Frozen heads and bodies await revival at this Arizona cryonics facility(smithsonianmag.com)
smithsonianmag.com
Frozen heads and bodies await revival at this Arizona cryonics facility
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/200-frozen-heads-and-bodies-await-revival-at-this-arizona-cryonics-facility-180980981/
13 comments
Until it runs out of money, that is. Reanimation is nowhere near viable but this facility will have to do something to keep those bodies frozen...or else.
Just wait till the janitor switches off the power switch. /s
It takes weeks for the liquid nitrogen in a dewar to boil off actually. And they're stored upside-down so the head defrosts last in that scenario.
Read up on it and this or basically this has already happened a bunch of times.
Six months ago this would have been sarcasm but now, no. This is an extremely good point given what happened. I am still baffled how the janitor did that, could do that, knew to do that, and was even in a position to unplug.
I thought the whole idea of Alcor was premised on their spending money from their clients not solely on equipment and technology, but also in long term investments designed to pay out the operating costs eventually; is that not the case?
> This notion of freezing ourselves into the future is pretty science-fiction, and it’s naive
Being actually really dead, with your body physically no longer existing, is truly final. You won't be conscious ever again. No exceptions. This, on the other hand, gives you a chance to live again. The chance might be tiny, but it's still non-zero, so it's still worth pursuing.
Tim Urban has a cool article about it: https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/cryonics.html, I agree with most of his points, except "No one ever will ever ever want to live forever". Because everyone actually does want to live forever, they're just afraid to openly acknowledge it.
Being actually really dead, with your body physically no longer existing, is truly final. You won't be conscious ever again. No exceptions. This, on the other hand, gives you a chance to live again. The chance might be tiny, but it's still non-zero, so it's still worth pursuing.
Tim Urban has a cool article about it: https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/cryonics.html, I agree with most of his points, except "No one ever will ever ever want to live forever". Because everyone actually does want to live forever, they're just afraid to openly acknowledge it.
But all of these people are already actually truly dead, with their physical body not existing much more than the mummified remains you sometimes find in other places. The fact that they're frozen rather than dessicated is irrelevant - frozen mamallian bodies are completely dead.
That there could in principle be some way to restore them to life is not much more true than it is that you could in principle reconstruct a burned letter from the ashes, with enough information about the burning process.
That there could in principle be some way to restore them to life is not much more true than it is that you could in principle reconstruct a burned letter from the ashes, with enough information about the burning process.
> frozen mamallian bodies are completely dead
So fun fact: In mountain rescue they have a saying that you aren't dead until you're warm and dead. People do come back from frozen.
Here's some science about this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24882104/
> Hypothermic cardiac arrest has high mortality and few known prognostic factors. We studied retrospectively 34 victims of accidental hypothermia with cardiac arrest admitted to The University Hospital of North Norway during 1985-2013 who were resuscitated and rewarmed by extracorporeal circulation. No patient survived prior to 1999, while nine out of 24 (37.5%) survived hypothermic cardiac arrest from 1999 to 2013. The lowest measured core temperature among survivors was 13.7°C; the longest time from cardiac arrest to return of spontaneous circulation was 6 h and 52 min. The only predictor of survival identified was lower blood potassium concentration in the nine survivors compared with the non-survivors. Submersion was not associated with reduced survival. Non-survivors consumed modest hospital resources. Most survivors had a favourable neurological outcome.
Can't find the very cool journalistic story where I learned the phrase a few years ago. I think it was one of those New York Times online features they used to do. Similar to the famous Avalanche story, but about a woman who froze to death and came back ... or maybe it was part of the Avalanche story even. Memory fuzzy
So fun fact: In mountain rescue they have a saying that you aren't dead until you're warm and dead. People do come back from frozen.
Here's some science about this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24882104/
> Hypothermic cardiac arrest has high mortality and few known prognostic factors. We studied retrospectively 34 victims of accidental hypothermia with cardiac arrest admitted to The University Hospital of North Norway during 1985-2013 who were resuscitated and rewarmed by extracorporeal circulation. No patient survived prior to 1999, while nine out of 24 (37.5%) survived hypothermic cardiac arrest from 1999 to 2013. The lowest measured core temperature among survivors was 13.7°C; the longest time from cardiac arrest to return of spontaneous circulation was 6 h and 52 min. The only predictor of survival identified was lower blood potassium concentration in the nine survivors compared with the non-survivors. Submersion was not associated with reduced survival. Non-survivors consumed modest hospital resources. Most survivors had a favourable neurological outcome.
Can't find the very cool journalistic story where I learned the phrase a few years ago. I think it was one of those New York Times online features they used to do. Similar to the famous Avalanche story, but about a woman who froze to death and came back ... or maybe it was part of the Avalanche story even. Memory fuzzy
> not much more true than it is that you could in principle reconstruct a burned letter from the ashes, with enough information about the burning process.
