Cryonics: Can I Take Door No. 3?

Chris_Roberts

If you don't believe in an afterlife, then it seems you currently have two choices: cryonics or permanent death. Now, I don't believe that cryonics is pseudoscience, but it's still pretty poor odds (Robin Hanson uses an estimate of 5% here). Unfortunately, the alternative offers a chance of zero. I see five main concerns with current cryonic technology:

There is no proven revival technology, thus no estimate of costs
Potential damage done during vitrification which must be overcome
Because it cannot be legally done before death, potential decay between legal death and vitrification
Requires active maintenance at very low temperature
No guarantee that future societies will be willing to revive

So I wonder if we can do better.

I recall reading of juvenile forms of amphibians in desert environments that could survive for decades of drought in a dormant form, reviving when water returned. One specimen had sat on a shelf in a research office for over a century (in Arizona, if I recall correctly) and was successfully revived. Note: no particular efforts were made to maintain this specimen: the dry local climate was sufficient. It was suggested at the time that this could make an alternative method of preserving organs. Now the advantages of this approach (which I refer to flippantly as "dryonics") is:

Proven, inexpensive revival technology
Apparently the process does not cause damage itself
Proven revival technique may overcome legal obstacles of applying before legal death
Requires passive maintenance at low humidity (deserts would be ideal)
Presumably lower cost makes future revival more likely (still no guarantee, but that is a post in itself)

There is one big disadvantage of this approach, of course: no one knows how to do it (it's not entirely clear how the juvenile amphibians do it) or even if it would be possible in larger, more complex organisms. And, so far as I know, no one is working on it. But it would seem to offer a much better prospect than our current options, so I would suggest it worth investigating.

I am not a biologist, and I'm not sure where one would start developing such a technology. I frankly admit that I am sharing this in the hope that someone who does have an idea will run with it. If anyone knows of any work on these lines, or has an idea how to proceed, please send a comment or email. Or even if you have another alternative. Because right now, I don't consider our prospects good.

[Note: I am going on memory in this post; I really wish I could provide references, but there does not seem much activity along these lines that I can find. I'm not even sure what to call it: mummification? Probably too scary. Dehydration? Anyway feel free to add suggestions or link references.]

There is no proven revival technology, thus no estimate of costs
Potential damage done during vitrification which must be overcome
Because it cannot be legally done before death, potential decay between legal death and vitrification
Requires active maintenance at very low temperature
No guarantee that future societies will be willing to revive

So I wonder if we can do better.

Proven, inexpensive revival technology
Apparently the process does not cause damage itself
Proven revival technique may overcome legal obstacles of applying before legal death
Requires passive maintenance at low humidity (deserts would be ideal)
Presumably lower cost makes future revival more likely (still no guarantee, but that is a post in itself)

Making small firm steps at a time is easily supported. Taking only a single step for not knowing how to take more is very probably underapplying ones knowledge. If the reasoning can go on with basically a empty reply from another party it's likely thought was suppressed very early. If one strives to take things to their logical conclusion this is a bad thing.

If it's not clear do understand that the post was supportable. I could just convince of ways it could have been awesomer. I could have communicated better what kinds of more sharper thinking could have happened in writing this post or atleast not detract attention (needlessly lenghten) with on topic content from the thinking options available. Instead of just settling for the first step one could say to one say : "I need to go deeper" que inception music. And you propably want to do that in the first place instead of waiting around for a demanding reason to do it.

I have just recently starting to vote what I read and explicitly state my reason for that decision. Not all people want to have every detail rubbed against their face. When asked I can elaborate. I might not be adept enough in rationality foruming to offer a detailed analysis of what went wrong or help what can be done that such shortcomings don't happen in the future. Because of known tendency that people don't tend to cast themselfs as villains in their story, for precaution, I will also mention that this is likely to be a newbie-newbie interaction as discussed on the "eternal september" threads.

But I do vote and say why I vote and I hope that that is more valuable than my explanations being misleading/confusing is detrimental. I don't know, I am experimenting whether it works. I could easily be that the long explanation is just noise with the signal being in those word or phrase like descriptions.

I appreciate the feedback, and the more detailed the better. I am always looking to improve my own effectiveness, especially in communication. One of my most frustrating, and unfortunately all too common, experiences is thinking something through, coming up with what turns out to be the correct answer, and being unable to convince others. (I am not suggesting that I have the right answer in this case; in fact, the odds are that I don't.) To me, the more specific the feedback, the better. So, for example, dissecting the post, saying "this is good&... (read more)