9 ms·

Hmm...except that cryopreservation is still, as of this point, a complete crock of shit. Trying to find a necromancer would be more productive. As an ex-biolog

Hmm...except that cryopreservation is still, as of this point, a complete crock of shit. Trying to find a necromancer would be more productive. As an ex-biologist, I can assure you that horrible cellular damage is being committed to these "preserved" people. I used to flash-freeze all sorts of cells, ranging from bacteria (e. coli) to animal (IMCD3 and MDCK kidney) to human (Human Embryonic Kidney, Primary cortical and hippocampal neurons). These protocols are pretty simple. Pellet and re-suspend a small vial of cells to dilute out the media, replace with a special preservation media then dunk the entire 5mL vial in a big pot of liquid nitrogen for a few minutes. Then it goes into the deep freezer (-80C). Sadly, even though this is a tiny aliquot that is frozen almost instantly, cell death on thawing and resuspension is immense. Like, it's a good day if 50% of the cells live. It usually doesn't matter, since these cell lines are immortalized and they just start growing again, but it illustrates the point. Despite the most ideal circumstances, cells hate to be frozen. Now, imagine you are trying to flash freeze an entire body. They do this by perfusing preservation media through your blood, relying on your body's circulatory system to get the media in all the right places. This takes time. Perfusing a small mouse with formaldehyde takes at least 5-10 minutes. A human body? Practically ages I would guess. All the while, cells are dieing left and right because they are no longer getting a steady supply of oxygen (and instead a bath of relatively cytotoxic preservation media). When the body is finally perfused fully and dunked into liquid nitrogen...flash freezing isn't immediate. The outer layers freeze much faster than the inner layers. Ok, so just freeze the brain? Same problem as before, just on a slightly smaller scale. Ignoring all the cell death that has been happening for the last hour, how about thawing? Well, let's pretend its a "good day" and 50% of your cells live. That might be ok for your skin, liver, or spleen - they are going to be unhappy but still alive. But 50% of your neurons dieing? Hmm. Also take into account that neurons don't regenerate. You just killed half your brain. Even super optimistic numbers, 70%-80% survival rate, still leave a lot of your brain as goo. This is all just biology. I'm not even touching the morals and ethics of companies that are under no obligation to actually do what you paid them to do (since you are dead).

