Cryonics for immortality

mickeydevine

Has anyone else thought about cryonics. To me, as an atheist, it seems a valid option to giving us all what we seek, immortality. I just can't understand how any free thinking person with an intrest in science can believe in 'God'. Religious ferver simply delays us from the realisation that WE are the creators of our own destiny. To not question the world around you and to answer children with 'God made it' or 'it is gods will' is totally bogus and angers me to the bone (off point, soz). I wish I could get frozen now and woken up in 50 years. The greed and constant bickering in the present is IMO boring and pointless. I dont think cryonics should only be used for old age, young people with presently incurable diseases could be 'Thawed' when a cure is found.

Also I watched a lecture by Ian Lungold (deceased) on Youtube about the Mayan Sun calender and it blew me away. Everthing he said makes sense, the evolution of the world is speeding up. I dont however believe the world will end in Dec 2012, well maybe.

pH

mickeydevine wrote: »

I wish I could get frozen now and woken up in 50 years. The greed and constant bickering in the present is IMO boring and pointless.

Still, much better than days full of backbreaking work, servitude to the local Big Man, countless nasty debilitating diseases, watching half of your kids die, and dead at 40 which is what pretty much every human faced until very recently.

mickeydevine

pH wrote: »

Still, much better than days full of backbreaking work, servitude to the local Big Man, countless nasty deliberating diseases, watching half of your kids die, and dead at 40 which is what pretty much every human faced until very recently.

Point taken. I don't think about the past though. The futures the place to be.

I read a few years ago about a company that would cremate your body and compress the ashes into a tiny capsule. Then, the capsule could be included with some small satellite launch; left to orbit the Earth until it burns up in re-entry a few decades later. That's what I want to have done.

Nodin

mickeydevine wrote: »

Has anyone else thought about cryonics. To me, as an atheist, it seems a valid option to giving us all what we seek, immortality. I just can't understand how any free thinking person with an intrest in science can believe in 'God'. Religious ferver simply delays us from the realisation that WE are the creators of our own destiny. To not question the world around you and to answer children with 'God made it' or 'it is gods will' is totally bogus and angers me to the bone (off point, soz). I wish I could get frozen now and woken up in 50 years. The greed and constant bickering in the present is IMO boring and pointless. I dont think cryonics should only be used for old age, young people with presently incurable diseases could be 'Thawed' when a cure is found.

As far as I know, the freezing process is essentially that, and you end up like a piece of deep frozen meat. All the water in your body freezes, utterly destroying the cells. This would mean that you'd have to be (a) brought back from the dead (b) every cell in your body repaired and (c) be cured of what put you in there in the first place. Theres better uses for your money in the world than that, some of which involve donating to research on disease.

Dades

If you ask me, there's already too many people in the world without bringing rich, white people back from the dead.

robindch

mickeydevine wrote: »

To me, as an atheist, it seems a valid option to giving us all what we seek, immortality.

Ask your successors to have your remains fertilize an oak at the bottom of your garden -- should keep you going for another century or two.

mickeydevine

mickeydevine wrote: »

To me, as an atheist, it seems a valid option to giving us all what we seek, immortality.

Speak for yourself, tbh

seamus

Nodin wrote: »

As far as I know, the freezing process is essentially that, and you end up like a piece of deep frozen meat. All the water in your body freezes, utterly destroying the cells. This would mean that you'd have to be (a) brought back from the dead (b) every cell in your body repaired and (c) be cured of what put you in there in the first place. Theres better uses for your money in the world than that, some of which involve donating to research on disease.

In standard freezing processes, yes your cells would be irreparably damaged. This is because water crystallises when frozen slowly and these crystals will damage cell walls and pretty much anything else. This is also the same reason why Ice cream tastes like crap if you let if fully thaw and try to refreeze it.

Cryogenic procedures though rely on a quick-freeze process, which prevents the water from crytallising and thus preventing damage to cell walls. Theoretically.

The downside is that you've already died and begun decomposing and before they froze you, they drained you of all your blood. Oops.

