Is cryonization a practical way to be revived later?

If you have the money. Can’t hurt.

I’m pretty sure that the cryonization (is that the right word?) process kills you.

It would technically kill you, but if frozen instantly, doesn’t it keep all your cells intact? Would it be possible to thaw out and heal any effects the freezing would have?

It’s science fiction. There’s no way to freeze a human being and bring them back to life. Is it possible someday? Maybe, but the freezing process is as much an issue as the reviving, so freezing yourself now is not likely to make it possible for you to be revived in the future.

If you have the money, why not? It is a gamble. There aren’t any ways, now, to ‘revive’ someone.

Not me! WHY would I want to live forever?

Uh uh..too sci-fi for me, and goes against nature.

I’d much prefer to enjoy the time nature gives me and then pass the torch to the next hatch of humanity. lol

I’m glad that I have no fear of death, which is only egos feeble attempt to elevate itself far beyond reality.

Out with the old and in with the new…thats natures way.

Well, not live forever, but a more full life.

Can you imagine if the world went to hell, and you were unfrozen later by some new race of people, or aliens? Haha weird to think of the possibilities.

Rumor was that Walt Disney did this. He didn’t. He did have a doctor who researched it, though.
I wouldn’t want it. This is where I belong, and I have no wish to become Buck Rogers or Steve Rogers.

I don’t know about cyogenics but I do know that the scientists did look into at one point storing all the data of a human being maybe to replicate one later. Sort of like how they did the whole “beam me up Scotty” thing in Star trek. A beam that takes you apart and stores all your data to a hard drive then replicates you in an instant. Aside from some technological advancements that we would need to do in order for that to happen our biggest hurdle with that is the ammount of storage it would take to just store the data of one human being. With our largest harddrives it would take about 300 trillion of them to just store every piece of data from just one human being.

A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. I have this life, good or bad. I have no idea if they can even revive you in the future and even if they did, everything you love in this life is gone or changed beyond recognition. I would rather live what I have today, with certainty, than to sacrifice today for a “possible” existance in the future.

It’s a gamble, and I think the odds of success are infinitesimal. I would rather leave the money to my heirs than blow it on the cryonics lottery.

Simon says, fuck yeah! Demolition Man (1993)

Doesn’t something happen to cells as they freeze that forever alters their structure, so that when thawed it’s just not the same as it was before, even if a body were frozen in liquid nitrogen? I don’t know the name of that phenomenon but I would reckon that cryogenics will not work on a body for that reason. Especially if one is going to be frozen for an inordinate amount of time.

@aprilsimnel
Freezing a cell causes the water inside to expand and usually, causes the cell to rupture.

I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t have to drain all the blood from your body!
Apparently the cells rupture and break if theres any blood still in your body when you freeze. It kind of spikes up through you. So if your not dead when they freeze you, your most definitely dead when they take all the blood out of your body and replace it with anti freeze.

So taking the idea that you might be able to revive somebody from a frozen state, first you’d thaw them out, then you’d drain their body of the anti freeze stuff, then replace the blood, then try and start the heart and the brain.

Seems like a pretty long shot to me. But I don’t know really.

Is it practical? so long as there’s a way to maintain your state and revive you without unduly burdening others, sure. There’s absolutely no way of reviving you now of course and the prospects are minimal considering we don’t currently understand all the damage caused much less how to prevent or reverse it. But, let’s put it this way, it’s a lot more practical than dying if your goal is to keep living.

@aprilsimnel the word you’re looking for is probably lyse, at least when it occurs within cells, that can be mitigated. The ice damage from outside can also be mitigated by essentially pumping antifreeze to induce vitrification.

Practical is not the word I’d have chosen, as not even one case has been proven successful yet – thus it cannot be something deemed “practical.”

Why not just become a vamp?

@draconess25 I think that would be pretty cool… Minus the whole sunlight thing. I was just watching “interview with a vampire” and that thought crossed my mind.

Once they find a solution that can replace the water in your body without killing you during the thawing process. As @Nullo says, water expands and ruptures cells when it freezes, basically leaving you a big pile of mush when you thaw.

What was the book that referred to cryo people as ‘corpsicles’?

@RandomMrdan Wear a hoodie!

I predict that before cryonization is possible you’ll be able to download your entire mind into a hard drive and live out your life in a robotic body or as a distributed program on the internet. Also we’ll be able to create a clone from a digital record of your genome, and upload your mind into it’s brain enabling you to live forever in your own twenty five year old body. Or you could go back and forth as the whim strikes you, but all before cryonization becomes practical.

@snarp kind of like the amine show, “ghost in a shell”. Interesting thought. That would be a lot better than freezing oneself.

the spelling is Anime. LOL FAIL. My friend typed this….

Haha sorry, i’m on my phone…

I don’t think they’ve got it quite down yet. Curl up with a nice copy of Heinlein’s “Door into Summer” instead. Remember they have to take you out of this life first. After you are dead, you are dead. Do you really want to be quick-frozen as an elderly person on the last stages of a terminal illness? You’d have a hard time finding a job in your new century.