Recovering text from charred fragments of paper is sometimes possible, but anything reduced to ash is lost forever. The information required to reconstruct it ends up dispersed across the whole state of the Earth, and from there leaks out into space at the speed of light: it can never be recovered, even in principle.
The same is true vis a vis corpsicles and corpses. Whether cryopreservation preserves enough structure to make resurrection possible is an open question, but once your synapses are gone they're gone for good.
Recovering text from charred fragments of paper is sometimes possible, but anything reduced to ash is lost forever. The information required to reconstruct it ends up dispersed across the whole state of the Earth, and from there leaks out into space at the speed of light: it can never be recovered, even in principle.
The same is true vis a vis corpsicles and corpses. Whether cryopreservation preserves enough structure to make resurrection possible is an open question, but once your synapses are gone they're gone for good.
> frozen mamallian bodies are completely dead.
According to what criteria?
The bodies are still relatively intact physically. The point of the freezing is to stop any possible chemical activity so that no decomposition or other harmful change happens and the information contained in the body stays intact.
> That there could in principle be some way to restore them to life is not much more true than it is that you could in principle reconstruct a burned letter from the ashes, with enough information about the burning process.
You're saying that like you know exactly what a consciousness is, what's its physical representation and what is enough to support it. Our best understanding is that the brain itself contains enough information to encode one's "self". It might be in the neuron connections or something else — that part we aren't sure about yet.
According to what criteria?
The bodies are still relatively intact physically. The point of the freezing is to stop any possible chemical activity so that no decomposition or other harmful change happens and the information contained in the body stays intact.
> That there could in principle be some way to restore them to life is not much more true than it is that you could in principle reconstruct a burned letter from the ashes, with enough information about the burning process.
You're saying that like you know exactly what a consciousness is, what's its physical representation and what is enough to support it. Our best understanding is that the brain itself contains enough information to encode one's "self". It might be in the neuron connections or something else — that part we aren't sure about yet.
Small animals can sometimes be revived after being frozen to death, see the Tom Scott video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tdiKTSdE9Y
Is Arizona the worst place for cryogenics?
No part of our planet is going to stay close to 77K without a staggering amount of effort.
Arizona is seismically stable, a low flood risk, and has abundant solar power. It's probably not a terrible choice. Mix in laxer regulations than you'd see in California, and an innate hucksterism? It's a great fit!
Arizona is seismically stable, a low flood risk, and has abundant solar power. It's probably not a terrible choice. Mix in laxer regulations than you'd see in California, and an innate hucksterism? It's a great fit!
Yeah, id probably still think a artic locale like Iceland would make more thermal sense.
But Arizona is definitely the kind of place where this type of scam is profitable. Until the maintenance bills come.
But Arizona is definitely the kind of place where this type of scam is profitable. Until the maintenance bills come.
Why? It doesn't take exponential effort to cool a space. It's linear.
The difference between Arizona and Iceland to get to cryo temperatures is a rounding error.
The difference between Arizona and Iceland to get to cryo temperatures is a rounding error.
> Why? It doesn't take exponential effort to cool a space. It's linear.
It’s not linear at all. Going from 300 K to 250 K is much easier than going from 100 K to 50 K. If it were linear, going all the way to 0 K would be trivial.
The reason why it does not matter much is that average temperatures are not that different (Arizona is 29°C; Iceland is 14°C); the difference is not going to matter when cooling something from 300 K to 80 K. Besides, atmospheric temperature does not matter too much for underground facilities, and there Iceland is more active (thus warmer) than Arizona.
That said, things like proximity of an ocean, something with a huge heat capacity and decent thermal conductivity that could be used to dump heat more efficiently than in the atmosphere would be a plus.
It’s not linear at all. Going from 300 K to 250 K is much easier than going from 100 K to 50 K. If it were linear, going all the way to 0 K would be trivial.
The reason why it does not matter much is that average temperatures are not that different (Arizona is 29°C; Iceland is 14°C); the difference is not going to matter when cooling something from 300 K to 80 K. Besides, atmospheric temperature does not matter too much for underground facilities, and there Iceland is more active (thus warmer) than Arizona.
That said, things like proximity of an ocean, something with a huge heat capacity and decent thermal conductivity that could be used to dump heat more efficiently than in the atmosphere would be a plus.
Thermal radiation goes by the fourth power, (Stefan-Boltzmann law for blackbody radiation), so a few degrees does make a meaningful difference, but because it's a scam it's much safer to be based in a locale with friendly law enforcement.
If it's estimated several centuries are necessary for technology to advance enough for reanimate them, this rounding off error adds up to quite significant.
No - because the value of dollars centuries in the future is essentially zero today.
