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For my bioethics project, I need to interview people to see how they feel on a certain biology issue, such as abortion, cloning, etc. I’m doing Cryogenics, the act of freezing legally dead people in hopes that the cryonists in the future can restore them to life, youth, and health. Post how you feel about Cryogenics, whether you support or oppose this issue.

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And don't drive your car off a cliff like I did. Girl, no man is worth 10 points on your license.

I support people having the freedom to do what they want to do with their remains, so long as it isn't harmful to anyone else.

Do I think this kind of thing.... the freezing of dead bodies... is necessarily sane? No. Do I think you ought to be able to cryogenically preserve your body after death, or cremate it, or bury it, ect....? Yes.

What I think would be cool is to do head transplants. Say some guy has cancer in his pancreas and he's gonna die. Transplant his head to the body of a healthy male on death row. This has been done succesfully with monkeys, save for the spinal cord connection. We could, in theory, take two adult humans and transplant their heads to each other's bodies and restore bloodflow and muscle connectivity. Once we figure out how to succesfully reconnect the spinal cord to prevent paralysis, we're golden!

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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978

I think that Cryogenics is perfectly alright. I would want the chance to be able to continue living a healthy life.

The only thing I'd be worried about would be that richer, better off people will end up being the only people with access to such benefits.

I think people should be able to do whatever the hell it is they decide they want to do. Abortions, cryogenics, whatever; these are decisions taken by adults, not kids, and their right to decide should be preserved.

However, I don't see much of a point in cryogenics. After having my neurons shredded by microscopic ice crystals for a few thousand years, I doubt there'd be anything left to reawaken in that frozen mass of flesh bobbing about in my skull. Even if it weren't for the fact my cells would all suffer the same fate, the axone/dendrite connections in my head, the chemical balances in the nuclei of my neurons and in my synaptic phases, and much of the structure of my brain, would all be ruined. These aren't things a nanomachine can just wire together anew; this is permanently destroyed information.

At best I'd be a vegetable and would require 100% machine-assisted living. I wouldn't be conscious. In fact, the best even the most advanced technology could do is rewire the basic functions of my body back in place. The rest? Mush subject to 1000 years of ice-crystal-shredding.

I think it's going to be possible to fix a lot of things in the future. I just don't think we're at a point where we can preserve a body for hundreds of years without damaging unrepairable chemical bonds and microscopic cellular structures.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

They say there is a way to freeze people without having their cell explode due to coldness...

I don't think this has been found yet, And I don't beleive it to be possible, since it would mean preserving the body by freezing it, but freezing kills the cells, SO for me it's either alive cells or dead cells, not half-dead.

But I admit that it would be great, and Hamedo's theory sure makes me think of immortality. Being able to do taht, not only will we be able to change bodies, but any lost member (like in a flying car accident [I don't think it's for the near future ]) could be recovered.

By cryogenizating dead people, We may be able to save them... but what's the delay? about 1-2 min after the heart stopped beating?

Also... how can someone integrate in a totally new age? Looking stupid because you don't know how everything works would be annoying.

Edit

You watch too much Futurama RL

But since life is so precious and shouldn't be wasted like that, I'd accept to be cryogenized

This post has been edited by Zodiac on 15th February 2006 03:16

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Sayonara

Quote (Zodiac @ 14th February 2006 20:54)

Also... how can someone integrate in a totally new age? Looking stupid because you don't know how everything works would be annoying.

Well, there's one thing TV taught me. If you get frozen and wake up a millenia in the future, become a delivery boy. You'll see lots of excitement and make friends with robots. And robots rock.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Question:

Can you cryogenically freeze someone while they are still alive, and then unfreeze them and they're still fine? Even like one day I mean? It's not exactly something I've researched, but that was the idea for deep space travel.

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The clouds ran away, opened up the sky
And one by one I watched every constellation die
And there I was frozen, standing in my backyard
Face to face, eye to eye, staring at the last star
I should've known, walked all the way home
To find that she wasn't here, I'm still all alone

-Atmosphere "Always Coming Back Home to You"

been watching Austin Powers?

anyway, as long as it's not harming anyone else, i dont see any problems with it. basically it's giving the person the freesom to hope that in the future their incurable diseases and such can be cured.

