Talk:Cryonics

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Long term notes (sticky)

  • "Freezing": Let it be taken as a given that when someone refers to freezing living/recently dead tissue, they mean reducing its temperature to the liquid nitrogen range, using all available means to prevent the formation of destructive ice crystals (such as the "vitrification" process).

I wanted to add the first note to reduce silly correction battles over terminology; the second got archived and without the link here no one will ever go mock my essay. Thank you. ħumanUser talk:Human 19:19, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Basically

You cannot be frozen until you are dead.

Therefore you are dead but frozen.

Therefore cryonics is an expensive fraud (and the dead can neither sue nor be sued).

(Cryonics for freezing tissue for future use given immediate medical/other activities is another matter)

82.198.250.66 (talk) 16:27, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Not quite. "And there is no known way even in theory to get from dead but frozen to alive again. There is, however, speculation that there will be a theory." And I would not say "fraud" as that implies intent, but "wtf stupid" - David Gerard (talk) 16:54, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
"Frozen", "dead", and "expensive" are all distortions. Cryonics patients are vitrified (if and when physically possible). They are dead at this point only by clinical terms, not information-theoretic terms (or even more modest neurologically based terms). Furthermore, cryonics is less expensive than a lot of frivolities people could do without, e.g. a smoking habit. Luke (talk) 01:29, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Cover story {sticky}

(please do not archive this section)

Goonie silvered this article, and I agree. I also think it may only be a few tweaks and proofreading or two from "gold", ie, coverstory status. ħumanUser talk:Human 08:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Definitely. Although for my money I like them to have more illustration, so if we can port over some CC images from the Wikipedia counterpart or similar. But yes, some proof-reading, there's parts of it I haven't gone over or checked out too thoroughly. Scarlet A.pngpostate 08:17, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
It's not really an image-hungry topic, we have one or two, isn't that enough? I've seen great articles on WP that had no images at all (not that we are WP in any way of course, but you get the point). ħumanUser talk:Human 08:50, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
IMO it needs a bit more work before it's cover, or entirely silver. The large external links section needs digestion. Also needs more words on why it's so hard to find any proper scientist who will look seriously at Ben Best's green ink PDF (apart from the obvious) - cryonics does need some serious sceptical attention, and so far we're the best there is, which is sorta whut? Ben Best's paper needs a side-by-side article, but we need interest from people of considerably greater expertise than we have casually to hand - David Gerard (talk) 12:18, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
True, but I think that once all that stuff has been accomplished, this article would be a good one for a cover story. Even in its current state, this article is pretty good, IMO. Lord of the Goons The official spikey-haired skeptical punk 16:44, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Cover worthiness

A huge research project to map out the holes in Best's paper would be nice, but realistically I'm never going to get around to it and neither are you.

So. What else does this need for the cover? - David Gerard (talk) 22:38, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Give me a day or two to parse through it, and I'll let you know what I think of it. It is certainly a good article, but I need time to go through it with a fine-toothed comb before I give it cover story blessing, as those articles should be flawless. Lord Goonie Hooray! I'm helping! 23:38, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
I've finished proofreading this article. It has my vote for cover. The Spikey Punk I'm punking my punk! 03:36, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Any other objections? Is this thing actually pretty much ready? - David Gerard (talk) 12:22, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
OK thumb.jpg
This page is Crundy approved!!
Looks good. CrundyTalk nerdy to me 20:31, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
I think it's pushing things a bit. There's a lot of fluffy writing and weak phrasing in parts of it still. I just made like 12 edits just trying to turn sentences into reasonably clear presentations of what they mean. I'm not arguing for de-covering, but this thing really needs some attention. Also, I swore the next time I read "apes with pretensions" I was going to permanently destroy the pixels that displayed them on my screen. It was amusing, mildly, the first two times. It has so little meaning, though, that past the first chuckle, oh well. Anyway, calling all proofreaders/copyeditors! ħumanUser talk:Human 04:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Thar she blows! - David Gerard (talk) 22:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Scientists' Letter on Cryonics

