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The
idea of placing people in “suspended animation”
– “cold storage” -- is a science fiction
standard. Many authors have used it as a fictional device
to explain how people will travel long distances through
interstellar space without getting any older. The star-voyager
gets on the spaceship, locks himself in the freezing chamber
– and is automatically defrosted a million years later,
not one second older. The essential scientific basis for
the concept is a simple one: freezing slows molecular motions
to a crawl, essentially ceasing cellular processes, including
aging and metabolism.
Serious thinking about cryonics – the technical term
for placing people into suspended animation by freezing
them – began in the 1960’s. At this point the
technology for freezing people in liquid nitrogen was just
barely becoming economically feasible. Futurists began to
consider the possibility of freezing themselves immediately
after their death, to preserve their body for eventual restoration
by future scientists with advanced medical techniques. Sure,
you may have died of incurable cancer in 1975, but what
if the cure for your type of cancer is found in 2053? Then
you can just be defrosted, given the cure, and jolted back
to life by futuristic medical magic.
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The
weak point of this plan, in the 60’s, was that no
one had a very clear idea about the revival part. There
were no known technologies for defrosting people and curing
their diseases – the best cryonics advocates could
offer was an emphatic waving of the hands and a quick nod
to “future technology.” But even so, the idea
was visionary. After all, technical details aside, it does
seem awfully likely that, 1000 years from now or so, the
technology will exist to revive a frozen corpse. Look how
far technology has come in the last 1000 years! Or if not
1000 years, what about 10,000? This isn’t a concept
whose plausibility requires a sophisticated scientific and
engineering basis, or a fanatically optimistic faith in
technological acceleration.
And now, 30 years down the line, the idea looks even more
reasonabe. Biologists are moving toward an understanding
of cell death, and it seems quite reasonable that in a few
decades – for sure a few centuries -- the process
may be haltable or reversible. The concept of nanotechnology
has become commonplace: machines are getting smaller and
smaller, and serious scientists envision swarms of microscopic
robots zooming through the body, delivering medicine or
repairing damaged cells. No, we can’t yet defrost
and repair a frozen corpse. But we now see clear scientific
pathways that are likely to lead to this ability, given
time.
The picture gets clearer and clearer each year: Science
may not defeat aging within our lifetimes, but it may well
be possible for us to avoid permanently dying of old age
by preserving our bodies shortly after death, and letting
future scientists revive us. Furthermore, dozens of forward-thinking
people have already availed themselves of this opportunity,
and are waiting in cold storage for the next iteration of
their lives.
Until
recently, cryonic preservation meant freezing in liquid
nitrogen. But this is a very harsh process. Freezing a human
brain or body in liquid nitrogen does preserve its basic
cellular structure: assuming self and memory are contained
in the brain’s neurons and synapses, it’s clear
they are preserved through the freezing process. However,
the formation of ice crystals in the body during freezing
causes so much cell damage that no simple defrosting and
resurrection of a patient simply frozen in liquid nitrogen
will ever be possible. Advanced nanotechnology of some sort
will be necessary to bring a frozen body back to life.
The scene shouldn’t be painted too darkly: freezing
in liquid nitrogen still provides a good way to elude death,
vastly better than any previously known alternative. Swarms
of future nanobots, zooming through the body repairing damaged
cells, will easily possess the ability bring a frozen body
back to life and health. Or, advanced scanning technology
may simply read the mind out of a frozen brain, and embed
it in a computer or an android or a newly synthesized human
body.
But these days, we can do better than mere freezing. We
have vitrification, a related but significantly different
method of stopping biological time. Vitrification converts
biological tissue into a strange kind of low-temperature
glass that is totally free of ice crystals. Gregory Fahy
created the technology a couple decades ago as a technique
for preserving organs intended for transplantation; and
in the intervening years it’s come impressively far.
So far, embryos, ova, ovaries, skin, pancreatic islets and
blood vessels have been vitrified and then de-vitrified
for transplant. Successful de-vitrification of whole organs
like kidneys livers, hearts and lungs isn’t too far
off.
Like many technologies, vitrification is inspired by the
wonders of nature. There are frogs that can spend days or
weeks in freezing conditions, with up to 65 percent of their
total body water frozen solid. This is achieved through
the distribution of special “antifreeze” chemicals
through the bloodstream – “cryoprotectant”
chemicals that reduce ice formation using one of a number
of mechanisms. Some amphibians manufacture the cryoprotectant
glycerol in their livers. Arctic frogs have a special form
of insulin that accelerates the absorption of glucose, another
cryoprotectant, into their cells. A good cryoprotectant
makes water freeze smoothly and purely like glass, with
no crystal formation. Cryoprotectants work best, especially
in non-viscous liquids like water, if the freezing happens
very fast, what’s called “flash-freezing.”
