A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future • Hacker News Board

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#111

Post by ridgeguy » Sun, Sep 13, 2015, 2:16 AM UTC

I view current cryonics as a bit like playing the lottery. If you don't play, you will not win. If you do play, you have a minuscule but nonzero chance of winning.

Over 30 years ago, I joined others to sit with a friend while he died way too young. He had arranged for cryonic preservation. AFAIK, he's still chilling. And he has a minuscule but nonzero chance of someday resuming his prematurely interrupted life.

While that seems to me extremely unlikely to happen, I wonder if it felt just as unlikely to somebody in the 3rd century that people would someday fly through the air...or talk to a friend who was beyond shouting distance...or live to 90 years of age...etc. We've sequenced DNA from dinosaurs, and 30 years ago I would have bet strongly against that.

I've learned to avoid underrating the power of exponential increments in knowledge and capability.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#112

Post by rbanffy » Sun, Sep 13, 2015, 2:16 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #91

aperrien wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you learn new knowledge?

Up to a point. The brain is very plastic and molds itself to its environment. If the person is older, and the environment is too different, it may just give up.

I suppose in 500 years it'll be possible to get a better brain.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#113

Post by caycep » Sun, Sep 13, 2015, 2:19 AM UTC

amalcon wrote: post #33

Cryonics is one of those things that's hard to evaluate. On the face of it, it seems insane. You're essentially making a bet that someone will find something useful to do with a frozen brain -- and that your estate will be able to afford the procedure -- before the company you've entrusted your brain to either makes a mistake or collapses. Given the near-total lack of progress on the former front (there's been consid…

to be honest, from a histology, pathology point of view, it's pretty doubtful anyone frozen today would be restored to anywhere near working consciousness, no matter how many rat brain glycerol SEM slice pictures the company trots out. The second law of thermodynamics is pretty rough on neural tissue.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#114

Post by WalterBright » Sun, Sep 13, 2015, 2:30 AM UTC

zanny wrote: post #104

WalterBright wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it still the Star Trek Transporter problem? The future may be able to revive a copy of you, that thinks it is you, but you'd still be dead.

If they are able to revive the original brain (and considering the whole point of cryonics is indefinite suspension until your wants are met) at some point in the next five billion years, assuming we don't kill ourselves (which like all those metrics about the odds of Alcor failing is also astronomically high) we should eventually be able to regenerate a brain rather than replace it. You might lose some memories, but…

I suspect the damage to be so extensive that the hypothetical advanced technology might find it a lot easier to just scan the brain, then copy the patterns into a computer. You'll be 'revived' inside a computer.

Especially since the tech to do that will probably come long before the tech to recreate your adult body.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#115

Post by WalterBright » Sun, Sep 13, 2015, 2:31 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #103

loup-vaillant wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, that one's easy. At the state of current science, we're pretty much sure that the Star Trek transporter doesn't kill the traveller. The "copy" is the original, in fact. Basically, this is because we're kinda made of particles, and the origin of the quarks you're made up of doesn't matter. As in, current physics don't even have a notion of the identity of a particle. The part where it gets weird is, if you don't d…

> pretty much sure Are you willing to risk your life on "pretty much sure" ? Especially when there's no experiment you can devise to test it?

You downvoters have my blessing to go use it. Not me!

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#116

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sun, Sep 13, 2015, 2:33 AM UTC

loup-vaillant wrote: post #85

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now if you would divert all cryonics resources towards existential risk mitigations, AI or rejuvenation research, that would be a different story. But pretty soon we'd have to discuss how other resources are allocated right now, and next thing we know, we're talking politics. You say "talking politics" like it's a bad thing! >If you ask me, the world can probably finance cryonics for everyone and AI research and ant…

> You say "talking politics" like it's a bad thing! That was unintended. But it is difficult: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Politics_is_the_Mind-Killer

It's a lot less difficult when you're allowing for the fact that politics will be political: that it is about finding compromises and combinations, and sometimes just about the contest, between competing worldviews, interests, and values.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#117

Post by dennisgorelik » Sun, Sep 13, 2015, 2:36 AM UTC

If you want to preserve your genes, then much more reliable way to do that is to have kids.

If you want to preserve your ideas, then writing books, articles and public comments on Internet is the way to go.

The chance of successful recovery of frozen dead brain after 100 years is very close to zero (assuming that the recovery process was never tested). Kim Suozzi's “1 or 2 percent chance” is extremely optimistic forecast.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#118

Post by dennisgorelik » Sun, Sep 13, 2015, 2:44 AM UTC

ridgeguy wrote: post #111

I view current cryonics as a bit like playing the lottery. If you don't play, you will not win. If you do play, you have a minuscule but nonzero chance of winning. Over 30 years ago, I joined others to sit with a friend while he died way too young. He had arranged for cryonic preservation. AFAIK, he's still chilling. And he has a minuscule but nonzero chance of someday resuming his prematurely interrupted life. While…

I think lottery is a good analogy here.

1) Extremely low chances to win (if at all).

2) The change that the winner is going to regret being revived is quite high (dysfunctional body, totally new environment, being a subject of historians' research).

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#119

Post by dennisgorelik » Sun, Sep 13, 2015, 2:48 AM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #52

amalcon wrote: post #33

Cryonics is one of those things that's hard to evaluate. On the face of it, it seems insane. You're essentially making a bet that someone will find something useful to do with a frozen brain -- and that your estate will be able to afford the procedure -- before the company you've entrusted your brain to either makes a mistake or collapses. Given the near-total lack of progress on the former front (there's been consid…

Cryonics is another version of Pascal's Wager. Logic and reason assures that it almost certainly is not going to work, but the value of the potential upside is effectively infinite to that individual, so it still may be a rational investment.

What if your brain would unfrozen straight into "hell"?

The researchers from the future may put your brain into very painful condition in order to keep it functional.

Would cryonic worth it?

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#120

Post by zanny » Sun, Sep 13, 2015, 3:11 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #114

zanny wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are able to revive the original brain (and considering the whole point of cryonics is indefinite suspension until your wants are met) at some point in the next five billion years, assuming we don't kill ourselves (which like all those metrics about the odds of Alcor failing is also astronomically high) we should eventually be able to regenerate a brain rather than replace it. You might lose some memories, but…

I suspect the damage to be so extensive that the hypothetical advanced technology might find it a lot easier to just scan the brain, then copy the patterns into a computer. You'll be 'revived' inside a computer. Especially since the tech to do that will probably come long before the tech to recreate your adult body.

It would certainly be easier, but on the time scales we are talking about (full brain digitization and reproduction in a digital space vs body regeneration) I imagine the orders of magnitude of time for both are much closer to one another than they are to the present day. If you got to one, you would probably last in the freezer until the other, and you can certainly request to only be revived through methods that repair the preserved brain rather than copying the information it contains.

PS: Hi WalterBright, D is amazing :<