The scientist's open letter on cryonics, signed by people such as Gregory Stock, Stanley Shostak, Ralph Merkle, Eric Drexler, Aubrey de Grey, Gregory Benford, and a range of researchers in the life sciences you're probably less familiar with, but who are household names in their fields.<p><a href="http://evidencebasedcryonics.org/scientists-open-letter-on-cryonics/" rel="nofollow">http://evidencebasedcryonics.org/scientists-open-letter-on-c...</a><p>A layman's introduction to cryonics:<p><a href="http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2001/11/cryonics.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2001/11/cryonics.php</a><p>Lots of deeper technical details can be found at Alcor (which maintains a better web presence than the Cryonics Institute):<p><a href="http://www.alcor.org/sciencefaq.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.alcor.org/sciencefaq.htm</a><p>The basic process is pretty similar between all modern cryonics organizations. Important to note is that freezing is out, vitrification is in. That makes a large difference to cellular structural integrity. See:<p><a href="http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/vitrify.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/vitrify.html</a>
I'd like to quote one of my favorite songs:<p><i>"You could not feel sadness if you've never tasted joy; that's the curse of humans - born in passion you destroy"</i><p>While I find the concept of cryonics fascinating, and feel the science should be researched more, I also feel death is important. Not only is it a natural part of life, but it's also the catalyst that enables enjoyment. I'd be extremely apathetic towards everything if I knew I'd live forever. And then, there comes the sociological problems associated with resurrecting the dead.<p>Edit: Some people seem to have misunderstood: My comments about living forever is in direct reference to what's stated in the article, not what's realistic.
As absurd as cryonics sounds, without fanatics (as some might call them) pushing for it, it will never exist.<p>"If you don't ask, then the answer is always no."<p>Hopefully we'll see you again some day, Ettinger.
From <a href="http://www.alcor.org/cryomyths.html#myth3" rel="nofollow">http://www.alcor.org/cryomyths.html#myth3</a><p>The purpose of cryonics is to save the lives of living people, not inter the bodies of dead people. Death is a neurological process that begins after the heart stops. A stopped heart only causes death if nothing is done when the heart stops. Cryonics proposes to do something. In the words of a mainstream critical care expert writing for the American College of Surgeons, "In this era of critical care, death is more a process than an event.... A prognosis of death...cannot serve as a diagnosis."<p>I don't feel that I understand this fully. Is there a point in this "process" from which we've already brought people back, or is this all just conjecture?
I've always felt, in a very non-disparaging way, that cryonics filled the need for secular humanists to believe in an afterlife.<p>An interesting point was brought up in the comments too, which is if we had a bunch of frozen folks from the 1600's and we could unfreeze them and bring them back to life, would that be the <i>right</i> choice?<p>That is the moral 'nub' which I find fascinating about this stuff (and yes it has been chewed fruitfully by writers before).<p>So imagine you could bring someone back from the 60's. What would they do today? The most brilliant computer designer would probably de-thaw believing that the IBM 360 with its channel architecture was the coolest thing. Show them the multi-issue pipeline of a modern microprocessor with register coloring, branch prediction, and early instruction retirement and their brain would explode.<p>When you are young the wonder of a new thing gives you the energy to read about how it works, when you're older (or just in a hurry) having to spend time reading the manual or 'fiddling with' a tool to understand it enough to use it is bothersome. Can you imagine waking up and everything you know is expected to be known by teens ? All your hard earned wisdom is worthless?<p>Since we're speculating there are things we can't really know but we can wonder about.<p>So what will be the economic status of these people once thawed? It could be 'good' in a post singularity world where anything can be made for 'free', or it could be 'bad' where thawed people are treated like the property of the person who paid to thaw them.<p>I would hate to find myself waking up, fuzzily, and have an insistent voice saying, "you've been reanimated by xyzcorp, click 'yes' to agree to their terms for paying off your debt to them, or 'no thankyou' to be re-frozen."