Also, you’d be betting on the company honoring a commitment to essentially a dead person. They go belly up and let you thaw out. Then what? People purchase perpetual care in cemeteries. Guess what—it’s not perpetual. When there is no one around to care, it ends. Get a life NOW!

[Actually, I think only Walt Disney’s head is frozen—on assumption that body is easy to get, brain irreplaceable.]

@anartist I’m sorry, I should have put in the details, you’re a young person suddenly stricken with a terminal disease. Like, no older than let’s say..35?

You have so little time left. Don’t waste it—

and those things I wrote still hold true. At this stage they still have to take you while you are alive and the science is still new and unreliable and you’d wake up with the same illness if you woke up at all. And economic conditions also might be different and the commitment may not be honored.

And would you want to wake up with all your people gone? Or even see people you care about having grown old?

Yeah, I don’t think that works.

When your dead, your dead.

If I were faced with that terminal illness (and my body wasn’t already crippled, maimed and impossible to live with—or in) and I had the money… then I’d throw one hellacious badass party over several weeks if I could afford it, and spend the remainder of my time on Earth resting, relaxing, recuperating—and eventually dying—on a beach.

You’re going to die anyway; face the fact and accept it.

Besides, what if the technology takes longer to develop than you’ve paid for? Who’s going to support maintaining your frozen body out of charity? The outfit you contracted with a century earlier? Great-grandchildren who never knew you?

I’d just be deeply sad and distressed if, when I woke up everyone that I knew and loved were not there also…can you imagine?

In order to be practical, it has to be successful. Neither the freezing process nor the thawing process have been developed successfully. It’s not a matter of freezing now and waiting for the thawing process to be developed. They both have to be done properly, and no technology exists today to do either.

I’ve heard of vitrification as a more plausible alternative, though that also involves technology we currently lack.

However, it at least sidesteps the issues of either ice crystals destroying the brain or getting your blood replaced with toxic anti-freeze. Well, it will if we can ever manage it at relatively high temperatures compared to those involved in cryogenics. Theoretically.

no thanks i prefer to die when my body gives out.
i don’t want to be revived later. im going to be cremated

I’m holding out for cloning, freeze drying, or maybe being freeze-dried and injected into my own sperm. Or something like that, anyway.

Having seen what goes on in my own frizzer, I want no part of someone else’s. On the other hand… it’s what the ‘cool’ folks are certainly doing. So maybe I’ll give it some thought.

[time passed]

There; I did. No.

we already have over population, what makes you think people in the future are going to honor your wishes? Or worse bring you back and torture you relentlessly?

@buzzpoet well you would have a contract that ensures what you want to happen will happen, wake up one day. Over population isn’t so much an issue here in the states, maybe in other countries, but not here. What makes you think they would work so hard to wake you up, just so they can torture you?

this is reserved for the extremely wealthy and/or scientoligst wackos… consider the effort it would take if this caught on, storage facilities etc. You think your $100,000 payment will be sufficient 200 years from now? .. Dont get me wrong I’m not saying its not cool to think about, I mean if your dead your dead right? ... But your question is it practical? In 2010 no its not practical… live life while you can, that money will be better spent enjoying life, dream you dreamer…

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics?wasRedirected=true

I found this, thought it was interesting.

If I ever become frozen, I hope it is in a vat of sorbet.

It might work when people get frozen in 2040. Today might be a bit too soon.

A safe bet is archiving the 700 megabytes of your genome (don’t use an USB stick). Your clone might enjoy star travel in 2100.

“Your clone might enjoy star travel in 2100.”
Fun for the clone. Does nothing for me. Screw my clone! ;-)

That makes me think of Star Trek. You go into the Teleporter, and at the destination is a clone of you. You being destroyed in the process. Remember, the Teleporter is just a fancy replicator.

Now that would make for a good Star Trek movie.

Star Trek:The conspiracy.

@ChazMaz Oooh. I like it. Bones would be the hero, he never did like that damn transporter.

Yep, and it has been going on all this time. No one putting much thought to it.
Slice even their thoughts and memories are reproduced on the other side also.

Imagine the cover up. At what cost wold it be to the federation and to all alien kind. To find out they died, when stepping into a transporter.

Ok, I am done.

@ChazMaz
Screw my clone!

Your clone would have to be a whole lot better-looking—and female—or I would be in some serious need of cash.

@ChazMaz It all starts when they start changing the thoughts in the clones when they recreate them. Suddenly that alien representative is much more intent on negotiation than he was before beaming over… war is averted, but at what cost? And then Kirk finds himself not feeling quite so dismissive of Starfleet regulations…...

@CyanoticWasp… Bite your tongue. @ChazMaz .. looks just FINE the he way he is.

