Comment author: passive_fist 08 April 2015 03:15:54AM 11 points [-]

This is definitely an interesting idea but there may be a lot of unforeseen problems. At pressures as high as 350 MPa, chemical reactions that are energetically unfavorable under normal pressure suddenly become favorable (this is why, among other things, air becomes toxic). I have no idea how this would mess with the various chemical processes that go on in the body, but my guess is that unwanted reactions could lead to development of fatal toxins. Also, just as such high pressures cause phase changes in ice, they could cause phase changes in plenty of other molecules.

I'm sure someone who is more knowledgeable on this could weigh in, but googling around a bit revealed some studies on subjecting human cells to high pressure. This study subjected human amnion cells to 70 MPa and found significant changes in cell activity involving blebbing (this is when the cell membrane disassociates from the cytoskeleton), although they did point out that the effects of pressure were reversible, which is promising.

Comment author: maxikov 08 April 2015 07:58:54PM 7 points [-]

Hmm, I wonder what the exact biochemistry that prevents life forms (including, apparently, vertebrate fish) in Challenger Deep at 111 MPa from experiencing these problems is, and whether it can be replicated in mammals.

They also mentioned that blebbing first appears at 90-120 seconds, but that's way too short even for the fastest protocols possible. Theoretically, it's not unthinkable to cool the body to just above 0C, and then go straight to 632 MPa and above, to make it instantly freeze, before blebbing occurs. And then, if total liquid ventilation allows one to drop the pressure that quickly as well, just go from solid directly to a non-dangerous pressure range. But for any protocol that involves temperature changes under pressure, tens of seconds is positively too short to allow the temperature to stabilize.

As for toxicity though, I though it was entirely due to the increased partial pressure of oxygen (which thus creates too strong of an oxidizing environment) and having too many nitrogen atoms dissolved in tissues, physically messing with fine-grain biochemistry like ion channels. Is there another chemical component of toxicity beyond that?

Comment author: TrE 08 April 2015 08:35:52AM *  8 points [-]

Materials science undergraduate student here (not a mechanical engineer, my knowledge is limited in the area, I did not go to great lengths to ensure I'm right here, etc.).

A typical method to generate high pressures in research are diamond anvils. This is suitable for exploring the behavior of cells and microorganisms under high pressure.

For human preservation, however, you'd need a pressure vessel. As the yield strength of your typical steel is on the order of 100, maybe 300 MPa, you're really up against a wall here, materials-wise. I don't doubt that suitable alloys for human-sized pressure vessels at 350 MPa exist, however, such vessels will be expensive, and controlling processes within will be difficult. In any case, generating such pressures will probably not involve a moving piston.

I can't really tell whether or not the procedure you've outlined is viable, but I'm quite sure it's far from trivial, just from an engineering point of view.

The concerns of user passive_fist are also valid.

Comment author: maxikov 08 April 2015 06:47:39PM *  3 points [-]

That's an interesting observation! When I was looking into this, I found several suppliers[1][2][3][4] that claim to produce pressure vessels, tubing, and pumps all the way up to 150'000 psi (1GPa). If 300MPa are already pushing the boundaries of steel, do you know what they could use to achieve such pressures?

Comment author: gjm 07 April 2015 11:41:12PM 3 points [-]

Is "natines" in the title meant to be "nanites"?

Comment author: maxikov 08 April 2015 12:14:50AM 2 points [-]

Yep, fixed that, thanks.

Comment author: Joshua_Blaine 07 April 2015 10:08:00PM *  18 points [-]

First off, I love that you're actively pursuing alternative methods of human preservation. That's awesome, and I hope you manage to find some useful ideas in your search. However, I fear that this approach in particular doesn't really solve the problem that cryoprotectants successfully do (toxicity briefly aside).

without cryoprotectants the water will expand upon freezing, and break the cells.

This line in particular is my biggest point of contention. I am by no means an expert in this field, and my understanding may be moot in this context, but the expansion of water-ice crystals isn't the central concern for frozen biological cells. A quickly found source claims that:

Since ice is essentially pure H2O, ice formation can increase the concentration of minerals in the remaining cytosol to a toxic level. The increased mineral concentration in the cytosol will cause water to be drawn in from the surrounding cells by osmosis, which can cause the cell to swell and burst.

