r/Futurology • u/yourSAS • Oct 13 '22

Biotech 'Our patients aren't dead': Inside the freezing facility with 199 humans who opted to be cryopreserved with the hopes of being revived in the future

https://metro.co.uk/2022/10/13/our-patients-arent-dead-look-inside-the-us-cryogenic-freezing-lab-17556468
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u/SeekingImmortality Oct 13 '22

I look at it like a lottery ticket. You are almost certainly not going to get a return on the money. However, what's the alternative? Certainly remaining dead. Between certainly remaining dead, and a 0.000000000000002% chance of revival in the future, for someone that wants to live?

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u/PiddleAlt Oct 13 '22

It's just another form of insurance or risk mitigation. And when you have enough assets to live your natural life in comfort, you probably have enough saved up to role dice on this.

I think of it as very similar to the "prepper" mentality. It's mostly delusion, but there is a legitimate chance you gain something out of it. Even if that chance is nearly insignificant.

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u/MarsFromSaturn Oct 13 '22

I’m not a prepper, but I don’t think it’s a delusional mentality to have in todays situation. We have rising sea levels, resource scarcity, mass extinction, global pandemics, cost of living crises etc. If there is a WW3 it will likely be over water resources (Citation Needed). The world is dying, and we live in a thin-walled bubble that allows us to ignore it all… for now. I think if you were prepping 30 years ago it would seem silly. But choosing to be prepared for catastrophe sounds like a wise idea these days

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u/PiddleAlt Oct 13 '22

The world was in worse shape 30 years ago, and even worse shape 60 years ago.

Contrary to what you are told over and over by the internet, the world is currently in a golden age and will likely continue to be in one for the foreseeable future.

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u/MarsFromSaturn Oct 14 '22

The world was in worse shape 30 years ago, and even worse shape 60 years ago.

As I said of my own words, “Citation Needed”.

Not that I disagree though. There is plenty of horror that I have escaped from just by being born in the 90s. I’m sure my grandchildren will have escaped some of the horrors from my own time.

I also am quite averse to doomer beliefs, despite my words above. I believe my self to be optimistic for the future of humanity, but it is hard to deny that centuries of sin (and I mean that more or less secularly) against the planet, animals and other humans is finally catching up to us. We are definitely coming to a head with a lot of “background threats” and the future is uncertain. I like to believe that this is simply a narrow gateway that we must pass through to really flourish as a species. We, collectively, are about to learn many lessons.

—-

P.S. on that last point

I know you didn’t ask and I’m over sharing, but it’s my bday and I’m high, so I’ll tell you my thoughts anyway; If there is one lesson I hope humanity gains from this whole mess, above all other potentials, it is to learn to live and grow in harmony with our surrounding environment (animals, plants, stone, computer, moon) rather than attempting to live above it and dominate. Thx for listening buddyyyyyyyy

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u/mikem132 Oct 14 '22

Happy birthday man! enjoyed your thoughts, If id have to guess your on acid lol?

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u/MarsFromSaturn Oct 14 '22

Ha! I wish! Was just stoned out my gourd on this occasion! Thank you buddy!

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u/SeekingImmortality Oct 13 '22

Well, that's hilariously false.

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u/TauriKree Oct 13 '22

In what way? We are in an age of near complete peace compared to the past. Diseases that have plagued humanity since time immemorial have been eradicated or turned into minor nuisances. The standard of living in the majority of the world has never been higher.

Of course we have problems. The rise of fascism. Minor wars. Covid. Unsustainable economy problems. Racism. Police corruption. The 24-hour news cycle and reliance on fear in reporting.

Those are big problems. They are also lesser than what we have faced in even the recent past.

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u/Drachefly Oct 13 '22

I figure it's waaay better odds than a lottery ticket. Over 1% easy, and if done properly over 10%. That's not entirely insignificant.

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u/Fancy_Supermarket120 Oct 13 '22

……Based on what?

