Transterrestrial Musings

« Overheated Dragons | Main | Congratulations »

Cryonicists And Space

OK, I know I've been all over the cryonics stuff like Michael Moore on a plate of double cheeseburgers, but I hear you all asking--just what the heck does all this have to do with space?

First of all, space may offer a solution to a problem faced uniquely by cryonicists. As the Ted Williams (and the earlier Dora Kent) case shows, a cryonics patient in suspension is not necessarily safe from interference by others.

Storage in space could prove a solution to the "peasants with pitchforks" problem. A suspension repository in orbit or on the lunar surface could be designed to be passively cooled, eliminating the requirements of power for refrigeration, or the topping up of liquid nitrogen, reducing the chances of thawing due to natural disasters or business problems. And it would put the patients safely out of reach of most who, for whatever reason, would attempt to deliberately thaw (and thus destroy) them.

In addition, as more people sign up, it might present another market for space transportation, which is badly needed to reduce the cost. I wrote on this subject extensively for Cryonics magazine over a decade ago.

But there are other relationships between space and cryonics.

One of the concerns that's often raised by cryonics, and by life extension in general, is the population problem implied by new people being continually born, with few dying.

The problem, if it is one, is not immediate. Our home planet is capable of supporting many times as many people as it currently does at a comfortable living standard, given adequate technology, and rational governance (the latter being a commodity unfortunately still in short supply in much of the world). And I think that fixing the bad government problem is a much more ethically desirable and otherwise worthwhile approach than throwing up our hands at the problem, and instead murdering the millions who might like to live longer (which is what forcing someone to die prematurely surely is).

The biggest problems from a resource standpoint are water, and energy. But given affordable energy, the water problem is easily solved with desalinization of ocean water. And it would be foolish to bet that we won't come up with affordable new energy sources in the future (improved nuclear fission plants, nuclear fusion, more efficient solar and energy storage, etc.).

Also, there's no shortage of land, and won't be for a long time, considering how much of the planet is still relatively empty of people.

But sometime in the next few centuries, assuming that we don't stop breeding (not necessarily a good assumption) on a mass scale, we will run out of room on this planet.

Fortunately, the rest of the universe is almost unlimited, in volume and critical resources. If we do become essentially immortal, space settlement will provide a safety valve for the additional population, and in fact, it may allow us to actually depopulate the planet, and use it as a vast park, in which to breed diverse wildlife and enjoy scenic vacations.

Another problem often postulated by opponents of long life is that people will become bored. That may be true of some--even many. But while many people seem sanguine about the prospects of dying as they approach the ends of their lives, it isn't clear whether this is because of boredom, or because the currently-inevitable infirmities of advanced age have made living tiresome and unpleasant, and even excruciatingly painful.

It seems likely to me that, in most cases, their enthusiasm for life would be dramatically increased if they were given twenty-year-old bodies (and matching hormones) again, particularly if they were chronologically older and wiser, and thus knew much better what to do with them. In a world of rejuvenation, the old saying about "youth being wasted on the young" would no longer apply.

It will, of course, depend greatly on the individual. As I wrote once in a letter to The Economist, for Joe or Josephine Sixpack, who comes home from work each night and sits in front of the television drinking beer, three score and ten will seem plenty. But for a Leonardo or Leonarda da Vinci, a lifetime of centuries might still seem all too brief.

But for those who like to travel, longer life will offer more opportunities to visit new places, and in the future, most of those new places will be off planet, so for many, space offers a solution to the boredom problem as well.

Space and extended life go hand in hand. The universe is so vast that we will require many human lifetimes to explore it, at least as individuals. And it offers new ecological ranges for the increased numbers of conscious beings that will result from advances in technology. And finally, unfortunately, at our current rate of progress, I occasionally think that I'm going to have to live several hundred years just to have a chance to get off the planet, at least if the government stays in charge...

Posted by Rand Simberg at July 17, 2002 11:39 AM

Comments

Another (perhaps minor) problem with practical
immortality is the competent despot. I consider
Stalin or Mao to be exemplars of this catagory.
Given their paranoia and utter ruthlessness,
they could still be in power today had their
bodies not given out.

On the other hand, I am personally looking
forward to my own immortality. ;-) I have
plans for a fixer-upper asteroid.

Posted by john at July 17, 2002 01:06 PM

It makes sense that a person interested in enhancing healthy lifespan should be interested in the exploitation of space since both attitudes involve an interest in discovery. One of the bummers about our three-score years and ten lifespan is that there is so much to see and enjoy which we will miss out on. I also think the idea of putting cryonics users on a satellite or a place like the Moon out of harm's way makes a lot of sense.

