Alcor just won a lawsuit to allow them to disinter a body that had been buried for two years, and cryonically suspend the rotted head.
Yes, it’s pointless, as far as that patient went (as far as I’m concerned, his family murdered him), but Alcor had to do this, to assure their other customers that it would do whatever was necessary to fight for them, and fulfill its contractual responsibilities. It was also a useful reminder to obstreperous relatives that they have to obey the wishes of the deceased. What’s particularly disgusting about this is that it appears they did it for the money. I thought it seemed like chutzpah to prevent Alcor from fulfilling the contract, then demanding the money back for it.
There’s something about cryonics that just gives me the chills… Sorry, couldn’t resist. 🙂
Seriously though, IMHO, having your head frozen is futile. All existing evidence indicates that ice crystals form and destroy the neural patterns that make us who we are.
That said, I think it is the person’s right to do what they wish, and if the man wanted it done and paid for it, then his relatives had no right to deny him. I’m glad the company did this; it’s an important principle.
Agree with CJ and add this… It just seems appalling that it all seemed to hinge on technical aspects of the law rather than a straight forward respect for a contract.
Even in a brain that was not rotted, there is going to be so much damage from freezing that resurrection would be more a matter of reading out the information that was stored in the brain and building a new brain to contain it.
But any civilization that can do that (either biologically or in simulation) would be able to build much more powerful brains from scratch. So I don’t see how the resurrectees could expect to support themselves. They could not compete with these superior intelligences. The approach depends on assuming that future society will allow them to live as charity cases.
Paul, regardless of whether or not that’s the case, a contract is a contract. Alcor had no choice, if they wanted to maintain their legal credibility.
How will this be handled under Obamacare?
Another job for the death panels.
From a legal perspective, Alcor was right, they had a contract and it was what the deceased wanted. But as others have pointed out, the procedure (even when done on the whole body) is pretty much useless. Those ice crystals tend to rupture cell walls and cause irreparable damage.
Paul, if they can build powerful brains, resurrectees may perhaps have these superior intelligences. Also, supporting oneself is more an application of creativity than intelligence.
So Chris L. defaults to the Progressive position that the wishes of the decedent have no bearing; instead society (the enforcer of “sensible” procedures) may trump the explicit last wishes of a free adult.
Who cares if his last wish made any sense, or not? It’s his life, his body, and his fracking will. If he wants to have his dead head cut from his dead body, then cryogenically frozen, then do it. Is that any sillier than asking that a candle be perpetually burned in a given church for the rest of eternity? Assuming the church lasts that long, that is. {/sarc}
It’ s interesting how nominally libertarian types get bent out of shape over a bizarre last wish, no matter the legality thereof.
If a man (or a woman) wants to be covered with garlic butter and painted in red & white stripes before they die, that’s their lookout. Just don’t ask me to attend any open-casket memorials. 🙂
A better example of chutzpah would be asking for the money back due to slow service.
Paul, if they can build powerful brains, resurrectees may perhaps have these superior intelligences.
Perhaps. I’d suggest the changes required would be so extensive that you really couldn’t consider the resulting entity to be “you” anymore.
This is not in any way to suggest Alcor was not doing what it should have been doing, btw. A contract is a contract, after all. Rather, it’s more to raise questions about whether someone should make a contract with Alcor in the first place. And being a charity case in the future post-human world is not the worst case scenario by any means.
Although I think the entire process is silly and futile the ice crystal formation damage is supposedly to be repaired by the medical “nanobots” that are assumed to be developed in the future.
Alcor did the right thing. The family did the wrong thing. I’ve seen families do this plenty of times. Personal wishes and feelings, and greed, and / or superstition get in the way of the deceased’s wishes. Or worse still, in the way of things like Living Wills or DNR’s. Been there, seen that, twice in Mrs. Der Schtumpy’s clan.
I’ve seen several instances where people last wishes were over ruled. To me it’s appalling to do that. It’s a CONTRACT TOO!!
Disregarding Grampa’s or Uncle Zeke’s DNR is the epitome of arrogance. If Gramps is now stuck in a wheel chair, eating gruel and peeing on himself, so you can salve your conscience, well, I just hope that YOUR wishes are carried out better. Chances are, that Uncle Zeke isn’t cussing you loudly, ONLY because he can no longer speak.
Actually, this happened to my Mrs. Grandfather. He spent 5 years battling with dementia. Unfortunately, he would have small slots of time where he’d realize he’d been zoned out for a few days or even a few months a couple of times. Ir was terrifying to me to see a grown man know he was mentally gone more often than not. And all because no none would follow his wishes. It’s heartless and cruel, IMHO.
But families do these things everyday.
But I digress.
I understand the current science about cryogenics…ice crystals, cell wall damage, dead neural pathways, ergo loss of personality and memory, etc. But I find it odd that on a blog where much science is discussed, you gentlemen have drawn a line in the sand.
I remember similar talk, among the adults, when they started doing heart transplants.
Impossible, improbable, never happen, over stepping, no scientific proof it could work, never figure out how, blah…blah…blah.
The only thing someone hasn’t said here, that I remember from my youth and organ transplants is, ‘…God won’t allow it…it’s against God’s will…Doctors playing God…”, kinds of statements.
Think of medical science 50 or 100 years ago. They could not only NOT imagine what we can do, much of it seemed, impossible, improbable
(I hit the wrong button)
…improbable, and had no scientific merit or foundation.