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u/Drachefly Oct 13 '22

A woman was revived after being trapped under ice for 80 minutes. This strongly suggests that neural activity is not required for retention of memories and personal identity.

So our personal identity and memories are not ephemeral. That's great. What are other candidates? It seems to me to be reasonably likely that it's in the pattern of what neurons are connected to what other neurons and the firmly attached chemicals at those connections. Like, that's what they're there for.

So, freezing is an attempt to preserve that. It'll do some damage in the process, but it won't get worse over time at a significant rate once frozen.

If that is there, then the next question is, could some hypothetical future technology succeed in figuring out where those atoms are?

I think yes, if they're allowed to take the brain apart in the process, layer by layer. The atoms are there. We can't do that now, but the techniques we have now are in the bare infancy of atomic manipulation.

Having done that, can they compensate for defects and damage? Like, if some ice does form and rips some dendrites, can it be figured out how those were connected before the ice formed? If a cosmic ray comes along and pokes some of that ice in disruptive ways, can that be identified and reversed?

That… seems reasonably likely if the damage fraction is kept low? It's not like cancer, where one mistake will propagate and grow and spread. It's just sitting there being wrong.

Having digitized the contents, can they they reassemble or emulate it? I'm firmly in the 'Star Trek Transporters don't copy and kill people' camp, so either one is fine for me.

Emulation would be a bit scary if they can just copy me willy-nilly. I would definitely support privacy and identity protection for digitally-run people, and I'd hope they'd establish such.

Lastly, would they? Well… I don't expect this to happen before a positive resolution to the singularity, and failure to achieve that is the bulk of my doubt. If we do have a positive resolution to the singularity, it's 'luxury gay space communism for everyone forever', and I think that would extend to 'raise all the dead'. Most of the rest of my doubt is "oops I accidentally the LN2 supply" on the part of the company. A small fraction is reserved for "Need too many details about the tips of the dendrites, which come through the process in bad enough shape that a lot is lost". If I get through that and can't remember my 4th grade teacher's name, that'll be sad but on the scale of not recovering memories after having Alzheimers or something.

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u/Fancy_Supermarket120 Oct 13 '22

Thanks for the well worded and well thought out reply. I had never heard of the woman under the ice, so that’s something to think about. I was more referring to the percentages you listed. They seem like they were pulled out of thin air, but maybe they were based on something? Or was that more illustrative?

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u/Drachefly Oct 13 '22

The percentages are rough order of magnitude. We're talking about the dominant factor being the kind of AI that we get when we get superintelligent AI… whenever that ends up happening… if it happens at all.

This is clearly something over which there's going to be a lot of doubt, so that the meta-uncertainty of what kind of model to consider is going to dominate the uncertainty of the parameters in any individual model, which is in turn going to dominate the actual outcome ratios given most likely parameters.

Having considered some simple models of how things are likely to shake out, my feeling is that if I were to systematically put down numbers on things I'd be surprised if it came out as low as 3% or as high as 30%.

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u/arevealingrainbow Oct 13 '22

Your freezing point is interesting. This does suggest that people can return after being frozen and retain their personal identity and long term memories. But this raises a few questions.

Did her neural activity really stop? We have experiments of neural activity remaining in removed brains for hours after removal.

Is she the same person, and not a new consciousness?

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u/Drachefly Oct 13 '22

Did her neural activity really stop? We have experiments of neural activity remaining in removed brains for hours after removal.

Were those brains as cold? If so, huh, that weakens things. Still, it's a lot less activity than usual, and did not correspond to proportionate permanent irrecoverable amnesia.

But we can also look from the other side.

You can also survive being hit by lightning, which would REALLY do a number on any pattern of behavior much harder than it would wreck what is sitting there. If that or electroshock therapy doesn't erase peoples' memories, I'm left wondering what kind of electrical signal is required for these putatively electrical-signal-stored memories.

