Great video! But aren't you and the others more like clients than members? And how is this viable with the large amounts of damage that occur to the brain?

to MarineGunrock : ok, so maybe not viable now but I'm looking at how fast things are advancing and how many things were "impossible" just five years ago which are now routine...and saying to myself, "why not?". The alternative is ceasing to exist. I'm not going to care one way or another if it doesn't work out but I will care if it does!

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Great post. I've been following Alcor for years. If you don't mind me asking- did you go for the Neuro-suspension, or full-body?

Thanks dag - and I don't mind you asking at all - my husband and I went full-body since they can now vitrify the whole body. Until recently, vitrification was only possible with the head, and of course it's still the very best way to preserve the brain today. If I were to die today and have my whole body vitrified my brain would not be as well preserved as the head(s) I share a dewar with. Yet the whole body vitrification process still will be improved, while they couldn't even say it was a possibility two years ago. The odds are that we could have new bodies cloned, but not knowing for sure, my hubby and I like to hold on to what we have of eachother !

There are some animals that can survive freezing, such as the Weta, but they are highly different to mammals in terms of physiology and can only survive to -10°C. Human brain cells will begin to permanently degrade with less than 5 minutes of cerebral hypoxia, and it didn't look like they were able to freeze faster than that safely. Even if the cells could eventually be repaired, it's the complex millions of neural connections that make you you that are lost forever.

Speaking philosophically, I am a survivor of cancer and chronic kidney failure and now have a transplant. So I have confronted my own mortality more than most. Yet I still find the fear of death I see in the people in this program surprising. For me death is just another part of the journey, and would much rather try and live the best life I can now that spend tens of thousands on an untested idea.
But this is only my personal opinion, and if the members get some sort of peace of mind from this then I hope it's worth the money.

But seriously, it's only a matter of time before Alcor starts selling Soylent Green.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

For me, it's not the fear of death- it's a desire to see the future.

I'm a huge SF nerd and an optimist. I think humanity's best days are ahead of it and there may come a time where death is the exception and not the rule.

I welcome the singularity, hivemind, homo-segundus and all the other positive potentialities that are coming down the pipe. I want to have a discussion with a sentient A.I. (other than SiftBot)

I want to go into space. I want to walk on another planet.

ditto, dag!

We freeze living cells in liquid nitrogen all the time in the lab, but that's just cells, and about half of them die in the process. 10% die in the best cases, if you do it just right. 10% of a whole human dead means dead human. Ironically a very slow freezing process gets you the best results, unlike our lovely sci-fi. And, when you freeze cells water crystals...and other crystals form quickly and neurons are amazingly fragile. I've worked with them in culture and honestly if you look at them funny, the axons break. Also, even at -140C (which is the best we happen to have in the lab, that is liquid nitrogen, I don't know how they're getting -195??) the cells die over time. I'd put the half-life at around 10 years at that temp, and that is soaked in DMSO, which is an... unpleasant chemical to be dipped in. heh.
You will probably see ships traveling at relativistic speeds before you see cryo working. Save your money for Ender's method.

Oh I think one more thing that I should mention is that we happen to use rapid freeze-thawing in the lab to destroy cell membranes. lol. Freeze-thaws are a great way to wreck cells and fast.

Anyway I will tragically laugh when these 2 companies tank and their frozen bodies have to be disposed of.

and lol@commercials.

Laura: I suppose you're right in that if you were to die say 50 years from now ( I have no clue how old you are) They very well might have found a way perfectly preserve a body. Just look how much technology has changed in the past 50 years.

Dag- you hit it on the head.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Doc_M, the battle against membrane rupture from ice crystals seems to be big one.

IANAC but I think what they do is, pump the body full of propylene glycol which vitrifies the cells on freezing, prevents crystals and stops membrane rupture. The problem with that though is that propylene glycol is very toxic in its own right and will have to be removed safely at the time of thawing.

I'll admit, it's a super-longshot. But- I'll take million to one odds over nothing.

A kind of modified Pascal's Wager works pretty well for this.

