Cryonics: 1
(Charles Platt is a guest blogger)
This man is Curtis Henderson, one of a handful of people who took the concept of cryonics seriously enough to devote his life to it forty years ago, when it seemed even more frivolous than it does today. Henderson had inherited a modest trust fund, most of which he spent on The Cryonics Society of New York, which he ran from his home in Sayville, Long Island. The rusting cylinder behind him was a very early one-person cryonics capsule. I found it (containing no human remains, I hasten to add) in his back yard when I photographed him around 1990.
Currently Henderson lives in Florida. The Cryonics Society of New York was disbanded long ago. I don’t know what happened to the capsule.
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Dude, your barn door's open.
Dude, XYZ.
Also, I think that "cryonics chamber" is actually a rusted out propane tank on wheels.
There's an awesome This American Life that talks about the California Cryonics movement (and its implosion).
Uhmmmm...was he hoping to be revived in a future where space age pants come equipped with high tech closures that keep them closed? 'Cuz those are called buttons and zippers and we have them in the here and now.
Nothing at all odd about that man. Seems perfectly normal to me.
Here is a link to the awesome episode MACBRAK mentioned:
Mistakes Were Made
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=354
If you haven't listened to that This American Life episode you should. It's great.
I don't believe a propane tank would have pinch seams, nor be light enough to be supported by those angle iron brackets.
A farm-use diesel fuel tank, maybe?
I find most cryonics enthusiasts rather sad.
They strike me as people unable to come to grips with their own mortality, and so they squander resources that could be spent on the living for an astronomically low chance of being resurrected one day. It's the arrogance of the pharaohs on a smaller scale.
I came in here to post about the T.A.L. episode. Fascinating characters in there.
Greg Bear's Heads: a must read for those who want their head frozen. Or, on a brighter note: "Welcome to the world of tomorrow." I like the Futurama version better. "I.C. Weener?"
ALCOR!!! We live forever!
A friend (what's left of him) resides in a cryonics facility at Ypsilanti, MI. He and his wife became active participants in the movement forty years ago. Now they are both awaiting the big thaw at some future unscheduled date. Of my friends who have died, Jack's death is the only one that goes emotionally unresolved. It kind of creeps me out...
Subject of a rather good book I happen to be reading at present,
http://www.amazon.com/First-Immortal-Novel-Future/dp/0345421825/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233173010&sr=1-1
Fiction, of cours...
The tank was custom-fabricated at some expense. Originally, it was vacuum-insulated. Since it was filled with liquid nitrogen at -196 Centigrade, good insulation was essential to minimize boiloff.
I heard that This American Life episode, it was extremely interesting! They all are, but that one especially. It's a weird dynamic when he's so obviously the villain of the story but his intentions are so pure you get to feeling for him. A real life anti-hero, it's fantastic.
I've got some good news and some bad news... The cryonics procedure on your family member went well. But your family members cryonics trust invested all the money in the Madoff fund...
hey! no going back on the head!
"Jack's death is the only one that goes emotionally unresolved."
One of the problems with cryonics (especially for people who take it very seriously) is that it prevents the closure which comes after conventional death. I know a woman who was seriously troubled by the idea of getting into a new marriage after her husband was cryopreserved. If, somehow, cryonics worked and she and her two husbands were revived in the future--
The This American Life episode is fascinating, but also incredibly disturbing and nightmarish.
The big problem I have with cryonics is, even if they found a way to do it safely, I'm sure the facility with all the bodies inside would eventually run out of money and their frozen specimens would thaw out when the power gets shut off.
There would also be the irony of a "successfully" thawed human, 500 years from now, who gets cured of his ailment, but then immediately succumbs to a variant on the common cold that he had no immunity to.
Awesome picture. I'd love to hear more about this guy if you've got anything.
You want this guy in charge of your cryonic afterlife?
@23,
sure why not? he looks like a ship's captain. Like a half-brained, alcoholic ship's captain. If you can't trust a ship's captain, who can ya trust?
Sorry, I like saying ship's captain.