People saying it's not impossible, with references that may be useful for the article: http://www.imminst.org/cryonics_letter/ - David Gerard (talk) 18:55, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

While some of those people look they might be real "independent scientists", that list is stuffed with people who aren't. A quick had it running about 75% people who look like "insiders". ħumanUser talk:Human 22:18, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
Mind you, there's about 100% more chance that there are actual scientists that we would recognise as scientists involved than when creationists try much the same ;-) I'm more interested in it for the list of references, which might supply better support than Ben Best's PDF. Though that's listed too, so I'm not holding out much hope - David Gerard (talk) 22:57, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
Also note the number of engineers - David Gerard (talk) 23:02, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
Oh noooooooo... ħumanUser talk:Human 23:40, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Paying for revival

How will the revival of cryonics patients be paid for (once the technology becomes available)? Do any of the cryonics companies even give any thought to this?

Are the fees paid supposed to be invested to generate the money for revival? Are there sufficient precedents in contract law that would keep money invested by somebody who's legally dead from being touched by their heirs (who probably would rather be rich than spend it to revive a 10x-great-grandparent they've never met), or appropriated by the company they've invested it with?

Are there typically any guarantees in cryonics contracts that mandate an effort be made to revive the patient when the technology develops (and again, how enforceable is a contract with a dead person)?

Or do cryonics advocates just assume a post-scarcity economy where revival will be so cheap that people can revive the corpsicles for the hell of it? Given the level of technology needed for cryonic revival, maybe a post-scarcity economy is a reasonable assumption. If immortality is readily available to anybody (and it would need to be if reviving cryonics patients is possible and cheap enough to do without the patient having prepaid), presumably there would be limits on population. You can't have immortals reproducing willy-nilly. Why would dead people be in line for revival when presumably many of the living would like the (rare) opportunity to have children of their own?

Obviously there's a lot of problems with cryonics. But I haven't seen that cryonic advocates are even addressing the why (resurrect the dead) or the how (financial) of revival assuming it were to become possible. Do they consider this? — Unsigned, by: 192.104.39.2 / talk / contribs

Hello. My guess is that the cryonics promoters don't care whether or not you are revived. They just want your money now, and maybe, MAYBE, they'll revive you if such a thing ever becomes possible. The Goonie Punk Can't sleep, clowns will eat me! 21:27, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I've never thought of it that way. But I imagine that since the tech is so far of, if it's even possible, you can bet that the people who are put in the fridge now, probably won't be revived any time earlier than the ones frozen later. A methodology dependent technique like this certainly can't operate "first-come, first-serve". Scarlet A.pngpostate 21:34, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I really don't think they're in it for the money. The people involved are utterly sincere fanatics and running a cryonics facility is not a money machine - they're charities teetering on the brink of brokeness. I'm sure there's endless cryonicist guff answering BoN's question, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're just preserving[citation NOT needed] everyone they can in the hope that revival will be cheap enough to bother with for the sake of it eventually. This article focuses on the science problems, and it's (frighteningly) the best article on the subject on the Internet - everything else is advocacy or ignoring them - David Gerard (talk) 22:20, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
This does seem to be the best article out there. And it sounds like as far as all of you are aware that the hope is simply that revival will be so cheap that cost won't be an issue. Hmm. I'm pretty sure population will be a huge issue in that world. Thanks. — Unsigned, by: 192.104.39.2 / talk / contribs 22:21, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Based on this premise, they might expect we'll be shooting excess people into space (at planets/stations/wars/etc) by then. That seems to be the main sci-fi expansion mechanism, anyway. ~ Kupochama[1][2] 22:36, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Hell, if cryonics works in both the modulation and demodulation modes, there's no need to resurrect the corpsicles on Earth at all. Send them to other nearby stars to look for planets, they won't get bored or claustrophobic, or require any food or water for the trip. Hell, we should start sending them now, and let our alien overlords resurrect them with their alien overlord technology. ħumanUser talk:Human 01:24, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Speaking of that, we've sent out probes with random scrawls on in the event they get picked up by aliens, but what about actually sending a preserved body out on one of them too? Who knows, we could have a go at panspermia while we're at it! Scarlet A.pngpostate 17:40, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes it has been thought of. Alcor sets aside a fairly large amount for future use. Luke (talk) 08:22, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Wow, look at Luke go