This reminded me of this story from almost 2 years ago, which makes me think this documentary must be several years old. Here they talk about struggling to freeze and unfreeze single organs while this article describes freezing and unfreezing dogs, usually with no damage done.

I voted for it because it was interesting, but I have ethical concerns about immortality. Sure, right now we're already using medical technology to make our lives last longer, but nothing makes us immortal. This has nothing to do with religion either, because I'm an atheist. I think about population growth if people never die. Aren't there enough people walking the Earth already without a bunch multi-centenarian freaks taking up space? And even if we all stop reproducing just to accomodate our eternal bodies, then how vibrant can our species be if we can't evolve?

I'd like to travel through space and attain higher consciousness too, but if doing this on a large scale sacrifices the viability of our species down the road then I have to oppose it.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

CaptWillard, I think your morality concerns are based in problems of the present. A humanity that has mastered the tricky art of cryonics would have licked our population problem already.

Perhaps humans will be born infertile naturally - with a pill required to induce temporary fertility.

I believe in a future that will mourn the tragic death of countless generations before - that succumbed to primitive problems like disease and old-age.

I keep telling Dag, if he took up the belief in reincarnation, this process will look a little redundant and we could save a lot of money.

You hope for that, dag, but it doesn't mean it will happen. We've put men on the moon but we haven't cured the common cold. We've sequenced the human genome but we don't fully understand energy and matter (dark energy and dark matter being prime examples). Technology doesn't advance equally across all scientific disciplines, unfortunately.

A small percentage of people are already born infertile naturally, but reversing that in most cases is difficult if not impossible. I can't see how everyone would be born naturally infertile. Evolutionary pressure would never push in that direction.

This isn't just a morality concern; it's a survival concern. If our species fails to reproduce at a certain rate then we will most likely become a genetic dead end. Just ask an evolutionary biologist. That's my biggest concern.

CaptWillard, I don't think population would be a problem. In the developed world we live a lot longer but have less children. While in the developing world they have more children because the child mortality rate is higher (and lack of access to birth control) among other things. So if we started living for hundreds of years we'd still only likely have children for the first few decades, and we may even have colonies on other planets to have people on. Who knows?
Which leads to another problem I have with this technology. That is the future being such an unknown variable (but I'm guessing for some that's part of the attraction).

I suggest SciFi fans read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. It delves into a lot of these issues, and its a superb read to boot .

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

>> You hope for that, dag, but it doesn't mean it will happen.

I guess I'm just a glass half-full type.

>> A small percentage of people are already born infertile naturally, but reversing that in most cases is difficult if not impossible.

Again, you're thinking of the present. I don't think we have any idea what will be possible in that area 100 years from now. Would someone from 1897 have envisioned the Pill or Norplant?

I don't know what's going to be possible 100 years from now either- but I think it's going to be great.

The future is my religion. I get kind of glassy-eyed in the same way that a Christian talking about the rapture does. Mea culpa - probably a real imperfection in my personality. But I don't want to be cured. Everyone has their faith ...

I think my main reasoning for doing this is a core belief that aging and death are a disease, just like tuberculosis or smallpox, etc. I don't think it's "the way it's supposed to be". It's something that affects us that can be beaten if not eliminated. My contract w/ Alcor tells me that if an accident should happen or I should not make it long enough to see that day...I can still wait for it the best way I know how. I love life and the adventure of seeing another day. Like dag, I will take a million to one odds over none.
I don't necessarily want to be immortal as a human (because I don't know what else is out there yet), I just want to opt out when I am good and ready to do so. Ha!
I am 30 y/o in good health (so far) by the way, which made the life insurance premium which pays for this procedure practically negligible in terms of it being a hardship to afford. My husband, on the other hand, is much older than me making his more of an issue. The issue of when to sign up in my mind is the only financial consideration... but where there is a will, there is a way. We could easily be spending the money we are spending on cryonics on monthly cable, extra phones, car payments & misc. bills (none of which we have). The whole thing is just so interesting and ... deep ...