Posted by Tom Burroughes at July 18, 2002 06:21 AM

Its for those reasons that I am all for cryonics. Cause if we ever do figure out how to take nearly dead people, freeze them, and then bring them back to life. Then, we would also be able to take healthy people, freeze them, put them on a space ship and lauch them off to another star system and then thaw them back out again when they get to the other side. We need cryonics to address the problems of traveling vast distances of interstellar space.

Posted by Hefty at July 18, 2002 09:11 AM

It's likely that we'll come up with much better methods of stasis than freezing by the time we get around to building star ships.

Cryonics is just a temporary stop-gap solution, for lack of anything better. Cryonicists have a saying--being frozen is the second-worst thing that can happen to you.

Posted by Rand Simberg at July 18, 2002 10:32 AM

Good Grief! I have to say that all this cryonics blather has really eroded your credibility. Having worked in the field of cell biology for over a decade now and having worked extensively with the freezing and preservation of tissue, I can say that it is highly unlikely that anyone stored in such a way will even be revived.

The simple fact is that while cellular respiration is slowed to a virtual halt, cell degradation is not completely prevented. While hematopoietic cells have been shown to survive for many years at -200C, they do not do so with any reliability. it is common practice to prefer fresher cells to older ones for this very purpose.

What makes anyone think that the techniques used today will facilitate thawing and bringing back to life later? It seems highly likely that the means used today are more liekly to result in a very expensive memorial to the deceased than to herald their return.

I would expect this kind of stuff on the floor of a star trek convention from a bunch of teenagers, but not from supposedly intelligent adult comentators.

Posted by jim at July 19, 2002 04:06 PM

Highly Unlikely != Impossible

No one is claiming that resurrection is likely. Just that it's a better bet than rotting or burning.

Just because you lack the foresight or imagination to see how future technologists might solve problems doesn't mean that they cannot be solved, unless you can show how doing so would violate some fundamental law of physics. I'm amazed at the hubris of comments like yours.

Posted by Rand Simberg at July 19, 2002 05:16 PM

No Hubris. I am just amazed at the star-eyed innocence displayed by those who believe that science has all answers and over time will be able to surmount everything, even death.

Perhaps science will one day allow for the cryopreservation of a body and the thawing and reviving of the same. I think it foolish to assume that today's methods would facilitate that. In just freezing samples of tissue we can experience huge losses. It is easy to freeze a homogenous cell suspension. All the cells can be preserved pretty well and losses can be minimized. Even then, viabilities of 90% would not be unreasonable, but such would be fatal for a whole organism.

In a heterogeneous specimen different cell types have different requirements for storage. Amongst white blood cells, for instance, granulocytes have very different requirements from mononucleated cells such as lymphocytes and monocytes. A preperation which spares the latter cell types will effectively destroy the former.

It is not that such a process cannot work. It is just that today we do not today have sufficient knowledge to preserve all tissues of the body simultaneously in a way which would allow for all tissue to survive. Even if 90% of all tissue could survive, would you like to come back with only 90% of your brain? Which functions would you like to surrender? Even then viability (which is most commonly tested by various dye exclusion tests) does not mean functionality. cells can survive and yet not be functional after a short time.

My point is simply that, while this might be a goal to aspire to, today it is nothing more than a scam for the fleecing of the star eyed futurist.

Even should the freezing and thawing of the body be successful, there is the additional assumption that science can still cheat death or cure diseases. The human genome project has not lead to cures but to a greater appreciation for the complexity of cell biology. Even long before the full genome was decoded, genes for diseases such as Huntington's Chorea have failed to lead to cures. Transcribing the genome is only the first step.

Should we be able to cure disease, there will be the remaining question of cellular aging. Dolly the sheep has shown signs of accelerated aging due to the shortened telomere length on her DNA. Unless there is therapy for that you are revived only to be back on death's door.

Lastly, let's assume that sometime in the distant future your dream becomes reality and it is possible to revive these frozen corpses. In what is likely to be several centuries from now, how many people will be frozen? Who will pay to have these people thawed and treated? Will it not be within the realm of possibility that the revivification of these people will be prevented to to lack of resources, financial or otherwise? Would you promote thawing out of potentially thousands of people, who would be a drain on the society since they are functionally uneducated and quite possibly functionally illiterate due to changing language usage. Even if technology exists at some leter date there is a distinct possibilty that it will not be allowed.