If the Moon could be used for it that it would be probably the closest to an ideal place. In some craters you would not even need energy for refrigeration. Just ambient temperature would be enough. I wonder how many years saving freezer electricity bills would be necessary to offset launch and descent fuel costs.
If they’re already having to deal with fractured organs[1], then I have to ask what’s the point given that an organ can probably handle far greater damage than the brain.
Whilst the dreamer in me would like to believe that all this is possible in the future, I’m not convinced that todays technology is enough to even “freeze” the body, thawing and reanimation be damned.
[1] https://www.alcor.org/library/postmortem-examination-of-thre...
Whilst the dreamer in me would like to believe that all this is possible in the future, I’m not convinced that todays technology is enough to even “freeze” the body, thawing and reanimation be damned.
[1] https://www.alcor.org/library/postmortem-examination-of-thre...
Why not. The chance of them being reanimated is slim to none.
But it'll still be neat to have a preserved 20th century body in the 22nd century or even beyond.
But it'll still be neat to have a preserved 20th century body in the 22nd century or even beyond.
I thought it was only the head though
Freezing just the head and spinal cord is the cheaper option and you're banking on the future having a way to replace it. If you want to splurge, you can pay them to freeze your whole corpse and hope they have a way to thaw you out and fix whatever killed you sooner than re-homing your brain.
Is reanimating these bodies even viable?
What kind of energy waste are we talking about for this fools errand?
As far as I know you need to be dead already to be put in these facilities. So to get them back, we'd have to find a way to resuscitate them after "defrosting". The point of these facilities is exactly to wait for the technology to get them back to life.
One more interesting variation, while illegal, would be to freeze people when they are nearing death. If we could bring them back later, the scheme would have a chance of working if better surgeries and medicines are available. But I don't think we have the technology even for this.
EDIT: wouldn't places where assisted suicide is legal be cool (pun intended) with my proposed scheme of freezing when nearing death?
One more interesting variation, while illegal, would be to freeze people when they are nearing death. If we could bring them back later, the scheme would have a chance of working if better surgeries and medicines are available. But I don't think we have the technology even for this.
EDIT: wouldn't places where assisted suicide is legal be cool (pun intended) with my proposed scheme of freezing when nearing death?
Before you even get to resuscitation, you would have to repair all of the fractured organs caused by thawing.
https://www.alcor.org/library/postmortem-examination-of-thre...
https://www.alcor.org/library/postmortem-examination-of-thre...
Isn't the definition of death not exactly clear and changing? A stopped heart for example used to mean dead but not anymore.
I'd do what you propose tbh.
I'd also consider it. But an interesting question would be: when should we do it?
Let's assume the doctor says that we have 1 year left but a reasonably good quality of life until death. Should we wait until we're a few days away from death, or go to freezing right after getting the "1 year left" news under the assumption that the disease isn't as advanced and thus wouldn't require as big of a technology leap for a cure?
If we wait, the chances of being cured after waking up are pretty low (we are almost dead already due to the disease), but we'd have lived an extra year.
If we don't wait, the chances of being cured are a lot higher (disease not as advanced) but we might not survive the whole freezing process at all, and thus waste a year of life.
Let's assume the doctor says that we have 1 year left but a reasonably good quality of life until death. Should we wait until we're a few days away from death, or go to freezing right after getting the "1 year left" news under the assumption that the disease isn't as advanced and thus wouldn't require as big of a technology leap for a cure?
If we wait, the chances of being cured after waking up are pretty low (we are almost dead already due to the disease), but we'd have lived an extra year.
If we don't wait, the chances of being cured are a lot higher (disease not as advanced) but we might not survive the whole freezing process at all, and thus waste a year of life.
The hard part is the freezing. You need to prevent water crystals from forming (which will rupture cells), and the freeze has to happen really quickly. This is why some insects can tolerate being frozen, they are small enough to freeze quickly.
Reanimation is the easy part (relatively speaking), even though we have no clue as to how to do it.
We don't have the technology to do this to humans yet, so chances are high that none of them are viable.
Reanimation is the easy part (relatively speaking), even though we have no clue as to how to do it.
We don't have the technology to do this to humans yet, so chances are high that none of them are viable.
If you are interested in a somewhat gonzo story of early cryonics from an insider perspective, check out Bob Nelson’s book, Freezing People Is (Not) Easy. Fun read.
Poor Teddy Ballgame
Final(?) resting place of FM-2030
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM-2030
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM-2030
Heh what a curious person.
Can't help but think his desire to leave behind collective identities has been crushed recently.
All we seem to do these days is reinforce collective identities and vie to join and exclude particular groups and people.
Can't help but think his desire to leave behind collective identities has been crushed recently.
