Live data from Hacker News

A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

bbc.com

121–130 of 180 posts

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#121
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a pretty big difference between the statements: "We are likely to have life extending and resuscitation technologies in 500 years that are better than what we have today." and "The dead rich people in these particular vats of antifreeze have any more than a snowball's chance in hell at being successfully resuscitated." I think the parent's analysis is correct. Your statements, while also correct, don't really…

It didn't point out any issues... it just made the unsubstantiated claim that a cryonics patient has no chance of ever being revived. It IS physically possible to revive cryonics patients--as in the laws of physics would permit it, even if we don't have anything near the technology required, yet. This isn't a bold claim but rather a statement of fact with respect to information preservation of the vitrification proce…

The thing is .. it is more about biology than physics.

You can flush water pipes with whatever you want and clean and rewater it. A complex organism like the human body - and the brain, we still dont really understand?

Not likely. Maybe not 0 chance in SciFi future, but still not likely.

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#122
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitrogen narcosis is usually called "drunkenness of depth" (if I translate this correctly), because it produce effect like you are drunk. I've seen and heard many stories of experienced divers that would do silly things due this effect; that is why you always have to have partner with you and the rest of the crew near by. This effect is highly dependent of person and I've seen guys goes beyond 40m without getting thi…

I'm no professional diver, but did a bunch of dives between 60-100ft, and it seems like it can start happening to me around 70-80ft. Experienced divers will be more conscious about when it happens to them, and will plan their actions accordingly. It's pretty eerie. It's _literally_ like being drunk, but you happen to be strapped to an oxygen tank with 100ft of water over your head, and could get extremely sick if you…

Yep, especially for inexperienced divers. This is why one of the cert qualification dives is a "deep" dive, usually in the 90-110ft (30ish meters), and why that dive is usually just a really simple descent + a few elementary tasks at the bottom while maintaining neutral buoyancy.

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flash freezing (using liquid nitrogen to freeze something really quickly) is used successfully for smaller objects, such as frozen berries and frozen vegetables that you can buy at the grocery store. The Wikipedia page on flash freezing links to this [0] site with some more discussion. The Wiki page also says that flash freezing still can take a few hours, so there are still ice crystals created, but a lot less/small…

The size matters significantly for this. Much larger and it becomes difficult to remove the heat throughout fast enough to do a flash freeze.

This is correct. Flash freezing an entire human body consistently would be incredibly difficult.

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#124
post #66
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is zero chance that a human pumped full of antifreeze today will ever be successfully revised. Cryonics is a total scam by hucksters preying on desperate idiots. And don't bother telling me that it's worth doing if there's even a tiny chance. The chance is exactly 0, and those resources are better spent on the living.

You can basically say that anyone living 500 years ago would say "there is zero chance" that what we take for granted today exists at all. Look at the technological achievements of even the past 50 years, most of it could hardly be predicted.

By this logic, we don't even need to freeze the body. Simply opt in to being resimulated later, since the technology will exist "some day".

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#125
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is zero chance that a human pumped full of antifreeze today will ever be successfully revised. Cryonics is a total scam by hucksters preying on desperate idiots. And don't bother telling me that it's worth doing if there's even a tiny chance. The chance is exactly 0, and those resources are better spent on the living.

You have perfect knowledge of future technologies?

[deleted]

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#126
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can basically say that anyone living 500 years ago would say "there is zero chance" that what we take for granted today exists at all. Look at the technological achievements of even the past 50 years, most of it could hardly be predicted.

By this logic, we don't even need to freeze the body. Simply opt in to being resimulated later, since the technology will exist "some day".

A lot of "cryonically-frozen" people are only their heads, since it's been well-known for a while that there's no way to unfreeze the bodies. I suspect it may literally be easier to scan their brains than to unfreeze them, even if they were healthier to begin with. That's not a statement of my belief in the ease of scanning a brain; it's a statement of my belief in just how hard it is to "thaw" a body and get anything back. I'd say it's like getting handed a pile of slag and told to turn it back into a working engine, except that task is multiple orders of magnitude easier.

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#127
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At sufficiently high partial pressure, it's toxic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity Nitrogen becomes narcotic at high pressure; breathing normal air at 30m is like being tipsy, but below 90m it can be fatal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_narcosis

Nitrogen narcosis is usually called "drunkenness of depth" (if I translate this correctly), because it produce effect like you are drunk. I've seen and heard many stories of experienced divers that would do silly things due this effect; that is why you always have to have partner with you and the rest of the crew near by. This effect is highly dependent of person and I've seen guys goes beyond 40m without getting thi…

When teaching students about the effects of depth on cognition, one fun trick is to give them a couple of combination locks attached to a slate (with the combinations written on the slate). Time each of them opening the locks on the surface, then time them opening another slate with the same sort of locks at 60 feet -- a depth not normally associated with awareness of cognitive changes.

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#128
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this logic, we don't even need to freeze the body. Simply opt in to being resimulated later, since the technology will exist "some day".

A lot of "cryonically-frozen" people are only their heads, since it's been well-known for a while that there's no way to unfreeze the bodies. I suspect it may literally be easier to scan their brains than to unfreeze them, even if they were healthier to begin with. That's not a statement of my belief in the ease of scanning a brain; it's a statement of my belief in just how hard it is to "thaw" a body and get anythin…

But that's my point, why even bother freezing the brain, if simply waiting a few centuries more of tech progress will mean you don't even need the brain to be consciously brought back?

It's just replacing the faith in one omnipotent's afterlife with another.

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#129
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a pretty big difference between the statements: "We are likely to have life extending and resuscitation technologies in 500 years that are better than what we have today." and "The dead rich people in these particular vats of antifreeze have any more than a snowball's chance in hell at being successfully resuscitated." I think the parent's analysis is correct. Your statements, while also correct, don't really…

It didn't point out any issues... it just made the unsubstantiated claim that a cryonics patient has no chance of ever being revived. It IS physically possible to revive cryonics patients--as in the laws of physics would permit it, even if we don't have anything near the technology required, yet. This isn't a bold claim but rather a statement of fact with respect to information preservation of the vitrification proce…

Actually it is physically impossible to revive cryonics patients because essential information has been irretrievably lost. I don't think you understand the physics (or biology) here.

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#130
post #22

The documentary is on Netflix, it's worth a watch: https://www.netflix.com/watch/80215139

Netflix just gives me a "Netflix Site Error – Page Not Found". What's the documentary called, so I can find it by other means please?

It's from Netflix Canada, not sure if available outside of US / CA.
Post reply on HN