
The youngest person to be cryogenically preserved - yinghang
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34311502
======
martin-adams
I find cryogenics such a thought provoking field. If you're going to be frozen
after death, you would probably want the restoration process to be fully
mature before you are restored. But yet, someone has to go first (outside of
shorter frozen trials).

But then again, who is to say that the restoration process will take the form
of thawing out the brain. An advanced digital scanning technique could imprint
the brain image onto an organic robot, thus making it possible to have many
copies of the same person.

I also find the concept similar to the teleport. You may be the person who
goes in, but are you the same person who comes out the other end?
Indistinguishable from you, only you are not the observer of your own reality.

[Edit: A couple of really obvious grammatical errors]

~~~
csn
Is there any name for this puzzle? I've been thinking about this for a while
now.

Cloning the particles (and their states) that make you up would most likely
produce a separate mind, as I think would teleporting where v1 is destroyed
and v2 consisting of different particles, although in the same configuration.
But what about separating said configuration, transporting them somewhere else
and putting them back together? Cryogenics is in my opinion the only possible
way to give a chance in preserving an original mind well beyond natural human
lifespan without actually extending it.

Not only can't others tell a clone apart from the original: the hypothetic
clone, as I understand it, couldn't do that either. Now what if this process,
due to cellular regeneration in the brain, happens constantly? Your mind is
not the same it was a minute ago: that mind is dead and gone. Would it even
matter?

~~~
mastazi
The thing is, unless you have certain metaphysical beliefs, the very concept
of "identity" is a flawed one and doesn't really represent the reality of us
being actually a complex aggregate structure of cells. The concept of "self"
is in my opinion just a rough approximation or a framework that we use to
quickly assess reality, much like time, as we commonly think of it, does not
fully represent the complexities of relativistic time, however it is useful to
manage our daily life[1]: the sentence "I'll be with you in 5 minutes" could
open a whole lot of possibilities if we consider time in a relativistic
scenario, whereas it is fairly unambiguous in our daily life. Similarly, the
concept of "self" would be very ambiguous with regards to e.g. annelid worms
(who can be split in 2 and survive as two separate individuals[2]) whereas it
sums up fairly well the way we think of ourselves as individuals.

[1] See [http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-
technology/2166333...](http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-
technology/21663338-according-theory-relativity-time-elastic-it-can-slow-down-
speed-up-and-even-reverse) [2] See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragmentation_(reproduction)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragmentation_\(reproduction\))

------
xgbi
Serious question: what's to salvage from the brain of a terminal brain cancer
child? This strikes me as a very silly way to preserve a human being. If they
really wanted to give their child a "chance" to live a full life, they should
have cryogenized her sooner, no? (It might be illegal, though.)

~~~
listic
Personally, I'm with you on this. Cryonically suspending a person that died
from brain damage or debilitating disease has even more fleeting chance for
success. Unless there's a chance that at the moment of death the conscience is
still there (due to great redundancy in the brain), it might be futile, after
all. This is one issue that I believe all cryonics companies and advocates
prefer to wholly overlook.

I imagine it should be terrifically hard to let go of your child and ' _kill_
' them preemptively, for them to have a hope of later life. Even if the
parents did even consider that option.

As far as I see it, cryopreserving a person that is not legally dead ('
_cryothanasia_ '?) _might_ be possible, but no cryonics company has procedures
in place to arrange for it and I am not aware of anyone that has been
preserved this way. At least, it is necessary to move to a country where
voluntary euthanasia is legal and the associated autopsy is not mandatory, and
you are on your own with this. [1] This is another issue that cryonics
companies and advocates prefer to overlook.

Cryonics is still very niche as it is. People are still very reluctant to
arrange for cryopreservation beforehand, as it is. Cryonics companies have
their hands full with just continuing to operate and convincing people to use
their services. For there to exist people that are _fully rational_ about
their own or their loved ones' death, and think about it more deeply than the
cryonics companies and advocates, is a whole next step entirely: I am unaware
of such people yet.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_euthanasia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_euthanasia)

~~~
moyix
> Unless there's a chance that at the moment of death the conscience is still
> there (due to great redundancy in the brain), it might be futile, after all.
> This is one issue that I believe all cryonics companies and advocates prefer
> to wholly overlook.

You seem to be arguing that death is a binary state, but I don't think this is
particularly well established. There are all sorts of arguments over what
constitutes definite proof of death [1]. It seems more likely to me that the
process of dying is a transition, and that the exact point along that
transition where someone is irreversibly gone depends on our current level of
medical technology – which is exactly what cryonics is betting on.

