Cryonics: 2
(Charles Platt is a guest blogger)
Alcor Foundation, the larger of two companies that maintain people in cryopreservation, stores cryopreserved bodies, heads, and pets in beautifully made stainless-steel cylinders known as dewars. These are vacuum-insulated (like giant thermos flasks) to minimize the boiloff of liquid nitrogen. Each whole body is packed in a separate aluminum pod, four pods to a dewar. The upper ends of the pods are visible in the picture on the right, which I took looking down into the mouth of a dewar through the liquid nitrogen, which is colorless. A winch and chain are used to lower pods into storage.
For more information check www.alcor.org
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I can understand some folks not understanding, or even taking issue with the theory of Evolution, but even a rudimentary understanding of cell biology is all it takes to understand what freezing does to a complex organism.
"...but even a rudimentary understanding of cell biology is all it takes to understand what freezing does to a complex organism."
Shreds the cells into pulled pork?
Well that's the very first problem, right? Even if you could somehow revive the folks, how do you deal with the inevitable cell damage from the freezing itself?
FYI, Alcor is the same group of folks selling vitamins at the Life Extensions Foundation: http://www.lef.org/
No word on whether or not the science behind cryonics is as solid as the science behind nutritional supplements.
Oh, c'mon, you guys! By then we'll have nanites that will be able to go through the body and repair every. . . single. . . individual. . .
Okay, never mind. I guess it's cremation for me! Oooo, with any luck I'll get shot into space like the Rodenberrys!
That's why I fortify my wine with antifreeze. Well, ONE of the reasons.
don't worry about it! They'll come up with a solution in the future
it's Pascal's gamble. If you're frozen and they never revive you, well you were dead anyway.
But even if you get one billionth of a per cent of a chance to be revived, it's still better than nothing.
My option though? give the money to help people living
If only the future would want us. *Sigh*
Jason Rizos, there are some species that can be frozen solid, such as the northern blue tree frog. They freeze solid and thaw. They are "dead" and then come back to life. There are other examples of cells being protected by the ravages of water ice crystals.
Science will find a way... [cue ominous voice] in the FUTURE!!
but the future DOES want you. Ever heard of ice wine?
Reality is so depressing sometimes...
I prefer the futurama version.
Ken: You are the last hope of the universe.
Fry: So I really am important? How I feel when I'm drunk is correct?
Ken: Yes - except the Dave Matthews Band doesn't rock.
What the hell? Where are the Futurama references?
@Jason Rizos Freezing in cryopreservation is sooo last decade. And you're right: freezing causes all kinds of damage to cells, which will mostly be repaired by nanotechnology somewhere down the road. In our modern times, Alcor (and presumably their competitors) use a process of vitrification, which is similar to freezing in some regards, but radically different in others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitrification
Ever read Warren Ellis's gonzo take on cryonics in Transmetropolitan?
It works. It works perfectly! Future tech recreates frozen bodies and minds, and future society has hostels for revived people.
Who are so utterly future shocked that they just kind of rock back and forth and suck their thumbs.
Never mind Futurama; The Door into Summer
Actually, I think quick freezing prevents the needle-like ice crystals from forming, so that can minimize freezing damage. Or it could be slow freezing does it, I can't remember. My memory hasn't been the same since I was thawed.
IF (in a magical world) it were even possible to reanimate them, would these people expect that everybody else should stop having children because we'd be grossly overpopulated with recycled people?
Oh wait: We'll have condos on the Moon and Mars by then, so it'll all be honky dory. Gee, why come up with complicated solutions when someone in the future can do it all for you? *slap forehead*
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 whole kidneys have been recovered and successfully transplanted after cooling to -45°C while protected with vitrification chemicals.
http://www.alcor.org/cryomyths.html
Ahhhh "The Future," its the solution to everything.
"Our scientists believe that the planet was called Earth by its now vanished inhabitants. We have no idea how they lived, or even what they looked like. Xenologists agree, however, that only an advanced species could have created the tasty, deep-frozen snacks that put this obscure planet on the cosmic culinary map."
TongBei, agreed. If the future wants me that much, it will hop on its time machine and come get me.
@ anonymous.
Re-Brand freezing as deep cooling. Marketing at Alcor must be working hard.
