Question:
What are your thoughts on cryogenic preservation and the idea of medically treating aging?
His response:
A marvelous way to just convince people to give you money. Offer to freeze them for later. I'd have more confidence if we had previously managed to pull this off with other mammals. Until then I see it as a waste of money. I'd rather enjoy the money, and then be buried, offering my body back to the flora and fauna of which I have dined my whole life.
Shake your head. Vigorously. (Do it.)
There, I've just caused you to scramble a vast array of concentration gradients, proteins tumbling around in a merry free-for-all. I have thus killed the old king, vive le roi nouveau!
If that's not enough, consider the forces inertia exerts on all those precious gradients and precise molecule orientations when on a rollercoaster. Uh oh.
The molecular states may not have to be exactly similar after all to yield functional equivalency within an acceptable margin, a margin we deem acceptable throughout our lives. Let's not worry about a few non-injective transformations?
I was initially swayed by Kalla724's arguments (as well as a little molecular biology background), but it's missing the forest for the trees.
Shaking your head applies relatively uniform forces, which elasticity and natural repair mechanisms can deal with. Even then it can be a close thing; people have been known to take permanent damage from trivial-seeming head injuries.
Freezing applies non-uniform forces. It's the difference between riding an elevator and hopping into a blender.