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Cryonics
- Thread starter Eric Perry
- Start date
Ah, yes. That would suck being conscious but without the ability to move or communicate....
I've thrown out a few steaks because of freezer burn in the past. It seems like no matter what precautions I take, given enough time it's just an exercise in futility.
I do think a cyborg body with friggin lasors for eyes would be cool as heck though!
I do think a cyborg body with friggin lasors for eyes would be cool as heck though!
Try to imagine the horror of existing within say a HD tossed in a drawer somewhere, forgotten about by everyone. It's hard for my mind to even grasp the concept.
Without the body's sense organs I dont think one would be conscious of where said HD is placed. It would just be consciousness in the midst of total darkness. There was a time when I pondered whether our consciousness survived after our body had passed, and I imagined it to be just like that.
as long as it's a cyborg dinosaur body. its the only way to make dubstep make sense.
The current state of the art is vitrification - basically, the organs are filled with a special cocktail of chemicals and flash-frozen, which results in no ice crystal formation. This has been successfully demonstrated on organs (a vitrified kidney was successfully transplanted into a rabbit with full function restored) and is currently used to preserve brains at Alcor (the leading cryonics organisation).
Some people think that this is impossible because there isn't a clean divide between body and mind. This school of thought believes that you aren't you without both your body and mind and attempts to store someone's mind are doomed to failure.
Freezing someone opens some interesting legal issues. Death starts a whole bunch of legal processes, like estate liquidation, paying of life insurance etc. What happens to your estate, to any contracts you're a party to, to any legal proceedings against you etc etc, if you're not alive but also not dead?
I told a friend of mine the idea of eternal life terrifies me, he countered with "as big as our universe is, I think it would take our consciousness eternity to see it all"
I find that comforting.
slobake
resident ... something
I was installing phones at a place in Silicon Valley some time ago at a company that was researching this. When I was taling to the CEO he said he was going to have his head frozen when he died. We both had work to do so it was a short conversation. But I alway wondered why just the head?
And have they really found a way to prevent organic matter from degrading in a frozen state? If they fill your viens with chemicals at what point do they replace the chemicals with blood? Personally, I'm not interested in this, when it is time for me to go I just want to go. What if there are complications? I wouldn't want to be woken up into some sort of half life either.
And have they really found a way to prevent organic matter from degrading in a frozen state? If they fill your viens with chemicals at what point do they replace the chemicals with blood? Personally, I'm not interested in this, when it is time for me to go I just want to go. What if there are complications? I wouldn't want to be woken up into some sort of half life either.
Its pretty fascinating.
That would certainly apply if our universe is infinitely expanding. Though, I would think if it isnt, it couldnt take eternity to see it all. With unlimited/infinite time, eventually one would have seen everything, though it might take a really long time to do so.
Per South Park, in about 500 years everyone will be atheists, but not much will be different in the world. Rather than people fighting over religion and who's God is real, different atheist factions will fight over who's logic makes more sense. You can thank Mrs. Garrison, who convinced Richard Dawkins that not only do you have to be right, but you must also be a dick to those who think differently than you. Science Damn You, Mrs. Garrison!
I maintain stocks of various mammalian cell lines at cryo temperatures (submerged in liquid nitrogen) at work. Tissues are going to be more difficult to process and multiple tissues, more so.
Different cell types have different freezing procedures, as far as I'm aware mammalian cells always need additional agents (such as DMSO), for a tissue I think all the cells would need to have some infusion. Even with the protocols we have, you expect some losses.
As was covered earlier in the thread, different cell types would require different protocols (otherwise they'll be mush when thawed). You also have potentials for tissue types separating. Not to mention the issue of uniformly cooling such a thick slab of tissue.
All in all, I don't think we'll manage, at least not in our lifetimes, unless there is some massive breakthrough!
Different cell types have different freezing procedures, as far as I'm aware mammalian cells always need additional agents (such as DMSO), for a tissue I think all the cells would need to have some infusion. Even with the protocols we have, you expect some losses.
As was covered earlier in the thread, different cell types would require different protocols (otherwise they'll be mush when thawed). You also have potentials for tissue types separating. Not to mention the issue of uniformly cooling such a thick slab of tissue.
All in all, I don't think we'll manage, at least not in our lifetimes, unless there is some massive breakthrough!
Yep and to add insult to injury your backed up brain won't even have the courtesy to let you go insane
Why not? Your body is pretty much a vessel for your mind/brain and you look out of things called eyes. If you could somehow keep oxygen pumping to the brain even after your body's gone I believe the brain will survive.
How could it be anything but a crock?
Your consciousness is a bunch of chemical reactions, all working together in your brain. Stop the reactions, and your consciousness evaporates.
But suppose that's not the case, and your mind is of some magical substance. Even if your mind is preserved in some form after you die, what would motivate anybody to resuscitate you? They've got your money already. The most likely scenario is that sometime in the future, somebody is going to lose interest in your wonderfulness, and pull the plug on you.
Since the beginning of time, folks have tried to put somebody in charge of keeping their spirits alive in the afterlife. Somebody was supposed to guard the Pyramids. So much for that. There were aristocrats in the middle ages who paid to have daily prayers recited for their souls, in perpetuity. Eventually, the keepers realized that they owed nothing to dead kings, and pulled the plug.
Your consciousness is a bunch of chemical reactions, all working together in your brain. Stop the reactions, and your consciousness evaporates.
But suppose that's not the case, and your mind is of some magical substance. Even if your mind is preserved in some form after you die, what would motivate anybody to resuscitate you? They've got your money already. The most likely scenario is that sometime in the future, somebody is going to lose interest in your wonderfulness, and pull the plug on you.
Since the beginning of time, folks have tried to put somebody in charge of keeping their spirits alive in the afterlife. Somebody was supposed to guard the Pyramids. So much for that. There were aristocrats in the middle ages who paid to have daily prayers recited for their souls, in perpetuity. Eventually, the keepers realized that they owed nothing to dead kings, and pulled the plug.
