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[akira28]

You don't have to pay to have your whole body frozen. A lot of people just freeze their head. The theory goes that by the time the medical technology exists to restore your brain, they'll be able to supply you with a replacement body as well. Sounds logical to me.

Only catch is that the body they supply you with is a cold hard robot one, because you're slaved as the meatware for some future cyborg warmachine.

 

[lunchtoast]

The first company that came up in google had an FAQ.

Myth 1: Cryonics is consumer fraud.

By definition, fraud involves deception for financial gain. This myth fails on both counts.

First, cryonics is not based on deception. To the contrary, it is both scientifically credible (see the Scientists' Open Letter on Cryonics) and supported by the extant scientific literature (see PubMed for a list of some published journal articles on cryonics). There are no known credible technical arguments that lead one to conclude that cryonics, carried out under good conditions today, would not work.

Second, cryonicists are not motivated by financial gain. The history of cryonics is full of individuals who made great sacrifices for the benefit of cryonics, and (so far) bereft of people enriched by it. Alcor has no company owners to profit from cryonics, salaries are modest, and the Board of Directors serves without pay. Cryonics is known for consuming the time and resources of its supporters rather than enriching them.

The reality is that Alcor is run by people who think cryonics can save lives and who want cryonics available for themselves, their friends, their loved ones, and the world in general.

Myth 2: Cryonics freezes people.

The current technology favored by Alcor is vitrification, not freezing. Vitrification is an ice-free process in which more than 60% of the water inside cells is replaced with protective chemicals. This completely prevents freezing during deep cooling. Instead of freezing, molecules just move slower and slower until all chemistry stops at the glass transition temperature (approximately -124°C). Unlike freezing, there is no ice formation or ice damage in vitrified tissue. Blood vessels have been reversibly vitrified, and a whole kidney has been recovered and successfully transplanted with long-term survival after vitrification at a temperature of -135°C.
In 2001, Alcor drew on published advances in the field of organ vitrification to implement a protocol for vitrifying the human brain. This procedure is not yet reversible because of other damage (not caused by ice) including biochemical effects of the vitrification solution — but it eliminates ice damage and the preservation of fine structure is excellent.

The less advanced methods used by Alcor before 2001 still suppressed most freezing damage. Comparisons of cryonics to frozen vegetables and other ridiculous analogies therefore never had merit, even before the advent of vitrification.

Myth 4: Experts say cryonics cannot work.

Most experts in any single field will say that they know of no evidence that cryonics can work. That's because cryonics is an interdisciplinary field based on three facts from diverse unrelated sciences. Without all these facts, cryonics seems ridiculous. Unfortunately that makes the number of experts qualified to comment on cryonics very small. For example, very few scientists even know what vitrification is. Fewer still know that vitrification can preserve cell structure of whole organs or whole brains. Even though this use of vitrification has been published, it is so uncommon outside of cryonics that only a handful of cryobiologists know it is possible.

The situation is comparable to the development of space travel before World War II. At that time, "aeronautical experts" were adamant that space travel was impossible. Only Robert Goddard and a few German rocket scientists knew that multi-stage rockets could escape the earth. As is often the case, the experts best qualified to comment on a new field are the experts working in that field. No properly qualified expert has ever said cryonics can't work. The problem is finding experts qualified to comment on cryonics.

Myth 8: Cryonics is an indulgence of rich people.

Most of Alcor's membership is middle class, and funds cryonics by life insurance. Cryonics is within reach of any healthy young person in the industrialized world who plans for it. For a young person, the lifetime cost of cryonics is no greater than that of smoking, cable TV, or regular eating out.

No worries!

 

[zeemumu]

I want to do it. Gives you a better chance of coming back than being buried in the dirt anyway.

 

[SquiddyCracker]

The first company that came up in google had an FAQ.









No worries!

Yeah, it's actually not that expensive if you get pay on a monthly basis, and vitrification sounds promising.

 

[terrisus]

The first company that came up in google had an FAQ.

Yeah, that's the one that's had Ted Williams for the past 14+ years.

 

[Wag]

Yeah, that's the one that's had Ted Williams for the past 14+ years.

Ted Williams just froze his head. It's cheaper that way.

To expand upon my last post, supposedly what they'll be able to do in the future is rebuild your body with your DNA. Anything's possible I guess.

 

[kingkitty]

that's it

i am definitely freezing myself.

see you all on the other side.

 

[Wag]

If you live long enough you wont have to freeze yourself. The technology will probably exist to be able to transfer your intelligence into an artificial construct, computer, robot, whatever. Making you essentially immortal. Of course you have to get to that point, so you'll probably need to freeze yourself first.

 

[Sun Bather]

As someone who was frozen for thousands of years, before recently being brought back I can only confirm. However as a side effect, gone is the quality of my sperm.

 

[JordanN]

My main question is: Why would anyone want to do that in the first place? Do people actually want to live forever?