I know a woman who was seriously troubled by the idea of getting into a new marriage after her husband was cryopreserved. If, somehow, cryonics worked and she and her two husbands were revived in the future--
In the economy of cryothaw there are no more marriages, glorified man, an androgynous angel, being a wife unto himself.
that t-shirt is awesome.
Ill Lich @22: This is why cryonics places don't use electric power for cooling. They use liquid nitrogen, which is kept cold by the laws of physics. (They do require a top-off from time to time, which is why Alcor and other cryonics facilities have trust funds that, barring a total collapse of the economy and/or civilization, will continue to fund the replacement nitrogen indefinitely.)
That cryonics capsule is his very own version of a broken down old yard truck. I wonder how it got to be there. Why dump it in the back yard instead of properly disposing of it?
I find cryonics endlessly fascinating and creepy all at the same time.
I find most web enthusiasts rather sad.
They strike me as people unable to come to grips with their own mortality, and so they squander resources that could be spent on the living for an astronomically low chance of having their posts noticed one day. It's the arrogance of the pharaohs on a smaller scale.
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'cause we all know the singularity will rend their tanks moot as we cannibalize them for spare computronium
its not arrogance its hope and faith, and certainly not pessimism --- they expect that the future will be better than it is now. Hard to argue with that sentiment.
As Jack said forty years ago, "Three score and ten isn't long enough." He was then thirty-four.
Maybe not; but believe me, Jack, it's pretty long.
@10,
It's still more sensible than believing in an afterlife, for what it's worth.
"They strike me as people unable to come to grips with their own mortality..."
Tell me how you do that. I'll listen real hard.
As a pessimist I'd argue against hope...
Step 1: Blame others.
I vaguely recall read an old SF story a long time ago about cryonics, tied in some common religious beliefs regarding the existance of a soul... Basicly, after death, people's soul wanders off to their afterlife, so that people who get resurected come back without souls.
Unfortunately, I can so barely recall the story that I don't even remember if the people come back actually missing souls and became dangrous as a result, or if they are basicly fine, but the future-people insist they have no souls, and do horrible things to them...
Is that L Ron Hubbard?
@ The Other Michael #29:
Are you comparing people that use an extant technology like the web to people who are burdening future generations with their own quest for immortality?
I've got nothing against hope and optimism, but I still think present-day cryonics amounts to a waste of resources by people who can't face their own deaths.
Also, if you want to mock people for the practice of posting comments on blogs you probably shouldn't use a blog comment to do so.
I vaguely recall read an old SF story a long time ago about cryonics, tied in some common religious beliefs regarding the existance of a soul... Basicly, after death, people's soul wanders off to their afterlife, so that people who get resurected come back without souls.
Unfortunately, I can so barely recall the story that I don't even remember if the people come back actually missing souls and became dangrous as a result, or if they are basicly fine, but the future-people insist they have no souls, and do horrible things to them...
Brainspore writes:
Cryonicists have at least tried to apply some scientific and engineering rationality towards death, which sounds more reality-based than what billions of others have done with their terror-management fantasies about self-esteem, the afterlife and so forth.
How about coming up with some constructive criticisms, Brainspore? For example, something along the lines of: "No, you cryonicists aren't doing it right! You need to do it this other way that I can scientifically justify."
Personally I do my best to think about the things I can change, like what to do with the time that I have in this universe. For better or worse I have accepted that death is not something that I will be able to avoid, so I hope to meet it with as few regrets as possible.
I don't believe in an afterlife but I'm not sure I'd want one anyway. Frankly the concept of eternity gives me the heebie-jeebies.
why do people worry about leaving this life, and about where they're headed? Do they worry about where they were before they entered this brief little nothing of time? Not really. It's all about where am I going to go, what's going to happen to ME!?
These folks just need to chill out.
(insert liquid nitrogen joke here)
I've got a theory I think is cool, a lot of us do; but the fact is no one knows, and no one will ever know what comes after, and it drives a lot of people crazy with worry.
You didn't worry coming in, don't worry about going out, keep it in the now! Spend that dough helping someone in need, you'll both feel better.
@Advancedathiest #39:
That's kind of like telling an Alchemy skeptic "well then why don't YOU tell us how to make gold out of common metals!"
