Cryonics. Hopeful stuff or people wasting their time?

[Gingerbread Demon]

Well, companies like Alcor have a Board of Directors who deal specifically with that: http://www.alcor.org/FAQs/faq05.html#funds



The rest of the FAQ on that page explains how all of the financials work. It's worth reading.

I shall have a look.

 

[Amaris]

I shall have a look.

It's an interesting read. If anything, they've really put a lot of effort into this project. I'm not saying go out and pay to have this done, but I don't think it's quackery. Plus, if you've got the money, and you have the resources, why not? For someone like me who is an atheist, it may be a longshot, but it's better than just rotting in the ground. My opinion, of course.

 

[Gov Kodos]

It's an interesting read. If anything, they've really put a lot of effort into this project. I'm not saying go out and pay to have this done, but I don't think it's quackery. Plus, if you've got the money, and you have the resources, why not? For someone like me who is an atheist, it may be a longshot, but it's better than just rotting in the ground. My opinion, of course.

I think this is true so long as you hold to Camus's view that continued existence is better than non-existence since the quality is irrelevant. All this, presupposing that cryonics can preserve the uniqueness of any individual,

 

[Amaris]

I think this is true so long as you hold to Camus's view that continued existence is better than non-existence since the quality is irrelevant. All this, presupposing that cryonics can preserve the uniqueness of any individual,

That's the thing, quality isn't irrelevant. I've spent a considerable amount of time studying the process behind it, the methods they use, the safeguards in place. Ideally, one dies, is cryonically preserved until such time as methods are capable of healing whatever ailment caused your death, you are brought back, and you continue on as you did before, with little to no decline in the quality of your life.

In all honesty, I'd rather take a billion to one shot of living again than simply rotting in the earth. I mean, we all do eventually, but staving off that inevitability for as long as possible is just fine by me.

 

[Gov Kodos]

That's the thing, quality isn't irrelevant. I've spent a considerable amount of time studying the process behind it, the methods they use, the safeguards in place. Ideally, one dies, is cryonically preserved until such time as methods are capable of healing whatever ailment caused your death, you are brought back, and you continue on as you did before, with little to no decline in the quality of your life.

In all honesty, I'd rather take a billion to one shot of living again than simply rotting in the earth. I mean, we all do eventually, but staving off that inevitability for as long as possible is just fine by me.

That. there, just borders on religious faith far more than scientific/technological possibility for me.

 

[Amaris]

That. there, just borders on religious faith far more than scientific/technological possibility for me.

You and Michael Shermer would get along swimmingly, because he feels the same way.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542601/the-science-surrounding-cryonics/
http://waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/cryonics.html
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/307952.php

Of course, Alcor and Cryonics Institute answer a lot of questions as well:

http://www.alcor.org/AboutCryonics/index.html
http://www.cryonics.org/about-us/

So, sure, consider it a fuzzy religion if you like, but then 200 years ago, bringing a person back to life after being pronounced dead, with little to no damage, would have been considered practically demonic, yet today we do it all of the time. Over the past handful of decades, reviving someone after clinical death has become longer, and longer, because we have found newer and better ways to preserve life function. So I take such certitude with a grain of salt. The science is solid, even if there are still many questions about the efficacy of the methodology.

Here's the deal with me: I do not accept comfort for the sole fact that I find it comforting. If this appeared to be junk science, or pseudoscience to me, I'd drop it in a hot minute. I will not appease fancies that cost much and do little. If I didn't think there was a foundation for further study on this process, I wouldn't be in favor of looking into it, but I found that scintilla of evidence, and I'm willing to work with that.

What's the worst that can happen? I stay dead? So what has been lost?

Or, to put it another way:

"Using electricity to bring somebody back to life? Sounds like one of Mary Shelley's imaginings, almost a religion, really."

 

[Gov Kodos]

The body can be maintained and resuscitated after prolonged periods but the mind has only shown great decay with the length of non-operation showing increased loss of 'data/personality' for want of a term so far as I know.

 

[Amaris]

The body can be maintained and resuscitated after prolonged periods but the mind has only shown great decay with the length of non-operation showing increased loss of 'data/personality' for want of a term so far as I know.