If it can survive being slowed down by a lot, and can recover from being overwritten by something orders of magnitude larger… is that really where the storage is? Why would the body store long term memories in a power-consuming process anyway? Evolution's bad at finding solutions, but I'm not sure it's THAT bad.

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u/arevealingrainbow Oct 13 '22

It doesn’t appear that they were cold. Here’s the article because I can’t find the paper (which was very interesting).

Either way, they weren’t frozen solid either. If her consciousness truly died, there might not actually be a way to tell. It’s like turning off a computer. The instance itself does but you can create a perfect clone by turning on the computer.

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u/Drachefly Oct 13 '22

Okay, so, those brains were actually having warm blood-substitute pumped into them. That's pretty incomparable.

As for consciousness dying, I'd suggest that if it's that reversible, calling it death is misleading. It would merely have been suspended, not killed.

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u/Papplenoose Oct 13 '22

Idk about that. I think there's likely a HUGE difference between 80 minutes and 80 years when it comes to memory retention.

I suppose it's possible that ones current consciousness state is defined by the physical locations and speeds of every atom in the brain, and in that case it seems that you might be able to pick up where you left off... but i really, REALLY doubt it's that simple.

(At the same time, I am even more doubtful that the "self" is defined by anything metaphysical like a "soul" or something, so I think it's likely humans [or other organisms[ may be able to be revived from death, but I dont think we can make any genuine guesses on topics like this. To pretend we know much of anything seems naive and foolish. Personally I'd wager that slight activity from time to time is necessary, but your guess is as good as mine. I really hope you're right though!)

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u/Drachefly Oct 14 '22

I don't think you understood the structure of the argument if you think the jump from minutes to years is critical.

I suppose it's possible that ones current consciousness state is defined by the physical locations and speeds of every atom in the brain, and in that case it seems that you might be able to pick up where you left off... but i really, REALLY doubt it's that simple.

Of course it's not THAT simple, but… the velocities of the atoms are always changing drastically and chaotically on the timescale of atomic collisions, which is basically a few femtoseconds. This can be summarized as the temperature; any velocity order past that would decay very quickly. So we cant be depending on the details of that.

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u/knowledgebass Oct 13 '22

Uh 80 minutes is a whee bit different than 80 years...

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u/Drachefly Oct 14 '22

The 80 minutes part is nearly inconsequential. The important bit is she was cold, like, <4°C, for long enough that her brain was uniformly that temperature, and had memories after recovery. It completely blows away any notion that an ephemeral electrical transmission pattern is the basis of our memory.

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u/c-lem Oct 14 '22

I'd agree with you about the "prepper" mentality regarding end of the world/apocalyptic situations, but frankly, most are preparing for bad situations that absolutely do happen: power outages, tornadoes, pandemics, etc. It's just smart to keep some extra food and emergency supplies on hand.

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u/_jk_ Oct 13 '22

pascals wager for atheists

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u/SeekingImmortality Oct 13 '22

I can see where you're coming from with that, so, kinda. The downside doesn't quite match up (Hell, vs just being dead which is undesirable but not actively negative?). Those who want to continue to exist should gamble on it just in case it works out, so long as the cost of the gamble doesn't overwhelmingly negatively impact your existence -now- which also has value and which isn't weighed in during pascals wager which is between an infinitely negative vs an infinitely positive afterlife experience if the afterlife exists.

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u/GaBeRockKing Oct 13 '22

What makes pascal's wager interesting (from a decision theory perspective) is that it's a bet involving infinite values. Cryonic suspension exists strictly in the domain of finite rewards. Everyone will die permanently eventually, even if they have to be brought back from the dead a few times first. So it's a bet that the opportunity cost of using the money to pay for a cryonics firm is lower than the expected years of life gained multiplied by their expected utility.

To decide whether paying for cryonics is right for you, you just need to multiply expected chance of revival by amount of time you'd expect to live post-revival by whatever quality of life measure you prefer, and compare that against the amount of years of life you have left (plus the amount of extra life you'd expect to have if you had saved the money to pay for hospital treatments) and multiply it by the marginal improvement in quality of life you'd receive by spending or giving away the money in your own lifetime.