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/ray_kurzweil_does_not_understa.php - search through on the word "cryonics". The burden of proof is negative - David Gerard (talk) 22:41, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Nice one. I stubbed up Ray Kurzweil. ħumanUser talk:Human 03:48, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

http://essentialmeat.blogspot.com/ - wonder if this is our Luke. Grasp of convincing argument is reminiscent. Dig the phrase "anti-cryonics cranks" - I bet PJR is kicking himself for not thinking of "evolution cranks" - David Gerard (talk) 22:36, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Not every critic of cryonics is a crank. Most are. It depends on how you criticize it. As a crude analogy, consider the probability that a given critic of, say, special relativity is a crank. The reason the probability is so high is that it takes a lot of understanding of the technical details of such a topic before one can properly criticize it. Unfortunately (given how much so many people seem to want a quick and easy knee-jerk answer) the same is true of cryonics.
Part of the problem here is that cryonics involves multiple specialties. A really competent critic would need to know at least the relevant neuroscience, cryobiology, and quite a bit about information science/math/statistics, not to mention all there is to know about what the hard limits of nanotechnology are (i.e. well enough to assign realistic probabilities).
A quick smoke-test: If someone hasn't heard of vitrification (i.e. anyone who straight facedly refers to cryonics as "corpse freezing" and the like) they probably aren't qualified to comment on this topic. Luke (talk) 07:24, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Egyptian mummies are a very poor analogy.

Cryonics might have a 1 in 10,000 chance of succeeding. It is also not provably impossible. Reviving the brains of Egyptian mummies is impossible. All the information contained in those brains is gone, as best as current science understands things. Having this comparison in there lowers the quality, scientific rigor, and impartiality of this article. — Unsigned, by: 89.17.127.138 / talk / contribs Under current scientific understanding, cryonics has a non-zero chance of succeeding. It is also not provably impossible. Reviving the brains of Egyptian mummies is impossible. All the information contained in Egyptian brains is gone. It is unknown if the information in cryonics brains is gone. This is a big difference. Having this comparison in there lowers the quality, scientific rigor, and impartiality of this article. — Unsigned, by: 89.17.127.138 / talk / contribs

We have more evidence that we understand the physical world accurately than egyptians did, and that understanding contains evidence that information is stored on physical media, that cold temperatures prevent chemical changes, and other wonderful pieces of knowledge which point in the direction of cryonics being a better approach than mummification. Certainly more of the relevant information is preserved which would need to be preserved for it to work. There is more research remaining to do to determine what sub-approaches to cryonics are better from an information-preservation standpoint. Vitrification is obviously a huge advance over freezing, but eliminating toxicity of the cryoprotective agents (and understanding the toxicity mechanisms) is the next step. There are also gains to be made in making sure perfusates reach all areas of the brain in spite of long cold ischemic times and other forms of severe brain trauma. Luke (talk) 23:53, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Mummies are a great example, as so far we can't prove that the current freezing techniques suitably preserve enough information for revival, they're in the same boat as mummies - which back in the day were essentially being preserved for the same thing, albeit with a more explicit supernatural slant. Scarlet A.pngpostate 17:38, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Isn't "as science currently understands" the whole point of Cryonics? That eventually science will understand and voila! tmtoulouse 17:39, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
It was a past attempt at a technology to gain immortality given the knowledge of the day, so is relevant. Cryonics might have a 1 in 10,000 chance of succeeding or it might have a zero chance of succeeding. (If you're going to start with probabilities of probabilities, I do expect you to show all working to ascertain your numbers.) Current science says the Egyptians were grievously wrong, but that doesn't change what they were attempting. And that is, of course, the point, even if you don't want to understand it - David Gerard (talk) 17:40, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Compare: Compound X, an experimental drug in pre-phase-1 laboratory trials, may cure cancer. Vs: This homeopathic remedy may cure cancer. No proof either will do so. But there is proof that homeopathy is bunk, whereas the drug has a (slight) chance of succeeding.

