A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
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Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#2Why 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
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#3Why 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,…
Once you're dead you'll miss out on all the cool stuff that's happening.
It's bad enough we missed out on all the stuff that happened before we died.
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#4Some 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
http://alcor.org/sciencefaq.htm
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/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.
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#5Black 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.
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#6Why 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,…
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.
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#7Why 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,…
And yet you take your medicines, go to see the doctor, look both ways before crossing the street. Why flee from the thought of doing more than that, of removing all of the other causes of death?
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#8Black 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.
There's a real world company that offers this service:
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#9Consider 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?
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#10Why 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,…
Not sure about you, but I would rather be able to choose when to stop living than have to suffer the terrible disease of aging and its implications (neurodegenerative diseases, for example).