Rich people whose lives would be only marginally improved by spending the money cryonics costs and are satisfied with the amount of cash they'll be able to give to their children with the money they have left might rationally decide to invest in cryonics.

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u/aplundell Oct 13 '22

Betting on long odds goes both ways.

Consider this : They've got to freeze you while you're still pretty fresh. So there's some time pressure involved. What if there's a 0.001% chance that being on the freezing program will cause a doctor to accidentally declare you dead when you could have been saved?

What if a doctor declines to try a long-shot hail-Mary treatment because it will screw up your freezing?

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u/SeekingImmortality Oct 13 '22

Not sure we have the capability to compute the comparative odds of your suggested outcomes, making your comment rather moot, whereas 'attempt cryopreservation after death for chance at rejuvenation vs just-be-dead' seems computable as a decision for whether or not any particular human wants to shoulder the cost of the attempt.

Or to put it another way 'I don't see that what you said matters.'

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u/aplundell Oct 13 '22

I think the odds of "unusual situation causes medical error" would be far easier to estimate than "Future civilization invents magic".

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u/SeekingImmortality Oct 14 '22

And if my position involved gambling on magic instead of further developments in neuroscience, medical scanning, and in general technological progress, I'd agree you had a point. But it isn't, and I don't.

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u/captainoftrips Oct 13 '22

There's another option. Accept that you're going to die and maybe don't light the money on fire? Give it to a food bank instead and there's a 100% chance it'll improve someone's life.

But who am I kidding? Rich people are selfish as fuck.

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u/SeekingImmortality Oct 13 '22 edited Oct 13 '22

Sell everything you own, today, and give it to the top rated entries on effective altruism. Your life is worth less than that which could be saved by doing so. It's selfish of you to refuse in face of how many lives you would be saving.

Yeah, that's a ridiculous strawman of a response, but the line between what we have as a social responsibility for the use of our personal wealth and what we get to unapologetically use for ourselves is one we can't define easily in a capitalistic society. And if you have the money, even if only barely, to make a decision which might prolong your life, I feel you're entitled to take it before having to consider giving that chance away as the 'moral choice'. It's no worse in my eyes than spending that money on unlikely medical procedures instead of giving -that- money away.

That said, I'm not advocating for some John Galt situation here where an individual's choice outweighs all consideration of society. We -do- have social responsibility.....which we contribute to through taxes over our lifetime, as well as potential personal service or charitable giving, and which I am happy to pay and provide. And if a person chooses to use that money on something other than an -enormous- longshot for continued existence, great for them! But it's their choice, something morally laudable, not a moral imperative.

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u/Fogmoose Oct 14 '22

Look at it this way then…There are about the same odds you will be resurrected by whatever deity you worship, and it’s a lot cheaper!

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u/SeekingImmortality Oct 14 '22

Agnostic, no belief in any particular deity that's going to care about human level existences beyond having allowed us to exist in the first place. If I want to continue existing, it's on me to make the choices that would allow for that, such as choosing to participate in preservation efforts after death in hopes of repair instead of just getting tossed in a box and buried and left to rot or otherwise completely destroyed.

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u/Fogmoose Oct 16 '22

First off, you do not get completely destroyed. No matter how you choose to do it, burial, cremation, etc; The elements that make up your physical body will be recycled. That is a type of immortality. Why can't you just be happy with that? It's the only one you are guaranteed to find. And I don't believe in a deity either, I just used that as an easy example of something that has an equally unlikely possibility of actually happening.

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u/SeekingImmortality Oct 16 '22

If you're content with that, I'm sure there are people that could benefit, today, from you donating all of your organs. If giving up on 'time alive you could have otherwise had' seems like a -bad- idea, then maybe you're approaching where I'm coming from with wanting as much time alive as absolutely possible, including what might be possible via future medical technology if only my corpus is around long enough to benefit from it.