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moé in the streets, senpai in the sheets

Quote (Tidu-who @ 14th February 2006 21:47)

Question:

Can you cryogenically freeze someone while they are still alive, and then unfreeze them and they're still fine?

well, they managed to sucessfully pull it off with a horse so far...

If its the wish of the dying one to be cryogenically frozen, its not my problem.
However, there is no cure for death exept for zombizm. And to turn people into zombies makes you a necromancer.

An off-topic question: Would Necromancers be commonly associated with (or often found in the company of) Necrophiliacs?
That would be my tiredness talking...

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Neneko is Neneko because Neneko couldn't be Neneko if Neneko wasn't Neneko!
--as quoted from Neneko, Mahoraba {Heartful Days}

I can stab a man with a thick paperback book thru the ribcage.

for some reason i find myself totally unsurprised by silverlance's replies, once again. in fact, i wasn't evne going to post in this thread until he forced me to throught the ubiquitous omnipresence of his taunt of Bad Science.

[quote]I think people should be able to do whatever the hell it is they decide they want to do. Abortions, cryogenics, whatever; these are decisions taken by adults, not kids, and their right to decide should be preserved.[/quote]

rape, murder, embezzlement, whatever the hell it is these adults decide they want to do. their rights must be preserved. while cryonics certainly is not murder and personally i don't see anyhting especially unethical about it, answering the ethical question with your one-size-fits-all reply (which you clearly apply to murder in abortion anyway) demonstrates a pathological lack of wisdom on your part.

[quote]fter having my neurons shredded by microscopic ice crystals for a few thousand years,[quote]

this is misleading. it's not that cryonically frozen tissue is subjected to "microscopic ice crystals" that are "shredding" them over the years of cryogenic storage. it is in fact the cooling process that can contribute to icy shredding such that if the cooling rate for a cryonic process is too rapid, the cells will not have had time to properly dehydrate, and the osmotic freezing process can force crystallisation of the water in vivo solution. on the other hand, if th eprocess is too slow, the cells will die of dehydration as their metabolisms will not have been sufficiently slowed in time for their survival. at any rate, we have already our hands on biomaterials and biologicla cryoprotectants that cause the freezing process of cells and tissue cultures to be a vitrification thereof by means of cryoprotectant-doped in vivo solns. there is no "shredding" going on under a cryonically-induced torpor. it's the stressful freezing process that is the most dangerous stepof a cryonic procedure -- and, of course, the "thawing" process gives us headaches we have not been able to fully surmount even theoretically.

[quote]Even if it weren't for the fact my cells would all suffer the same fate, the axone/dendrite connections in my head, the chemical balances in the nuclei of my neurons and in my synaptic phases, and much of the structure of my brain, would all be ruined. These aren't things a nanomachine can just wire together anew; this is permanently destroyed information.[/quote]

of course you can't be serious. "synaptic phase?" are you sure that's the term you were searching for? i doubt it; "synaptic phase" and all temporal phases of regular cellular metabolism/division are in complete suspension during cryonics. even if you meant "synaptic cleft," you're still wrong, because there is no release/reuptake/synthesis of neurotransmitters during cryonic freezing; at worst the synthesis mechanisms of precleft golgi apparatus or the delivery codes of gamp could be damaged by ice; the neurotransmitters and "chemical balances" themselves are composed of molecules far, far, far to small to be damaged on a level so macro as that of water's crystalline lattice. the chemical balances of your neuron's nuclei, of course, is really a moot point (i.e., you really have no idea what you're daying), because thanks to that wonderfully complex macromolecule deoxyribose, our "neural neuclei" are succinctly preprogrammed to have specific chemicals inside of them at specific times to carry out specific functions. nuclear "chemical balance" doesn't affect a single thing on the large scale of the brain. finally, axnoal/dendritic connections would be among the LEAST damaged of all soecific structural necessities in the brain; simply put they are quite hardy and capable of forced rearrangement when nedded. in fact, the most crucial problem with cryonic freezing/thawing at improper rates and with improper biomatls (which we have in fact more or less completely overcome at this point) is to be found in the stress-fracture degredation of the myelin sheath which can lead to any number of tragic brain pathologies like als/autism &c &c.

[quote]At best I'd be a vegetable and would require 100% machine-assisted living. I wouldn't be conscious. In fact, the best even the most advanced technology could do is rewire the basic functions of my body back in place. The rest? Mush subject to 1000 years of ice-crystal-shredding.[/quote]

would you be any less capable of factually checking scientific information before you post it?

