Your thoughts on cryogenic freezing

[AaronYoq]

What do you guys think of cryonics? I for one think it's a pretty interesting idea. I've been reading some information at Alcor: Life Extension Foundation recently and I'm actually thinking about signing up. I'm fairly young--20--so an insurance policy to cover the costs would be less than $10 a month. It seems like a cheap price for a chance at living possibly far into the future if something happens and I die at a young age. Some of the new technology they use for neuro preservation, like vitrification, sounds pretty advanced. It seems to be light years ahead of simply freezing something to prevent cellular damage. I know this isn't for everybody, and the technology today is nowhere near being able to bring someone back, but I believe it could get there someday.

 

What do you think?

 

[quosego]

Well, it depends if you would stuff yourself in a freezer you will not get out there alife. But If you would use hightech cryogenics you might have a change, cryogenics is a lot more complicated than just keeping your freezer cold. Freezing your body litteraly wrecks havoc in your body and is therfore not a very smart idea.. But those techniques you describe sound promising, maybe I shoudl signup too. It would be awesome to life in the future.

 

 

 

[philly]

Someday but not today. Bsides why would you want to be frozen, an rethawed, i personally dislike freezer burn. LoL.

 

But yea it may help if you needed a cure for something that isnt available today, or simply if you wanted to take a vacation into the future.

[Taleitha]

Cryogenics is a great concept, one that I'd like to take advantage of. Except for one issue...

 

I found this out in my first degree (neuropsychology): Cryogenics involves the rapid freezing of tissue, to preserve the tissue exactly as it is without any damage. The rapid freezing ensures that the water in the cells of the body doesn't expand too rapidly as it freezes (this is done by various methods, usually a change in pressure differentials)

 

one problem: the water in the body's cells DOES expand slightly. Most cells can handle this due to stretching, EXCEPT the brain. The cells of the brain are so small and inelastic that even that slight expansion of the water molecules as they freeze is sufficient to rupture most of the brain tissue.

 

So yes, they can defrost you and wake you up, but you'll probably have the intellectual abilities of a large squash.

 

When they fix that, then I'll probably sign myself up for it.

[AaronYoq]

Well that was a problem, but you haven't learned much about vitrification. Freezing damage of cells is is due to the formation of ice crystals. In vitrification, a cryo protectant is used to make water harden like glass, without any crystal formation. No longer does being frozen mean that you have to sustain cell damage.

[thefirstdude]

Well, not to take this topid in a different direction, but in the Star Trek: TNG episode (I think it was called Relics) they recover people who were cryogenically frozen and sent into space. Cryogenics were talked about as a fad that went out of style in the 2020's. I guess we'll just have to wait and find out, won't we.

 

But in theory it is a good (and bad) idea. It is good in that indeed people could theoretically live for thousands, even millions of years until they are thawed. It is bad in that when a person is woken up, even if only ten years later, even if only one month later, there will be a long period of disorientation (obviously longer relative to the length of the freezing), which could screw up many things. So I think it will, as predicted in Star Trek, go out of style in about 20 years, once the technology has advanced to a point where it is useful.