FeepingCreature 14y ago
I'm assuming that as an author of fairly hard sci-fi Banks would not mind overmuch if he was resurrected as a "mere" upload. The point of cryo is once the initial damage is done, no additional information loss to entropy occurs, so you can afford waiting for far-distance supertech to see if your neural behavior is at all reconstructable.
- arethuza 14y ago
  Thirty centuries from now I can imagine someone boarding a starship: 'I am the Iain (M) Banks,' the ship said, through the drone. 'That's a weird name. How did you end up calling yourself that?' The remote drone dipped one front corner slightly, its equivalent of a shrug. 'It's a long story . . .'
- polyfractal 14y ago
  That's fair enough, although it should be noted that proteins/molecules are still active at -80C, just very slow. Things still break down, some enzymes are still active, etc.
gizmo 14y ago
The cell damage inflicted by the cryo process is readily acknowledged by its proponents. They argue that the neurological damage is not so large that the original brain can't be reconstructed either by scanning it while still frozen or by repairing it with nano-bots. Much like data from a wiped hard drive can still be recovered by digital forensics. As for the problem of outer layers freezing faster than inner layers, I think this is mostly addressed by filling the brain with anti-freeze first. Now, I'm rather skeptical of the whole process myself, but the crynoics guys understand biology 101.
- justincormack 14y ago
  No they understand how to fleece gullible people.
  - Filligree 14y ago
    Including themselves? They're not making any money off this, Alcor is a non-profit and the wages of the personnel involved are fairly low.
- mryan 14y ago
  > ... is not so large that the original brain can't be reconstructed either by scanning it while still frozen or by repairing it with nano-bots. You might as well argue that nano-bots will be able to reanimate a body that has decomposed, and save money on all the freezing equipment. Perhaps that will be the case if given enough time, but we seem to be a long way away from that technology. The business model seems to be "give us money now, and the technology that could make this work will probably be invented soon enough. Probably".
  - nawitus 14y ago
    >You might as well argue that nano-bots will be able to reanimate a body that has decomposed, and save money on all the freezing equipment. Perhaps that will be the case if given enough time, but we seem to be a long way away from that technology. No, you might not as well argue that. If you think you can, then please argue how you can retrive information from a completely decomposed brain. On the other hand, it's pretty reasonable to assume that a cryopreserved brain preserves a lot of the information in the brain.
nawitus 14y ago
>Hmm...except that cryopreservation is still, as of this point, a complete crock of shit. Trying to find a necromancer would be more productive. No, that's not very rational. Cryopreservation may have low chances of success, but it's like a billion billion billion times better than just dying (which has zero chance of success). Nobody is claiming that cryopreservation is very probable, but it's a lot better than nothing. >Now, imagine you are trying to flash freeze an entire body. I don't think your critique is very relevant, when almost all cryopreservation is only done to the brain, not the whole body. >Ignoring all the cell death that has been happening for the last hour, how about thawing? Thawing is not relevant to be discussed at this point, because the bodies will not be thawed using current technology. If the cryopreserved brain has enough information to be reconstructed, it will be done at some point using advanced nanotechnology. Nobody will be thawing brains using 21st century technology. > I'm not even touching the morals and ethics of companies that are under no obligation to actually do what you paid them to do (since you are dead). Yes, there are risks. Nobody is claiming that cryopreservation has a very high chance of success. It's a lot better than nothing, though. By the way, thse cryocompanies or organizations tend to be owned and supervised by relatives of the cryopreserved people. These managers also want to get cryopreserved themselves, and want to reconstruct their own relatives. In addition, there's great scientific value of bringing 100 year old people back alive. By the way, scientists don't refer to the cryopreversation as freezing, they call it vitrification.
- ajuc 14y ago
  > No, that's not very rational. Cryopreservation may have low chances of success, but it's like a billion billion billion times better than just dying (which has zero chance of success). Nobody is claiming that cryopreservation is very probable, but it's a lot better than nothing. That's basically Pascal Bet (if there's God you get infinite payoff, if there's no God you get finite negative payoff (wasted time caused by being believer), so to maximize payoff you should believe in God). The problem is - there are very many possible gods, many of them incompatibile with each other. You should consider the bet with ALL gods as possible options, not just some god versus no god. Same with the cryogenic. You should consider the possibility that freezing you with our poor technology can make you unrecoverable, while some other technology could allow you to be saved eventually. Also I'm sorry for Mr Banks, I love his books about Culture.
reasonattlm 14y ago
You don't seem to be all that up to date on present practice and theory in cryonics. Take some time to read up on the publications, such as by groups like 21st Century Medicine: http://www.21cmpublications.com/ http://www.21cmpublications.com/ Or for a simpler starting point, the FAQs for scientists at Alcor: http://alcor.org/sciencefaq.htm http://alcor.org/sciencefaq.htm You might also look at ongoing results from the Brain Preservation Technology Prize: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/03/an-update-from-competitors-for-the-brain-preservation-foundations-technology-prize.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/03/an-update-from-co... Evidence-Based Cryonics has a lot of as-unbiased-as-you're-going-to-get stuff on the perfusion and ischemia issues associated with vitrification of tissue, as well as explorations of other commonly voiced objections. Just wade through the archives: http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/ http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/ Also, since we seem to be arguing from authority here, you might look at this, noting that a number of the signatories are quite well known biologists: http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/scientists-open-letter-on-cryonics/ http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/scientists-open-letter-...
- polyfractal 14y ago
  I don't doubt that cryonics is a valid science, but it is not a valid business model right now. The things I did in my lab were valid science, but I would be thrown in jail for ever giving those reagents to actual patients. Like I said, the current state of "businses cryonics" is basically astrology and wishful thinking. I also don't doubt that in ten, twenty, fifty years, scientists will have figured out how to do it (much better). But right now? I'm saying nope. (Addendum: most of those publications listed at 21cm are about thin slices, which isn't exactly relevant. The even better ones are oocytes, which are practically tanks of the cellular world. Drosophila oocytes are so large you can see them with your naked eye and can withstand enormous punishment before dieing. Using them as case studies of vitrification is not really being honest. This brings me back to my original point: the science is solid...at an academic level. Once you move past 50 micron tissue slices, it all goes to hell.)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
lsparrish 14y ago
> (since you are dead). IMHO this is the cryo equivalent of an ethnic slur. Cryophobia, if you will. It meets the "you can't change this thing about yourself so we outsiders are going to make fun of you for it, nyah nyah" pattern while being devoid of useful information content. Cryonics proponents do not readily concede the point that patients are technically dead, based on the evidence available. The legal status (which is a fully independent use of the term "dead" and can be readily conceded with absolutely zero consequence to the technical argument) is something else, but if you are implying that cryonics companies would therefore be within their legal rights to dump their patients, that could just as easily be seen as a problem with the law (i.e. it fails to adequately protect cryonics patients). So it's not clear to me why you would think this is an innate ethical shortcoming of the choice to practice cryonics in the first place. > companies that are under no obligation to actually do what you paid them to do It certainly would contradict the purpose, and likely the bylaws, of a cryonics organization to fail to keep patients safe, for at least the period of time that is realistic given the limits of initial funding and uncontrollable factors world economic stability. (100 years is definitely more reasonable than a million.) Assuming the funds set aside experience real growth above the rate of inflation, the risk could actually decline over time because the financial safety net would be larger. One possible approach if you think the time is going to be long before the needed technology is available, would be to allocate funding towards measures designed to stabilize the economy, avoid war, and/or prevent natural disasters. The other approach would be to try and create disaster-proof cryobunkers (but there's physical limits, as always).