Drugs entering Phase I trails tend to have a fair amount of evidence suggesting they could work. Where is your evidence suggesting it works besides "well it could work" but you know, the sun could turn blue tomorrow... Scarlet A.pngpostate 17:49, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes indeed. However, there was not proof homeopathy was bunk when it was invented - indeed, the patients tended to do better because they were only being given water and not actively poisoned by their physicians.
The point is that a technology that was considered plausible by the knowledge of the day turned out to be obviously an utter failure to us, six thousand years later. Cryonics advocates consider cryonics plausible by the knowledge of the day, and they need evidence that their technology is not as much of an utter failure. Remember: the null hypothesis is that it does nothing; the burden of proof is to show it does something.
Of course, you can save us lots of trouble by giving the evidence that any information is actually preserved - David Gerard (talk) 17:50, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
I've corrected my opening paragraph with your suggestions. Other points: I specifically said "PRE" phase-1 LABORATORY trials. In other words, speculative early trials. These compounds are very different from homeopathy. The point here is not about evidence, it's about logic. It is illogical to equate something which is currently known to be impossible, with something which is currently known to be unlikely but possible.

You've just claimed "Under current scientific understanding, cryonics has a non-zero chance of succeeding." Could you please show your working for making any statement whatsoever about the probabilities? This is a problem noted in the article in discussion with cryonics advocates - their tendency to give probabilities from no evidence whatsoever and never show their working. So you could prove the article wrong right there. Please show your working.

By the way, please don't alter text people have already responded to, particularly the words they responded to. Correct yourself afterwards if need be - David Gerard (talk) 17:59, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

If I claim that X has a 1/y chance of succeeding, I have the burden of proof. But if you claim X is impossible or has a zero chance of succeeding, you have the burden of proof. If a physicist claims "It is impossible that humans will ever live on Pluto", he has the burden of proof (even if the odds of such a thing happening are very low). So, again, if you cannot see why comparing a total shot in the dark to a known-false technique is logically invalid, I am wasting my breath and this page is a lot less rational than I thought. And the chance is non-zero because cryonics doesn't violate any known laws of physics, while reviving mummies does. — Unsigned, by: 89.17.127.138 / talk / contribs
Laws of physics isn't the problem its the laws of biology, of neuroscience, of tissue destruction do to the freezing process. How is cryonics any different from the mummy, they both destroy the brain. tmtoulouse 18:11, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Your attempts to reverse the burden of proof don't work here any better than they do on Pharyngula. We know now that the information in the pharaoh's brains is irrecoverable; they didn't know it then. If you claim a non-zero probability that the information in the corpsicle's brains is recoverable, please show your working. It can't be that hard.
And by the way, well done on no longer claiming "nanobots" will fix everything, ever since an actual nanotechnologist explained why "nanobots" are cheesy sci-fi and not even proper science fiction in robustness - David Gerard (talk) 18:16, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Also, please sign your posts. ~~~~ will do it - David Gerard (talk) 18:18, 21 August 2010 (UTC)