So in addition to being riddled with cancer or missing your kidneys, the people who revive you will have to be capable of reversing the decomposition process and replacing all of your blood. Those last two will have to join a queue behind all of the other rather more urgent matters that medicine needs to figure out how to treat.

oshead

From the moment you were put to sleep to the moment you woke up would seem like a split second. Your 50 years would be up in an instant. :eek:

Dave OS

Húrin

pH wrote: »

Still, much better than days full of backbreaking work, servitude to the local Big Man, countless nasty deliberating diseases, watching half of your kids die, and dead at 40 which is what pretty much every human faced until very recently.

Actually, it was mainly like that between about 1750 and 1940 in Europe. This was the nadir in class relations, and is a result of the workers competing for jobs in an urban industrial context. Before that, there was a lot of commons land, so the poor could graze their sheep freely. Then enclosure happened.

Before mass agriculture itself began about six thousand years ago, horticultural and hunter-gathering civilisations only spent four or five hours a day working.

Nodin

seamus wrote: »

In standard freezing processes, yes your cells would be irreparably damaged. This is because water crystallises when frozen slowly and these crystals will damage cell walls and pretty much anything else. This is also the same reason why Ice cream tastes like crap if you let if fully thaw and try to refreeze it.

Cryogenic procedures though rely on a quick-freeze process, which prevents the water from crytallising and thus preventing damage to cell walls. Theoretically.

The downside is that you've already died and begun decomposing and before they froze you, they drained you of all your blood. Oops.

So in addition to being riddled with cancer or missing your kidneys, the people who revive you will have to be capable of reversing the decomposition process and replacing all of your blood. Those last two will have to join a queue behind all of the other rather more urgent matters that medicine needs to figure out how to treat.

Thank you sir. I took a look at Wiki and indeed I was talking through my big fat ass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics

The revised rough list

- (a) be brought back from clinical death (b) have the damage done by decomposition reversed (c) have the damage done by "cryoprotectant toxicity" reversed and then (d) have the disease which put you in there fixed.

The tree option sounds far better. Or you could get turned into a Gem.
http://www.lifegem.com/

Ideally I'd like a Viking sea burial, with much boozing and lechery ashore in my memory.

Goduznt Xzst

physical immortality will not cure the problem of universal entropy. Humans, maybe due to religious indoctrination, or maybe due to lack of insight, tend to see things continuing ad infinitum. You only have to look at the denial in people about mortality or our consumption and waste cycles to see this.

Even if we attain immortality, it still doesn't stop our Sun from extinguishing, or our galaxy from burning out, or the universe ending, and I guarantee you, you'd have the same feelings a trillion years from now dying as you will ~60 years from now.

Yusuf Mirza

seamus

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

physical immortality will not cure the problem of universal entropy.

The interesting things about this concept is that every single proton in the universe has a finite lifespan. Although protons theoretically just move about the universe and never change, they will all revert to energy eventually.

Unless we can find a way of actually leaving our universe and shedding ourselves of all matter, there is nothing we can do to prevent everything simply vanishing into energy, eventually.

MrPudding

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

physical immortality will not cure the problem of universal entropy. Humans, maybe due to religious indoctrination, or maybe due to lack of insight, tend to see things continuing ad infinitum. You only have to look at the denial in people about mortality or our consumption and waste cycles to see this.

Even if we attain immortality, it still doesn't stop our Sun from extinguishing, or our galaxy from burning out, or the universe ending, and I guarantee you, you'd have the same feelings a trillion years from now dying as you will ~60 years from now.

Seems like a good enough excuse to throw this in...

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

MrP

GothPunk

seamus wrote: »

So in addition to being riddled with cancer or missing your kidneys, the people who revive you will have to be capable of reversing the decomposition process and replacing all of your blood. Those last two will have to join a queue behind all of the other rather more urgent matters that medicine needs to figure out how to treat.

If Futurama has taught us anything, it is that if people from our time with an uncurable disease or disorder get cyrogenically frozen, they will be having too much fun doing future people stuff and die of boneitis.

80's Guy: [Starts contorting violently] My bones!
Fry: Oh, my God! His boneitis!
80's Guy: I was so busy being an '80s guy, I forgot to cure it!
[Contorts some more] My one regret is... that I have... boneitis.
[Dies in a hideously contorted manner]

If you got frozen and woken up in 50 years we won't have a cure for every type of cancer, people will still be killing each other or themselves (by smoking and drinking heavily etc) and every single film coming out will be the 3D remake of something you saw in the late 90's early 00's. If you're going to get frozen, you might as well be a bit more adventurous and ask to be thawed 500 years from now. It could be another 100 years before we have a cure for every type of cancer, but by then everyone will be so fat we'll probably have teenagers dying of heart attacks. It seems highly likely that people will be far too busy in the near future to worry about thawing out those who opted to be cryogenically frozen upon death, let alone whether or not they'd be able to help you and your specific ailments.

