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)

Selfish because if everyone on this planet chose to be immortal and continued to reproduce life on earth would be unsustainable unless major innovations in relation to problems such as the ones mentioned previously were realised. Even if they were the quality of life would inevitably be lower and eventually the human race would die out if the birth rate exceeded the death rate by such massive numbers. If reproduction was stopped it may be feasible but this would probably have to be controlled and enforced which I don't agree with due to the reasons stated earlier.

I suggest you actually read up on the actual views of the people in this community rather than strawmanning and making caricatures out of them.

I wasn't actually addressing everyone in this community I was replying to a comment from one individual.

You're imbuing a moral quality to the word "natural" which isn't actually there.

Maybe you're right about that, although you're stretching it a bit with the infant mortality argument. And I don't think tsunamis are problems to be overcome I think we can only deal with the consequences. Starvation in many places is a problem due to over population which would only be exacerbated if people stopped dying. And I do think that quest for immortality is ultimately a selfish goal. When considering immortality do you honestly think "it would be great if i could live forever" or "it would be great if me and everyone on the planet now could live forever"? Maybe you do think the latter but I think if immortality was discovered tomorrow it would be concentrated in the hands of a rich elite who judge their lives to be more important than the rest of ours. After a while it would be sold to those wealthy enough to afford it. Just another way for the wealthy elitists to conserve their power. These people would control the world through the generations and decide their own world order. This would help to cause the stagnation of political ideas, social change and innovation.

Maybe you're right about that, although you're stretching it a bit with the infant mortality argument.

Really? It was the chief method of population-control once upon a time, much like death by aging is now. They seem pretty analogous in most ways.

People were "selfish" back then to not want their infant babies die. People are the same sort of selfish now to not want to see their parents die.

Lack of death in both cases causes the same sorts of problems, but people adjust to problems. Fertility declined after infant mortality dropped -- fertilit... (read more)