All we seem to do these days is reinforce collective identities and vie to join and exclude particular groups and people.
Consider a few things. Acting a collective fashion is extremely powerful. It could be eminently rational to sacrifice a few incidental personal goals in order to join a collective which can achieve some of your larger ones. Another thing to consider: I think, in general, the arrow is moving away from monolithic collectives and towards smaller, overlapping, more individualistic, identities because of the internet. This has had a lot of effects on society, one of which is to make smaller collectives seem louder and more powerful. Before, culture was so monolithic that alternative views had to be pretty widely shared or violently asserted to make a splash.
I suppose as an individual there aren't very many of you.
Never heard of him but it seems he was wrong on pretty much everything. At least everything covered in that Wikipedia article.
Wrong about this?
he wrote that the leadership in the Arab–Israeli conflict had failed, and that the warring sides were "acting like adolescents, refuse to resolve their wasteful 25-year-old brawl"
he wrote that the leadership in the Arab–Israeli conflict had failed, and that the warring sides were "acting like adolescents, refuse to resolve their wasteful 25-year-old brawl"
“Pretty much everything”
Eh, his take on vegetarianism holds up.
Imagine going through all the trouble to get yourself frozen, only to wake up 200 years later in some post-apocalyptic cannibal's stew pot. Boy would that be embarrassing.
I'm afraid they would just end up something like this: https://qntm.org/lena
For another take on life-after-upload, try Neal Stephenson's "Fall; or, Dodge in Hell".
[Edit]
Also, Niven's "A World out of Time" [1], where the reanimated ('corpsicles') are used for menial / dangerous tasks.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall;_or,_Dodge_in_Hell
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_World_Out_of_Time
[Edit]
Also, Niven's "A World out of Time" [1], where the reanimated ('corpsicles') are used for menial / dangerous tasks.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall;_or,_Dodge_in_Hell
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_World_Out_of_Time
Greg Egan's Permutation City also features the topic.
It's truly scary, but there is of course also the potential of eternal life in paradise.
It's truly scary, but there is of course also the potential of eternal life in paradise.
> also the potential of eternal life in paradise
Or hell, as in Ian M Banks ‘Surface Detail’. Chay's dilemma was really affecting (she is reincarnated as an angel of true death in hell, who is compelled to release a soul every day, by taking on some of their pain)
Or hell, as in Ian M Banks ‘Surface Detail’. Chay's dilemma was really affecting (she is reincarnated as an angel of true death in hell, who is compelled to release a soul every day, by taking on some of their pain)
JFC that was horrifying
"MMAcevedo's demeanour and attitude contrast starkly with those of nearly all other uploads taken of modern adult humans, most of whom boot into a state of disorientation which is quickly replaced by terror and extreme panic. "
JFC indeed.
JFC indeed.
"I retired from modeling a long time ago. It’s time I retired from tech, too... Let's commit to losing me."
~ Lena Forsén
~ Lena Forsén
The comments section has a comment from the author confirming that the title is indeed a reference to the “Lena” photo.
> 1,655 words. Running total is 8,296 words. Title refers to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna .
https://qntm.org/lena#komment5fa3096561295
(This direct link to the comment does not work on mobile, because the comments are not expanded by default. But you can find the comment by scrolling down to the comment section and expanding the comments.)
> 1,655 words. Running total is 8,296 words. Title refers to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna .
https://qntm.org/lena#komment5fa3096561295
(This direct link to the comment does not work on mobile, because the comments are not expanded by default. But you can find the comment by scrolling down to the comment section and expanding the comments.)
Nice! it's more like HeLa than Lena though
I see they left this part of the Ted Williams story out..
"PHOENIX -- A new book by a former employee of Alcor, the company that froze Ted Williams' remains, alleges the Baseball Hall of Famer's body was mistreated by the company.
Larry Johnson says in the book "Frozen: My Journey Into the World of Cryonics, Deception and Death" that he watched an Alcor official swing a monkey wrench at Williams' frozen severed head to try to remove a tuna can stuck to it. The first swing accidentally struck the head, Johnson contends, and the second knocked the tuna can loose."
https://www.espn.com/boston/mlb/news/story?id=4524957
"PHOENIX -- A new book by a former employee of Alcor, the company that froze Ted Williams' remains, alleges the Baseball Hall of Famer's body was mistreated by the company.
Larry Johnson says in the book "Frozen: My Journey Into the World of Cryonics, Deception and Death" that he watched an Alcor official swing a monkey wrench at Williams' frozen severed head to try to remove a tuna can stuck to it. The first swing accidentally struck the head, Johnson contends, and the second knocked the tuna can loose."
https://www.espn.com/boston/mlb/news/story?id=4524957
Sounds like an episode from Futurama...
If it works with a rabbit brain why wouldn't it work with a human brain?