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Techies On Ice: The Coming Age of Cryonics
Frozen dinner writes: "SiliconValley.com is running a great article about technology workers' fascination with cryonics. From the article: "[the] otherworldly possibility of life after death [tantalizes] techies of all stripes -- mathematicians, physicists, software developers, computer programmers -- who make up a vast majority of those who have signed up for cryonics suspension. The family feud over deep-freezing baseball slugger Ted Williams has only intensified interest in cryonics in Silicon Valley and in the greater Bay Area, already a hotbed for the experimental and controversial process.""
"A hotbed for the experimental & controversial process..."
Wouldn't that be the worst place to put a frozen body?
Michael C. Hollinger
I've suggested to our management that we freeze our COBOL programmers. When we needed one, we could unthaw them.
deserve's got nothing to do with it...
What possible motivation would any future society have to thaw these people out? Why would we need more people, especially those who can't accept their own mortality?
Sure, you'd thaw out one or two just to show you could, and you'd probably thaw out the interesting people like Walt Disney. Hey, you might even pull a person or two out of the fridge every so often to do historical research (wouldn't that be great -- you wake up in a room with a history grad student who asks you to explain why your generation felt it necessary to fuck the planet seven ways 'till Sunday and leave it for later generations to clean up).
Getting back to my original point, I don't see how this sort of thing would ever effect more than a few tens of people over a long timeline. Simply put: the future doesn't want you.
Personally, I believe that the cycle of life is the only thing that drives social and technological evolution. The greatest mistake we could make as a species would be to short-circuit this cycle for the sake of our own greedy, short-sighted interests.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Ummm.... you all do realize that the entire cryonics industry is a plot conceived by time-travelling cannibals from the future to ensure an endless supply of TV-Dinners....
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
I went to a funeral service for someone who was being put into cryonic suspension. It was unlike any I had been to before. Everyone sat around a piano and sang "freeze a jolly good fellow, freeze a jolly good fellow..."
Cryonics fans generally assume that the Miracle of Nanotechnology will solve this, just like everything else... Now, while I can buy nanotech fixing up whatever caused death in the first place, and I can sort of buy its rebooting a brain that's been offline for centuries, I find it a little difficult to accept that they'll be able to reconstitute a mess of meat shredded at the molecular level.
If you have nanotech, you should be able to rebuild the body to any degree you like, atom by atom.
I personally think that we aren't likely to reconstitute the frozen bodies. A solution requiring less miraculous technology would be to slice up the brain and map out the synapse connection patterns and strengths to load into a computer-emulated brain. This would require very hefty amounts of computing power, but if we were reviving people at all, we'd be at a point where we had the resources necessary.
I'm not hopeful for the frozen, though. Firstly, between the time you die and the time you're frozen, I strongly suspect that the brain will likely have degraded to the point where most of the critical information in it has been lost. Secondly, I'm doubtful of any cryonics company keeeping its frozen members stored under the required conditions for the century or two they'll be waiting for revival.
Teddy in the Vat
July 2002
The outlook, it was dismal for the Joyville nine that day
The year was 2502, one inning left to play.
The fan base had eroded so, this game would be the last.
The onetime national pastime's time, alas, had finally passed.
A somber group of gravediggers were warming up their arms.
They prepared to bury baseball, the big teams and the farms.
A-grieving in the bleachers the remaining faithful sat.
"If only we could liberate Ted Williams from his vat!"
For baseball's mighty slugger had been frozen when he died.
They froze his sacred arms and wrists, they froze his rugged hide.
They froze him in the hope that he might someday un-retire.
But no one thought the sport itself would sicken, then expire.
And then from many thousand throats there rose as one, a breath.
A gasp of shock, surprise and glee, of victory o'er death.
For in the batter's circle, for the multitudes to greet
In suspended animation, there hung Williams by his feet.
There was frost upon his biceps as they opened up his case.
Liquid nitrogen was dripping from the creases on his face.
How the faithful cheered their legend as the slugger was unpacked.
How he tipped his hat to greet them! How his knees and elbows cracked!
Now he stood there stiffly legged as the light began to die.
The pitcher hurled a bullet. Williams watched as it went by.
