[ekianjo]

You can basically say that anyone living 500 years ago would say "there is zero chance" that what we take for granted today exists at all. Look at the technological achievements of even the past 50 years, most of it could hardly be predicted.

[ohazi]

There's a pretty big difference between the statements:

"We are likely to have life extending and resuscitation technologies in 500 years that are better than what we have today."

and

"The dead rich people in these particular vats of antifreeze have any more than a snowball's chance in hell at being successfully resuscitated."

I think the parent's analysis is correct. Your statements, while also correct, don't really refute the issues pointed out by the parent.

[garmaine]

It didn't point out any issues... it just made the unsubstantiated claim that a cryonics patient has no chance of ever being revived.

It IS physically possible to revive cryonics patients--as in the laws of physics would permit it, even if we don't have anything near the technology required, yet. This isn't a bold claim but rather a statement of fact with respect to information preservation of the vitrification process, and long-term storage at cryogenic temperatures, both of which are well studied in the context of things like organ donor preservation.

So if you're claiming that cryonics has "a snowball's chance in hell" of working, then I presume that either you are (1) ignorant of the science, or (2) making some sort of statement about long-term storage prospects or the credibility of the organizations involved.

But neither you nor the grandparent actually made any specific claims.

[daeken]

> So if you're claiming that cryonics has "a snowball's chance in hell" of working, then I presume that either you are (1) ignorant of the science, or (2) making some sort of statement about long-term storage prospects or the credibility of the organizations involved.

I'm signed up to be a cryonics patient when I die, but yeah, the chances are pretty much nil. Personally, I'll take a slightly diminished bank account and a potentially non-zero percent chance of further life over a zero percent chance, but I won't delude myself into thinking that there's effectively any chance of success here.

[mehrdadn]

What I don't understand about this logic is, how do you have any confidence that if by some miracle you were brought back to conscious life again, your life wouldn't be an absolute living hell (organ damage, paralysis, etc.)? Like even if you had infinite money and resources to spend on whatever you wanted, would that risk be sitll worth it to you?

[TeMPOraL]

You don't. You can only hope that a) future people won't revive you unless they're somewhat confident it'll leave you better off than you were when frozen, and b) worst comes to worst, they can still euthanize you.

Cryonics is ultimately a bet on future technology and future humanity.

[nwatson]

Future people will use the frozen as a resource. I would buy a 2139-October call option on 100-frozen-hopefuls ... that's when I estimate techniques for revival will be viable and when legal hurdles to mass exploitation will be overcome. In 120 years nobody will care about your intentions in being frozen.

[chimprich]

It seems unlikely to me that we'd acquire the ability to revive a brain from death before the state of medical technology advances sufficiently to repair nerve damage or regenerate organs. You could put a kind of guarantee into this by only having your head or brain preserved, so the minimum viable tech level for resurrection would be regrowing a body.

I'd be more concerned with the emotional and mental challenges of being revived centuries hence, which would be considerable to say the least.

[lurquer]

There's nothing new about all this...

Tutankhaman will tell you what to expect when you use cutting-edge technology and preservation techniques in the hopes of some future civilization reviving you.... you'll end up under glass in a Museum. Hell, nobody even TRIED to revive King Tut... you think they'll put much effort into a bunch of anti-freeze saturated popsicles? Seriously doubt it.

[ekianjo]

If you look far enough in the future it is probably feasible to engineer organs in the long run, or who knows maybe full bodies?

[jfk13]

> a statement of fact with respect to information preservation of the vitrification process

That's not a statement of fact, it's a statement of belief. Personally, I think it's highly unlikely that any current vitrification process preserves sufficient information for the patient to be revived. We're nowhere near even understanding what "sufficient information" would be, let alone how to preserve it.

[hutzlibu]

The thing is .. it is more about biology than physics.

You can flush water pipes with whatever you want and clean and rewater it. A complex organism like the human body - and the brain, we still dont really understand?

Not likely. Maybe not 0 chance in SciFi future, but still not likely.

[nradov]

Actually it is physically impossible to revive cryonics patients because essential information has been irretrievably lost. I don't think you understand the physics (or biology) here.

[garmaine]

What information?

[bduerst]

By this logic, we don't even need to freeze the body. Simply opt in to being resimulated later, since the technology will exist "some day".

[jerf]

A lot of "cryonically-frozen" people are only their heads, since it's been well-known for a while that there's no way to unfreeze the bodies. I suspect it may literally be easier to scan their brains than to unfreeze them, even if they were healthier to begin with. That's not a statement of my belief in the ease of scanning a brain; it's a statement of my belief in just how hard it is to "thaw" a body and get anything back. I'd say it's like getting handed a pile of slag and told to turn it back into a working engine, except that task is multiple orders of magnitude easier.

[bduerst]

But that's my point, why even bother freezing the brain, if simply waiting a few centuries more of tech progress will mean you don't even need the brain to be consciously brought back?

It's just replacing the faith in one omnipotent's afterlife with another.

[garmaine]

How would that work? Future technology, no matter how advanced, would still require the information in your brain to simulate you. The point of cronics is to preserve that information.

[jfk13]

But currently we don't know what "information in your brain" would be required, so it's a huge leap of faith to suppose that cryonics is successfully preserving it.

(That's supposing "information in your brain" would even be sufficient by itself. Another leap of faith.)

[garmaine]

The connectome. Your identity is encoded in the neural network of your brain, which is preserved in vitrification. I don’t know why this is controversial.

[bduerst]

Just simulate the entire universe and pluck the brain structure of the person you're trying to bring back into reality.

You're missing the point though. These solutions entirely rely on future technology development being the omnipotence that gives you afterlife.

[jerf]

That seems more to be an assumption you're bringing in, rather than others. There's a huge gulf between "technology that can read the structure of the brain and recreate it" (which seems to be something merely lacking in know-how and tech, but with no fundamentally-impossible steps), and "simulate the entire universe as-is, in situ, and assume it's 100% accurate, and pluck people out of it" (a la https://qntm.org/responsibility), which seems outright impossible as no system can simulate itself fully. I'm honestly having trouble wrapping my head around how you're both managing to insist on the latter being the only possibility while simultaneously telling people that it's a bad assumption.

[garmaine]

You’re assuming magic.

[infinisil]

However, this won't bring you back, it will just bring back a clone that is exactly like you.

[ljm]

Suppose we get solid evidence that reincarnation is real. Or even just imagine that it is.

Being held in stasis for an unknown length of times seems like utter hell compared to moving on to your next life.

In that sense, a clone is preferable, but maybe not for the new consciousness inhabiting it.

[bduerst]

Of course it will bring me back. It's my consciousness, just sans the biological CPU.

[ekianjo]

If it were true then it means being you can be duplicated ad infinitum and therefore you have no personality on your own. I done think we have a good answer to that.