http://www.cryonet.org/

http://www.alcor.org/

http://www.cryonics.org/

and a video from another member of these arenas which I posted earlier and don't really want to see die on the sift:

http://www.videosift.com/video/I-Am-God-Becoming-Me

Hello Friend's !
We believe that intelligence, memories & personality are determined primarily by the structure & chemistry of the human brain.Our aim is to preserve the brain so faithfully that its unique identity will also be preserved,so that future science may be able to revive the individual.We realize that this is highly speculative, but we feel that human life is sufficiently precious to justify our attempt,even thought the outcome is unknown.
Discover how leading-edge science at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation is getting closer to making the dream of a vastly extended lifespan come true and how our notion of "death" is shifting. This video included interviews with world-renowned scientists including Dr.Aubrey de Grey, Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge, explaining how life can be cryopreserved on the verge of death and then revitalized, giving us a second chance at a long and productive life, and Dr. Ralph Merkle, Distinguished Professor of Computing at Georgia Tech, exploring how molecular-sized machines will be able to repair damage to your body from aging or the devastating effects of cancer and other illnesses, including frostbite.

If you want to see my videos ... you are welcome.

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=FX28Cg-z9kw

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=SFSF2yXVYgg

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=jesBO9eKtvg

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=t1UnDDrpyho

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=z4NqWD-bfEE

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=VCiloFQ0LXI

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=KaIkvqaSYHU

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=-yF63ioVunY

If you want the free DVD
http://www.alcor.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/alcor/public/InfoRequest.cgi

Have a good day !

Steph from Quebec/CANADA
----------------------------------------
Alcor Member & very happy with my choice

this may be a little off the subject of what you are talking about, but I am curious. I think I understand the freezing process well enough. What I don't understand is, once cells(let's say just simple single-celled organisms) are frozen without damage, no ice crystals etc., what makes the unfreezing process dangerous?

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Friday, November 30th, 2007 10:39pm PST - promote requested by burdturgler.

The idea that the brain or the head "is" the person is a very curious and rather unlikely proposition. the brain is the cpu of the central nervous system, however...the "mind" resides in the entire being. Note that an emotional response occurs simultaneously with a visceral response. Thought, feeling, and memories are a full body experience. No part of the person exists in isolation, thus the idea that a head can be re-animated to BE the person, is likely pure folly...and is an idea likely leftover from the incredibly unproductive and incorrect freudian view of the pyche.

> however...the "mind" resides in the entire being.

NOT.. is a construct of the brain, as is the "whole body" visceral response which is happening in your brain

>> ^criticalthud:

The idea that the brain or the head "is" the person is a very curious and rather unlikely proposition. the brain is the cpu of the central nervous system, however...the "mind" resides in the entire being. Note that an emotional response occurs simultaneously with a visceral response. Thought, feeling, and memories are a full body experience. No part of the person exists in isolation, thus the idea that a head can be re-animated to BE the person, is likely pure folly...and is an idea likely leftover from the incredibly unproductive and incorrect freudian view of the pyche.


Where (and how) would any information regarding memories be stored outside of the brain? Similarly, where outside of the brain would any emotional response be stored/triggered? I also don't understand how any other part of my body has "thought" ... although I admit my dick does have a mind of its own.

I dont believe you can freeze a human body and expect it to be "normal" I just flat out dont think it will be done anytime soon, maybe if the race makes it 250 or so years more possibly but, I am a huge skeptic of this practice.

I have very mixed feelings about it.

First of all, I do not intend to criticize the OP(s) for being "members" of alcor.

It is a VERY cool idea and I would do it in a HEARTBEAT if I was a bit more confident in their science.

The way I understand it is that yes, there are organisms that can survive being frozen and then reanimated in either simple or complex ways. That said, I do not believe that human beings are built to make this probable.

The questions are ones of time, money, and science. Science right now CANNOT do this. The methods by which Alcor (and the other place) are "preserving" bodies has not been proven to encourage a non-existent procedure of reanimation.

