Ok, sounds like you are modeling this a bit different from me, probably because I have had relatively more exposure to cryonics ideas. Cryonics (#1) involves perfusion with high concentrations of cryoprotectant to prevent ice formation, and cooling to either -135 C or cooler. Liquid nitrogen is cheap and abundant, so its boiling point is preferable (-196 C) for long term storage. As much as feasible, damage is avoided, but we can't avoid enough that we can possibly bring people back. So to me cryonics #2 is mainly just an extension of cryonics #1, only the idea is to avoid damage completely -- an unachieved goal thus far.
That said, there are other takes on cooling mammals. Hibernation is seen in mammals in nature, and with less concentrated cryoprotectants you can temporarily lower the temperature of mammals to below the ordinary freezing point of water. Some animals such as wood frogs have high ice tolerance, and while their cells don't freeze there are compartments of their body that do while the cells become concentrated with salts and sugars (and thus relatively dehydrated). But a wood frog cannot handle liquid nitrogen or the glass transition temperature and come back alive.
The chance that cryonics #2 is not achievable by damage reduction (assuming damage reduction is possible) is something I rate rather low, it would require rewriting what we think we know about the brain. Cryonics #1 might be unachievable because of too much damage to be recovered from, but that is uncertain.
I know the pitch and the current practices of cryonics #1. What you said is not new factual information for me, but the way you present it surely helps to understand your point of view.
It is just that with cryonics #2 we can know whether we are succeeding, and with cryonics #1 we can never be sure (and that's why it can only be applied to dead patients without being considered murder). Personally, I would support legalization of cryonics treatment before natural death - on equal ground with all other forms of assisted suicide (with same informed consent re...
I've been considering lately whether it would perhaps be best to develop and promote terminology that splits cryonics into two distinct concepts for easier consumption:
1) old-style cryonics, cryopreserving people at the cost of nontrivial damage that can't yet be reversed, and
2) the tech goal of being able to demonstrably bring someone back from a (very low-damage) cryopreserved state.
"Real cryonics" vs "sci-fi cryonics", if you will.
As I reckon it, trying to achieve cryonics definition #2 in your lifetime is no more incredible on the surface than trying to defeat aging or engineer self-improving AI in a similar timeframe. Actually in some ways it seems easier. Yet it gets so much less press. Even cryonics advocates seem rarely prone to enthuse about it.
Is it possible that cryonics #1, as a feature of the collective mental map, is actually in the way of cryonics #2? Should I be worried, for example, that promoting cryonics #1 actually costs 100,000 lives per day over some stretch of future time because it is preventing people from noticing cryonics #2 and actually taking action on it?
Many people I talk to who are new to the topic seem to have some hazy preexisting idea of cryonics #2 that gets mangled up with cryonics #1. Perhaps they would grow into enthusiasts with attention spans for the subject matter if encouraged to pursue this simple-to-grasp concept in its own right, instead of trying to forcibly retrain into more advanced concepts.