3 ms·

But all of these people are already actually truly dead, with their physical body not existing much more than the mummified remains you sometimes find in other

But all of these people are already actually truly dead, with their physical body not existing much more than the mummified remains you sometimes find in other places. The fact that they're frozen rather than dessicated is irrelevant - frozen mamallian bodies are completely dead. That there could in principle be some way to restore them to life is not much more true than it is that you could in principle reconstruct a burned letter from the ashes, with enough information about the burning process.

grishka 3y ago
> frozen mamallian bodies are completely dead. According to what criteria? The bodies are still relatively intact physically. The point of the freezing is to stop any possible chemical activity so that no decomposition or other harmful change happens and the information contained in the body stays intact. > That there could in principle be some way to restore them to life is not much more true than it is that you could in principle reconstruct a burned letter from the ashes, with enough information about the burning process. You're saying that like you know exactly what a consciousness is, what's its physical representation and what is enough to support it. Our best understanding is that the brain itself contains enough information to encode one's "self". It might be in the neuron connections or something else — that part we aren't sure about yet.
Swizec 3y ago
> frozen mamallian bodies are completely dead So fun fact: In mountain rescue they have a saying that you aren't dead until you're warm and dead. People do come back from frozen. Here's some science about this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24882104/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24882104/ > Hypothermic cardiac arrest has high mortality and few known prognostic factors. We studied retrospectively 34 victims of accidental hypothermia with cardiac arrest admitted to The University Hospital of North Norway during 1985-2013 who were resuscitated and rewarmed by extracorporeal circulation. No patient survived prior to 1999, while nine out of 24 (37.5%) survived hypothermic cardiac arrest from 1999 to 2013. The lowest measured core temperature among survivors was 13.7°C; the longest time from cardiac arrest to return of spontaneous circulation was 6 h and 52 min. The only predictor of survival identified was lower blood potassium concentration in the nine survivors compared with the non-survivors. Submersion was not associated with reduced survival. Non-survivors consumed modest hospital resources. Most survivors had a favourable neurological outcome. Can't find the very cool journalistic story where I learned the phrase a few years ago. I think it was one of those New York Times online features they used to do. Similar to the famous Avalanche story, but about a woman who froze to death and came back ... or maybe it was part of the Avalanche story even. Memory fuzzy
consilient 3y ago
> not much more true than it is that you could in principle reconstruct a burned letter from the ashes, with enough information about the burning process. Recovering text from charred fragments of paper is sometimes possible, but anything reduced to ash is lost forever. The information required to reconstruct it ends up dispersed across the whole state of the Earth, and from there leaks out into space at the speed of light: it can never be recovered, even in principle. The same is true vis a vis corpsicles and corpses. Whether cryopreservation preserves enough structure to make resurrection possible is an open question, but once your synapses are gone they're gone for good.
bufordtwain 3y ago
Small animals can sometimes be revived after being frozen to death, see the Tom Scott video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tdiKTSdE9Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tdiKTSdE9Y

grishka 3y ago

> frozen mamallian bodies are completely dead. According to what criteria? The bodies are still relatively intact physically. The point of the freezing is to stop any possible chemical activity so that no decomposition or other harmful change happens and the information contained in the body stays intact. > That there could in principle be some way to restore them to life is not much more true than it is that you could in principle reconstruct a burned letter from the ashes, with enough information about the burning process. You're saying that like you know exactly what a consciousness is, what's its physical representation and what is enough to support it. Our best understanding is that the brain itself contains enough information to encode one's "self". It might be in the neuron connections or something else — that part we aren't sure about yet.

Swizec 3y ago

> frozen mamallian bodies are completely dead So fun fact: In mountain rescue they have a saying that you aren't dead until you're warm and dead. People do come back from frozen. Here's some science about this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24882104/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24882104/ > Hypothermic cardiac arrest has high mortality and few known prognostic factors. We studied retrospectively 34 victims of accidental hypothermia with cardiac arrest admitted to The University Hospital of North Norway during 1985-2013 who were resuscitated and rewarmed by extracorporeal circulation. No patient survived prior to 1999, while nine out of 24 (37.5%) survived hypothermic cardiac arrest from 1999 to 2013. The lowest measured core temperature among survivors was 13.7°C; the longest time from cardiac arrest to return of spontaneous circulation was 6 h and 52 min. The only predictor of survival identified was lower blood potassium concentration in the nine survivors compared with the non-survivors. Submersion was not associated with reduced survival. Non-survivors consumed modest hospital resources. Most survivors had a favourable neurological outcome. Can't find the very cool journalistic story where I learned the phrase a few years ago. I think it was one of those New York Times online features they used to do. Similar to the famous Avalanche story, but about a woman who froze to death and came back ... or maybe it was part of the Avalanche story even. Memory fuzzy

consilient 3y ago

> not much more true than it is that you could in principle reconstruct a burned letter from the ashes, with enough information about the burning process. Recovering text from charred fragments of paper is sometimes possible, but anything reduced to ash is lost forever. The information required to reconstruct it ends up dispersed across the whole state of the Earth, and from there leaks out into space at the speed of light: it can never be recovered, even in principle. The same is true vis a vis corpsicles and corpses. Whether cryopreservation preserves enough structure to make resurrection possible is an open question, but once your synapses are gone they're gone for good.

bufordtwain 3y ago

Small animals can sometimes be revived after being frozen to death, see the Tom Scott video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tdiKTSdE9Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tdiKTSdE9Y