No idea what Pharyngula is, and I've never claimed anything about nanobots. I'm not some veteran cryo guy, I got shunted to this site by clicking a link from an unrelated conversation on Slashdot. My only interest was improving this page and moving on. And I'm sorry, but anyone claiming something is impossible has the burden of proof on them. Furthermore, most actions in life are undertaken with only educated guesses as their basis. The majority of Western medical advice is nothing but unproven educated guesses, with a sprinkle of double blind tests to back it up. Despite this, it's still light years ahead of all the other mystical healing ideas. We know that the information from a person's mind is stored physically in the brain -somehow- (unless you believe in a soul). So it stands to reason that physical preservation of this brain may yield some recoverable information. I'm quite agnostic about Cryonics. I think it's a very very long shot, improbable, but nothing about it seems impossible. On the other hand, just as there are true-believers, it seems there are true-disbelievers.
The probability is not zero as far as we currently know. The probability that the pharaohs would attain immortality is zero as far as we know, but was not zero as far as they knew. As such, claiming a probability greater than zero here appears to be a statement of personal ignorance rather than something based on knowledge. There is no evidence that any information is actually preserved by current cryonics practice - I've asked and asked and none has ever been offered. - David Gerard (talk) 18:42, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't matter what the pharaohs thought. Our knowledge has advanced since then. Our speculations are more grounded in fact and more likely to come true (do you deny this much?). Ten years ago there was no evidence that artificial life would ever be created, but it was reasonable to speculate (based on then general scientific principles) that it would. When you're trying to predict what will happen in 10, 100 or 500 years, you have to speculate. Often you need to make decisions today based on your speculations and incomplete information. This is not unscientific, this is real life. If you ask for full, 100% evidence, before taking any actions, you never make any decisions. A dying multi-millionaire has to decide how to spend 0.1% of his fortune. Cryonics or not? Only speculation can guide his choice. A dying cancer patient has exhausted all traditional therapies. Does he go for the homeopathy remedy, the totally novel and untested but 'hypothesized to work' remedy, or do nothing? He's probably dead either way, but I'd take option two. And yes, that would be the scientific choice, even though it doesn't have any proof it will work.89.17.127.138 (talk) 19:07, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
But is there any evidence at all that there is anything to cryonics? Your whole argument relies on cryonics having some supporting evidence, something to differentiate it from pure woo. The main evidence we need is that the cryonics process preserves some sort of meaningful information in the neural structure of the brain. That would be a good start. tmtoulouse 19:09, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Ah, but there is! A hundred years of science which strongly suggest (but do not yet prove) that the entire mind is not extra-corporeal but physical. This was *the* major hurdle. We have proof that memory formation physically alters the brain, proof that personality is not dependent on continuous electrical activity (electro shock patients aren't vegetables), proof that there is nothing magical about cells being alive/dead (cells and tiny animals can be frozen/thawed), non-invasive techniques (MRI, fMRI, electrodes controlling prostheses) that allow us to detect ("read") when certain thought patterns are expressed, etc. If the mind is "stored" physically in the brain, it stands to reason that physical preservation of this brain would yield *some* recoverable information. We can recover some sequence information from 50,000 year old decrepit DNA. It stretches the imagination that **no** information will ever be recoverable at all from reasonably well preserved brains. Humanity is far from making this, if ever, a reality. But speculation, even extremely long term speculation, is not unscientific if the proper footnotes and caveats are clearly included. There are plenty of woo and charlatans in Cryonics. But not all. And comparing the field to mummy preservation is blatantly unscientific. The argument that "The ancient Egyptians thought this and were wrong, so you might be wrong too." is exactly the argument put forth by Creationists, and other science deniers. We have progressed in the last 10,000 years. Our speculations have progressed too. 89.17.127.138 (talk) 19:35, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
I am well aware about the nature of the physical brain, I have spent the last 5 years studying it as a graduate student in neuroscience. I am also aware about how important the network structure is to the storage of information. It is the connections between cells and the network of these connections that contains the information that is in our "brain." That structure is destroyed by freezing, even if the cells and tissue itself is preserved. Still no evidence that any information is preserved in the cryonics process. Without evidence it is no different then any other woo, homeopathy included. tmtoulouse 19:53, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
"Freezing?" Are you sure that is the word you intended to use? Luke (talk) 01:14, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Another point about the Egyptians: they didn't think they were preserving their bodies for future generations to regenerate them. They thought their pyramids were *actually* (right then and there) beaming their souls to the afterlife. One more reason why this is in no way comparable.