And while most anticipate some futuristic paradise, it is equally likely that you will wake to a futuristic servitude. The freedom we enjoy today is an anomaly in human history. It would be very unlikely for you to wake up to the same situation.

It just seems that there is a lot of unfounded optimism and very little critical thought on what the barriers are and what the real outcomes might be.

Posted by jim at July 19, 2002 08:40 PM

"No Hubris. I am just amazed at the star-eyed innocence displayed by those who believe that science has all answers and over time will be able to surmount everything, even death."

And if you've been reading what I've written on the subject, sorry, but "death" is a relative and ill-defined term.

"And while most anticipate some futuristic paradise, it is equally likely that you will wake to a futuristic servitude. The freedom we enjoy today is an anomaly in human history. It would be very unlikely for you to wake up to the same situation."

I have no idea how you come up with the probability that it is "equally likely." As a percentage of the human race, the numbers in human servitude are much less than they were in the past. Freedom is a growing, secular trend. On what basis do you say that it will be likely that this trend will reverse in the future?

"It just seems that there is a lot of unfounded optimism and very little critical thought on what the barriers are and what the real outcomes might be."

We are quite aware of the barriers. We, apparently unlike you, are even more aware of the *certainties* of rotting or burning, of which you seem blithely unaware, or despondently (or gleefully?) accepting.

How did you get such a dyspectic view of human nature and history? It's certainly not based on the facts of the matter. The glass is not just half full--it's more than that, but you seem to think that it's almost empty.

I pity you. If your view of the future is so bleak, and your love of living so weak, why not just toss yourself out a window now?

Posted by Rand Simberg at July 19, 2002 09:05 PM

"Good Grief! I have to say that all this cryonics blather has really eroded your credibility."

The only blather and lack of credibility is yours, Jim. I am amazed you seem never to have heard of
nanotechnology. That's what's incredible about the cellular and cryobiology people is that they have
such a narrow scope. They make these blanket statements poopooing cryonics without so much as a smidgen of the knowledge even the amateurs, of which I am one, have on the subject.

"What makes anyone think that the techniques used today will facilitate thawing and bringing back to life later? It seems highly likely that the means used today are more liekly to result in a very expensive memorial to the deceased than to herald their return."

Would you agree that molecular manipulation of the building blocks of cells is going to be possible?
Does it violate any physical laws? Do I get a yes and then a no? I should or again you haven't done
your homework. Go here to study up my friend. http://www.merkle.com/

Next would you agree that routinely people are now brought back to life from a hypothermic state?
Another 'yes' I suppose? Then if we can one day bring the body cell by cell back to a pristine state
while still quite cold then warm it up to the same temperature as hypothermic surgery, what pray tell what is the difference between the two?

"I would expect this kind of stuff on the floor of a star trek convention from a bunch of teenagers, but not
from supposedly intelligent adult comentators."

Posted by jim at July 19, 2002 04:06 PM

If remaining childlike in our imagination means we have the foresight to see the wonderful possibilities
the future holds then we my friend will live and you won't and maybe the gene pool will be better for it.

*********

"No Hubris. I am just amazed at the star-eyed innocence displayed by those who believe that science has all answers and over time will be able to surmount everything, even death."

Are you kidding me? Science not have all the answers? Since when does it not? In a past life your were a Cardinal chastising Galileo, right? Sure there may be a tiny few that we will never determine, like what existed before the big bang, is there really a god and a way to know it without doing to meet him/her and such as these but not much more than this. Everything can be reduced and deduced and little by little will be Mr. Jim. BTW, why didn't you have the intestinal fortitude to post your email address?

"Perhaps science will one day allow for the cryopreservation of a body and the thawing and reviving of the same. I think it foolish to assume that today's methods would facilitate that. In just freezing samples of tissue we can experience huge losses. It is easy to freeze a homogenous cell suspension. All the cells can be preserved pretty well and losses can be minimized. Even then, viabilities of 90% would not be unreasonable, but such would be fatal for a whole organism."

If you can admit that it might one day be possible then I suggest you get K. Eric Drexler's book "The
Engine's of Creation"
http://www.foresight.org/EOC/EOC_Chapter_9.htmland Dr. Robert Freitas'
book "Nanomedicine" (visualize it here: http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine/Gallery/index.html). I have them both, in fact Robert autographed his for me. Available at amazon.com.

"In a heterogeneous specimen different cell types have different requirements for storage. Amongst white blood cells, for instance, granulocytes have very different requirements from mononucleated cells such as lymphocytes and monocytes. A preperation which spares the latter cell types will effectively destroy the former."