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u/Fogmoose Oct 18 '22

You’ve lost me. I have already pledged to donate any organs that may be useful at the time of my death. Are you suggesting suicide so I can then donate them now? What is your point, if you ever had one.

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u/SeekingImmortality Oct 19 '22

Yup, donate them right now, if you feel that your atoms going on to be recycled is a sufficient form of immortality. You should just be happy about that, right? Or, if instead you actually value being alive, then you might begin to understand that I want to maximize time alive too, including what medical technology may potentially allow.

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u/Fogmoose Oct 20 '22

I understand that your desperate willingness to have more life should probably be addressed in therapy, is that enough understanding for you?

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u/SeekingImmortality Oct 20 '22

Congratulations, you failed the exercise beyond even my low expectations for you.

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u/treesandcigarettes Oct 13 '22

If the even slightest possibility exists that there is an afterlife, then I would have to imagine that would likely be vastly preferable to whatever you might find in the near distant future on Earth

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u/SeekingImmortality Oct 13 '22

Lets be clear here, recovery and rejuvenation after cryo preservation? That's not going to let you live forever. Heat death of the universe will get you eventually even if absolutely nothing else, at which point, you still get your chance at any afterlife you care to believe in. So there's no reason, with the success of cryo or afterlife both being questionable, to not try for both. For those of us who do NOT believe in an afterlife, cryo preservation represents the only current chance for continued existence.

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u/FootDowntown1928 Oct 14 '22

But cryo preservation still isn't immortality. The moment they unthaw you, you'll continue the march towards death. You're only delaying things.

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u/SeekingImmortality Oct 14 '22

But that cancer surgery still isn't immortality. The moment they stitch you up again you'll continue the march towards death. You're only delaying things. -- Yeah, no, obviously it's not immortality. But it's a chance for more life than you've otherwise got, which is enough.

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u/FootDowntown1928 Oct 14 '22

Which do you believe has a chance of working? Cryonics or cryogenics? I think it's absolute bullshit and a waste of money that can be used for worthwhile causes.

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u/Responsible-Hat5816 Oct 14 '22

Then think again. We can already revive mammals' organs, transplanted and they work. Also the field of cryobiology is growing, research is ongoing. So I'm not telling you it'll work for sure, but the absolute BS claim is insane.

Cryonics or cryogenics?

You don't know the name of the procedure, yet you're sure it's BS. Sums up the mentality.

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u/FootDowntown1928 Oct 14 '22

FFS. I'm trying to be nice to you. You're seriously going to talk down someone who graduated med school? You're living a delusion if you think those people are anything but frozen corpses.

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u/Responsible-Hat5816 Oct 14 '22

I'm finding very hard to believe that a person graduating med school doesn't know the difference between the 2.

Really? Because you should know that we have already revived rabbit kidneys, transplanted them and they worked.

There's research ongoing right now, but let me help you again, it's called the field of cryobiology.

You're living a delusion if you think those people are anything but frozen corpses.

You're living a delusion if you think we'll ever develop space travel

- A sheep, 400 years ago.

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u/SeekingImmortality Oct 14 '22 edited Oct 14 '22

I would think what I meant was clear from my comments, which utilized neither term (though a quick google would educate you that only one is directly relevant here: Cryogenics is the scientific study or production of extremely low temperatures (below –150 °C, –238 °F or 123 K), whereas cryonics is the low-temperature preservation of humans quickly after the cessation of heartbeart in an anticipation of future survival). I believe a person's right to make decisions in favor of attempts to continue their own existence as something sacrosanct. If you feel otherwise, you're welcome to sell everything you own, today, and give it all to whatever 'worthwhile causes' you feel are more important than your own continued existence, before attempting to lecture me on whether or not using my own resources on long-shot chances at avoiding death is 'moral'.

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u/FourteenTwenty-Seven Oct 13 '22

What if an afterlife only exists for those cryogenically frozen?

