas are taken on faith, they may both be true, they may neither be true. I live in an apartment building, but I haven't seen behind my neighbor's door. It could actually be a portal to Mars. It could lead to a few rooms consistent with the geometry of the rest of the building. Not every pair of unknowns are equiprobable.
- flurie 15y agoFrom http://www.alcor.org/cryomyths.html#myth3 http://www.alcor.org/cryomyths.html#myth3 The purpose of cryonics is to save the lives of living people, not inter the bodies of dead people. Death is a neurological process that begins after the heart stops. A stopped heart only causes death if nothing is done when the heart stops. Cryonics proposes to do something. In the words of a mainstream critical care expert writing for the American College of Surgeons, "In this era of critical care, death is more a process than an event.... A prognosis of death...cannot serve as a diagnosis." I don't feel that I understand this fully. Is there a point in this "process" from which we've already brought people back, or is this all just conjecture?
- mmaro 15y agoCPR brings people back from the dead; before the 60s, they generally stayed dead.
- gojomo 15y agoHere, let me fix that headline: Father of Cryonics "Dies" at 92
- ChuckMcM 15y agoI've always felt, in a very non-disparaging way, that cryonics filled the need for secular humanists to believe in an afterlife. An interesting point was brought up in the comments too, which is if we had a bunch of frozen folks from the 1600's and we could unfreeze them and bring them back to life, would that be the right choice? That is the moral 'nub' which I find fascinating about this stuff (and yes it has been chewed fruitfully by writers before). So imagine you could bring someone back from the 60's. What would they do today? The most brilliant computer designer would probably de-thaw believing that the IBM 360 with its channel architecture was the coolest thing. Show them the multi-issue pipeline of a modern microprocessor with register coloring, branch prediction, and early instruction retirement and their brain would explode. When you are young the wonder of a new thing gives you the energy to read about how it works, when you're older (or just in a hurry) having to spend time reading the manual or 'fiddling with' a tool to understand it enough to use it is bothersome. Can you imagine waking up and everything you know is expected to be known by teens ? All your hard earned wisdom is worthless? Since we're speculating there are things we can't really know but we can wonder about. So what will be the economic status of these people once thawed? It could be 'good' in a post singularity world where anything can be made for 'free', or it could be 'bad' where thawed people are treated like the property of the person who paid to thaw them. I would hate to find myself waking up, fuzzily, and have an insistent voice saying, "you've been reanimated by xyzcorp, click 'yes' to agree to their terms for paying off your debt to them, or 'no thankyou' to be re-frozen."
- mmaro 15y agoWell, as long as we're considering all sorts of hypothetical scenarios, consider this one: 1. You die in a year or two from terminal illness or an accident. 2. You purchased a life insurance policy when you were healthy, so cryonics is very cheap. 3. Unforeseen advances in AI/nanotech/medicine allow you to be revived in just 15-20 years. 4. You are back from the dead and find subsistence (let alone wealth) in the near future superior to your old life.
- Symmetry 15y agoI think that it would certainly be the right thing to do to bring back anyone, like Ben Franklin, who wanted to be preserved to see what the future would bring. I'd say that we should work to bring back anyone who want to be be brought back, but also not force various sort of life extension on people.