Alcor's official FAQ also says that:

When tissue is slowly cooled, ice first forms between cells. The growing ice crystals increase the concentration of solutes in the remaining liquid around them, causing osmotic dehydration of cells.

Your method doesn't prevent the formation of ice crystals, it merely changes the structure of the crystals, and at what temperature they form, so I suspect harmful cell osmosis can still occur. Of course, I could be insufficiently understanding why ice crystals effect the mineral concentration of cytosol, or the order in which certain biological areas freeze under variable conditions, and your smaller ice/lower freezing temperature would successfully prevent this issue. I don't believe this is necessarily the case, given your explanation, but if anyone who's more studied in these fields could speak up, I'd be happy to defer to their expertise.

Comment author: maxikov 07 April 2015 10:59:03PM *  10 points [-]

It seems like the approach of cooling the organism to -30C at 350MPa, and then raising pressure further to ~600Mps to freeze it could actually solve that. As far as I understand, the speed of diffusion in water it far slower that the speed of sound (speed of sound at 25C is 1497 m/s, while diffusion coefficient for protons at 25C is 9.31e-5 cm^2/s, which corresponds to 1.4e-4 m/s - 8 orders of magnitude less), which is the speed of pressure gradient propagation. So if we use raising pressure as a way to initiate phase transition, it will occur nearly simultaneously everywhere, and the solutes won't have time to diffuse anywhere.

ETA: I just realized that since diffusion propagates according to inverse square law, while sound is linear, they should be compared to each other at the shortest distance possible. So I checked the time it takes for a proton to cover 0.1nm (hydrogen atom diameter) in water - 5.37e-13s, which gives us 186 m/s. It's far greater than the original number, but still an order of magnitude smaller than the speed of sound. And if we take 4nm (the thickness of a cell membrane) we have 8.59e-10s - only 4 m/s, so it decreases very quickly, and we're pretty much safe.

Comment author: ChristianKl 18 February 2015 01:35:41PM *  3 points [-]

Giving our physical laws I don't see how "observing without interfering" is non-magical. There seems to be a lot of assumption you make about the term non-magical that aren't well founded.

Comment author: maxikov 18 February 2015 11:53:18PM 0 points [-]

If you only observe by absorbing particles, but not emitting them, you can be far enough away so that the light cone of your observation only intersects with the Earth later than the original departure point. That would only change the past of presumably uninhabited areas of space-time.

Comment author: maxikov 18 February 2015 07:55:56AM 2 points [-]

So where exactly do I go for that? Googling "freeze your cells" gives me the information about technical details of that, rather than a company that provides such service, or completely irrelevant weight loss surgery information.

Comment author: maxikov 18 February 2015 07:20:39AM 0 points [-]

What is the probability of having afterlife in a non-magical universe?

Aside from the simulation hypothesis (which is essentially another form of a magical universe), there is at leas one possibility for afterlife to exist: human ancestors travel back in time (or discover a way to get information from the past without passing anything back) to mind-upload everyone right before they die. There would be astrong incentive for them to not manifest themselves, as well as tolerate all the preventable suffering around the world: if changing the past leads to killing everyone in the original timeline, the price for altering the past is astronomical. Thus, they would have to only observe (with the reading of brain states as a form of observation) the past, but not change it, which is consistent with the observation of no signs of either time travelers or afterlife. But if will happen in future, it means it's already happening right now. How do you even approach estimating the probability of that?

Comment author: Lumifer 05 February 2015 04:42:24PM 1 point [-]

The question is too general. If you find yourself in front of a microwave antenna dish, yes, you should be very much concerned about RF radiation X-D and there's not much doubt about that.

The cell-phones-cause-brain-cancer scare was successfully debunked, wasn't it?

Comment author: maxikov 05 February 2015 07:12:15PM 2 points [-]

If the effect of RF doesn't go beyond thermal, then you probably shouldn't be concerned about sitting next to an antenna dish any more than about sitting next to light bulb of the equal power. At the same time, even if the effect is purely thermal, it may be different from the light bulb since RF penetrates deeper in tissues, and the organism may or may not react differently to the heat that comes from inside rather than from outside. Or it may not matter - I don't know.

