
A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future - sethbannon
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/us/cancer-immortality-cryogenics.html?_r=0
======
amalcon
Cryonics is one of those things that's hard to evaluate.

On the face of it, it seems insane. You're essentially making a bet that
someone will find something useful to do with a frozen brain -- and that your
estate will be able to afford the procedure -- before the company you've
entrusted your brain to either makes a mistake or collapses. Given the near-
total lack of progress on the former front (there's been considerable progress
in the freezing part, but almost none in finding a useful thing to do with a
frozen brain), the odds seem phenomenally bad.

On the other hand, it does offer something to those who are still alive: the
hope that your exstence could continue indefinitely, and that you might get to
be with lost loved ones again. This is a valuable hope, so much so that it's
built into most religions in some form or other. It's possible that the
benefit of this hope makes the costs worth bearing.

For now, I've left cryonics in my "not for me, but I won't try to discourage
anyone else" bucket.

~~~
WalterBright
Isn't it still the Star Trek Transporter problem? The future may be able to
revive a copy of you, that thinks it is you, but you'd still be dead.

~~~
loup-vaillant
Oh, that one's easy. At the state of current science, we're pretty much sure
that the Star Trek transporter doesn't kill the traveller. The "copy" is the
original, in fact. Basically, this is because we're kinda made of particles,
and the origin of the quarks you're made up of doesn't matter. As in, current
physics don't even have a notion of the identity of a particle.

The part where it gets weird is, if you don't destroy the "original", you end
up with two originals.

More ( _much_ more) details here:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/r9/quantum_mechanics_and_personal_id...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/r9/quantum_mechanics_and_personal_identity/)

~~~
WalterBright
> pretty much sure

Are you willing to risk your life on "pretty much sure" ? Especially when
there's no experiment you can devise to test it?

~~~
loup-vaillant
I'm not talking about interpretation of quantum mechanics here. Just standard
physics, of the kind we can test for — _did_ test for.

If the Star Trek transporter is shown to work (it has transported healthy
monkeys so far, and did nothing weird with flies), I would totally step on it.
I would feel uneasy of course, but no more so than if I stepped into a rocket.

------
ridgeguy
I view current cryonics as a bit like playing the lottery. If you don't play,
you will not win. If you do play, you have a minuscule but nonzero chance of
winning.

Over 30 years ago, I joined others to sit with a friend while he died way too
young. He had arranged for cryonic preservation. AFAIK, he's still chilling.
And he has a minuscule but nonzero chance of someday resuming his prematurely
interrupted life.

While that seems to me extremely unlikely to happen, I wonder if it felt just
as unlikely to somebody in the 3rd century that people would someday fly
through the air...or talk to a friend who was beyond shouting distance...or
live to 90 years of age...etc. We've sequenced DNA from dinosaurs, and 30
years ago I would have bet strongly against that.

I've learned to avoid underrating the power of exponential increments in
knowledge and capability.

~~~
dennisgorelik
I think lottery is a good analogy here.

1) Extremely low chances to win (if at all).

2) The change that the winner is going to regret being revived is quite high
(dysfunctional body, totally new environment, being a subject of historians'
research).

~~~
gboudrias
> being a subject of historians' research

I might be narcissistic but that seems like a good thing to me. Imagine being
able to tell future people what the present was _really_ like.

~~~
dennisgorelik
It is more likely to look like extracting bits of information from rat's brain
in a laboratory setting than as an interview.

Would you still like to try?

------
runewell
More power to her. I hope she awakens to a body and future that brings her
happiness.

------
JesperRavn
It's fascinating that this is so close to reality, at least in terms of
preserving the information that encodes our memories and identities.

Of course there is the issue of reviving the person, either biologically or
digitally. As computing power grows, I don't see any barrier to simulating an
entire human brain. Sure it will take time: according to this[0] and applying
Moore's law, it will take about 60 years before we can simulate a brain in
real time with a single machine.

This whole field makes me very uncomfortable. I'm not saying it's wrong, but
the potential for harm (particularly to those being simulated) is very great.
There's a Greg Egan story where reanimated humans live as "AI" characters a
game simulation, waiting for when society will wake up and grant them rights.

[0]
[http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/163051-simulating-1-secon...](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/163051-simulating-1-second-
of-human-brain-activity-takes-82944-processors)

~~~
lfam
Which Greg Egan story is that?

~~~
JesperRavn
I can't remember (possibly not Greg Egan). In case someone else knows, the
main plot is that the characters have to act as inhabitants of a primitive
village, in a computer game/simulation.