Since mice have been frozen and thawed (I didn't even know this, got it from this site) it seems obvious that some information remains. Your refusal to contrast scientific speculation with provably wrong hypotheses is disheartening from a scientific perspective. By the way, where is the proof for the statement you made? I happen to agree that the connections contain "our mind". But that's just speculation too. Science is not only about evidence, but also about hypotheses and testing. Very different from woo. The idea of the existence of the Oort cloud when it was first proposed was not the same as a teapot orbiting Venus. The idea of life on Mars today is not the same as aliens conducting anal experiments on random farmers. 89.17.127.138 (talk) 20:35, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

There is plenty of evidence that the connections and not the cellular bodies are what makes the mind. This really isn't the place to go into it, but its a hundred years of research using lesion studies, drugs, animal models, etc. Essentially, you are trying to work with the problem of demarcation between pseudoscience and science. Popper is who you would turn to then, and we are left with the problem of falsifiability. If your response to the arguments against cryonics amounts to well we may not know it now, but we will know it some day in so many thousands of years, your setting up an unfalsifiable hypothesis that can be tossed in with any other woo.
Now, the way out of this territory is to accept that observations we make today can test the cryonics prediction. If we observe the consequences of the cryonics process and if I make the prediction that it destroys the neural connections and therefore it is invalid, and you make the prediction that it preserves those connections, and we go and look at it and see those connections destroyed....well then its falsified. Unless you can present evidence that these connections are not destroyed you are left with two choices: cryonics is an unfalsifiable and can be relegated with the rest of the pseudoscience nonsense, or that there are testable predictions and all observations to date falsify it as a valid hypothesis. tmtoulouse 20:48, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
The idea of life beneath the surface of Europa won't be proven or disproven for decades (centuries?) but it's still more scientific than UFOs. Popper is an important yardstick but not the only one. There are degrees to scientific speculation and Egyptian mummies is a bad example. Furthermore, my understanding is that some/much/all of the fine structure of the brain is preserved by vitrification ( http://alcor.org/FAQs/faq02.html#fracturing ). So some information should remain. If all/most of the neural connections or fine structure were completely destroyed (as opposed to slightly damaged) it would alter my analysis of the problem. If you have peer reviewed studies proving that such is the case, post some links. 89.17.127.138 (talk) 21:18, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Heh, I was about to post asking Trent for that too ;-) As for your Europa analogy, you're comparing two things whose only similarity is we aren't sure yet. Your Alcor link uses the word "probably" to mean "it is not absolutely a violation of physics", and again they need to show their working if they really claim to assign it a probability at all, let alone over 50% - David Gerard (talk) 21:21, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Respect for human remains

