Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

bigthink.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 599 posts

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#61

Post by gpm »

RajT88 wrote: post #21
Veedrac wrote: post #2

As far as I can tell, the thesis of this article amounts to ‘cryonics is a weird idea, but what's even more weird is believing in the future.’ If you put aside the overt scorn, it's actually a fairly interesting article, and surprisingly upbeat at that.

That scorn seems earned. Little progress has been made on raising the dead in 50 years. I mean, CPR has gotten better for sure. But that's just for people who are mostly dead. Not going to work on people who are all-the-way-dead. Anyone claiming high chances of resurrection in some sci-fi future are just blathing.

I agree the scorn seems earned, but for a bit of a different reason.

Based on the article it sounds like these bodies are being "preserved" in an absolutely destroyed state. They've kept the outside pretty, but they've pulverized their insides during the freezing process. Even if cryogenics works one day, the chance that these people can be revived seems extremely remote. The chance that the "store the body and not just the head" idea helps seems even more remote given that the organs, blood veseels, etc are destroyed.

They didn't discuss it (presumably verifiable information is hard to come by), but if the rest of the body is that destroyed, it seems unlikely that the brain is doing much better..

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#62

Post by kragen »

unfortunate that the author didn't bother to distinguish between the effects of state-of-the-art cryopreservation by vitrification and the older cryopreservation procedures that produced the massive fracture damages they mention

an awful lot of the article seems to be about how weird it is for people to study things carefully and try to do things that are not known to be possible, with the implicit subtext that being weird is bad

abandoning that ideology is how we got the industrial revolution and modern civilization, but unfortunately its adherents didn't die out completely, and will likely bring an end to that epoch

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#63

Post by _c3ag »

ggreer wrote: post #50
fotrury wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're going to die eventually whether you like it or not. Better to get comfortable with this fact, rather than fight it.

Doesn't that argument prove too much? In the past, people's lives were shorter and more full of misery. Every improvement we've gotten has been due to people rejecting your philosophy. Assuming one can live longer (without being frail and demented) why not? It seems like if most people could choose, they'd prefer to have the mental and physical abilities of a 20-something while living as long as they wanted. Eventual…

so do you really prefer society putting effort in very complex labour that is unknown than making people aware of how important is a good diet and exercising often?

as the website article typed, there is a long way to tickle trustable keys to preservation, let alone reviving a frozen body, let alone understanding what we have to do to live in peak capacity for 50 years, let alone to live 300…

i sincerely prefer public and private money being wasted on improving our ‘short’ lives than MAYBE discovering some esotericism that probably very few people will have access

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#65

Post by swayvil »

thefounder wrote: post #56
swayvil wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someday they'll demonstrate existence of an afterlife to the satisfaction of the average consumer and the whole world is gonna do a Homer Simpson. I mean, it'll flip our whole value system.

So the religious fanatics were right all along? I think the afterlife is actually the life after you realise there is no afterlife. Many never reach it.

Well a lot of those guys are just citing other guys. Not the most robust epistemology.

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#66

Post by wruza »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #35
drchiu wrote: post #10

Years ago when I was in medical school, I concluded to improve quality of life, no matter how finite, is a better endeavour than to prolong it. There's something tremendously philosophically satisfying to recognizing that death is just the recycling of life so that new life can happen.

> I concluded to improve quality of life, no matter how finite, is a better endeavour than to prolong it. Seems like a false dichotomy. Aside from life support in one's final days, most practical medical interventions for prolonging life also result in significant improvements in quality of life. For example, healthy diet and exercise contribute to extended lifespan, but they also improve quality of life significantl…

How does one start to see a healthy diet as a “quality of life”? QoL is when you eat a chunk of anything you feel like, down it with soda and feel nothing bad next hour or day. I could do that, lie on a couch watching mtv or go fall from a tree when I was young. That was quality of life. Everything after 30 is just a life support. You improve life support by a diet or a (careful) walk.

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#67

Post by harry8 »

So here is one of my current fav. conspiracy theories AND it involves Elon.

Remember the first payload of his "Falcon Heavy" rocket - some tesla or other? Had a tailor's dummy in a space suit strapped in the front seat.

That was a real person in the suit who had paid for the most effective, reliable and longest lasting cryogenic freeze available. No maintenance power required. Will continue to be frozen even if the earth explodes. Not beholdent to anyone alive to make the right decisions...

Elon decided not to just hide it in plain sight but make a spectacle of it with live feeds etc.

Probably nonsense but makes a certian amount more logical sense than a dummy in a space suit, huh?

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#69

Post by simonw »

Something I find fascinating about living in the San Francisco Bay Area is that Cryonics has had occasional bursts of interest around here dating back to the 1970s... which means there are genuinely warehouses out here that have had frozen human bodies sitting in them for 40+ years at this point!

I keep hoping to score a tour of one some day.

Re: What happened to the first cryogenically frozen humans?

#70

Post by banga »

I find the whole concept hilarious. There's an implicit assumption that someone in the future will be bothered to resurrect a frozen body, then resurrect them from death (since they already died before being popsicle-ified). And even if they could be bothered, the thawed would be a lab experiment, owned by whatever corporation pulled off the magic. And if magically they came out of the ordeal functional and free, there'd be those pesky bureaucrats to deal with (id, taxes, all the fun stuff). Hilarious.
Post reply on HN