The cryogenic method with the most potential for success would be for you to be frozen whilst you were still fit, healthy and alive, which would mean cutting your life short in the small chance that you would be able to wake up in the future.

I don't want immortality. I would like to see what the world would be like in the future but I'm happy just using my imagination. Another reason why I'm glad there is no afterlife - as much as I like conversing with you all I doubt I could hack it for all eternity.

Fanny Cradock

The whole cryogenics thing reminds me of post-Rapture pet care - a hilarious waste of money.

This topic was covered on the Christianity forum a while back.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055350256&highlight=cryogenics

MrPudding

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

The whole cryogenics thing reminds me of post-Rapture pet care - a hilarious waste of money.

This topic was covered on the Christianity forum a while back.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055350256&highlight=cryogenics

I like this too...

http://postrapturepost.com/

MrP

destroyer

mickeydevine wrote: »

Has anyone else thought about cryonics. To me, as an atheist, it seems a valid option to giving us all what we seek, immortality. I just can't understand how any free thinking person with an intrest in science can believe in 'God'. Religious ferver simply delays us from the realisation that WE are the creators of our own destiny. To not question the world around you and to answer children with 'God made it' or 'it is gods will' is totally bogus and angers me to the bone (off point, soz). I wish I could get frozen now and woken up in 50 years. The greed and constant bickering in the present is IMO boring and pointless. I dont think cryonics should only be used for old age, young people with presently incurable diseases could be 'Thawed' when a cure is found.

Also I watched a lecture by Ian Lungold (deceased) on Youtube about the Mayan Sun calender and it blew me away. Everthing he said makes sense, the evolution of the world is speeding up. I dont however believe the world will end in Dec 2012, well maybe.

You'ld be fairly peed off if you came back in fifty years and people were still greedy and bickering pointlessly...but sure whats the chance
of that?

20goto10

Or...you could make the most of your life while you still can.

destroyer

20goto10 wrote: »

Or...you could make the most of your life while you still can.

+1

thats kinda what i was hinting at:):)

Dr Pepper

While we're throwing in funny links, here's a quote this subject always brings to mind

Smithers (aged 65): Oh, Mr. Burns, we'll thaw you out the second they
discover the cure for seventeen stab wounds in the back.
How're we doing, boys?
Frink: Well, we're up to fifteen.

destroyer

MrPudding wrote: »

Seems like a good enough excuse to throw this in...

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

MrP

Brilliant MrP Just Brilliant

mickeydevine

Only me then, fair enough.

Personally I feel that in the next 50-100 years you'll be able to order a new body every time your old one gets a bit worn out, just like a new pair of shoes. With stem cell research seeminly in Obamas' plans then the ability to grow new nerve cells is not far off. Also its not about me enjoying my life now, which I do, its about knowing that when we forget all this religion and poliics nonsence, when we come together as a human race and not just factions out to get all they can thinking only of ourselves then we might just make heaven on earth. Maybe a bit out there I admit but thinking about the future evolution of the human mind which has come further inthe last 200 years than the previous 20000 I can see it happen. We are at the biggest turning point in human development the world has ever seen but its gonna get messy. I'd just like to skip all the posturing and get to the good stuff. I dont want to die, I want to live forever.

Overblood

Nodin wrote: »

All the water in your body freezes, utterly destroying the cells. This would mean that you'd have to be (a) brought back from the dead (b) every cell in your body repaired and (c) be cured of what put you in there in the first place.

I think they pump all your blood out and embalm you with some sort of liquid that won't freeze thus preserving the structure of the cells. But the stuff is fairly poisonous and they don't know how to detoxify the body of this chemical yet. Tis nuts!

kiffer

I like the defrosted people in Transmetropolitan...
Basically you get frozen now, until a cure is found for your disease or until a specific criteria is met.
They thaw you out because the promised they would, fix you, then they release you in to the general population and you become homeless, in a totally confusing and alien society, you have no means of earning a living and you can't cope with the changes in society or technology...

