Forget cryogenic temperatures. After I die I want my brain to preserved by injecting it with a polymer that can preserve the positions of all of my neurons. Forget saving my DNA and cells, my DNA is already a mess. Just preserve my neural patterns and do it so my brain can survive at room temperatures for thousands of years. Think of an insect trapped in amber. You can never revive it, but you can take scans of it in a computer to make a "virtual" copy of it in computer memory. That way your "consciousness" can survive onwards, even if no atom of your original body is ever involved. Then later you may even have the opportunity to be transferred into a living flesh body, but you may not want to, why be a flesh and blood human with obvious weaknesses.
Exist instead in a prosthetic body and a virtual mind. At home you can have a few extra spare bodies lying around and if you don't check in for a few years the hard copy you made of yourself will activate and copy itself into a fresh body and you live yet again!!!
There are techniques that can polymerize tissue, like in the body work 3-D exhibit, not sure if that can preserve discrete neuron positions and connections. But I could imagine if done properly you could preserve enough information from your brain to save your hopes, dreams fears and ambitions, your very soul! CAT scan technology is getting quite advanced and soon we may have scans with high enough resolution to record the positions of neurons and what other neurons they are connected to.
Disadvantages: You won't be "Exactly your former self" You won't have the same DNA or maybe even ANY DNA. You may never be able to go back "into the flesh" as your old self and may have to put up with being inside of a android body built by some company in China. They might take your virtual mind and put it to work in some menial capacity such as teaching annoying brats about history or piloting space garbage trucks. You may spend an eternity on your distant offspring's knick knack box to be sold at a garage sale... They may not be able to scan your neurons and simulate your brain. You might "screw the pooch" and your frozen friends were right and you are screwed because they cannot de-plasticize your brain... In order to scan your brain you may have to have your brain all sliced up and it may be destructive process so if the tech screws up, sorry, you dead for good now....
Advantages: You will be more "immortal" than your frozen popsicle counterparts. If they lose Nitrogen in their dewers they are rancid spoiler meat. You can take room temperatures in a box in the attic and laugh at your thawed friends. Zombies won't want to eat you plasticized brain, "it taste bad..." No apocalypse survivors would want to eat you either and no organ market would want to use you to make a quick buck as the process on plasticizing is irreversible unless you have micro bots or something exotic and if you have them you won't need organs from dead plastic people. Advanced CAT scans and brain simulation seems to be a little closer technologically speaking than flesh re-animating defrosting nanobots. Having multiple hard backups of yourself is a lot easier. You can "burn" multiple backups of yourself on "Gamma Ray Holographic Disc". If you are not a data pattern you could be sent to Mars with ease and at light speed. They just need a computer at their end and a spare robot body. You can "deadhead" for many years if things get boring, (think of it like having a Fast Forward button on life, but you cannot rewind unless you want to live it virtually).
Technology needed:
1. A chemical cocktail that can plasticize human cells at a cellular level and isn't destructive to neural connections and can remain stable after "setting up" in room temperatures. (we may already have this)
2. Scanning equipment than has cellular resolution or better than can record neural connections. (we are getting really close today to this)
3. A computer than can simulate a human mind based off neural connection information (30 to 50 years)
4. A good understanding of the Human Brain and how neurons contribute to consciousness (30 to 50 years)
5. Prosthetic Body or Android Body with enough computation power to run said simulation (30 to 50 years if moore's law keep up)
So to heck with being frozen, I want to live on as a computer program based off my brain map. Maybe I will apply for that job hauling space garbage tomorrow. The Future waits....
Exist instead in a prosthetic body and a virtual mind. At home you can have a few extra spare bodies lying around and if you don't check in for a few years the hard copy you made of yourself will activate and copy itself into a fresh body and you live yet again!!!
There are techniques that can polymerize tissue, like in the body work 3-D exhibit, not sure if that can preserve discrete neuron positions and connections. But I could imagine if done properly you could preserve enough information from your brain to save your hopes, dreams fears and ambitions, your very soul! CAT scan technology is getting quite advanced and soon we may have scans with high enough resolution to record the positions of neurons and what other neurons they are connected to.
Disadvantages: You won't be "Exactly your former self" You won't have the same DNA or maybe even ANY DNA. You may never be able to go back "into the flesh" as your old self and may have to put up with being inside of a android body built by some company in China. They might take your virtual mind and put it to work in some menial capacity such as teaching annoying brats about history or piloting space garbage trucks. You may spend an eternity on your distant offspring's knick knack box to be sold at a garage sale... They may not be able to scan your neurons and simulate your brain. You might "screw the pooch" and your frozen friends were right and you are screwed because they cannot de-plasticize your brain... In order to scan your brain you may have to have your brain all sliced up and it may be destructive process so if the tech screws up, sorry, you dead for good now....
Advantages: You will be more "immortal" than your frozen popsicle counterparts. If they lose Nitrogen in their dewers they are rancid spoiler meat. You can take room temperatures in a box in the attic and laugh at your thawed friends. Zombies won't want to eat you plasticized brain, "it taste bad..." No apocalypse survivors would want to eat you either and no organ market would want to use you to make a quick buck as the process on plasticizing is irreversible unless you have micro bots or something exotic and if you have them you won't need organs from dead plastic people. Advanced CAT scans and brain simulation seems to be a little closer technologically speaking than flesh re-animating defrosting nanobots. Having multiple hard backups of yourself is a lot easier. You can "burn" multiple backups of yourself on "Gamma Ray Holographic Disc". If you are not a data pattern you could be sent to Mars with ease and at light speed. They just need a computer at their end and a spare robot body. You can "deadhead" for many years if things get boring, (think of it like having a Fast Forward button on life, but you cannot rewind unless you want to live it virtually).
Technology needed:
1. A chemical cocktail that can plasticize human cells at a cellular level and isn't destructive to neural connections and can remain stable after "setting up" in room temperatures. (we may already have this)
2. Scanning equipment than has cellular resolution or better than can record neural connections. (we are getting really close today to this)
3. A computer than can simulate a human mind based off neural connection information (30 to 50 years)
4. A good understanding of the Human Brain and how neurons contribute to consciousness (30 to 50 years)
5. Prosthetic Body or Android Body with enough computation power to run said simulation (30 to 50 years if moore's law keep up)
So to heck with being frozen, I want to live on as a computer program based off my brain map. Maybe I will apply for that job hauling space garbage tomorrow. The Future waits....