~~~
shabble
Probably neither of these (depending on your definition of primitive), but
they're interesting anyway:

The Cookie Monster[1] by Vernor Vinge

Glasshouse[2] by Charles Stross

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cookie_Monster_%28novella%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cookie_Monster_%28novella%29)
(WP link, contains spoilers)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasshouse_%28novel%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasshouse_%28novel%29)

------
salgernon
So, 10,000 years in the future they can revive you.

Apparently, we've decided that it has a hard problem to guarantee that we can
communicate with the future, even about really bad stuff:

[http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%...](http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%20message%20to%2012,000%20a_d.htm)

This is about warning the future about nuclear waste, but could be adopted to
"vault of frozen heads" (Assuming they haven't failed by then and there was
sufficient coolant.)

Sort of flip the opening sentences around: "This is a place of honor!"

------
eloff
The implications of your identity being copied into a new, improved body and
what that means when the original you is dead, or what happens when you get
copied more than once, etc are explored in depth in Jasper Scott's excellent
Dark Space series: [http://www.jaspertscott.com/p/dark-space-v-
avilon.html](http://www.jaspertscott.com/p/dark-space-v-avilon.html)

~~~
wfn
Also see Greg Egan's short story, "The Extra"
([http://eidolon.net/?story=The%20Extra](http://eidolon.net/?story=The%20Extra))
and others, e.g. "Closer"
([http://eidolon.net/?story=Closer](http://eidolon.net/?story=Closer))

~~~
danbmil99
Also see every f-in thing Greg Egan wrote. Then for fun try to google his
image.

------
ThomasBombadil
Consider the idea that this is a vector into the idea of machines being
possibly equally important, or considered even more important than living
humans, based on their capacity to accurately represent the continued presence
of deceased humans.

That a machine is permitted to occupy and consume resources, that might
otherwise be used by actual living people who are also trying to live
meaningful lives. Which one wins?

~~~
codecamper
no worries. The human emulator uses just 1% of a 2050 EC2 mini compute
instance.

~~~
sbilstein
The occasional stuttering is actually due to GC pauses.

~~~
toomuchtodo
That takes me back to Max Headroom!

~~~
coldtea
This thread takes me back to Reddit.

------
dennisgorelik
If you want to preserve your genes, then much more reliable way to do that is
to have kids.

If you want to preserve your ideas, then writing books, articles and public
comments on Internet is the way to go.

The chance of successful recovery of frozen dead brain after 100 years is very
close to zero (assuming that the recovery process was never tested). Kim
Suozzi's “1 or 2 percent chance” is extremely optimistic forecast.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
> The chance of successful recovery of frozen dead brain after 100 years is
> very close to zero (assuming that the recovery process was never tested).
> Kim Suozzi's “1 or 2 percent chance” is extremely optimistic forecast.

While it's impossible to predict whether you'll be able to be revived it
doesn't sit right with me that you, and many others, are making predictions
about how future medical technology will work. Honestly, if we can keep
progressing as quickly as we have been, it wouldn't surprise me that we
couldn't do it after X years but could do it after X + Y years. Meaning if at
some point we have the technology to start reviving people but can't do it
reliably then wait another Y amounts of years and there is a significantly
better chance.

