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I'm curious, is there anyone here that's looked at or researched the practice of cryonics? For those that don't know, cryonics is the practice of freezing either the brain, head, or body after 'death' with the expectation of future technology being able to fix and revive the person.

I personally find it very interesting, along with my own interest in futurology in general, and I consider myself a cryonicist in that I agree with the assumptions made in the field and believe in its ultimate success. I've even considered undergoing it myself, depending on events in the future. I think it's fascinating reading about how the science, technology, and practice have improved over the decades. The first preservation took place back in 1967 under crude conditions and that person is unlikely to ever be revived with his personality and memory intact. Since then, advances have been made to the point that it's possible to completely freeze a brain with no ice formation damaging the cells so that people preserved after the late 90s are very likely to be revived fully so long as their bodies hadn't been left to decay or otherwise be damaged before the procedure.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you given much consideration to this area?

I have also had an interest about this since Halo.  it could very much be a possibility

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Yeah, I used to be interested in cryonics and transhumanist stuff years ago, though I kind of lost interest since.

Cryonics is interesting. You only lose a few thousand dollars, but you might get a second life in a future era for it. Even if it won't lead to eternal life, I think it would be fun to live another decade in the 22nd century. I think it might be worth a shot.

Whoops, forget about 'a few thousand', looks like it costs $200,000. A bit steep i think.

And with recent advances, long life isn't that far away. A recent experiment with stem cells allowed mice to live three times their normal lifespan. This effect was repeated with human cells in a lab dish. It's interesting...the promise of nanotechnology that drove the growth of cryonics in the 80s may be actually fulfilled by stem cells in the next few decades.

The last I looked, it cost $100,000 to do a full-body preservation and $25,000 to just do the head, although that was probably three or four years ago. They recommend neuropreservation-only because it's easier to get the cryoprotectant to the brain and because they believe in the future they'll simply be able to clone a new body for the brain.

I always thought that was a somewhat disturbing notion. I'd rather take artificial augmentation when the technology rolls around, and I'm almost certain that it will. Artificial intelligence is set to eclipse human intelligence, so I wouldn't mind tuning up in the future.

You think cryonics is a disturbing notion, but you're ok with putting chips into your brain?

I can't say I have a strong stance on this issue. I'm not personally interested, but if people want to dump hundreds of thousands of dollars on freezing their brain, hey, more power to them.

I'm a transhumanist as well, as Mootles should know, but I've never truly understood the purpose of cryonics... For a future civilization there would be absolutely no reason to wake up a frozen person... Except possibly, as a historian... But even then you'd have to be exceptionally far in the future or you'd have to have somehow existed through some extraordinary apocalyptic event... And either way you would appear as quite a stupid ape... You wouldn't know anything and would soon die, if not by some form of accident then by diseases... But I do enjoy the idea of being frozen and then woken up a couple hundred years from now...
But yeah, tuning up with some brain chips or even just basic muscle enhancement type things is something I see much more usefulness for...

That is a lot of money to pay for something that is unlikely to come to fruition I would say, unless you have money like that to chuck anywhere.

Why is it unlikely to come to fruition?

Also, I find it odd that people would be alright with putting chips in their brain. That just seems like a great avenue for a hacker or virus...or the government...to reprogram you or some shit.

They could reprogram us if this was a shitty (or in rare cases good) sci-fi movie... But really it's just not that likely... There are some really interesting things that might happen with memory type things... But even that is all theory...

Do you know how little security there is on implanted technology as it is? Things like web-enabled pacemakers that are supposed to allow doctors to view their performance online? Sorry, the only person I want to be able to change my thoughts and personality is me.

WALT DISNEY


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He was actually cremated and buried with his wife and daughter, not frozen.