On Xmas about 7-8 years ago, my uncle proudly presented an envelope to his younger brother.
He had purchased his sibling the "head-only" version of the cryogenic service.
I'm not sure the recipient of the gift was very stoked about having his head removed and frozen upon death - but it makes for one of the more original Xmas gifts I've seen.
Sekino, I think what might hold more promise (gross utopian optimism in use) than actual resurrection, may be in being able to scan the frozen brain and digitize the “mind state.” At that point we may be uploadable. Charles Stross uses brain scanning of this sort in Glasshouse, and Ian M. Banks with his Culture novels.
Anyone referring to "freezing damage" should read up on vitrification before being too dismissive. Freezing need not and should not occur during cryopreservation.
Toxicity of vitrification solutions remains a problem. Tissue-specificity of vitrification solutions is another problem, interfering with successful preservation and resuscitation of whole mammals.
Freezing damage is no longer the significant problem.
Also those who doubt the ability of the brain to "self start" after flatlining for prolonged periods should bear in mind that hypothermic surgery may last for half an hour or even longer without a heartbeat, most typically when operating on a brain aneurysm.
Check out Peter Safar (who popularized CPR in the 1950s) decades-long research at University of Pennsylvania. Sample citation:
Tisherman SA, Safar P, Radovsky A, Peitzman A, Marrone G, Kuboyama K, Weinrauch V: Profound hypothermia (
Demonstrated that neurological processes resume spontaneously after 2 hours of circulatory arrest at 10 to 15 degrees Centigrade.
See http://www.ccm.upmc.edu/archive/faculty/bios/safar.html
I guess you can take it with you.
I did some research into this for a short story I was trying to write, where someone's vitrified brain was used in the future as a replacement brain for someone who was dying of a degenerative disease.
It freaked me out on a level that I don't understand.
Six years ago in college for a Net-Art class I did a website for a fictional cryogenics company: http://kurtmac.com/Borealis/
The site is really old and I'm embarrassed by the HTML by today's standards, but it was pretty fun to do by researching all the real cryonics companies like Alcor. I added a whole Open Your Eyes/Vanilla Sky "Lucid Dream" aspect to my cryonics company, and throughout the site there are little easter eggs, hidden links and skewed details that clue the user in to the fact that the whole thing is a satire.
I remember in my research coming across stories of cryonics companies that went out of business and abandoned their "storage" facilities, later to be found by authorities to have thawed.
"Welcome to the wooorld of tomorrooowwww!!!"
"I remember in my research coming across stories of cryonics companies that went out of business and abandoned their "storage" facilities, later to be found by authorities to have thawed."
We can only hope Ron Popeil will be able to get the technology right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Popeil
Wow. I've learned so much from all the other comments. Vitrification? Crazy!
@ Charles Platt: Thank you for writing about ALCOR! Posts like these makes me feel like the pritned BoingBoing spirit is still alive and kicking!
It's sad but the comments to these 2 cryoposts make clear how the BB readerships is totally different from the dreamers who bought BB printed zine, MONDO 2000 and the first years of WIRED...
People are so scared of "playing with death" that they can't even think about taking the risk of a an adventure like Cryogenic suspension. If they would use a simple logic they would accept that if cryogenics will not work you will be still dead but if it works you will have a great trip. Anyway you don't have anything to loose so I think that people against it are just scared probably because their religious (monotheistic or pagan) background...
Anyway, thanks again Charles: after 14 years you made me open again a copy of EXTROPY zine I had in my bookshelf!
"someone's vitrified brain was used in the future as a replacement brain for someone who was dying of a degenerative disease."
Hey Doc, that's not really an ideal cure in my opinion.
Meh... just because you can't see those self-replicating time-travelling nanobots, which spread themselves through infinity getting you at the moment of death and taking you to the future whilst simultaneously leaving a corpse, doesn't mean that they don't exist.
"Following vitrification, neuropatients are placed in individual aluminum containers."
...which look suspicously like one-gallon paint cans.
I read a great short story about cryopreservation when I was a kid.
It was written in the first person as a patient was being revived, presumably in the distant future, from cryopreservation.
They slowly realised they were being operated on, and the surgeons didn't seem particularly interested in them. It turned out they were harvesting their organs.
