V_V comments on [LINK] Open Source Software Developer with Terminal Illness Hopes to Opt Out of Death - Less Wrong

17 Post author: lsparrish 13 February 2013 05:57AM

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Comment author: V_V 13 February 2013 02:49:28PM *  0 points [-]

People choose from among many options for their bodies after death. Some choose to be buried, some choose cremation. Some choose to donate their bodies to science. That last is precisely what happens with cryonics: in addition to helping to answer the obvious question of will future revival from cold storage be possible,

This claim is factually false. Cyronics organizations don't use their customers' bodies for research, and in general they don't do much research of any kind.

many developments in cryonics help modern medicine with the development of better preservation for organ transplantation and blood volume expanders.

As far as I know, in over 50 years of existence, cryonics didn't develop or improve any technique for medicine to use.
EDIT:
Luke Parrish mentioned one in the comments below.

Comment author: lsparrish 13 February 2013 05:11:21PM 6 points [-]

As far as I know, in over 50 years of existence, cryonics didn't develop or improve any technique for medicine to use.

For one, Hextend, a blood plasma volume expander used in conventional surgery, was developed by cryonicists at Trans Time, Inc while experimenting with hypothermia.

It's hard to understand cryonics in any meaningful way if you don't have wide swaths of regular science. Osmosis, ice formation, glass formation, toxicity mechanisms, chilling injury, apoptosis, blood pressure, ischemia, perfusion impairment... I will be wikifying this in the near future.

Comment author: V_V 13 February 2013 08:34:29PM 0 points [-]

For one, Hextend, a blood plasma volume expander used in conventional surgery, was developed by cryonicists at Trans Time, Inc while experimenting with hypothermia.

Can you provide more information, please?

The product you mention seems to have been developed by BioTime, a biomedical company.
The only relationship between BioTime and Trans Time (a now defunct for-profit cryonics company) that I've been able to find on Google was that Trans Time owned some stocks of BioTime:

http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=6399

Comment author: lsparrish 13 February 2013 09:15:33PM 3 points [-]

This is what I'm going on:

Unless you are a long-time cryonicist or a surgeon, you may not have heard of BioTime before. This company, recently profiled for its innovative stem cell research in Life Extension Magazine, is best known for producing the blood-volume expander Hextend, which was initially developed by Trans Time, an early cryonics company performing ultra-profound hypothermia research. Realizing the potential for Hextend’s conventional medical applications, BioTime was formed and, as they say, the rest is history.

http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/2008/10/12/biotimes-quest-to-defeat-aging/

Comment author: V_V 13 February 2013 10:29:54PM 0 points [-]

Thanks

Comment author: handoflixue 13 February 2013 10:00:18PM 4 points [-]

This claim is factually false. Cyronics organizations don't use their customers' bodies for research, and in general they don't do much research of any kind.

You have clearly never read the Alcor case reports. Whether you view them with horror-at-the-ineptitude, or awe-at-the-learning-process, they're clearly having all sorts of fun experimenting with the bodies.

Of course, whether this is useful research is up to you to decide, but it's clear that the "preservation" side is still rather experimental. They do at least document all of it, too.

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