The biggest problem in organ-vitrification research so far
has been not freezing but defrosting. If the reheating of
the organ isn’t fast enough, damaging ice crystals
can form during this phase, rendering the delicacy of the
cryoprotected freezing process irrelevant. What’s
needed to circumvent this problem is, basically, a very
fast heater –it’s suspected that radiofrequency
rewarming – somewhat similar to microwave heating
-- may do the trick. The process may also be aided by chemicals
that prevent ice formation through methods besides straightforward
cryoprotection.
“Carrier solutions” like glutathione can reduce
the amount of cryoprotectant needed to cause vitrification.
And ice-blockers like threonine and serine prevent the formation
of ice-crystal nuclei, by bonding to nascent ice-crystals
in appropriate ways. freeze proteins that inhibit c-axis
growth. The creation of an appropriate chemical cocktail
to promote successful vitrification and de-vitrification
is a subtle matter, but one that scientists are hard at
work on. In large part, it’s the recent development
of sophisticated ice-blockers that has made vitrification
newly plausible for cryonics – this has drastically
reduced the amount of cryoprotectant needed to make vitrification
work.
The biggest problem vitrification faces so far is that to
vitrify a whole organ or body requires a lot of cryoprotectant,
and all known cryoprotectants are highly toxic. This is
a bigger problem for contemporary organ transplant work
than for long-term cryonics applications, however, because
it’s very likely future science will discover ways
to palliate the toxic effects of cryoprotectants. Palliating
poisoning has got to be vastly easier than repairing the
ice crystal damage done by straightforward freezing, and
should be achievable via advanced pharmacology alone.
Finally, vitrified systems have a nasty habit of cracking
to pieces if they’re cooled to liquid nitrogen temperature
(-196°C). However, a long-term storage temperature of
-130°C to -150°C seems to work fine. In fact, bodies
simply frozen in liquid nitrogen without cryoprotectant
often crack too, but given the severity of garden variety
ice crystal damage, no one ever particularly worried about
this cracking. Now, with vitrification, cryonicists can
seek perfection. Vitrify the body, then when the ill that
killed it becomes curable, devitrify it, pumping in an antidote
to the cryprotectant’s toxic effects. “ Good
morning, what year is it? What? 3010 already? When I died
it was 2015….”
All in all, while we don’t yet have a viable way of
freezing and defrosting organs let along organisms, it’s
clear that science is progressing in the right direction.
The steady, incremental advancement of cryobiology will
get us where we need to go.
Ok,
you’re convinced now – but how do you do it,
in practice? Do you have to build a vitrifier in your basement,
and tell your friends and family, should they ever find
you stiff and cold, to jam you inside?
Thankfully, no. There are a handful of organizations providing
cryonics services to interested individuals – and
at least one of them, Alcor Life Extension Foundation, appears
to be truly serious and responsible. They have close to
40 “patients” in cold storage right now, awaiting
the technological advances necessary for their resuscitation.
Their first patient was placed in liquid nitrogen in 1967.
When you sign up you’re given an Alcor bracelet or
necklace, stating that if your body is found dead, Alcor
should be telephoned at once so they can come fetch it before
it decomposes.
To have your whole body preserved and cared for by Alcor,
the current cost is $120,000, of which about $30,000 covers
the direct cost of transporting your body to Alcor and freezing
it, and the remainder goes into a fund called the Patient
Care Trust. On the other hand, to be a “neuro patient”
and have only your brain preserved costs about $50,000,
a relative bargain. Right now, vitrification is only available
for “neuro patients,” but this limitation is
purely a matter of cost – Alcor can’t yet afford
a system capable of preserving whole vitrified bodies –
and will be overcome in a few years time.
Most Alcor members pay the costs of cryopreservation by
taking out a life insurance policy payable to Alcor. A few
hundred bucks a year is what it comes out to, if you take
out the policy when you’re young. Not a bad price
for a chance at radically extended life. The money in the
Patient Trust Fund is primarily earmarked for long-term
care and resuscitation. In some years, however, Alcor has
been forced to spend a great deal of cash on legal battles,
due to the difficulty that many conservative-minded individuals
have with the very idea of cryonic preservation.
The Alcor management are to be congratulated for their maturity
and responsibility. In addition to solving the technical
problems of deploying cryonic technology under real-world
conditions, they have taken on the very serious task of
creating an organizational framework plausibly capable of
surviving for centuries or millennia. The difficulties associated
with the latter are illustrated by the fate of Cryocare,
an organization that split off from Alcor in 1993.