I'd love to know what that story was called and who wrote it.
I want to read about the failed/abandoned cryo project. Anybody have more info?
(I'm sickly fascinated.)
@ dculberson, check out this american life, "mistakes were made," about the cryonics society of california:
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=354
Terry: Remember, when the tube opens, say ..."Welcome to the world of tomorrow!"
Fry: Hey, I was frozen. I think I know what people wanna hear when they first wake up. [The freezer pings and opens. A man walks out, clutching his head. Fry points.] Bathroom's that way.
As cryonics advocates are fond of pointing out, being frozen is the second worst thing that can happen to you. The worst, of course, is becoming worm poison or air pollution.
Cryonics is centered around what they call 'information theoretic death', in which the information that makes up your body, including your brain, becomes so scrambled that all the king's horses and men won't help. It is true that freezing causes major damage, probably even worse than whatever it was that killed you. But it preserves all that yummy groovy information of which you are made. Some believe that future restoration technicians won't bother trying to revive the fractured hamburger that you've become - they'll simply use your perfectly preserved corpse as a recipe for creating a molecularly perfect, functioning replica, complete with your personality and memories. Others think that advancements in MRI will enable future restoration techs to scan your neural interconnects, then upload your personality, memories and all, into a software emulation.
I see it this way: at the very worst, cryonics is the ultimate perfection of the embalmer's art. Your corpse will remain perfect, right down to the last molecule, for centuries. At best, you'll awaken as a software emulation, complete with apparent super-powers that any video game player nowadays would envy.
@#38 DCULBERSON: Surprisingly,there is a story right on the Alcor website: http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/suspensionfailures.html
@Gregory
Honestly, what sort of unbelievable vanity is this? So you won't actually be the same conscious entity, you'll just be functionally identical. So "you" will be dead, but the world will have the glorious benefit of an exact replica of you?
Who cares?
Who are these tireless medical professionals who are going to devote their time to restoring exact molecular copies of rich wankers while millions starve in the third world? And how do they sleep at night?
Personally the only kind of freezing of dead people that I approve of is the freeze-dry burial. Why be an effort and resource burden to people for centuries (or at least decades) when you can give a little something back?
I'm not anti-cryonics but I see it as a bit silly to think that one's self is so important that you absolutely need to be around later, at any cost. There will be plenty of people as good or better than most of us in the future. In fact, we're already well on our way to having far too many people to deal with in coming years, but that's another topic entirely.
Here's one person arguing for cryonics: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/12/you-only-live-twice.html
A sample:
If you want to securely erase a hard drive, it's not as easy as writing it over with zeroes. ... There are programs advertised to "securely erase" hard drives using many overwrites of 0s, 1s, and random data. But if you want to keep the secret on your hard drive secure against all possible future technologies that might ever be developed, then cover it with thermite and set it on fire. It's the only way to be sure.
Pumping someone full of cryoprotectant and gradually lowering their temperature until they can be stored in liquid nitrogen is not a secure way to erase a person.
Just to play it on the safe, without knowing what's beyond, as I release this mortal coil, my dying breath will be "Dewars straight up"
"Pumping someone full of cryoprotectant and gradually lowering their temperature until they can be stored in liquid nitrogen is not a secure way to erase a person."
but it IS an effective way to immobilize zombies.
As to the post -
As much as the dream is interesting the truth is physics and economics. The energy burden of remaining cryogenically frozen ad-infinitum is enormous. The carbon footprint is disgusting, and the justification - life after death - smells more strongly of narcissism than any headstone, monument, charitable foundation, or skyscraper with your name on it.
Unless that person is already dead. In that case they're pretty much screwed.
@#47, Why bother with some kind of Earth-bound air conditioning? There are plenty of cold spots in the universe. If we are talking about something that hasn't even been proven to work on humans why not throw in the million bucks per head and build a necropolis there?
The ill-informed knee jerk reactions and negativity displayed here is reminiscent of the dark ages when the dogma of religion was the only truth and anyone who dared propose something different became the victim of sanctimonious hatred.
* The number of cryonics patients is miniscule and the carbon footprint is far less than that of an active American citizen.
* You don't need to be rich (insurance will pay for it if you plan in advance).