Yea yea yea, we concede the enormous damage. Despite that we strongly feel we will be able to piece by piece, molecule by molecule, atom by atom, rebuild the various cells. Read here for how even the brain can be repaired with nanotech: http://www.merkle.com/cryo/techFeas.html

"My point is simply that, while this might be a goal to aspire to, today it is nothing more than a scam for the fleecing of the star eyed futurist."

Be careful what you say Jim, it borders on libel. Cryonics is not a scam. To say something is a scam you must purport that those taking the money have intentionally set out to defraud the customers.

This is simply so wrong on so many levels it's near to blasphemy. Firstly, everyone involved is also a
member themselves. The companies are non profit. The employees wages are abysmal and so the benefits unless you count being able to keep an eye on your relatives and friends to ensure their
survival.

There are many more reasons why cryonics is not a scam but my case is enough, I believe, to dispel
this myth for good. Please see the following (page down to the July 16 section):

http://www.msnbc.com/news/750150.asp?0si=-. It tells about how the founder of cryonics donated
$13,000.00 of his own estate to start my cryonics fund. I am a quadriplegic and dependent on social
security disability. Because of this it is illegal for me to have assets that could pay for cryonics. My
health is too poor to obtain life insurance, the method most use to pay for it (contact info for cryonics insurance expert--RUDIHOFFMA@aol.com).

If it's a scam wouldn't it be pointless to give away such a large sum toward paying for it? Your
accusation like all others is groundless and based on ignorance.

"Even should the freezing and thawing of the body be successful, there is the additional assumption that science can still cheat death or cure diseases. The human genome project has not lead to cures but to a greater appreciation for the complexity of cell biology. Even long before the full genome was decoded, genes for diseases such as Huntington's Chorea have failed to lead to cures. Transcribing the genome is only the first step."

Where have you been the last 50 years? Did you just get teleported from the 19th century? I think
maybe you guys that spend so much time in your one field miss out on the entire spectrum of
development that's going one. I'll get to more of that later but for now let's do a thought experiment.

Imagine that in all the billions upon billions possible worlds in the universe there actually is life
elsewhere than here. Could we extrapolate what civilization development for them might be based upon our own experience?

Would you expect other civilizations to go through something akin to a hunter-gather stage, then
animal husbandry and agriculture? Would as it did here agriculture lead to trade? I expect so. Can we
follow this line of development to include technological advancement? I think so. How about eventually the development of science and technology to the level we have today? Now imagine, I know it's hard for you but I'll help ok? Again imagine that this hypothetical civilization is 1000 years or even 10,000 years beyond ours. Would you expect them to have conquered death? I would. I'd be very surprised if it was otherwise.

Once a civilization reaches the point of manipulation of matter at the atomic level all bets are off. How can a disease remain a threat if nanobots course through our bloodstream or even residing within each cell constantly repairing cellular damage? You really need to read Robert Freitas' book Nanomedicine or try to get the video "Cutting Edge Science" from The Learning Channel.

"Should we be able to cure disease, there will be the remaining question of cellular aging. Dolly the sheep has shown signs of accelerated aging due to the shortened telomere length on her DNA. Unless there is therapy for that you are revived only to be back on death's door."

Oops! Again you missed the recent developments. Telomers have already been rejuvenated and
therapies are in our time being developed to rejuvenate a human being back to youthful vigor. Then there is tissue engineering and stem cell tissue replacement therapy and then genetic manipulation to switch on our body's dormant amphibian DNA properties for limb regeneration. Ways to safely turn genes on and off are being developed.

http://freedom.orlingrabbe.com/lfetimes/telomere.htm

"Lastly, let's assume that sometime in the distant future your dream becomes reality and it is possible to revive these frozen corpses. In what is likely to be several centuries from now, how many people will be frozen? Who will pay to have these people thawed and treated? Will it not be within the realm of possibility that the revivification of these people will be prevented to to lack of resources, financial or otherwise? Would you promote thawing out of potentially thousands of people, who would be a drain on the society since they are functionally uneducated and quite possibly functionally illiterate due to changing language usage. Even if technology exists at some leter date there is a distinct possibilty that it will not be allowed."

Sure it's within the realm of possibility. Anything's possible. But it's not in the realm of probability.
Here you need to get in touch with what we call the Singularity

http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0235.html?m%3D1.