@Frankieboy #41:
Well said. I remember reading another athiest science writer (Asimov?) expressing that sentiment as well.
"I still think present-day cryonics amounts to a waste of resources by people who can't face their own deaths."
Okay, how would you classify the "waste of resources" on desperate medical intervention for people who have, say, pancreatic cancer and have been given only 6 to 12 months to live? The chances of success are very small, the expense is very high, and the patients are seeking to avoid death. Hm--sounds like cryonics!
@Charles Platt #43:
My mother-in-law survived eight years after surgery for pancreatic cancer, which is the only reason I had the pleasure of knowing her.
If I ever meet someone who has survived the process of death, freezing and reanimation you can be assured that I will change my opinion on the subject.
Where can I get an Alcor shirt?
"Revivals" from Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan. The issue with Mary is probably my favorite single issue of Transmet. The cryogenically frozen wake up into a future so thoroughly insane, they suffer mental breakdowns from the shock. Maybe the future won't be so great...
@charles platt:
There is a group of urban explorers called Dark Passage who found Alcor equipment and the like in Metropolitan State Hospital, an abandoned mental institution in Waltham, MA. I've been through the place, myself, but never deep enough to find what they have.
Alcor is about halfway down the page:
http://www.darkpassage.com/hopscotch/dioramas/teeth/4PA.htm
#43 Charles Platt -
The difference would be that one is a case of "you're alive, but will likely be dead in 6 months so let's keep you alive as long as possible"
vs.
"You are clinically dead, your heart has stopped, there's no detectable brain wave activity, and (probably) your head has been removed from your body, so let's keep you as 'fresh' as possible in the long-shot hope we might someday be able to bring you back from the dead"
The capsule is empty? Darn it. There's another perfectly good superhero origin down the drain. And that old uranium sample found at Hanford hasn't caused any mysterious accidents yet, either. It's all so discouraging.
Welcom, to the world of tomorrow! Seriously, was he defrosted for that pic?
I remember back in the 1980s or 1990s one of those cryogenic facilities was found to not be replenishing the liquid nitrogen, and their charges had spoiled....
Sure, cryonics is lame, but regular death doesn't really have a lot of positive things to offer you either. Even for most popular religions, it's at most postponing an afterlife, or you could think of it as a non-hypocritical variant on Pascal's wager. For now it's simpler, because the technology's got such a low probability of success; think of it as donating your body to science, especially if you're just having your head frozen so your other parts can get recycled if they're still any good. Or think of it as buying an extra-fancy headstone.
If you've got a spouse who outlives you, your money's better off left to take care of them anyway, so they'll have it for medical care or living expenses, but if you don't have dependents to take care of, what it's really costing the world economy is a bit of liquid nitrogen and somebody's time topping off your tank occasionally.
Brainspore, my response was aimed at your original dig at cryonics enthusiasts and by extension, at anybody who claims that somebody else's hobby is a waste of time, because they should be doing X. Except of course, for people whose hobby is to claim that somebody else's hobby is a waste of time and they should be doing X, because their hobby IS a waste of time, and they should be doing Y.
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When I was much, much younger, I thought it was pronounced "sigh-ron-ics" -- I misread the letter-order, and still much prefer the soft c to the hard. It sounds so much more techy that way. You know, like cybernetics! Which, you know, has utterly nothing to do with the meaning of the word.
Ah, pronunciation, like reality, is often so disappointing. Must freeze self, and only awaken after a great consonant shift....
Ehhh. . . face it, cryonics is a BIG gamble. Someone who blows all their money on being frozen in the hope that someday they will find a cure (as well as find a way to thaw him out without killing him), is almost exactly like the guy in deep debt that buys 100 lottery tickets every week. Sure, it might work, and if it doesn't you're screwed anyway.
I can't say I blame them: rather than give up hope they are transferring it into this blind alley they think leads to a solution. It's Monty Hall offering "you can trade everything you have for whatever is in this box", and they have nothing left, so why not trade. Except if there's nothing in the box you will never actually find out.
The study of cryonics may prove valuable, but people are counting their chickens before they've thawed.