And apparently, there is a noticeable body of research, in which I can poke some holes, but which at least adheres to basic standards of peer-reviewed journals, that suggests the existence of non-thermal effects, and links to various medical conditions. However, my background in medicine and biology is not enough to thoroughly evaluate this research, beyond noticing that there are some apparent problems with that, but it doesn't appear to be obviously false either.

Comment author: Gram_Stone 03 February 2015 10:09:34AM *  8 points [-]

I think that your edit clarified things for me substantially. I read the entire article that you linked. I regret my earlier post for reasons that you will hopefully see.

I have a relevant anecdote about a simpler situation. I was with two friends. The One thought that it would be preferable for there to be less and/or simpler technology in the world, and the Other thought that the opposite was true. The One believed that technology causes people to live meaningless lives, and the Other conceded that he believed this to be true but also believed that technology has so many other benefits that this is acceptable. The One would always cite examples of how technology was used for entertainment, and the Other, examples of how technology was used for work. I stepped in and pointed out the patterns in their respective examples. I said that there were times when I had wasted time by using technology. I pointed out that if a person were like the One, and thus felt that they were leading a less meaningful life by the use of technology, then they should stop. It would be harmful were I to prescribe that a person like the One indiscriminately use technology. I then said that, through technology, I was able to meet people similar to me, people whom I would be far less likely to meet in physical life, and with whom I could hold conversations that I could not hold in physical life. In this way, my life had been made more meaningful by technology. And so it would be harmful for someone to prescribe that I indiscriminately do not use technology.

I learned three things from this event:

1) I should look for third alternatives.

I definitely did not consider this enough in my original response to you, and I apologize. Just like it is not a matter of less technology vs. more technology, it is not necessarily a matter of 'Keep your old life,' vs. 'Start a new life.' Honestly, your 'vague tentative plans' sound like potential third alternatives. I would say keep thinking about those, and also feel good for thinking of and about them. I'd love to hear about them, however vague and tentative. Vaniver touched on this. I would say that he found a third alternative in his own life. I'm bisexual; in physical life, I'm selective about whom I tell, and I don't feel outraged that this is pragmatic or feel inauthentic for doing it. Others would feel like they were in a prison of their own making. I picked the best alternative that I could live with.

2) I should remember that humans are never 'typical.'

There are people who feel like their skin is on wrong when they use technology that they consider undesirably advanced. I love technology. The One thought that people who used technology were suffering from a sense of meaninglessness, and they were simply unaware of this, or actively ignoring it. This was not true for me: Technology makes my life more meaningful. For either of us to act otherwise would be for us to act against our preferences. Likewise, it may have been more important for Shulem to act authentically than it was for him to keep his social relationships. Maryles had a sneaking suspicion that this is false. Yet, Shulem may really be more lonely and really not regret it.

3) I should remember that humans do things for more than just happiness.

People value other things besides happiness. The One saw that some people were happy playing mobile games all of the time, their reward centers firing away, but didn't think that it was worth it because their happiness was meaningless. The One valued meaning more than entertainment, and perhaps even more than happiness in general. People forget this easily. I see this in the article when Maryles says:

Not that I have a right to tell people how to live their lives. I just wish that he would have made choices that would have kept his family intact, and given him a better more meaningful life. Shulem says that he has no regrets. And yet I wonder if he has had similar thoughts? So I am sad for Shulem who still seems to live a very lonely life. I am sad for his children who lost a father they once loved. And yet I am hopeful that those with similar leanings that read his book will realize that the kind of radical change Shulem Deen made- even as he felt it was the right one based on being true to oneself -may not be the best solution for individual happiness.