Alcor and CI both explain this, the problems and the solutions they have so far, on their FAQ pages. Here are the relevant links:
http://www.alcor.org/sciencefaq.htm
http://www.cryonics.org/about-us/the-case-for-cryonics/#scientific justification anchor


So you don't have to hunt for it:

Q: Can a brain stop working without losing information?

A: It is a well-established fact that long-term memories are encoded in durable physical and chemical changes.

“We know that secondary memory does not depend on continued activity of the nervous system, because the brain can be totally inactivated by cooling, by general anesthesia, by hypoxia, by ischemia, or by any method, and yet secondary memories that have been previously stored are still retained when the brain becomes active once again. Therefore, secondary memory must result from some actual alterations of the synapses, either physical or chemical.” — Textbook of Medical Physiology by Arthur C. Guyton (W.B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia, 1986), page 658.

“Procedural and declarative memories differ dramatically. They use a different logic (unconscious vs. conscious recall) and they are stored in different areas of the brain. Nevertheless, these two disparate memory processes share several molecular steps and an overall molecular logic. Both are created in at least two stages: one that does not require the synthesis of new proteins and one that does. In both, short-term memory involves covalent modification of preexisting proteins and changes in the strength of preexisting synaptic connections, whereas long-term memory requires the synthesis of new proteins and the growth of new connections. Moreover, both forms of memory use PKA, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), CREB-1, and CREB-2 signaling pathways to convert short-term to long-term memory. Finally, both forms appear to use morphological changes at synapses to stabilize long-term memory.” — “Synapses and Memory Storage” by Mayford M, Siegelbaum SA, and Kandel ER. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, April 10, 2012, page 10.

Loss of brain activity is not only survivable, but sometimes even beneficial for the prevention and treatment of ischemic injury. Further discussion and references can be found in the articleMedical Time Travel.

And

Q: How can imperfect preservation be reversed?

A: Any cell that has ever survived freezing or vitrification has recovered from imperfect preservation. Cells cooled below -100ºC enter an alien state in which most cell water is replaced by solutes, molecules deform from normal shapes, and even cell membranes undergo phase transitions. After warming and removal of cryoprotectant, cells engage in considerable self-repair before operating normally again.

It is a premise of cryonics that natural self-repair is not all that will ever exist in medicine. And indeed, it already is not, since molecular intervention in cell death following cryopreservationhas already begun in mainstream cryobiology. Cryonicists have been envisioning cell repair augmentation by drugs, synthetic enzymes, viruses, and macrophages since the 1960s. These ideas, part of a biological tradition of diffusion-driven chemistry, are now termed “wet nanotechnology”. In the 1980s, a new type of nanotechnology based on positional control of chemical reactions was proposed in a mechanical tradition. The utility of such technology in cryobiology was recognized early.

Today the potential of wet and dry nanotechnology in medicine is collectively termed “nanomedicine”. According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, nanomedicine will eventually bring “synthetic biological devices” that could heal diseases and “fix the ‘broken’ parts in the cells”. Any honest scientific assessment of the utility of long-term preservation, be it gametes from an endangered species or an entire human being, must consider the impact of future technology.

Exactly what technology is expected? Since preservation can be continued indefinitely, even centuries, one must consider the limits of what is physically possible. It’s already known that every tissue and organ in the body can in principle be regenerated. The most elegant application of such technology will be in situ regeneration of injured tissue, including regrowth of lost limbs and organs. For treatment of severe traumatic injuries, it’s theoretically possible that even an entire body could be regenerated around an unconscious brain maintained in a fluid life support system.

The brain must be repaired, not replaced. If mature nanotechnology is assumed, then very sophisticated repair strategies can be envisioned as explained in the references below. In the worst case, it’s theoretically possible to scan the entire molecular structure of a cryopreserved brain into a computer for analysis and direction of repair processes. For cryopreservation under good conditions with modern technology, and without fracturing, less extreme forms of cell repair should suffice.

