9 ms·

On the topic of cryopreservation, to borrow a question from Scott Aaronson [1]: have you signed up for cryopreservation? And regardless of your answer, how do y

• toomuchtodo 12y ago
  I would argue that cryopreservation is the belief in the increasing rate of scientific progress (which can measured and proven), and that it is far more rational than the tens of millions of people who attend church every Saturday or Sunday in search of salvation for their soul. As /u/dublinben mentioned, I'd give my entire wealth to have the opportunity to live in the future.
  • cjbprime 12y ago
    > I would argue that cryopreservation is the belief in the increasing rate of scientific progress (which can measured and proven) The problem is that you aren't just depending on future improvements in revival technology, you're depending on the current state of today's preservation technology (at the point you die). And today's preservation technology doesn't have a lot of evidence suggesting that it can work to successfully preserve a kidney, much less a brain.
    • eudox 12y ago
      Since you specifically mentioned kidneys: >In the summer of 2005, where he was a keynote speaker at the annual Society for Cryobiology meeting, Fahy announced that Twenty-First Century Medicine had successfully cryopreserved a rabbit kidney at -130°C by vitrification and transplanted it into a rabbit after rewarming, with subsequent long-term life support by the vitrified-rewarmed kidney as the sole kidney. This research breakthrough was later published in the peer-reviewed journal Organogenesis.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Fahy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Fahy [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15094092 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15094092
      • cjbprime 12y ago
        That's exciting, thank you for the correction. (Happen to know whether they've done any larger organs?)
        • jacquesm 12y ago
          Entire animals can freeze: http://www.livescience.com/32175-can-frogs-survive-being-frozen.html http://www.livescience.com/32175-can-frogs-survive-being-fro...
      • Pwnguinz 12y ago
        The abstract makes no mention of -130°C, but digging into the actual paper (can be read here: www.21cm.com/pdfs/cryopreservation_advances.pdf), it does mention: "Fig. 13. Confinement of ice formation to the pelvis of a rabbit kidney that was perfused with M22 at 22°C for 25min, bisected, and allowed to passively cool in air in a CryoStar freezer at about 130°C... The vast majority of the kidney appears to have vitrified and is indistinguishable from the appearance of the kidney prior to cooling." (Emphasis mine)
    • toomuchtodo 12y ago
      > The problem is that you aren't just depending on future improvements in revival technology, you're depending on the current state of today's preservation technology (at the point you die). When the other option is straight ol' Death, I'm not losing much by playing the long game on science coming through at sophisticated cellular repair mechanisms/protocols. I'm definitely ahead of people getting buried or cremated.
  • raverbashing 12y ago
    On the other hand, you'll be living in the future, and probably unemployable since things will have evolved so much. Maybe everybody speaks something else other than English and even communicating is a pain (even with good translation resources) You'll know nobody. All the things that you know by "home" are gone. It'll probably be cool for the first weeks, then an absolute drag.
    • codezero 12y ago
      I think it'd be less of a drag than being nonexistent.
      • raverbashing 12y ago
        Maybe, but you won't mind not existing. You may mind it now, surely, but not at that time.
        • codezero 12y ago
          Of course, I want to mind :P
    • johnward 12y ago
      Yeah but if it is that bad the you could just kill yourself. The potential upside seems to outweigh the finality of death.
    • zanny 12y ago
      A huge portion of the workforce will be unemployable in our lifetimes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU By the time the technology comes around the revive the cryopreserved, the rest of technological advancement will change the dynamic of human interaction so much we cannot estimate what the world will be like, but we can assume that with technology advanced enough to repair the damage from the freezing process, you would probably be entering a world of almost any possibility.
      • 12y ago
  • gertef 12y ago
    It's not clear you understand why people go to church and what it's benefits are.
• dublinben 12y ago
  On the other hand, I think most inquisitive folks and Sci-Fi nerds would pay anything to travel into the future (beyond a single lifetime).
  • jngreenlee 12y ago
    If conciseness is in fact just an internal feeling/feedback loop, the revived you will feel as though this was achieved, but is the benefit to your present mind-state somewhat lost?
    • joshmarlow 12y ago
      Assuming consciousness is an internal state (nothing mystical or metaphysical), isn't this the same thing as a long nap? Ie, is the fact that the you after a nap feels like a continuation of yourself of no benefit to the you before a nap? Of course, the analogy isn't perfect since brain activity does not cease during a nap, but consciousness does.
      • eudox 12y ago
        People have come back from minutes of electrocerebral silence with intact memories and personalities.
    • Houshalter 12y ago
      You can say that for any attempt to make plans for the future.
    • throwaway0010 12y ago
      Sure, but you can say the same about going to bed at night with the intent of waking up in the morning.
    • goldfeld 12y ago
      If you extrapolate this notion, which is something I have done and find an interesting theory, then consciousness is really a moment's event, like a processor's tick. Every tick you sense things, retrieve things from memory, and serialize a bunch more things into memory (including the working memory of say, a conscious movement you're doing right now.) The next moment another "you" comes along and lives that moment. To me it's the only point at which I can draw this line of "when is it no longer you?", as in being cloned with an exact brain snapshot, or sleeping at night, etc. You are only ever you for that single moment, so what difference is there between the revived you and the you a second from now? It's also a convenient belief in that I feel free to do teleportation when that becomes available (pulverize your body here, recreate your snapshot there.)