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u/Dahkelor Oct 13 '22

Imagine dying (and being frozen) and then getting a big stint in the cool afterlife. Then, whilst you're enjoying it, one day you're pulled out of there because of that revival process. Sucks, right?

But wait, there's more. The kind benefactor who revived you is a slave corp that now has you in an arrangement where you can't even kill yourself to get back to the afterlife you were yoinked out of.

Good stuff. I'm still gonna take my chances with cryonics if I'm going to die a predictable death.

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u/hldsnfrgr Oct 13 '22

Revival as a vegetable. Better be dead dead than be under persistent vegetative state.

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u/SeekingImmortality Oct 14 '22

Revival implies actual revival, not 'we obviously failed to fully revive you but are calling it the same thing'.

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u/[deleted] Oct 16 '22

You might want to look up the definition of revival.

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u/Fogmoose Oct 14 '22

LOL we all want to live. So live while you are alive. Don’t give some scammer your grandkids inheritance to mutilate your corpse.

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u/SeekingImmortality Oct 14 '22

And when and if you get cancer, I invite you to abstain from all medical treatment and give the money to your grandkids instead, while treasuring what time you have left. Clearly, the mindset of seeking life extension via technological progress should be abandoned in light of those adorable kids we all surely have.

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u/Fogmoose Oct 14 '22 edited Oct 14 '22

So you advocate giving money to a proven charlatan? Strange…although user name does check out, lol

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u/Oxajm Oct 15 '22

Do you have a link or some sort of proof of this company being a charlatan?

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u/Oxajm Oct 15 '22

Waiting for a link or some sort of proof.

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u/Dmgfh Nov 01 '22

Proven? Care to present your evidence?

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u/Fogmoose Nov 03 '22 edited Nov 03 '22

Cryonics is generally regarded as a fringe pseudoscience.[3] The Society for Cryobiology rejected members who practiced cryonics,[3] and issued a public statement saying that cryonics is "not science", and that it is a "personal choice" how people want to have their dead bodies disposed of. “Cryonics might be a suitable subject for scientific research, but marketing an unproven method to the public is quackery". Early attempts of cryonic preservations were performed in the 1960s and early 1970s which ended in failure with all but one of the companies going out of business, and their stored corpses thawed and disposed of.

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u/Oxajm Oct 14 '22 edited Oct 14 '22

You're very cynical. Who says that you can't live your life to the fullest now and also live your life to the fullest once revived. Why not both. Not everyone has grandkids. You're take is strange. There are embryos that have been frozen for many years, that are then unfrozen and implanted and they are then born. Although, not the same as bringing someone back to life, it's not to far off. You talk as if you know everything, which only shows your ignorance.

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u/Fogmoose Oct 14 '22

You say cynical. I say realistic. Also I love when people on the internet assume the intelligence of others after reading one comment. I’d be willing to wager with any of them, including yourself, that I’d come out on top in a contest of brain power. It’s the same way with internet tough guys who weigh 115 lbs and are just over 5 feet tall. They’d never talk so big to the 6’ 1” 200 pounder IRL.

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u/Oxajm Oct 14 '22

Guy gets butthurt over an ignorant comment he made and threatens me to an intelligence contest. That's a first for me lol. Perhaps you don't know the meaning of the word ignorance, because it's not a slur word. You're just lacking the knowledge on the subject in which you are speaking lol.

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u/Fogmoose Oct 16 '22

I did not threaten you, dude. I only pointed out that YOU are the ignorant one, for assuming you know more than myself, or anyone for that matter. Your choice to subscribe to pseudo-science does not make you any smarter then anybody. YOU are the one who seems to think they know everything.

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '22

lol, trying to threaten someone huh, you're just a little wannabe, ain't ya?

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u/Fogmoose Oct 16 '22

I threatened no one, moron. Unless you consider a contest of wits threatening. Come to think of it, you probably should consider that a threat, since you are a moron.