Hold on.. LOL

I think @CyanoticWasp is on to something. LOL

Maybe he will share with the rest of us. lol

@ChazMaz – If you don’t like the clone approach we can offer you the mind uploading procedure – into an android that is (release date late 2030ies). The consciousness is supposed to get transferred as well. Those androids will be fully equipped, so nothing to worry about, although some women do seem to object, but you can always try to keep it a secret. Overperformance might make her suspicious, though.

@ChazMaz
Didn’t Enterprise do an episode where one of the crew got caught in a transporter buffer and started having hallucinations?

Reginald Barclay in Realm of Fear.

@mattbrowne 2030s huh? Well that should be within my lifespan. I just hope I can upload before my brain starts to decay too much.

Oh, @Snarp… you left yourself so very wide open with that straight line…

I’m going to be a nice guy this one time and just let it pass.

@mattbrowne: They’re already suspicious.

@CyanoticWasp hah, I suppose I did. You’re too kind.

@CyanoticWasp Just because my brain started out poorly, doesn’t mean decay won’t make it worse!

@Snarp I agree with you on that last, for sure. Maybe my brain has started its downhill slide as well.

Regarding the former statement: Don’t let that news get out, okay? I have an image to maintain here.

@mattbrowne – Yes transfer of consciousness might work.

That’s one of those you have to trust it really works type of things.

Your reproduction saying it works, your previous body, being dead. :-)

I suppose, it’s difficult to think of your body as an interchangeable shell that you can just simply move your consciousness to and from. You would truly be able to “live” forever.

To answer your boldfaced Q alone:
Is cryonization a practical way to be revived later?

Cryonization is a practical way to have your body frozen. As far as I know there has been no technique to “revive” afterward. Are you feeling lucky?

If you are, then maybe…
– the technique will be developed
– it will work on your frozen body
– your body will be kept in a properly maintained vessel / state until the technique is developed
– you’ll have sufficient invested assets to grow over the meantime of your frozen state, because you surely won’t be employable (“out of the box”, so to speak) ‘x’ years in the future
– you can find a suitable trustee to manage those investments over the entire time span (and don’t discount political risk, either)
– you won’t mind having no family and no friends when you wake up

I’m still sticking with the party / beach thing.

@mattbrowne it never occurred to me before…but I suppose there is always the possibility that we might not actually die yet…in this day and age…. :-/

The most affordable I’ve found is at: http://www.KrioRus

Well, mind uploading technology creates a whole new set of ethical dilemmas. One of my favorite novels is Mindscan by Robert Sawyer and he creates an interesting problem that keeps lawyers busy for years:

“Jake Sullivan watched his father, suffering from a rare condition, collapse and linger in a vegetative state, and he’s incredibly paranoid because he inherited that condition. When mindscanning technology becomes available, he has himself scanned, which involves dispatching his biological body to the moon and assuming an android body. In possession of everything the biological Jake Sullivan had on Earth, android Jake finds love with Karen, who has also been mindscanned. Meanwhile, biological Jake discovers there is finally another, brand-new cure for his condition. Moreover, Karen’s son sues her, declaring that his mother is dead, and android Karen has no right to deprive him of his considerable inheritance. Biological Jake, unable to leave the moon because of the contract he signed, becomes steadily more unstable, until finally, in a fit of paranoia, he takes hostages. Sawyer’s treatment of identity issues of what copying consciousness may mean and how consciousness is defined finds expression in a good story.”

@mattbrowne Car Wars handles it by never activating the clones until there is a valid death certificate and declaring the newly activated clone legally the person they were cloned from, with all property, rights, etcetera that the original person had.

Of course, there are special laws restricting the cloning rights of convicted criminals, especially those who receive the death penalty. Read more about it here if you are interested.

There was some confusion when there were three US Presidents, but cases like that are rare. (That particular case involved sabotage and espionage, and the three President Tanners worked things like office hours and wife-sharing out amicably.)

@jerv – Thanks. I’ll check it out.

Im sorry but you guys mostly got it all wrong. Transfering your consciousness into a machine is not a solution. It’s like cloning, your mind is your brain, you yourself would still die with your brain. The only way you yourself can survive is to keep your brain cells working, keep your own brain alive in fact.

As for cryonization, I don’t know why all of you guys keep saying we don’t know how to “revive”, we do everyday! There’s tons of ways to do it, with the right chemicals, adrenaline, or just an electric impulse for the heart to restart. The problem is not there at all.

The problem with cryonization is that water molecules expand when frozen. Your body is mainly water, especially your brain. What happens is when you are frozen, water in your body expands as it becomes ice. All of your cells, including brain cells, “break”, they die by the pressure imposed by the H20 molecules expanding.

So the problem is not with reviving, the problem is that you lose all your cells from the freezing, there’s nothing to revive. The solution would be to try to “suck” as much water as possible from your body before freezing it, without doing too much damage. This would reduce the damage done from the freezing itself. Once when we can do that, if it’s possible, cryonization will be possible.

@zx_max – Welcome to Fluther!

@zx_max True, but we don’t have that technology yet.