FeepingCreature 14y ago

I'm assuming that as an author of fairly hard sci-fi Banks would not mind overmuch if he was resurrected as a "mere" upload. The point of cryo is once the initial damage is done, no additional information loss to entropy occurs, so you can afford waiting for far-distance supertech to see if your neural behavior is at all reconstructable.

arethuza 14y ago
Thirty centuries from now I can imagine someone boarding a starship: 'I am the Iain (M) Banks,' the ship said, through the drone. 'That's a weird name. How did you end up calling yourself that?' The remote drone dipped one front corner slightly, its equivalent of a shrug. 'It's a long story . . .'
polyfractal 14y ago
That's fair enough, although it should be noted that proteins/molecules are still active at -80C, just very slow. Things still break down, some enzymes are still active, etc.

gizmo 14y ago

The cell damage inflicted by the cryo process is readily acknowledged by its proponents. They argue that the neurological damage is not so large that the original brain can't be reconstructed either by scanning it while still frozen or by repairing it with nano-bots. Much like data from a wiped hard drive can still be recovered by digital forensics. As for the problem of outer layers freezing faster than inner layers, I think this is mostly addressed by filling the brain with anti-freeze first. Now, I'm rather skeptical of the whole process myself, but the crynoics guys understand biology 101.

justincormack 14y ago
No they understand how to fleece gullible people.
- Filligree 14y ago
  Including themselves? They're not making any money off this, Alcor is a non-profit and the wages of the personnel involved are fairly low.
mryan 14y ago
> ... is not so large that the original brain can't be reconstructed either by scanning it while still frozen or by repairing it with nano-bots. You might as well argue that nano-bots will be able to reanimate a body that has decomposed, and save money on all the freezing equipment. Perhaps that will be the case if given enough time, but we seem to be a long way away from that technology. The business model seems to be "give us money now, and the technology that could make this work will probably be invented soon enough. Probably".
- nawitus 14y ago
  >You might as well argue that nano-bots will be able to reanimate a body that has decomposed, and save money on all the freezing equipment. Perhaps that will be the case if given enough time, but we seem to be a long way away from that technology. No, you might not as well argue that. If you think you can, then please argue how you can retrive information from a completely decomposed brain. On the other hand, it's pretty reasonable to assume that a cryopreserved brain preserves a lot of the information in the brain.

nawitus 14y ago

>Hmm...except that cryopreservation is still, as of this point, a complete crock of shit. Trying to find a necromancer would be more productive. No, that's not very rational. Cryopreservation may have low chances of success, but it's like a billion billion billion times better than just dying (which has zero chance of success). Nobody is claiming that cryopreservation is very probable, but it's a lot better than nothing. >Now, imagine you are trying to flash freeze an entire body. I don't think your critique is very relevant, when almost all cryopreservation is only done to the brain, not the whole body. >Ignoring all the cell death that has been happening for the last hour, how about thawing? Thawing is not relevant to be discussed at this point, because the bodies will not be thawed using current technology. If the cryopreserved brain has enough information to be reconstructed, it will be done at some point using advanced nanotechnology. Nobody will be thawing brains using 21st century technology. > I'm not even touching the morals and ethics of companies that are under no obligation to actually do what you paid them to do (since you are dead). Yes, there are risks. Nobody is claiming that cryopreservation has a very high chance of success. It's a lot better than nothing, though. By the way, thse cryocompanies or organizations tend to be owned and supervised by relatives of the cryopreserved people. These managers also want to get cryopreserved themselves, and want to reconstruct their own relatives. In addition, there's great scientific value of bringing 100 year old people back alive. By the way, scientists don't refer to the cryopreversation as freezing, they call it vitrification.