Honestly, unless the brain is just completely ruined or something bad happens
to the handling of the brains, it wouldn't surprise me if they're all
eventually revivable. At this point we may be talking 200+ years away but
they're frozen, who cares?

~~~
dennisgorelik
Making predictions is the main way to test out theories.

> but they're frozen, who cares?

That is another problem with cryonics: why would future civilization care
about dead brains frozen 200 years ago?

Imagine that we already have technology that can unfreeze and revive people.
And we just found 100,000 frozen medieval people to unfreeze.

So for the same price we can either unfreeze and revive 100,000 people or we
can extend lives of 100,000 modern people who are facing terminal illness
today.

How many medieval people do you think we would unfreeze&revive given such
choice?

~~~
BinaryIdiot
> Making predictions is the main way to test out theories. Only if you can
> then test those predictions otherwise they're kinda useless beyond
> philosophical reasons.

> How many medieval people do you think we would unfreeze&revive given such
> choice?

That is a false choice; why are the resources constrained so that the choice
is between reviving 100,000 people or extending the lives of 100,000 people?
Arguably we should have more resources in the future than today, more
professionals, etc so why can't they do two things? Have we stopped scientific
research to the point where no one is concentrating on historic man or
reviving past humans?

People are curious, obviously we would do it. At the very least it would be
interesting science. Can we bring back people frozen 200 years ago? Who knows
until we try!

~~~
dennisgorelik
> why are the resources constrained

Because resources are always constrained. The only difference is the level of
constraint. Consider slightly modified choice: between "extending lives of 1M
modern people + revival of 0.1M medieval people" vs "extending lives of 1.1M
modern people".

Or another choice: "Revival of 1M medieval people" vs "producing 1M clones of
modern people".

Curiosity about history would make sure that some medieval people would be
revived. May be a thousand total. After that resources would be redirected
toward cloning best performing modern version of people.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
> Because resources are always constrained.

Today sure. Tomorrow? Probably. But if you subscribe to the Kardashev scale
then we'll likely become a type 2 or 3 civilization at which point I would
consider it very likely that we are resource constrained to the point where
this can't be done. I just don't think that would make sense.

When we become a type 1 we still might not have any real resource issues but
that's harder to predict. So why wouldn't we revive everyone at some point?
Seems silly to just let everyone thaw if we have the technology and resources
at some point.

~~~
dennisgorelik
Why revive old person if you can clone new person instead?

It does not really matter how much resources you have: if you have a lot, then
you clone a lot of modern people, but still ignore obsolete stuff.

------
reasonattlm
Some reading material for those interesting in the current state of cryonics
development and research, starting with an overview and moving on. Modern
cryopreservation aims for vitrification, not freezing.

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

[http://alcor.org/sciencefaq.htm](http://alcor.org/sciencefaq.htm)

[http://www.brainpreservation.org/competitors/](http://www.brainpreservation.org/competitors/)

The evidence assembled to date provides a reasonable expectation that the fine
structure of the brain responsible for storing the data of the mind is
preserved by vitrification, based on scanning electron microscopy and current
best understanding of where that data is encoded.

There are a few organizations that span the intersection between organ
preservation and cryonics, such as 21st Century Medicine. The focus there is
on reversible vitrification, such as the paper linked below in which a rabbit
kidney is vitrified, restored, and implanted.

[http://www.21cm.com/](http://www.21cm.com/)

[http://www.21cm.com/pdfs/12FahyORG5-3%5b1%5d.pdf](http://www.21cm.com/pdfs/12FahyORG5-3%5b1%5d.pdf)

There is a sizable fraction of the futurist community who approach cryonics
with the pattern identity view of being satisfied with a copy of their mind
running in emulation at some point in the future, the original vitrified
substrate then discarded. Not very satisfying from the continuity identity
perspective; a copy of you is not you. I'd be stipulating a restoration of the
original tissues; probably a harder problem, but one that can be understood
and foreseen. Advanced molecular nanotechnology and complete control over
cellular biology would be requirements, for example, but that looks like being
feasible later this century, just like the process of scanning and emulation.