Or ask yourself what the economy will be like when everyone has their own replicater technology. Again we are back to nanotech. However, imagine commanding your personal nanobots to create an apple for from dirt, water, air and some energy. Impossible you say? Nay, an apple seed does the same thing but it merely takes longer. Based on stereo lithography concepts an apple could be built by nanrobotics atom by atom before your very eyes. So could your shelter, clothing, transportation, etc. etc. What will you need money for? Costly to revive people? Not very likely.

However, suppose it is expensive just the same. Ever heard of compound interest? Suppose the
cryonics organizations have invested in technology stocks over the coming century or two you
acquiesce might be the timeline for revival. How much would a $10,000.00 investment be worth by
then? Can we say millions? Tens of millions? How about more likely hundreds of millions?

Not be allowed? I suppose you are projecting this century's lack of respect for life onto the future. What do you base it on? It really miffs me when people get apocalyptic about the future. You accuse us of too much sci-fi enthusiasm but you seem to have too much sci-fi pessimism. Stop reading doomsday crap man! You're likely to work subconsciously toward fulfillment of your dark nightmares. Garbage in equals garbage out. The proof is that here you are dissing something that is life affirming, respects life and seeks to perpetuate it for all. Rather than be constructive and contribute your talents and knowledge you prefer to try to drag it down.

How about that? What if all the naysayers could instead decide it was a noble goal and get on board
and help out? How soon could we transform society? Not just cryonics but the entire life extension phenomenom. How much more appreciative of life would people be if they knew that barring terrible accident they could live and love for a thousand of years, perhaps more? What of war or of crime?

Would people be so willing to die or send their children to die in useless war? I think not. There would be so much more to lose... so much more to live for. Wouldn't it accelorate progress if knowledge encapsulated within a fragile human vessel was not lost to oblivion in just a few short years? Are these not noble goals? If so then tweak your memeset Jim, contribute!

"And while most anticipate some futuristic paradise, it is equally likely that you will wake to a futuristic
servitude. The freedom we enjoy today is an anomaly in human history. It would be very unlikely for you to wake up to the same situation."

I guess you're not a history buff. If you were then you'd have to notice, I'm surprised you don't anyway, that life is a lot better now than it was 2000, 1000, 500, 200, 100 even 50 years ago. How can you have missed the trends? For a really good source for interpreting the trends in technology and science please go here and study deeply.

http://www.kurzweilai.net

"It just seems that there is a lot of unfounded optimism and very little critical thought on what the barriers are and what the real outcomes might be."

The lack of critical thought is in your camp fella. You have to know something to think critically about it but you have demonstrated incredible lack of knowledge of the subject you purport expertise in. How on Earth could you miss all the work done these days on anti-aging, cell regeneration, tissue
engineering, gene therapy, therapeutic cloning and nanotechnology. What remains to be seen is if this
ignorance is willful. Are you redeemable?

Serendipity happens and so the radio happens to be playing this very minute The Grateful Dead,
"Please don't murder me." That's my admonition to you and all the cryonics naysayers. Either learn
about it fully or shut the hell up before your memes end up murdering me, those I love and even the future.

James Swayze
--
MY WEBSITE: http://www.geocities.com/~davidpascal/swayze/

Posted by James Swayze at July 22, 2002 12:26 PM

I apologize for the formatting problem. I tried to cut and paste from my email program so I could spellcheck.

Posted by James Swayze at July 22, 2002 12:28 PM

Question for jim:

"The simple fact is that while cellular respiration is slowed to a virtual halt, cell degradation is not completely prevented. While hematopoietic cells have been shown to survive for many years at -200C, they do not do so with any reliability. it is common practice to prefer fresher cells to older ones for this very purpose."

Interesting. Is the mechanism of the degradation known? Also, can you point to a reference showing that the common practice is rational because the old cells do not survive as well? (The alternative hypothesis is that the common practice is a superstition based on unsound extrapolation from storing food in the freezer at home at a higher temperature.)

In any case, the essential goal of cryonics is to preserve the neural structures that encode memory. If that's preserved, then it is in principle possible to restore the function later, and it might happen. If function is preserved too, that's even better; it incresases the odds of successfully storing the structure, and it increases the odds of eventual recovery better because recovery would be easier. Otherwise recovery would require intervention on a cell-by-cell basis, which more-or-less presupposes nanotechnology.

Posted by Tim Freeman at July 24, 2002 11:24 AM

Is it possible preserve a small tissue sample of a person for later cloning? And if the person recently died? A very small sample.

Posted by jack at February 10, 2003 07:20 PM

Is it possible to preserve a small tissue sample of a person for later cloning? And if the person recently died? A very small sample.

Posted by jack at February 10, 2003 07:21 PM

Post a comment