Martinenaite and Tavenier on cryonics

Paul Crowley

Luke Parrish points me to what is clearly by far the most serious critique of cryonics ever written: a 57-page treatment by Evelina Martinenaite and Juliette Tavenier, presented as a 3rd semester project at Roskilde University in Denmark supervised by Ole Andersen.

Cryonics

December 22nd, 2010

Evelina Martinenaite, Juliette Tavenier

Abstract: The preservation of cells, tissues and organs by cryopreservation is a promising technology nowadays. However, the primary purpose of this science has been diverted to a doubtful technology, cryonics. Cryopreservation techniques are now being adapted with the aim of preserving people’s bodies after death in hope that in the future, medicine will be able to revive them. In this report we analyze both scientific and social issues involved with this technology. We first studied the events taking place in the cells during regular freezing. Various research experiments show that freezing causes damage to the cells. Therefore, vitrification presented by cryonics companies as an alternative, seems to be reasonable. We also looked at all the difficulties of this procedure and at the injuries that such a treatment could cause to the human body. Studies show that the vitrification procedure suppresses the injuries related to freezing but the use of cryoprotectants, although necessary, is toxic to the cells. Organs, such as kidneys, are the largest entities ever vitrified and thawed with success. By analyzing all present scientific data, we conclude that there is a limit to the size of living matter that can be cryonised effectively; therefore we conclude that it is not possible to cryonize an entire human body with the current technology without causing severe damage to it.

Full paper

Cryonics

December 22nd, 2010

Evelina Martinenaite, Juliette Tavenier

Abstract: The preservation of cells, tissues and organs by cryopreservation is a promising technology nowadays. However, the primary purpose of this science has been diverted to a doubtful technology, cryonics. Cryopreservation techniques are now being adapted with the aim of preserving people’s bodies after death in hope that in the future, medicine will be able to revive them. In this report we analyze both scientific and social issues involved with this technology. We first studied the events taking place in the cells during regular freezing. Various research experiments show that freezing causes damage to the cells. Therefore, vitrification presented by cryonics companies as an alternative, seems to be reasonable. We also looked at all the difficulties of this procedure and at the injuries that such a treatment could cause to the human body. Studies show that the vitrification procedure suppresses the injuries related to freezing but the use of cryoprotectants, although necessary, is toxic to the cells. Organs, such as kidneys, are the largest entities ever vitrified and thawed with success. By analyzing all present scientific data, we conclude that there is a limit to the size of living matter that can be cryonised effectively; therefore we conclude that it is not possible to cryonize an entire human body with the current technology without causing severe damage to it.

Full paper

This isn't completely related to your comment, but I worry that some cryonicists (not you, as far as I can tell) have a tendency to use "future technology!" as a stopsign which gives them an excuse to not update on evidence like this. Technically, evidence like this should cause us to decrease our confidence in cryonics by some finite amount, but oftentimes such evidence gets hand-waved away with vauge stopsigns like "nanotech!" (I have a similar problem with the "well, it's better than cremation" argument, which seems to be little more than an applause light.)

There is one part of your comment that I do specifically disagree with: Though cryonics advocates have certainly addressed these arguments, I don't think a paper presenting evidence that vitrification causes "severe damage" to cell tissue can be defused by saying "no argument is made in the paper that human cryopreservation causes information-theoretic death", because "severe damage" implies that some cell tissue (and thus, information) is destroyed by the vitrification process. This is why I argued in the paragraph above that we should be updating (however slightly) on this evidence.

Technically, evidence like this should cause us to decrease our confidence in cryonics by some finite amount

Not if it's already taken into account. No double-counting (see One Argument Against An Army).

6Mercurial15y

I'm sure there are some people out there who use the argument that way. As I've normally heard it, though, it's definitely not merely an applause light. As far as I know, we currently know of no feasible way even in principle to reverse death after cremation or long-term decay. However, we do know some ways that, in principle, we should be able to reverse freezing damage. We might turn out to be totally mistaken about that, but according to our current best information it seems very likely that we can save more of a person with future technology that is already in the pipeline provided the person is cryonically preserved. Ergo, based on our current understanding, cryonics is better than cremation. Even if it poisons every cell in my body, at least the cells are there and can be examined in principle to reconstruct me. That's very hard to do with dead bones or ashes. The only serious argument I can see being formed against cryonics is something that demonstrates that the likelihood of it working is so trivially better than cremation or burial that it doesn't justify the increased cost. This would require a very intense array of evidence against any future technology, including ones we haven't thought of yet, ever being able to reverse damage that must be done in order to enact cryonics on a human being. Either that, or show that some likely future technology will make reversing cremation or burial easier than reversing cryonic suspension. I can see why this can look like an applause light. In this case, though, I think that's a result of summarizing something with a lot of passion behind it in one sentence. That said, I'm heavily biased in favor of cryonics. If I'm missing some serious reason I should doubt it, I endeavor to be all ears!

3shokwave15y

If you look at medicine over the years, it has strongly tended to be able to cure things it used to not be able to cure. For a long time, we couldn't treat smallpox, and then we could, and now nobody suffers from smallpox. "Future technology!" invokes this trend and calling it a stopsign doesn't explain why this trend doesn't apply to cryonics.

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