He wishes that Shulem had made decisions to give himself a more meaningful life. He wishes that Shulem had made decisions to give himself a happier life. He wishes that Shulem had made decisions to give himself a less lonely life. He thinks that, ultimately, Shulem has made decisions to give himself a more authentic life at the price of forgoing these other possibilities. About this, he may be right. Another possibility is that there was no more preferable alternative. Maryles suggests otherwise: He seems to think either that authenticity, meaning, community, and happiness are all the same; or that all are reducible to one; or that all necessarily follow from one. I cannot glean which he believes from context. It is entirely possible that Shulem feels that his life is less happy, less meaningful, more lonely, and more authentic, and that he prefers all and regrets none of this. On the other hand, you, it seems, would not prefer this and would regret this, because you are not typical, as said above. I keep the complexity of value in mind when evaluating potential third alternatives.

Lastly, because things are often about that which they explicitly are not, I feel obliged to touch on this:

I was sad not so much about his erroneous (in my view) conclusions about God and Judaism. Although I am in no way minimizing the importance of that - this post isn’t about that.

If this is true, then 'The Lonely Man of No Faith' is a bad title, in the sense that it isn't representative of the article's implication. (It does, however, make for excellent link bait.) No one is thinking, "Surely his lack of faith is merely a coincidence. There must be other reasons that this man is lonely." Maryles has to say that the post is not about 'that' precisely because everyone has assumed that it's about that.

The general implication is that the so-called truth-seekers are worse off even though the opposite should be true. On this, I will say that any time that I have seen someone become less satisfied with their life by reading about the sorts of things that are posted here, it's because they have experienced a failure of imagination, or their new beliefs have not fully propagated. The failure modes that I've seen the most are:

You've given no indication that you believe any of these things, but I had to address that because of the article's implication, and you or others very well may believe these things, explicitly or implicitly, without indication. You identify as an open-minded person; you seem to take pride in it. As such, you may not really believe that there is no God; rather, you might believe that you ought to believe that there is no God, because perhaps that is what you believe open-minded people do, and you want to do what open-minded people do. (I had this very problem. Belief in belief goes both ways!) Saying that one atheist is less happy because he has been separated from his loved ones is very different from saying that atheists are universally dissatisfied because theism is essentially preferable. Though the author attempts to make that distinction, I think that he fails.

I'm also not saying that I deductively concluded that truth-seeking is preferable to ignorance. I inductively concluded it. Truth-seeking could have been horrible: It turns out it generally isn't.

Comment author: maxikov 05 February 2015 07:04:12AM 5 points [-]

The general implication is that the so-called truth-seekers are worse off even though the opposite should be true.

The opposite should be true for a rational agent, but humans aren't rational agents, and may or may not benefit from false beliefs. There is some evidence that religion could be beneficial for humans while being completely and utterly false:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2153599X.2011.647849

http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Folly/NewSciGod/De%20Botton.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361002/

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0003679

Of course, this is not "checkmate, atheists", and doesn't mean we should all convert to Christianity. There are ways to mitigate the negative impact of false beliefs while preserving the benefits of letting the wiring of the brain do what it wants to do. Unitarian Universalists from the religious side, and Raemon's Solstice from the atheist side are trying to approach this nice zone with the amount of epistemological symbolism and rituals optimal for real humans, until we found a way to rewire everyone. But in general, unless you value truth for its own sake, you may be better off in life with certain false beliefs.

Comment author: maxikov 05 February 2015 06:36:26AM 3 points [-]

Should we be concerned about the exposure to RF radiation? I always assumed that no, since it doesn't affect humans beyond heating, but then I found this:

http://www.emfhealthy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012SummaryforthePublic.pdf

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412014001354

The only mechanism they suggest for non-thermal effects is:

changes to protein conformations and binding properties, and an increase in the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that may lead to DNA damage (Challis, 2005 and La Vignera et al., 2012)

One of the articles they cite is behind a paywall (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15931683), and the other (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21799142) doesn't actually seem to control for thermal effects (it has a non-exposed control, but doesn't have a control exposed to the same amount of energy in visible or infrared band). The fact that heat interferes with male fertility is no surprise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat-based_contraception), but it's not clear to me whether there's any difference between being exposed to RF and turning on the heater (maybe there is, if the organism deals with internal and external heat differently, or maybe this effect is negligible).

Nonetheless, if there is a significant non-thermal effect, that alone warrants a lot of research.

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