• reasonattlm 12y ago
  Why crazy? There's good supporting evidence for sufficient preservation of fine neural structure via vitrification. The oldest existing cryopreservation organizations have lasted 40 years since their formation as professional groups. There is no known obstacle in the laws of physics to developing molecular nanotechnology capable of restoring a cryopreserved individual: it's just a technology challenge in organization at the nanoscale, related to well-funded and widespread current work in cell science and nanotechnology. Basically it is the best possible play with the cards dealt to you if you are going to die before the advent of rejuvenation therapies and would still like to live longer into the golden future of amazing wealth and technology that lies just ahead of us. The odds are infinitely better than those offered by any other end of life choice (i.e. they are above zero).
  • thenmar 12y ago
    Would you mind sharing some of that evidence? I certainly understand the desire to be cryopreserved, but given the lack of proof of concept (I'd love to be contradicted here!) and how little we know about the brain, it seems like a desperate Hail Mary marketed to wealthy tech folks as sound science.
    • eudox 12y ago
      Electron micrography of cryopreserved tissue shows pretty good preservation[0][1], and since every aspect of the mind is dependent on physical properties of the brain, the possibility of revival exists as long as structure and context are preserved in the brain. >marketed to wealthy tech folks Cryonics has historically been a middle class thing. [0] http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/micrographs.html http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/micrographs.html [1] http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/braincryopreservation1.html http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/braincryopreservation1.htm...
      • jacquesm 12y ago
        Electron microscopy of a ram chip shows no difference at all between one that contains a bunch of data and one that is empty.
• rbanffy 12y ago
  Considering death is inevitable, cryopreservation just before you cease to function is, quite possibly, the best rational choice you can make. Of course, it's a bit selfish, as the resources you commit to it are substantial and your offspring could benefit from them. Betting your final moments on specific advances of technology is also not an easy decision. Plus, you may wake up in a world you don't like. OTOH, the other option is not to wake up at all.
  • goeric 12y ago
    Exactly my thoughts.
  • kryptiskt 12y ago
    You may wake up a stunted and brain-damaged version of yourself that is aware enough to know what it is missing.
    • rbanffy 12y ago
      Then get fixed. If someone can restore a vitrified brain into a functioning state, they can probably restore it to full function.
• declan 12y ago
  >if you can afford it, the upside is potentially far more beneficial than the downside I looked into this in some detail a while ago, and I recall Alcor indicated that many of its members opt for life insurance (with Alcor as a beneficiary) to cover the cost of cryopreservation. That's something like $75K to cryopreserve your head, and $150K for whole-body cryospreservation. I suspect the mean age of HN readers skews toward late 20s or early 30s, meaning that they'd likely pay something like <$100 every year for $150K of life insurance. Also many of us have some form of life insurance paid for by our employers. I updated my will last year with the help of a SF bay area attorney who told me she's done cryopreservation wills/trusts for a bunch of high-profile tech execs (she did not, of course, name names). Email me if you want her info.
  • jkaljundi 12y ago
    How does the math work for paying let's say 60 years times <$100 and cashing out $150k at the end?
    • declan 12y ago
      I know other folks active on HN actually work in the insurance industry, and hopefully they'll jump in. But there are different types of life insurance. For most HN readers term life insurance (pay $100 a year for 10 years for $150K in death benefits, and then the policy ends) makes the most sense. There's no "cash out" at the end... There are other types tied to investment vehicles that go by names like universal and variable life insurance. Those can have certain tax advantages and can let you build that "cash value" you mentioned.
    • wlesieutre 12y ago
      I assume that your rates go up as you age and get more likely to die. In your 20's it's only covering improbably illnesses and events like car accidents. But nobody's going to extend those same rates to you once you're 85 and already had two heart attacks.
      • Houshalter 12y ago
• ggreer 12y ago
  I signed up about five years ago. I outlined my reasons in a blog post[1]. Basically, I think it's more feasible than most people judge it to be. The technology has already been demonstrated in smaller structures such as rabbit kidneys. While it's not likely to work, the expected value is positive. 1. http://geoff.greer.fm/2010/07/09/insert-frozen-food-joke-here/ http://geoff.greer.fm/2010/07/09/insert-frozen-food-joke-her...
• lsparrish 12y ago
  It's interesting that the comments by cell biologist Len Ornstein in that thread completely omit any mention of high osmolality vitrification, which is what is practiced in cryonics. I get the impression he is not aware of Fahy's approach at all. It probably is not used in his specialty. HOV is using extremely high concentrations of solutes to reduce the freezing point (a colligative property). That is the only way to vitrify something big like the brain. At least, until some super material is invented that lets us pull out lots of heat really fast. The trouble is that it is toxic to cells to be exposed for very long. With rabbit kidneys and small slices of brain tissue, the exposure time at warm temperatures can be very brief. So with current cryonics we can only make a morphological argument for information theoretic preservation. With better materials that enable faster cooling, prevent the toxicity mechanisms of the cryoprotectant, and/or block ice formation non-colligatively (certain polymers do this), it is theoretically possible that we could get to a point where the cells are still viable. In that event, it would be like placing the brain in an "off state". You wouldn't be able to resume it again without a body to implant it in, but that's more likely to be on the 200-year radar than nanorepair, so the chances would be improved quite a bit. Also, I suspect more people would sign up for a process that does not involve "killing" their brain cells.
  • lsparrish 12y ago
    I should also mention that the wood frog is really more a counterexample of vitrification. It forms ice (which they are adapted to tolerate, unlike us), but the interior or the cells remains a slightly more concentrated liquid. It is nowhere near the concentrations used in cryonics, which are high enough to prevent freezing entirely (50-80%). A wood frog cannot survive any temperature below around -5 C.