* People are not "frozen", they are vitrified and placed in cryonic suspension. Yes, doctors are well aware of cell damage due to water freezing, which is why vitrification was pioneered.
* Most potential patients take an information-theoretic view of death rather than a pre-scientific or simple physiological view.
* Many people choose to only get their head stored anyway given that the technology to revive them would most likely necesitate instantiation on a new substrate -- biologic or not.
* And what if a technological singularity really does occur in the next 50 years... should be no problem then in terms of feasibility of reviving suspended patients (but whether it will happen in a post-singularity world is another thing.)
* Praying has never brought anyone back from even primitive conceptions of death such as a heart stoppage, yet current medical technology can easily revive people from states where they were previously considered definately dead.
I remember a time when the Wired readership would be familiar with such things, and adventurous enough to consider the possibilities. Now it seems people here are barely more informed than creationists. Sad to see so few comments on information-theoretic view and on the possible near and medium term scientific and technological developments.
@43 by me, please replace "rich wankers", with "wankers".
Robulus @ 43: Why do you think extracting personality and memories from your preserved corpse and putting them in a molecularly perfect replica wouldn't be "you" in the same sense that you are now "you"? Do you believe in some sort of non-physical, undetectable soul that wouldn't make the transfer?
Our bodies change continuously from moment to moment. Flakes of skin containing ENTIRE CELLS just fall off; new cells are made from the food you ingest. And the person you are right NOW is subtly different from the person you were ten minutes ago, in terms of your identity; you know things now you didn't know then. The difference over a span of ten minutes is likely trivial, of course, but over larger periods... you're almost certainly very different now from you were on your tenth birthday, but you're still the same person, right?
I don't have any reason to believe in a soul, or in any explanation for human consciousness that doesn't come back to "activity in the physical universe, almost certainly in the brain". So, if I were to have my brain preserved, and the fine structures copied into a new body, the only concern I can imagine for making sure the new person is ME is "was the copy accurate and detailed enough?"
But after the lights go out in like 40 years due to lack of oil, its not going to be much use is it?
> "But after the lights go out in like 40 years due to lack of oil, its not going to be much use is it?"
Not if you've been cremated or buried.
@Jon
It has nothing to do with souls. The entity that died and was preserved ceases to exist. A functionally identical copy may appear to be a continuation of that entity, but from the perspective of the original entity it is not.
We can prove this with a little thought experiment. Assuming the technology exists to make a single functional copy of the original entity, it follows that multiple copies can be made. So lets make ten functionally identical copies of that entity. Is it possible to imagine that their experience will be that of a single person?
Of course not. They will be ten new, distinct experiences with a common point of origin.
Ten copies are not the same entity, one copy is not the same entity, the original entity has ceased to exist.
You are mortal.
Robulus @ 55: Those ten copies are different people, because their experiences have differed; they came from a common point and have diverged.
Whereas, if the life of one body ends, and your memories and personality are immediately transplanted into a new body, you have continuity of experience.
If you get knocked out by anesthesia for surgery, you will still be the same person when you wake up, right? Even though you've had an intervening period of unconsciousness, your identity remains intact. So why is this any different?
At the point when it becomes possible to make multiple copies of a person and let them diverge, we will probably develop a more complex sense of identity. A copy of me, diverging ten minutes ago, isn't me, but he's very nearly me. A copy of me diverging ten years ago is much less the same person as me, but he is still "more" me than my hypothetical identical twin brother is (who also diverged from me, and I from him, at the zygote stage in the womb).
#55 said, "You are mortal." If part of you is eternal, such as your energy component (can't create it or destroy it, just change its form), then maybe we do continue. Stranger things than we've imagined may be quite true.
#50 posted by Reified:
If you're comparing the carbon footprint of a frozen (or "vitrified," whatever) corpse to a living person I'm sure that's probably true. But most of us stop consuming resources after our heart has stopped beating and stop releasing carbon after we've decomposed. Running a refrigeration unit for decades or centuries after death requires substantially more resources than the average corpse.
There are arguments to be made in favor of cryonics, even if I personally don't find any of them very compelling. But on the environmental/resource consumption front there just isn't any question of which does more damage.