All of your loved ones would be long dead. At that point, death itself would be a desirable release.

Have any of those people considered what would they do once they are "revived" in the far future? You would have no job, highly doubt you would retain ownership of anything you had before. You would basically have to start from scratch, and I don't think you would be as youthful as you are now.

I think people have this fantastic idea that their descendants would adopt them and that they would live a carefree life for eternity, or something....

I'm not sure if I want to live forever, but I do want to be around for new technology.

Imagine being born in the 16th century. If you didn't belong to royalty, you were probably a peasant or a slave your whole life until you died. That's it. You never had a chance at enjoying what the world had to offer.

Fast forward today and even a homeless person can enjoy something like the internet or video games or take color photos with a smartphone. Technology has made living life so much more enjoyable.

Now imagine 500 years from now. Dreams of visiting another planet and going skateboarding on the moon would be possible. Computers will be so powerful and fast, you could download entire hard drives worth of data in a matter of seconds.

I don't want to miss that.

 

[OpinionatedCyborg]

Check out the This American Life episode about the early days of cryonics. It's batshit insane.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/354/mistakes-were-made

Came to post this.

Frozen crypts in the desert = human goo leaking everywhere.

 

[theusedversion]

I have an interesting question. If cryonics becomes successful, would a person who has undergone the procedure still be considered dead legally? If they end up having practically a 100% success rate where the person is pretty much guaranteed to be awoken at a later date, how do you classify that person?

 

[Ve1ocity]

The first company that came up in google had an FAQ.









No worries!

Wow.
This sounds great, thanks.

 

[Nivash]

I have an interesting question. If cryonics becomes successful, would a person who has undergone the procedure still be considered dead legally? If they end up having practically a 100% success rate where the person is pretty much guaranteed to be awoken at a later date, how do you classify that person?

I imagine they would have to qualify the person as first dead and then consider them as newborns after they're revived. Just imagine the consequences otherwise regarding property rights. It would be like a feudal Lord knocking on your door one morning demanding his dues, because you're living on what used to be his fief, which means you're one of his serfs.

 

[Sinfamy]

If the process was successfully, wouldn't it technically be a conscious clone, as the current you is dead.

 

[UnluckyKate]

We already can. People are revived from being legally dead. If a person is frozen so that their nervous system doesn't degrade at all, it might be possible to eventually revive them in the future.

You can be dead for 5 minutes and revived. After that, brain damage is usually irreversible.

so being frozen and shit...

Such a scam. you bet today on a technology maybe in the future.

But we should first get the tech to safely cryo and decryo.

It's like smashing into a wall hoping someone build a door at some point

 

[Wray]

You just need to be able to replicate your consciousness or preserve the subatomic structure of it. Alongside some of your DNA. Once that is done, we can live on in new body after body.

 

[kmax]

I saw it work in a movie once so it must work.

 

[GhostTrick]

It's just bullshit. Although, the reasoning behind it is to keep your body intact until medicine is advanced enough to bring you back. With that kind of reasoning, it's legit.
I mean, maybe in a million years, we will be able to revive people or something. But that's just pure speculation.

Also, it's illegal in some countries.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

Seems like time dilation would be a more effective means of preservation than cryogenics. Put a body in a cold, but not freezing capsule, launch capsule into orbit going fast enough that only a few hours pass in the capsule while decades pass on Earth.


Obviously both are unfeasible now.

 

[sakipon]

Why would we need to revive anyone? There'll always be enough people on Earth. Actually, in the future we'll most likely have too many of us. I can see the humankind wanting to revive some specific mathematical genius, or perhaps a celebrity for nostalgic reasons, but a common middle class guy?

 

[ReasonableSnob]

Okay, I am actually signed up, through Alcor.

I don’t think that cryonics is likely to work, but it seems scientifically possible and all major common objections (freezing water expanding cells, a rip off of the rich) don’t seem like knock-down arguments. Obviously, it would require much more advanced technology (nanobot repair, brain emulation technology) to work the way I might hope.

IF it did work, it would be through extracting the information from your brain and running an emulation on a different hardware (most people, I think, are head-only patients). For me that type of “immortality” would probably be enough to make it worthwhile. If one is frozen under “optimal” conditions – i.e. not a sudden traumatic death, but dying from a chronic disease, such as cancer, I think they can do a decent job preserving tissue without non-reparable damage.

There are a number of steps from vitrification to extracting our brain’s info into a useable form and a number of steps of possible failure (the organization going under, technical problems, etc). So, while it is unlikely to work given all of the things that would have to go right along the way, the payoff is probably worth the long odds. It’s the same reason I would buy a lottery ticket for a million dollar payoff cheaply if the odds are overall in your favor (say $100 for a 1% chance). I think a number of people who are signed up think about it this way, though there no doubt a number of people who don’t think about it probabilistically and are unduly hopeful.