ajuc 14y ago
> No, that's not very rational. Cryopreservation may have low chances of success, but it's like a billion billion billion times better than just dying (which has zero chance of success). Nobody is claiming that cryopreservation is very probable, but it's a lot better than nothing. That's basically Pascal Bet (if there's God you get infinite payoff, if there's no God you get finite negative payoff (wasted time caused by being believer), so to maximize payoff you should believe in God). The problem is - there are very many possible gods, many of them incompatibile with each other. You should consider the bet with ALL gods as possible options, not just some god versus no god. Same with the cryogenic. You should consider the possibility that freezing you with our poor technology can make you unrecoverable, while some other technology could allow you to be saved eventually. Also I'm sorry for Mr Banks, I love his books about Culture.

reasonattlm 14y ago

You don't seem to be all that up to date on present practice and theory in cryonics. Take some time to read up on the publications, such as by groups like 21st Century Medicine: http://www.21cmpublications.com/ http://www.21cmpublications.com/ Or for a simpler starting point, the FAQs for scientists at Alcor: http://alcor.org/sciencefaq.htm http://alcor.org/sciencefaq.htm You might also look at ongoing results from the Brain Preservation Technology Prize: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/03/an-update-from-competitors-for-the-brain-preservation-foundations-technology-prize.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/03/an-update-from-co... Evidence-Based Cryonics has a lot of as-unbiased-as-you're-going-to-get stuff on the perfusion and ischemia issues associated with vitrification of tissue, as well as explorations of other commonly voiced objections. Just wade through the archives: http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/ http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/ Also, since we seem to be arguing from authority here, you might look at this, noting that a number of the signatories are quite well known biologists: http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/scientists-open-letter-on-cryonics/ http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/scientists-open-letter-...

polyfractal 14y ago
I don't doubt that cryonics is a valid science, but it is not a valid business model right now. The things I did in my lab were valid science, but I would be thrown in jail for ever giving those reagents to actual patients. Like I said, the current state of "businses cryonics" is basically astrology and wishful thinking. I also don't doubt that in ten, twenty, fifty years, scientists will have figured out how to do it (much better). But right now? I'm saying nope. (Addendum: most of those publications listed at 21cm are about thin slices, which isn't exactly relevant. The even better ones are oocytes, which are practically tanks of the cellular world. Drosophila oocytes are so large you can see them with your naked eye and can withstand enormous punishment before dieing. Using them as case studies of vitrification is not really being honest. This brings me back to my original point: the science is solid...at an academic level. Once you move past 50 micron tissue slices, it all goes to hell.)

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

lsparrish 14y ago

> (since you are dead). IMHO this is the cryo equivalent of an ethnic slur. Cryophobia, if you will. It meets the "you can't change this thing about yourself so we outsiders are going to make fun of you for it, nyah nyah" pattern while being devoid of useful information content. Cryonics proponents do not readily concede the point that patients are technically dead, based on the evidence available. The legal status (which is a fully independent use of the term "dead" and can be readily conceded with absolutely zero consequence to the technical argument) is something else, but if you are implying that cryonics companies would therefore be within their legal rights to dump their patients, that could just as easily be seen as a problem with the law (i.e. it fails to adequately protect cryonics patients). So it's not clear to me why you would think this is an innate ethical shortcoming of the choice to practice cryonics in the first place. > companies that are under no obligation to actually do what you paid them to do It certainly would contradict the purpose, and likely the bylaws, of a cryonics organization to fail to keep patients safe, for at least the period of time that is realistic given the limits of initial funding and uncontrollable factors world economic stability. (100 years is definitely more reasonable than a million.) Assuming the funds set aside experience real growth above the rate of inflation, the risk could actually decline over time because the financial safety net would be larger. One possible approach if you think the time is going to be long before the needed technology is available, would be to allocate funding towards measures designed to stabilize the economy, avoid war, and/or prevent natural disasters. The other approach would be to try and create disaster-proof cryobunkers (but there's physical limits, as always).