The catcher muttered softly, "You took that one like a chump."
"I'm adjusting to the temperature," he said. "Strike!" said the ump.
The tumult from the bleachers was amazing to behold.
Not a fan among them noticed that the bat was green with mold.
Now his eyes returned an icy glare, he curled his frozen lip.
Now his red socks were de-icing. Now his cap began to drip.
Then came another missive from that demon on the mound,
Showing every indication it would splutter to the ground.
But then it rose, Phoenix-like, 'til level with his belt.
"Strike two!" the umpire said, as Williams felt his shoulders melt.
In the catered suites around the park the corporate sponsors groaned.
In the press box doing play-by-play, the glib announcers moaned.
In the stands, prevailing wisdom was, the greatest one had choked.
At the plate, the catcher noticed that the batter's box was soaked.
For the frost upon the slugger's brow had turned into a slush.
His uniform was sodden and his mitt was leather mush.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now it's on its way.
And now the air's alive with a ferocious swing and spray.
Oh somewhere there's a field of dreams with bleachers by the surf.
And somewhere bands are playing on some soggy outfield turf.
Although mostly it is dusty by the plate where umpires shout,
There's a pool of mud in Joyville, for Ted Williams has thawed out.
Dale Connally (With apologies to Ernest L. Thayer.)
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
I just wanted to take the chance to burn some karma and plug the miniwebsite I advertise in my sig: Dealing With Mortality: A Skeptic's Guide or: Kirk's Big Fun Pages O' Inevitable Death. From the lead paragraph:
Coming to grips with mortality- this is the biggest personal issue that every one of us will have to deal with. It can be especially difficult for people who don't believe that there's an afterlife waiting for them. To contemplate the end of our selves in this world is frightening; to not convince yourself that there is life after this world requires a special kind of bravery. This site is here to try to share the thoughts that have allowed me to understand and accept the situation.
I went through a time when I was thinking about Cryonics. And other times when I've gone through paralyzing anxiety about death in general. This site is the result of all that, and might help others in the same boat.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
What possible motivation would any future society have to thaw these people out?
...)
I can think of a few who might be interested.
- History departments. (Benjamin Franklin wanted to be pickled in a wine barrel after death and revivied in a century or three to see how things had come out. Wouldn't you like to interview HIM? Or see Jefferson's reaction to what the Democratic Party has become? B-) There's been a lot of history since then and eyewitnesses can help sort it out.)
- Techie version of above: Anyone trying to fix a bug in a frozen programmer's code. B-)
- Political splinter groups of many sorts.
- Charities. (If you will donate to save a random starving child in Africa, would you donate to revive someone you knew or had heard of from your own history?)
- The entertainment industry. (LOTS of possibilities there...)
- Hobbiests. (Imagine the science-fiction convention you could have with every currently-dead author and fan in attendence... B-) Now do the same with civil-war recreationists, yachtsmen, skiers, archers. Want Karate lessons from an old master?)
- Previous revivees. (History department revives historical figure, who revives his wife and children, who revive their fellow cryonics club members...)
- Anybody with a bit of money and a bee in his bonnet. Do you have any idea how RICH (by current standards) the poorest of the poor would be when tech is up to reviving people frozen by current techniques? Try this: Think of the standard of living of a current welfare recipient - food - including imported fruit virtually year-round, medical care, recorded music, cable TV, electricity, etc. Now imagine how rich someone in 1812 would have to be to afford the equivalent. (Remember: No penicillin, no refrigeration, entertainment is live and rare for anyone less than a king,
and of course:
- CURRENT cryonicists, who will revive PAST cryonicists in the hope that FUTURE cryonicists will revive THEM. (Just because they can repair somebody who died of cancer in the naughties doesn't mean that they'll be able to keep people from dying from Arcturian Whooping Sneeze in the '80s. So there will likely still be cryonicists.)
Why would we need more people, especially those who can't accept their own mortality?
"... can't accept their own motality."? Sounds like you're believing pro-death propaganda.
We know damned well we're mortal. But that's no reason not to "Rage at the dying of the light" - and then see about repairing or replacing the lightbulb - as many times as possible.
Do you WANT to die? You can ALWAYS arrange it.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way