Yes, it’s tough to see into the future. But we can’t draw lines in the sand.
As my girls would say when they were teenagers; “EEuuugh”.
A corpse is a corpse; a contract is a contract – what a particularly unsavoury intersection!
Casey,
Reread my post please. I was agreeing that Alcor did the right thing and the person in question had a right to be treated as he had wished. My only other comment was a question of how useful the procedure itself is. Useful or not though, it is how the man wished to be dealt with. The family had no right to try to change things.
you really couldn’t consider the resulting entity to be “you” anymore.
Google has improved my recall [big grin.] Does that mean I’m not me anymore? ‘You’ is something that, “you know it when you see it” but can you define it?
I’d be a different ‘you’, with my core beliefs but computer like recall and computational abilities. Like when I was younger and my brain still functioned. That was a different me as well.
Medical “science” is in its infancy. Last I heard there were just glimmers of understanding how memory is stored . To claim that restoration isn’t possible is to voice an unsupported opinion.
It may not be, but nobody actually *knows*
.
My grandad wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered on Saratoga Downs. Grandma would have none of it. It’s on my bucket list.
I’ve met a few people who claimed to have contracts with Alcor or similar companies to freeze the heads/bodies. What struck me was the faith the people seemed to have that the freezing process would indeed allow them immortality. Almost smug in their faith that they would escape whatever fate awaits the rest of us. Hey, I think their brains will just end up one day as gray goo poured down a drain sometime in the future, but whatever allows you face life. Some want to be frozen and some imagine an eternal heaven. For me, I’m putting my faith in the belief that the universe/time are indeed infinite and the implications that follow.
I don’t think that cryonics signups have faith that they will be revived. The contracts they have to sign would certainly militate against that. They only have hope, which the alternative does not provide to them.
Interesting distinction between faith and hope.
Rand,
Are you saying that hope is a less confident form of faith?
Are you saying that hope is a less confident form of faith?
No, not really, though I suppose you could think about it like that. Both words are pretty well defined, I think. Alcor, and other cryonics organizations, are very careful to make no claims, except to describe their procedures. In fact, they discourage people from signing up, in order to avoid any issues of charges of fraud. Anyone who has faith that they will be resurrected has to come up with it on their own.
Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for.
…or gullibility. It’s a choice.
“Those ice crystals tend to rupture cell walls and cause irreparable damage.”
I think that’s what they invented “cryo-protectants” for. People who complain about ice crystals rupturing cell walls really don’t understand what’s going on during a cryonic suspension. The damage which takes place during it is much less gross, and much more complex.
I used to be signed up with Alcor, had to drop the coverage for financial reasons. I assure you, I had no faith that the procedure would work. I considered it a long-shot. But a long shot is better than no shot at all, and it was my money to spend, while I still had it. Of course, my contract had a clause whereby the money went to a medical charity if suspending me made no sense given the circumstances of my death… letting it go to your heirs has obvious conflict of interest problems.
Ice crystal damage is mitigated by the same sort of cryo-protectants now commonly used to store tissue for later transplantation. The chemicals cause something called “vitrification” which creates a solid similar to glass. It isn’t frozen in the traditional sense of the word. There are still a lot of flaws in the process and it is still a long shot, but a long shot is better than no shot.
“a long shot is better than no shot at all”
Amen!
I can think of some futures into which I would not want to be woken up. Let us hope they exist only in fiction.
To Rand Simburg and others who actually believe cryonic preservation works:
You’ve read too many false claims from cryonics firms. There is no way any of those frozen brains will be recoverable. The cryogenic preservation and freezing process takes too long. The neurons of the brain require aerobic metabolism. They cease functioning after less than a minute of anoxia. They suffer irreversible damage after a few minutes of anoxia. Longterm memories are encoded chemically within neurons, but without oxygen and energy the chemicals rapidly lose their three-dimensional shapes, then they start falling apart. This occurs before freezing begins. The “antifreeze” pumped into the head does not reach all the neurons of the brain. For those few neurons the antifreeze reaches, the antifreeze does not have time to distribute throughout the intracellular water. Ice crystals do form during freezing, and the crystals damage intracellular membranes, cytoskeletal elements, and large molecules such as proteins and DNA. Even without ice crystal damage, the lipid bilayer membranes of the neurons and their organelles are damaged by longterm, low temperature freezing. Once thawed, the cells and organelles will have leaky membranes that are incompatible with life.
There has never been successful recovery of even minimal brain function from any cryogenically preserved animal more advanced than an amphibian. Cryonic preservation firm owners just laugh as they suck money from the gullible.
Dr. T, pathologist and chemist
To Rand Simburg and others who actually believe cryonic preservation works:
If you’re going to insult someone by making mistaken claims about their beliefs, you could at least spell my name right. It’s written correctly here on this very page, several times.
There has never been successful recovery of even minimal brain function from any cryogenically preserved animal more advanced than an amphibian.
No one has ever claimed there has been, so you have no point. And you apparently don’t even understand the premise behind cryonics (a common problem with “scientists” who think they know better).
Cryonic preservation firm owners just laugh as they suck money from the gullible.
Have you ever read a cryonics contract? If so, you wouldn’t make such an ignorant and slanderous statement.
I guess diploma mills are now handing-out PhDs in Strawmanatology.