Here are a couple of links to arguments that I found helpful/convincing:

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/12/we-agree-get-froze.html
http://lesswrong.com/lw/wq/you_only_live_twice/

 

[MarkMclovin]

So would you go to heaven, only to be sucked back to reality again when it works?

Think of the stories you could tell!

 

[theusedversion]

Okay, I am actually signed up, through Alcor.

Are there any hidden fees with Alcor? Or anything that you are displeased with after signing up?

 

[Orbis Tabula]

If I had the money, I would absolutely sign up to be frozen. Because even with the damage caused by freezing, I think the idea that humanity will one day have the technology to repair it and bring me back is far, far more likely than there being some afterlife I'm missing out on while I wait to be revived. I fully acknowledge that cryonics technology is not quite there yet, but I think the small chance that they could revive and repair me is still greater than any other method of immortality.

 

[McLovin]

Theres too much cell damage for it to work. I think they would have to replace your blood with something else that can preserve you and then freeze you.

 

[McLovin]

Why would we need to revive anyone? There'll always be enough people on Earth. Actually, in the future we'll most likely have too many of us. I can see the humankind wanting to revive some specific mathematical genius, or perhaps a celebrity for nostalgic reasons, but a common middle class guy?

You never know, virus comes by and kills every man alive including babies n shit. Then the remaining women put all of earths resources to revive the frozen men, to repopulate the earth.

 

[theusedversion]

Theres too much cell damage for it to work. I think they would have to replace your blood with something else that can preserve you and then freeze you.

That's exactly what they do now. Cryoprotectant is pumped in.

 

[kingkitty]

Okay, I am actually signed up, through Alcor.

Do you have to live near an Alcor facility? I imagine they have to get to your body quickly after you die, and if you're in the middle of nowhere America, that might not be feasible.

 

[GodParticle]

Wouldn't it suck if you did it and it worked, but you came out not remembering anything of who you were. Or what if you came out unhinged and spent the rest of your days locked away =P

 

[Pikelet]

Why would we need to revive anyone? There'll always be enough people on Earth. Actually, in the future we'll most likely have too many of us. I can see the humankind wanting to revive some specific mathematical genius, or perhaps a celebrity for nostalgic reasons, but a common middle class guy?

Wouldn't it be morally reprehensible to let someone thaw and die when you have the ability to revive them? You wouldn't leave an unconscious person to die when you have the ability to perform CPR on them would you?

I think that adding a few thousand years of intermission doesn't fundamentally alter the ethical responsibility of doctors.

Whether or not population control is a factor might play a part, I agree. However, there are many potential circumstances where it wouldn't be a problem. As an example we might manage to colonise worlds other than earth.

 

[Team Alucard]

If I had the money, I would do it in a heartbeat once I became terminally ill or reached the age where death was fast approaching

The thought of not existing just absolutely terrifies me.

 

[Wag]

I think you'd probably have more success if this were the reality. On Earth too many things could go wrong.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

The top 5 billionaires who take it very seriously. There is some insane money flowing into that industry recently. Given the various advancements across the board I see a few options being viable as "when" and not "if".

 

[ReasonableSnob]

Are there any hidden fees with Alcor? Or anything that you are displeased with after signing up?

No hidden fees in my experience. It's all laid out pretty clearly on the website. Actually, I think they've lowered some of them over the past year.

 

[Wag]

Sure, it's a matter of "when", but that "when" is so far off even if you do freeze yourself, you can't manage to account for all contingencies. You're better off just launching yourself (or even just your frozen head) into space and hope for the best.

 

[ReasonableSnob]

Do you have to live near an Alcor facility? I imagine they have to get to your body quickly after you die, and if you're in the middle of nowhere America, that might not be feasible.

No you can live anywhere. They give you an amount to move to scottsdale if you are in hospice or near death ($10k, iirc) to allow for higher quality freezing, in their facility. They send a standby team if you are elsewhere, though sudden unexpected death is potentially a problem.

 

[Lothar]

I would totally sign up for this just to have the slightest faith that something would happen. All other afterlife ideas are so ludicrous, with a 0.00% chance of being real, I don't see how anyone could put faith in it. (I wish I could to calm my mind) Even if the chance of cryogenics working really was absolute 0.0% and it wouldn't be like winning the lottery 10 times in a row or anything, I don't know that. I don't know that after 10,000 years of scientific progress, someone won't have a solution. Look at the unimaginable progress of the last 500 years.

Then again, would I want to live forever if my parents and siblings are gone forever? I don't think so.

 

[Raiden]

I think its pretty insane how much we evolved technology wise in the last 60 years. There is no telling whats possible a thousand years from now.

 

[Calabi]

I think its pretty insane how much we evolved technology wise in the last 60 years. There is no telling whats possible a thousand years from now.

We have learning machines now, things are going to evolve a whole lot faster.