As an analogy, when RAM loses power, the data on it doesn't vanish instantly,
but rather degrades over some period of time [2]. Depending on how the
information is stored, what you're willing to do without, and what you can
piece together, you can declare the data in RAM "gone" at different points
throughout that process.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_definition_of_death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_definition_of_death)

[2]
[https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/sec08/tech/full_papers/h...](https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/sec08/tech/full_papers/halderman/halderman.pdf)

~~~
listic
I didn't mean to disagree argue that; just didn't have enough time to think
this question over before typing.

Yes, death is not a binary state physically, but it is legally. This is what
cryonics counts for.

Also, conscience is not binary; there is plenty of evidence that it is uneven
and noncontinuous. People lose conscience and then regain it and live on all
the time. Many people live in reduced states of consciousness most or all of
the time. Our mind tries to maintain illusion of continuity of consciousness
for our convenience. Sometimes people survive ridiculous amount of brain
damage (men living with a hole in their head). All this is evidence that
whatever forms our conscience is very redundant and just _might_ survive the
damage of what today is considered death and future restoration. Especially
with the help of whatever medical technology will be available in the future
(nanotech, hi-res brain scanning, etc.); especially if it would be needed
anyway to counter the damage sustained during cryopreservation.

~~~
wutbrodo
> People lose conscience and then regain it and live on all the time.

Do you mean "consciousness" here? I assumed you actually meant conscience at
first but this sentence doesn't seem to make sense with that word but then you
use consciousness later which means it isn't just a spelling error. I'm not
asking to be pedantic, but because I'm now getting confused about what you're
trying to say in parts of your otherwise interesting comment.

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TazeTSchnitzel
Has any living person ever had their heart intentionally stopped, been
cryonically frozen, defrosted, and revived?

Because if not, then we don't know if it works on people who aren't yet dead.
And if we can't do that, what hope do we have for reviving the actually dead?

(I'm aware in rare cases people have been massively cooled down and had their
heart stopped for operations, but that's not quite the same.)

~~~
philjohn
There's also some cases of people who's hearts had stopped after being caught
outside in sub-zero temperatures being successfully revived with no adverse
effects.

~~~
qohen
This isn't cryonics by any stretch, but doctors are seriously looking to put
gunshot victims into suspended animation by drastically cooling them down so
they can be worked on [0]:

 _When a shooting or stabbing victim goes into cardiac arrest due to massive
bleeding, even the most heroic attempts at resuscitation fail 90 percent of
the time. But a study to begin this month under the direction of Sam Tisherman
and Patrick Kochanek at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Presbyterian Hospital will see if there 's a better way: cooling the body
after the heart has stopped beating, to the point where all other functioning
virtually ceases as well.

By putting patients literally into a state of suspended animation—or
"emergency preservation," as Tisherman calls it—the surgeons intend to
preserve brain functioning long enough to close wounds that would otherwise be
fatal._

[0]
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/04/140402-suspe...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/04/140402-suspended-
animation-gunshot-victims-science-death/)

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dahart
Its impossible to imagine how hard it would be to lose a child, but I can
imagine why that state of mind makes even the remotest glimmer of hope for
reincarnation seem like a good idea.

I thought This American Life's episode on cryonics was riveting, educational
and fascinating.

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/354/m...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/354/mistakes-were-made)

~~~
DavideNL
i agree, this is tasteless and should be forbidden in my opinion, the only one
who should be able to decide if they want to be frozen and revived should be
the person themselves.

~~~
tim333
It's impractical with kids any more than you can ask them if they want to be
born.

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heapcity
Some might call them zygotes.

~~~
cba9
I was thinking that myself. Sperm, eggs, embryos - are these not vitrified
routinely?

Probably they mean youngest legal human, or youngest post-birth vitrification.

------
fsloth
How much does this cost?

~~~
listic
In this case, probably $80,000.

This is Alcor, the most established and expensive option. Their list prices
are $80,000 for neuro (brain only), $200,000 for whole body preservation [1]
There are various funding options. [2]

Cryonics Institute, the other US-based organization, charges $28,000 for full
body [3] (they don't offer neuro)

Russian KrioRus charges $12,000 for neuro and $36,000 for full body. [4]

NB: if the cost seems high, keep in mind that most of the money is supposed to
be held in trust for the cryonics patient so that income from principal can
pay for long-term storage. [5] History proved that it's the only way to
reliably and sustainably finance cyopreservation, potentially indefinitely.

I am not affiliated with any cryonics organization, just researching my
options.

[1] Alcor FAQ: Cost
[http://www.alcor.org/FAQs/faq01.html#cost](http://www.alcor.org/FAQs/faq01.html#cost)

[2] Alcor: Funding
[http://www.alcor.org/BecomeMember/sdfunding.htm](http://www.alcor.org/BecomeMember/sdfunding.htm)

[3] Cryonics Institute FAQs: [http://www.cryonics.org/about-
us/faqs](http://www.cryonics.org/about-us/faqs)

[4] KrioRus: Human cryopreservation [http://kriorus.ru/en/Human-
cryopreservation](http://kriorus.ru/en/Human-cryopreservation)

[5] Cryonics FAQ by by Ben Best
[http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/CryoFAQ.html#_IIIG_](http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/CryoFAQ.html#_IIIG_)

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Patronus_Charm
I can't imagine having to deal with this situation, loss of a child. However,
this all seems a bit silly.

------
unchocked
Spoiler: two years old.