This technology will not be available for a LONG time, if ever. I don't believe it is impossible, but I believe it is the sort of thing which would come FAR in advance of where our medical science is now. I believe that the science involved would have to not only have to unfreeze but reverse certain aspects of decomposition that happen WAY too fast for this to be possible. Unless you are being frozen almost instantly while still alive, which I do not believe is legal since it would be tantamount to euthanasia. So in my mind, we are talking about advanced techniques of cell manipulation and reconstruction which don't remotely exist. This brings me to

Will Alcor still exist in 300-1000 years? What provisions are being made for this?

I hate to say it, but I think the partial answer lies in Alcor's profits. I doubt they would ever release their financial statements, but you can probably tell a LOT by what their financial situation is.

If Alcor is actually legit, and not just to separate the future-minded person with expendable income from their money, they won't exist for long. The money involved in keeping these bodies in suspended animation for hundreds of years will not allow them to stay in business forever and eventually the plug will be pulled on these tubes and that will be that.

That's the best case scenario.

The worse case scenario is that this is a scam. They probably know damned well that they are banking on solutions that don't (and probably won't) exist in their own lifetimes. Therefore they charge money to people who like the idea, enjoy their Ferraris and dump the bodies in about 50 years when there are no living relatives so the inheritors of Alcor can continue the business. Another clue: their staff is volunteer based with little to no medical background... yeah.

I know I'm being a bit pessimistic, but it is very much akin to UFOs... there are lots of people that believe in UFOs and there are lots of people who make product for those who believe in UFOs. Some of them also believe in UFOs, but I suspect a vast majority see a market that is booming and money to be made. Whenever someone is trying to sell you something, you know that they know it is bullshit.

It is like all the 2012 hysteria. Why am I seeing commercials for SUVs and McDonald's tie-ins for a movie about the end of the world? Why do we have major corporations sponsoring shows on the Discovery channel "analyzing" the Mayan predictions about the last few years we have left? Money... it's always about selling me something.

But seriously, I really don't mean to be a debbie downer about this, but it is just a flash in the pan. I just really hope that you aren't spending money that could be better spent elsewhere.

Finally, I REALLY question the idea of preserving just the head. All I can think of is this scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oL7XP0ROvk

Skip to 2:12

Alcor is a non-profit organization.
They've been around over 35 years.
All of their financial information is publicly available.

btw... watching those scenes where they are actually "preserving" the bodies... yeah, this is a total money-making scam.

It is not to say that in the far far future they couldn't clone you with your memories A.I. style, but these people are really just doing some random crap to a dead dead body.

I think the guy at the beginning said it best, "this is like trying to reanimate a cow from a hamburger patty."

"Anita is doing great!"

LOL

Dude, she's dead, decapitated and frozen, I beg to differ on her current state!


Sorry for the constant updates but it is a long video. I have to say towards the end I got kind of pissed off... it REALLY does come off like a scam. They pray on people who either fear death or are future-enthusiasts.

I mean don't get me wrong. If you offered me this as a method of burial free of cost, I'd take it in a second over being buried in the earth or burned. I really think the dead body is very unlikely to be revived, but hell I'd sign up on the off-chance that some A.I.-esque cloning were possible one the aliens invade us.

Still I have to be realistic and this just smacks of money-making. They don't pay many of their employees who are involved in chopping up and preserving bodies... real suspect.

Final thought on this:

That bald guy who is a detractor they keep showing? He's a doctor of forensic medicine. He understands decomposition and he's calling it bunk... Who you going to believe? The guy who knows how things die and decompose, or the volunteer makeup artist who doubles as the "ALCOR Head of the Stabilization team" in her spare time.

Well, I'm glad at least you are watching the video. It's very old. A lot has changed. It's crazy to me that when we are confronted with the scientific reality that organs, tissue and even entire living creatures have been and continue to be brought back from a state of cryogenic preservation, that one would think reviving a human brain with identity critical brain mass intact is some sort of scam. When you see them say "Anita is doing great" it is because they view Anita as a patient awaiting resuscitation, not as a corpse.

http://videosift.com/video/TED-Talk-Suspended-Animation-is-Within-Our-Grasp

*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by geo321.