I'll put my money on minimum DNA sample storage and the bulk on holographic model memory storage of my synaptic structure in "snap-shot" - when it comes. Hopefully they'll have something nice to pour it into. How many peta-bytes to can "me"?
reified -
The ill-informed knee jerk reactions and negativity displayed here is reminiscent of...
the internet?
I think cryogenic freezing is terribly selfish. He're's a back of the nevelope calculation as to why.
If someone is frozen for (optimistically) 2,000 years - here on earth (as these people are) - and we estimate that keeping them frozen uses 1/20th the energy of living people, that's still another lifetimes worth of energy use (Western world style use, not 3rd-world use) on their head.
Any physicists care to check my numbers? Please? b/c I think i'm being optimistic there.
Personally, I don't even fly around the world - because I know that nothing I learn or experience there will be worth the wasted energy. I'M JUST NOT THAT IMPORTANT.
If we could *all* learn that we'd be a lot happier living here here in the present reality, finding infinity in a grain of sand.
Takuan, they'll get all the important parts of you in under a gig. Do you really need your past?
we are our synapses, all of them. A perfect hologram of being, infinitely echoing. Where do you imagine your dreams come from? Outside?
Ever read "Overdrawn at the memory bank"?
@Jon
OK actually thats a pretty cool argument. You are sort of dividing the stream of consciousness up into a collection of instants, and saying this is irreducible.
I'm not sure I accept it, but I officially would like to lighten the tone of my last comment.
You should see "The Prestige" sometime...
wel isnt there one big oversight? you died already. Stopping symtoms of a disease might be posible in the future, but reanimating/ repairing damage already done?
Takuan, yes, some dreams come from "outside." If it's all a hologram, that idea shouldn't be odd. Some people dream of the future (or a possible future), so I assume that time is outside of ours. It's all a magical mystery tour.
Jon - The copy of you from 10 years ago, vs your hypothetical twin brother, may have diverged from a more recent moment, but depending on you and your twin brother, your experiences for your entire lifetime may be more similar than the experiences your hypothetical copy has had in the past 10 years.
The reason why people wake up in the morning firmly convinced they're the person who went to sleep last night is that there is a high degree of consistency from their last memory of consciousness and the situation they find themselves in when they wake. Time has advanced modestly, and their physical state has changed slightly (less tired, more hungry and thirsty, more in need of a shower and a piss).
If an athletic man in Japan woke up tomorrow morning with my memories of having gone to sleep in Canada as a fat woman (and all the memories that go before those), I think that man would be highly entitled to assume that he was NOT the person that the memories indicated he should be, and frankly, I agree with him.
Even if my body was teleported to Japan and magic was used to radically transform it while I was asleep, I wouldn't call the person that woke up "me" at all. Unlike the "me" I usually find in the morning with my memories.
I'd be gone, and there would be a very confused new person with a lot of mental similarities to me waking up in Japan.
If you reversed the process the next night, I really don't think I'd call the person who appeared here in Canada "me" either.
My friends and family could be forgiven for calling that person by my name, and trying to continue their relationships with her, but considering how VERY VERY confused and upset I expect that person to be, I think they'd notice that "I" had changed suddenly in the 24 hours that "I" appeared to be missing to them.
Jerril @ 66: I have no idea what point of mine you are intending to respond to. My argument is that being frozen, having the physical encoding of your identity transplanted to a new body (which would probably look just like your old one, except in better health), and waking up would have the same effect upon your identity as walking into a time-portal to the future would have.
You'll have massive future-shock, but you'll still be YOU.
I dunno, I'd like to be preserved. Who doesn't want to see the future?
Jerril, I don't think I agree with your assessment of personal perceptions.
You have only got a subjective view of anything, ever. Waking up with a different external shape isn't necessarily going to alter your internal continuity.
If the "high degree of consistency from their last memory of consciousness" was true, your thoughts would almost certainly be "oh no, what has happened to my body, and whose body do I find myself in?
If there is no consistency of memory, who is there to notice the difference? If anything remains to notice, it is "self".
forget who wrote it (sorry), but a lovely thought is that cryo temps might induce some vague superconductivity-of-neural-paths consciousness the whole time you were frozen. Just think of it.
Anonymous @4:
This is incorrect; they are separate groups.