Cryocare management was experienced, including some Alcor
very-old-timers. They had a firm handle on the technical
side of cryonics, and took 2 patients under their care.
But their organizational model was not robust. The founders
viewed Cryocare as a kind of meta-organization, which would
subcontract the various tasks involved in cryonic life extension
to other firms. In this way, it was felt, the forces of
free market competition would allow Cryocare to continually
provide its patients with the best quality services in every
aspect. In a world where cryonics was widespread, this approach
might well make sense. But if you go to the Cryocare website
now, you find the following message:
CryoCare
Foundation was established in 1993 to provide state-of-the-art
human cryopreservation with assistance from two separate,
independent businesses: BioPreservation, which provided
our remote standby, transport, perfusion, and cooldown capability,
and CryoSpan, which managed the long- term maintenance of
patients at liquid-nitrogen temperature.
Ultimately we hoped that growth in cryonics would encourage
the formation of additional service providers. We envisaged
a future in which our members would benefit as BioPreservation
and CryoSpan found themselves in a free market, bidding
against competitors.
Unfortunately, we overestimated the potential growth and
profitability of cryonics. Also we underestimated the tendency
of volunteers and enthusiasts to burn out, especially in
a high-stress occupation such as remote standby work. BioPreservation
opted not to renew its contract with us in 1999, and no
longer provides any cryonics services. CryoSpan still exists,
but its majority shareholder wants to wind down the company
and transfer the patients elsewhere.
Consequently, CryoCare now finds itself without any service
providers.
We received ample advance warning of this situation, and
attempted to find other ways to maintain service. These
attempts were unsuccessful. Consequently, in 1999 we notified
our members that we could not continue to provide cryonics
coverage.
Their
two patients were transferred to Alcor. No harm done. But
thank goodness for Alcor.
Cryonics
sounds science-fictional at first – but like a lot
of other wild-sounding technological ideas, when you think
about it carefully, it makes a surpassing amount of sense.
From my point of view, the surprising thing is that so few
people have taken advantage of the possible escape route
offered by cryonics. The financial cost is not so high,
and the potential benefits – centuries or millennia
of extra life – are pretty astounding.
Admittedly, only individuals in the developed world can
afford such a thing; and the majority of people even in
the developed world are religious and adhere to one of the
many contemporary belief systems promising a supernatural
afterlife. But even so, there are tens of millions of non-religious
folks in the developed world – people who believe
that once they’re dead, they’re gone, period.
And there are millions of individuals in this category who
have died since Alcor was founded in 1969. Yet only 40 or
so people lie frozen in Alcor’s chambers.
To explain the peculiar smallness of this number, it is
tempting to invoke Freudian psychology and the notion of
the death wish. At very least, setting aside any issues
to do with the rationality of religious belief systems,
the situation indicates an inability on the part of most
non-religious modern humans to think rationally about the
subject of their own death. Death is something most of us
would prefer not to ponder or concretely confront –
and yet, the irony is, openly confronting the reality of
the body’s death can allow us to take rational steps
to avoid it.
Upon careful analysis, the biggest risks associated with
cryonics are not scientific but rather social in nature.
Let’s say you’re vitrified in 2020, and it’s
500 or 1000 years until technology advances to the point
where you can be defrosted and brought back to life. I’m
hoping that by the end of the 21’st century pharmacology
and nanotechnology will have essentially defeated human
mortality -- but even a non-techno-optimist has to got to
admit that a lot of progress is going to happen in the next
thousand years. But what’s the chance that Alcor,
or any other organization that’s vitrified you, is
still going to be around in 3020? True, there are precedents
for organizations lasting almost this long – Cambridge
University was founded in the 1200’s and it’s
still going strong. But a lot can happen in 1000 years –
revolutions, nuclear holocausts, alien invasions, financial
crises, catastrophic interventions by conservative-minded
government officials, months-long power outages during which
all the corpsicles in storage defrost and rot….
But still -- the risks notwithstanding -- the odds of long-term
survival via cryonic preservation would appear to drastically
beat the odds associated with any of the alternatives: cremation,
burial and ensuing decomposition, et cetera. For a few hundred
bucks a year, which would you prefer? A few extra features
on your car, or a chance at living a thousand or a million
years, or perhaps becoming a superintelligent AI being and
transcending the spacetime continuum altogether? I truly
believe that, a few hundred years from now, our descendants
are going to look back and be thoroughly baffled that a
project so obvious as cryonic life preservation took so
long to get off the ground.
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