Cryogenics -

[Fiona]

I am really interested to hear people's views about whether they feel medical science will ever advance sufficiently to revive people who pay thousands of pounds to have their bodies, or heads cryogenically stored? Surely this is so far from the realms of possibility as to make it utter nonsense?

For myself, it feels a little like clever a modern day scam, based on little more than fantasy and science fiction, taking large amounts of cash in exchange for something which people will never be able to complain about if they don't receive. Customers can be tricky, dead ones on the other hand don't tend to make too many demands. To make matters worse I saw a programme recently in which relatives of people who had been cryogenically stored were saying things like, "It gives me comfort to think I might see them one day, that they aren't really dead.." - this was quite a common theme, so people's grief also appears to be being exploited somewhat.

If we were going to try to attain mortality isn't it more sensible to augment our bodies while we are alive and well, rather than to wait until they are dead and damaged and then subject them to further damage through the process of cryogenics?


"Never try to teach a pig to sing, it doesn't work and annoys the pig"

[Fiona]

Ok so I think I meant Cryonics! - Sorry Folks!

[Tormod]

I agree with you that it is a scam. As far as I have been able to find out, we do have some insight into how hibernation works in certain animals, and scientists have revived sleeping bacteria after 30,000 years etc but we are nowhere near finding a solution for thawing frozen people. Heck, we don't even know how to freeze them.

[Fiona]

Agreed. These people are essentially paying to become modern day mummies in a bid to gain eternal life. In several thousand years someone will crack open the caskets to study them and the belief systems that led to their existence - sound familiar?

"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It doesn't work and annoys the pig"

[InfiniteNow]

I think there is a certain frog that goes into deep freeze and, by all current measurements, would be considered dead. Then as spring begins, it thaws (curiously, from the inside out) and it slowly revives... heart starts, neural activity, and the like.

My guess is that they are tying to artificially induce in humans what nature has induced in these curious little frogs.

[Fatstep]

Originally Posted by Fiona

"It gives me comfort to think I might see them one day, that they aren't really dead.."

"Never try to teach a pig to sing, it doesn't work and annoys the pig"

That alone makes them complete idiots. The body has already died when they freeze them, if this were to ever work, which I doubt it will, then someone would have to be Blast-Frozen while they're still alive. Once the body has died you won't be able to revive it, and even if you could the person would be a vegetable, and I doubt that could even happen.