The madness of it all is that cryonics is very plausible and could be far more
cost-effective at volume. Yet no-one cares. Just like the problems encountered
in trying to persuade anyone that working on rejuvenation biotechnology for
indefinite healthy life spans is a good plan, in the matter of cryonics the
population world is content to slow-walk off the cliff of aging and death
without doing anything about it. There is no status quo so terrible that it
won't be embraced and defended. Billions are lost to oblivion in an age in
which the technological capabilities exist to prevent the overwhelming
majority of those deaths. And no-one cares. The future will look on us as
suicidal, ignorant barbarians, and rightly so.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
_Not very satisfying from the continuity identity perspective; a copy of you
is not you._

Neither are you, you you from yesterday or the day before - conscious
continuity is illusory. How do you know that your body isn't replaced with a
new copy each night (thought experiment)?

 _restoration of the original tissues...Advanced molecular nanotechnology and
complete control over cellular biology_

You run into a Ship of Theseus problem with this approach, which gets back to
your original qualia problem.

The biological body is not made to last - you'll need to be converted to
something more durable if you want an unbroken conscious experience longer
than ~100 years.

~~~
analog31
_Neither are you, you you from yesterday or the day before - conscious
continuity is illusory. How do you know that your body isn 't replaced with a
new copy each night (thought experiment)?_

Because the workmanship keeps getting worse and worse. ;-)

~~~
ChrisClark
The copy process isn't perfect. There is a bit of corruption each time, that
limits most people to less than 100 years of copies.

------
primitivesuave
Black Mirror (on Netflix) has a powerful interpretation on the implications of
digital reanimation in Season 2 Episode 1, "Be Right Back", although the
digital representation of the deceased human is created by an AI that reads
all of the person's digital information (social media, emails, videos, etc)
and emulates them.

~~~
grondilu
There's a real world company that offers this service:

[https://www.eter9.com/](https://www.eter9.com/)

~~~
pavlov
Is that a real company? The copy sounds like it could be a viral marketing
campaign for a movie.

------
anti-shill
In order to be a good Christian and receive the eternal life promised in the
Bible, you must be a cryonicist.

At least that is the case according to this blog:

[http://churchofthebetterresurrection.blogspot.com/](http://churchofthebetterresurrection.blogspot.com/)

------
eevilspock
With all the suffering, injustice, unequal opportunity and privilege in the
world, this to me is the epitome of narcissism and selfishness.

Would you donate to this rather than to social services for, for example,
thousands of homeless children in New York City alone?

~~~
13thLetter
Why are you spending your time posting on Hacker News when you could be
rescuing babies?

~~~
eevilspock
I've devoted my life to working for a better world for all. I quit my 6-figure
job years ago to work on solutions or ways to convince others to work on
solutions. I spend time on Hacker News because I'm trying to use my tech
skills for these aims, to be a voice in a tech culture that is too prone to
callousness (such as yours) and simplisitic notions that the free-market
solves all.

Why do you have to be mean? My comment wasn't mean, it was a criticism of the
direction of our culture. Social progress doesn't happen without critique.

I find it ironic that I'm being downvoted for speaking a valid but un-PC
thought in a community that normally complains about the ills of political
correctness.

------
dominotw
Why are we so scared of death, to be nothing. Why do we have to cling on to
someone's memories,is it because it gives some sense of security?

It is just bizarre to reduce the beauty of life to some some little affair of
holding on to someone's memories.

Death is as beautiful as birth. We should break past the ridiculous taboos
surrounding death and discuss it openly as to what it means to die.

Edit: Jiddu K on death,
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_OzCrmqxRE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_OzCrmqxRE)

~~~
dghughes
What about medicine if you say death is good why postpone it by eating well,
taking medicine and being safe?

I don't see why we humans should die I think if all science put their efforts
together (as done in world wars) we could extend human life quite a bit.

The only concern I have is the difference in culture for example imagine a 20
year old versus a person 200 years old. Even today the generation gap between
20 and 40 is big and causes problems when interacting even just music alone as
one example.

~~~
rue
If music is the biggest generational gap when I’m 200, I’ll be pretty content
with things.

~~~
dghughes
Just an example ;)

(But really I bet wars could be fought over it, Bieber vs The Eagles)