>> ^burdturgler:

Well, I'm glad at least you are watching the video. It's very old. A lot has changed. It's crazy to me that when we are confronted with the scientific reality that organs, tissue and even entire living creatures have been and continue to be brought back from a state of cryogenic preservation, that one would think reviving a human brain with identity critical brain mass intact is some sort of scam. When you see them say "Anita is doing great" it is because they view Anita as a patient awaiting resuscitation, not as a corpse.


Again, don't get me wrong. If you asked me if I would take this service for free over being buried or cremated, sure. It is the expense v the actual science that I object to. It is a waste of money plain and simple.

The whole "Anita is doing great" is symptomatic of the delusional state under which the people who run this place are operating. Are they preserving organic matter that may be able to be cloned using some science-fictiony method in the far far far future? Sure. Are they actually "preserving humans so that they can be reanimated" no. I just keep going back to the hamburger analogy. Anita has been butchered. The people involved in these non-medical procedures are not doctors for the most part and there are absolutely no studies to show that these methods work.

I realize that Alcor (and I assume their competitor) bathe themselves in scientific language and allusions, but the fact remains that the procedures they are doing are not based in the scientific method. They clearly state that they are counting on nanotechnology (as well as other advances) that doesn't exist to repair damage that is pretty much irreversible to our present understanding. This is tantamount to me saying that with all certainty there will be warp-speed or transporters in the future.

Yes, I realize that many things in science were once science fiction, but there are both practical and scientific limits to consider. The science I will leave to the scientist, the practical stuff, I feel is enough to realize that this isn't worth what they are charging. There is no way that Alcor will exist long enough for science to catch up with what would be necessary to "revive" the material they are storing. 35 years is a flash in the pan when it comes to the type of advances that would be necessary to do anything useful with the meat in their freezers.

feeling, memories are registered in the brain, not necessarily stored. the entire body is a neural network that we are only beginning to understand....
the whole idea of re-animating dead flesh seems a bit far fetched. it seems to push the limits of the existing dna. cloning with fresh dna...maybe. re-animating frankenmom, unlikely.

argh. for some reason, i can't quote properly. sorry. but just going back to "the head can't live without the body" -
consider how easy it is for burn victims to die. It's just skin right? - or is it the largest sensory organ of the body (the skin plus the superficial fasica below)? Give the body a crispy coating, and see how long the fucking head lives....and that's not even considering excising the rest of the organs and nervous system...

"Self Culture - a magazine of knowledge devoted to the interests of the Home University League" Vol. I, June 1895, NO.3

Page 155 - Bacteria -

The facts on which the Bacteriologists build need not be, and are not, denied. Specific Bacteria do exist, and they do more or less serve to convey disease, but adequate investigation compels some of the first medical authorities in the world to consider the inference of the Bacteriologists that infective diseases are usually conveyed by Bacteria utterly delusive; because they find that the universal efficient cause of the whole group of infective diseases is some form of miasmatic volatile poison, which on entering the human system, or any other animal system, produces the disease, and at the same time produces the Bacteria characteristic of the disease, a part of the poison, and probably a very small part only, being made up into the microscopic parcels which the Bacteria are.

Cool. Good for you, Laura, for actually signing up. It's the kind of thing we tend to put off...

When Paypal was being started up, they toyed with the idea of offering cryonic insurance as a perk of working there.

And in the meantime, do what we can to avoid diseases like cancer... exercise at least briefly every day, and eat a diet of mostly plants

Since this is an insurance funded project, I tend to think of it in terms of what a similarly funded project with different objectives might accomplish.

Consider the Mprize, which seeks to find ways to extend life. If some non-trivial subset of people bought life insurance with the Mprize as beneficiary we could potentially encourage the funding of the research needed to extend current human life. All the Mprizes research goals will needed to be meet for cryo to work, so why not put that horse before the cart?

To be immortal you simply have to live past the break-even point, where life is being extended as quickly as time is passing. It is entirely feasible that humans will become functionally immortal, but never reach the point where cryo bodies can be reanimated. Even if cryo does become feasible, the probability that current cryo systems will be compatible with real functioning cryo tech approaches 0.