Take a peasant from the middle ages and drop them in New York and watch them try to cope.

starchild

mickeydevine wrote: »

Has anyone else thought about cryonics. To me, as an atheist, it seems a valid option to giving us all what we seek, immortality.

You already are immortal, all of us are just energy , your physical body will die but your essence cant, you will always be

mickeydevine wrote: »

Point taken. I don't think about the past though. The futures the place to be.

The present is the place to be, concentrating on the future is as futile as concentrating on the past, the only time to be concerned with is the moment you are in

Zillah

Dades wrote: »

If you ask me, there's already too many people in the world without bringing rich, white people back from the dead.

Yes well, if we´ve learned anything its that rich white people can do anything they like and there´s not a damn thing you can do to stop us them.

starchild wrote: »

You already are immortal, all of us are just energy , your physical body will die but your essence cant, you will always be

If I smash your house to pieces, technically the bricks of which it was composed remain, but we wouldn´t really describe the house as still existing.

fowley

mickeydevine wrote: »

I just can't understand how any free thinking person with an intrest in science can believe in 'God'.

to be honest, thats your opinion. im a scientist i dont believe strictly in god. but to say science is the opposite of god is a false statement and unjustified. they dont go hand in hand. im exploring physics, if someone says "god made the universe" i cant disprove it, a downside of the big bang theory im afraid.

perhaps you heard the quote "god doesnt play dice" so a scientist can believe in god

dont worry, no offence taken on my part. i wont get into it, but if you want to start a new thread

fowley

fowley wrote: »

perhaps you heard the quote "god doesnt play dice" so a scientist can believe in god

The scientist who you've quoted was an atheist, not a theist.

Rb

I've discussed this quite a bit and if I have the money, it's the option I'll be going for.

The advances in medicine in technology in even the last 60 years has left me so curious to find out what we humans will be capable of in a few hundred years. Hopefully Christianity and its retarded interence in things such as stem cell research disappears in that time though, as unfortunately that overgrown, delusional cult is holding back the true potential of science in some important parts of the world.

mickeydevine

fowley wrote: »

to be honest, thats your opinion. im a scientist i dont believe strictly in god. but to say science is the opposite of god is a false statement and unjustified. they dont go hand in hand. im exploring physics, if someone says "god made the universe" i cant disprove it, a downside of the big bang theory im afraid.

perhaps you heard the quote "god doesnt play dice" so a scientist can believe in god

dont worry, no offence taken on my part. i wont get into it, but if you want to start a new thread

I said I couldn't understand it, not that all scientists don't believe in god, some do.

Húrin

starchild wrote: »

You already are immortal, all of us are just energy , your physical body will die but your essence cant, you will always be

To atheists, the essence/the mind, is a product of the physical body.

Húrin

Rb wrote: »

I've discussed this quite a bit and if I have the money, it's the option I'll be going for.

The advances in medicine in technology in even the last 60 years has left me so curious to find out what we humans will be capable of in a few hundred years. Hopefully Christianity and its retarded interence in things such as stem cell research disappears in that time though, as unfortunately that overgrown, delusional cult is holding back the true potential of science in some important parts of the world.

Eurocentric :rolleyes::pac:

fowley

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

The scientist who you've quoted was an atheist, not a theist.

ok so it was a bad quote, my point was to refute the original arguement that a scientist cant (by default) believe in god. i dont consider einstein to be a strong atheist. he also said this "In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views." from wiki.

i think comparing science and god is comparing apples and oranges.

fowley

fowley wrote: »

ok so it was a bad quote, my point was to refute the original arguement that a scientist cant (by default) believe in god. i dont consider einstein to be a strong atheist. he also said this "In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views." from wiki.

i think comparing science and god is comparing apples and oranges.

Einstein was a pantheist: when he was talking about God in that quote, he was talking about him in a pantheistic way. Some more quotes:

"I have never talked to a Jesuit prest in my life. I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist."

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

There are many, many more quotes saying this, too.

Anyway, this is off-topic.

Húrin

Why do Einstein's religious beliefs, or lack thereof, matter to any of you?

Húrin

Húrin wrote: »

Why do Einstein's religious beliefs, or lack thereof, matter to any of you?

They don't, particularly. Somebody quoted him saying he was religious, so I corrected them.