And

Cryobiology and Preservation. It can be stated quite firmly that cell bodies, cell membranes, synapses, mitochondria, general axon and dendroid patterns, metabolites such as neurotransmitters, chemical constituents such as proteins and nucleic acids, and general brain architecture are preserved reasonably well or excellently with current techniques. The brain can withstand severe mechanical distortion by ice without impairment of subsequent cognition, and a glycerol concentration of 5.15M can be shown to limit ice formation to quantities currently thought to be consistent with good function or recovery of the intact brain. Information is lacking about the ultrastructure of frozen thawed brains, but much can be inferred from the customary observation of a high level of functional recovery of frozen thawed brains, brain tissue or brain cells which depends on a high degree of both local and long range ultrastructural integrity.

Absolute proof is lacking about the quality of preservation in each and every brain region, since not all brain regions have been examined by neurobiologists to date. However, in my experience, no clear differences in preservation quality from one brain region to another have ever been apparent to me while examining entire cross-sections of the frozen - thawed brain at many different levels.

So it's not a perfect solution, but the science is improving every day. The key is to not give in to shortsighted fatalism and just toss it out of hand without due consideration.

 

[Gov Kodos]

I also want information from folks not invested in the system. The cigarette companies assured folks of the safety of their products for ages after all.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I was thinking of this but what about theraputic hyothermia? Used during some surgical procedures to almost stop a patients bodily functions?

Also used sometimes in place of an induced coma also known as topor?

I was thinking would that work for long term space travel?

 

[Amaris]

I also want information from folks not invested in the system. The cigarette companies assured folks of the safety of their products for ages after all.

I posted several links that weren't Alcor or Cryonics Institute. Here they are and a few more:

http://waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/cryonics.html (normally I wouldn't post a blog, but all of their sources are cited)
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542601/the-science-surrounding-cryonics/
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/307952.php
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18321197
http://research.omicsgroup.org/index.php/Cryonics
http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/bioethics_article/11344
http://www.olemartinmoen.com/the-case-for-cryonics/
http://www.ghchs.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_20226865/File/Library/TOK_Cryobiology.docx (this downloads a docx file with many medical journal and reference sources that study cryopreservation and cryobiology)
http://www.zmescience.com/medicine/rabbit-brain-cryogenics-0523532/

That should get the ball rolling.

 

[Gov Kodos]

The distinctions they make seem more based on hope than fact. For instance,

Personal identity is a difficult issue, but as long as we grant that persons can survive drowning in cold water, it is unclear why they could not also survive cryonics.

Apart from quick resuscitation within minutes of 'life stoppage' vs weeks, years, decades and that where the body hasn't undergone massive tissue temperature affect unlike cryonics, yeah, what's the difference? This all sounds too much like snake oil salesmen for my druthers.

 

[Amaris]

The distinctions they make seem more based on hope than fact. For instance,

Apart from quick resuscitation within minutes of 'life stoppage' vs weeks, years, decades and that where the body hasn't undergone massive tissue temperature affect unlike cryonics, yeah, what's the difference? This all sounds too much like snake oil salesmen for my druthers.

I've given you everything I can, you'll just have to sort through it and read up on it like I did. I can't really explain it any more beyond that. It's not like you have to accept it. I studied up on it, and continue to read up on it as much as I can, and I find the science solid enough at this level to invest more time and effort into exploring it as an option. I may end up deciding it's infeasible and abandoning the notion, but right now it seems like a pretty interesting idea, and one I'd be willing to try out should my concerns be addressed to my own satisfaction.

 

[Gov Kodos]

It is intriguing, I'm just more skeptical and distrusting of optimism, perhaps.

 

[Amaris]

It is intriguing, I'm just more skeptical and distrusting of optimism, perhaps.

Well, I'm an optimist at heart. Don't worry, though, it won't be long before my pragmatism beats it out of me.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

So as I said earlier any thoughts on something like this for space travel? Like what they do during surgery with induced hypothermia?

 

[Gov Kodos]

So as I said earlier any thoughts on something like this for space travel? Like what they do during surgery with induced hypothermia?

It's all good until there's a problem with the AE35 Unit.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

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[Gingerbread Demon]

It's all good until there's a problem with the AE35 Unit.

Wasn't that an antenna part?

Still you have to maintain connection to Earth yeah avoid all malfunctions.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Wasn't that an antenna part?

Still you have to maintain connection to Earth yeah avoid all malfunctions.

The AI will have the highest enthusiasm for the mission, without doubt.