[quote]I just don't think we're at a point where we can preserve a body for hundreds of years without damaging unrepairable chemical bonds and microscopic cellular structures.[/quote]

one does not damage chemical bonding in any shape of form during cryogenic freezing. one similarly does not generally damage cellular structure in vitrification processes, which have shwon themselves to be quite a promising advance in the pseudoscience of cryonics. to be sure, theoretically, cryonics can easily (and should have the power to whitn the decade) all but circumvent clinical death. it is to be seen whether scientists are simply underestimating the complexity and irreducibility of the human mind.

Quote (gozaru~ @ 14th February 2006 23:01)

for some reason i find myself totally unsurprised by silverlance's replies, once again.  in fact, i wasn't evne going to post in this thread until he forced me to throught the ubiquitous omnipresence of his taunt of Bad Science.

For some reason, I find myself totally unsurprised by Gozaru's replies, once again. Love ya too man! Happy valentine's day.

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

PS: E = MC², don't forget. Our lil' secret, yo.

Edit: Spoilerized. Don't read unless you're Gozaru.

This post has been edited by Silverlance on 15th February 2006 04:11

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Bad Science.



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"That Light has bestowed upon me the greatest black magic!"

Quote (Hamedo)

What I think would be cool is to do head transplants. Say some guy has cancer in his pancreas and he's gonna die. Transplant his head to the body of a healthy male on death row. thumbup.gif This has been done succesfully with monkeys, save for the spinal cord connection. We could, in theory, take two adult humans and transplant their heads to each other's bodies and restore bloodflow and muscle connectivity. Once we figure out how to succesfully reconnect the spinal cord to prevent paralysis, we're golden!

Thinking about cryogenics, then reading this, then having recently read the Wikipedia article about GATTACA conjures up interesting--but not necessarily wise--ideas for movies.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

I'd be more worried about problems (with respect to the success of cryopreservation) other than the science behind it. You'd figure the stability of these companies may be at risk over the number of years it takes to gain the ability to successfully restore someone. But then again, if gozaru is correct and cryonics can "[in the next decade] all but circumvent clinical death," I guess it'd be less of a concern.

To the original poster, I don't think cryonics are unethical.

And also, wasn't that a fictional cryonics company in Vanilla Sky? I haven't seen the movie in a few years, but that's what I vaguely remember. Except in this case, the whole movie (or most of it) Cruise's character went through that "lucid dream."

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SPEKKIO: "GRRR...That was most embarrassing!"

Have you guys thought about the world and its resources now? The earth is getting more populated and resources are depleting. If we start reviving people, would that really be ethical considering that we’re taking away the newer generation’s resources? Besides, doesn’t cryogenics defy the natural order and God (if you believe in Him/Her)?

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And don't drive your car off a cliff like I did. Girl, no man is worth 10 points on your license.

Can we have a single discussion about this type of stuff that doesn't spark a religious debate?

One would hope that future generations will have found reliable renewable energy resources enough to support the population. I have doubts that a few nuts from the 21st century who wanted to awaken when there was a cure for Cancer will signifigantly effect the total population.

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"That Light has bestowed upon me the greatest black magic!"

Meh, in the x-hundred or so years before technology can fix up cancer-devoured cells AND thaw/patch up ice crystal-shredded cells to a point where life can resume normally, a lot can happen. For all we know, the world might end up facing a huge war that would wipe out the majority of the population in some countries. Or the lack of resources could thin out the population, and the future could be at a stage where resources have replenished themselves and the extra population would be welcomed in order to balance things out.

Whatever happens, it's up to the people who'll do the actual thawing. I doubt we'll start unfreezing people if the world is not yet fit to support them. After all, there are socio-economical issues to deal with as well. It's not like they just dump these guys out in the streets with no money and no direction (...would they? WOULD THEY? :_: )

I vaguely remember reading an article on cells being suspended completely when subject to a certain current or whatnot. I don't remember the details, though. But cryogenics could just be one of many alternative solutions to this.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

For those who have commented on cryonics (or are going to share your opinion), please fill out this survey in your post(need to make the project more formal):

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And don't drive your car off a cliff like I did. Girl, no man is worth 10 points on your license.

Perhaps polling the active posters in PM would be more effective, mate.

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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978