The cryo companies are, effectively, siphoning resources of those interested in life extension into a bet with exceptionally bad odds. Why not bet on reaching the break-even point in your lifetime, instead of sinking resources into something which is extremely likely to have no benefits for anyone?

>> ^dgandhi:

Since this is an insurance funded project, I tend to think of it in terms of what a similarly funded project with different objectives might accomplish.
Consider the Mprize, which seeks to find ways to extend life. If some non-trivial subset of people bought life insurance with the Mprize as beneficiary we could potentially encourage the funding of the research needed to extend current human life. All the Mprizes research goals will needed to be meet for cryo to work, so why not put that horse before the cart?
To be immortal you simply have to live past the break-even point, where life is being extended as quickly as time is passing. It is entirely feasible that humans will become functionally immortal, but never reach the point where cryo bodies can be reanimated. Even if cryo does become feasible, the probability that current cryo systems will be compatible with real functioning cryo tech approaches 0.
The cryo companies are, effectively, siphoning resources of those interested in life extension into a bet with exceptionally bad odds. Why not bet on reaching the break-even point in your lifetime, instead of sinking resources into something which is extremely likely to have no benefits for anyone?


Cryo seems like a risky bet if you die tomorrow and want to be brought back to life before the year 2100, but if your time frame is more flexible, it seems like a different picture. It seems hard to imagine in a time when every individual's cheap mobile phone will possess greater information processing power than all of humankind today, that we won't be able to figure out what the structure of cryonic brains was before the cryonic damage occurred.

That being said, the average person born in e.g. 1975 seems to have an excellent chance of living to 2075 if they live a health lifestyle*, and it seems difficult to imagine that stem cells, nanomedicine, etc. won't have changed the face of medicine by that point. Innovation has continued fine even through the current global fiscal bust. Like you, I'm also a big supporter of the Mprize.

*Researchers find in the last 18 years in the US, "the number of people adhering to all 5 healthy habits has decreased from 15% to 8%." http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/006231.html
*"Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age."http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html

*zombieism

..and am glad laura is a member, should i wake to an afterlife without any one as cool as her.....at least there's a smoothie!!

new heart mew liver mew skin with bananas and some blackberries!

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

This left me really disappointed with Alcor-
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/10/02/2009-10-02_book_reveals_chilling_details_of_how_cryonic_lab_thumped_remains_of_baseball_imm.html

but I'm still hopeful that cryonics will eventually work.

Thanks dag, now here's what I'm gonna do:

(trying to submit amazon link to the book by the whistleblower Larry Johnson but can't submit so I'll try separately)

then I'm clicking that link, buying the Kindle version of the book and you'll probably make 2 whole cents! ha.

When I finish reading the book I'll have more to say...I've stayed woefully uninformed about pretty much anything for the last year and I missed that one...there may be a major shift ahead for us (I may actually have to get personally involved in a cause for once), let you know.

What is interesting is that since we have been members, we receive Alcor's monthly publication which always includes very detailed reports of any suspensions performed (we're talking from the first call in that they might be needed down to how relatives appeared and behaved at the time, not to mention details of times vs. temps)...makes me think that either Larry Johnson's whistleblowing worked and there was a major reform happen, or there are blantant fabrications being flaunted. I'm now going to follow through on my plan to drop by unannounced for a tour (which they encourage)...they are a short distance from here. Will give interested parties details on that as soon as it happens. Now, the book...

oh, and I highly recommend reading the reviews on amazon of the book "Frozen"...interesting

hey, that article is almost completely based on the above mentioned book, which only proves that "news" is still an entertainment industry...the book reads so far like a badly written soap opera. Also, take a look at this, please:
http://www.alcor.org/press/response.html
looks like any profits he made from my buying his book are going toward his legal fees, lol

>> ^dag:

This left me really disappointed with Alcor-
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/10/02/2009-10-02_book_reveals_chilling_details_of_how_cryonic_lab_thumped_remains_of_baseball_imm.
html
but I'm still hopeful that cryonics will eventually work.