"These are human remains. They deserve at least as much respect as ashes in urns" which is... how much? ħumanUser talk:Human 00:03, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Plenty. Even most hard boiled atheist skeptics would disagree with paving over a cemetery and building a condo on it, flushing human ashes down the toilet, or dumping their dead mother in a bin on the curb to be pick up along with the rest of the household garbage. Referring to it as "meat in a freezer" just detracts from the credibility of the article, and is plain insensitive.89.17.127.138 (talk) 04:26, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Citation needed. A quick poll of "everyone I know who is on an IM client right now" reveals that nobody particularly cares about funerals or corpses, sanitation issues aside. As for the quote itself, it's a bit silly, but the replacement implies that what they're doing in the photo is "preparation" of some sort; seems misleading if cryonics don't do anything. ~ Kupochama[1][2] 05:59, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Speaking as a "hard boiled atheist skeptic", bollocks, BON. A dead body is just that, a lump of matter which will shortly be consumed either by bacteria or fire. You can throw my corpse in the nearest river or leave it out for the foxes. 06:20, 22 August 2010 (UTC) SusanG Toast
"Preparation" is a neutral term, just like morticians "prepare" bodies today. If it really rankles you, you could use the term "working on". As for dumping your dead mother's corpse in the trash bin, why don't you ask around at work how people would feel about that. But hey, if you want to put that in the article, be my guest. It would only serve to undermine it in the eyes of most readers. 89.17.127.138 (talk) 06:41, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Both terms are literally accurate, but (imho etc) bear the minor implication of the acts having some meaningful effect, which would rather contradict the article. Personally I'd prefer to base it on the original, perhaps without the whole "here lies" joke on the end. As for asking around at work, this site is a bit more secular than most lunch break discussions. ~ Kupochama[1][2] 06:55, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Also is moving goalposts: people at work =/= hard boiled atheist skeptics. 06:59, 22 August 2010 (UTC) SusanG Toast
The acts do have a meaningful effect, at the very least they preserve the body (but maybe not the mind) just like morticians do. As an atheist, even if I saw a picture of a priest getting ready for communion, an accurate caption would be "Priest preparing for ritual." Furthermore, the original caption was not accurate, as Cryonics believers certainly do not see themselves as "playing" when dealing with cadavers. As for the goal posts, fine: we don't have studies either way. But I still contend that if you think most skeptics would be in favor of throwing their dead mothers in with the weekly garbage pickup, you're hanging out with a very small subset of extremist thinkers. I'd be willing to take as evidence a direct poll with this question at large skeptics' meeting. 89.17.127.138 (talk) 07:33, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Ascertaining a viewpoint of yours to "most hard boiled atheist skeptics" is ridiculous, especially considering the ones here that have chimed in completely contradict your foolishness. Dead meat is dead meat. ħumanUser talk:Human 04:38, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
The "playing" was an allusion to the Church of Scientology trying to slander Keith Henson for being a cryonicist. CoS: "Keith Henson plays with dead bodies!" Everyone else: "Scientology drives dying bodies past hospitals!" And an allusion to the general squick value of cryonics (something I don't care about, but a reaction cryonicists I've argued with over it seem convinced I have). It's probably too obscure. Oh well - David Gerard (talk) 17:44, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
The differences between Cryonics and Scientology might be an interesting article in its own right, particularly from your perspective. When you mentioned that many of the Rick Ross posters were involved in the Scientology war, it helped me empathize with them as possibly something more than paranoid freaks (which is how they seemed to me before). It is really scary to think of them as basically sincere, honest individuals who think they are doing a good thing. Perhaps you could defuse things a bit by contrasting the two? Luke (talk) 06:13, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

side-by-side

Making it side-by-side would possibly be a good idea, but the text as is doesn't fit neatly into "problem" and "solution". Also, that list was pretty much compiled here on the talk page - the section isn't fisking someone else's text - David Gerard (talk) 12:27, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Degradation of neural networks

The stroke comparison may not be as bad as stated. It occurs to me that if neurons were degraded in recovery from cryonics, the degradation would be more uniform and random than in a stroke, where a single area is taken out in a hit. In neurocomputing, I understand that networks are rather more robust to losing a random 1% of their neurons than losing a contiguous chunk of them - does anyone have references on the topic? - David Gerard (talk) 16:03, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

This article is apparently the best critical page available

Reused here. Link at bottom, tho' no CC by-sa. The site itself is barely literate, and painful to read - David Gerard (talk) 01:09, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmmm, schweet! I loves it when people read our articles as resources. Lord Goonie Hooray! I'm helping! 01:26, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
I think we need to demand the proper copyright notices or that they take it down. ħumanUser talk:Human 01:35, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, I think we need to do so ASAP. I didn't write much of that, but I edited it, and I did not give them permission to steal my work uncredited. ħumanUser talk:Human 01:41, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
I thought good publicity was good.--CentimeterINCHES 01:43, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Indeed it is. But theft of intellectual property is a crime. Sure, they link to us, in the middle of the bottom, but they don't credit us with writing their website for them. ħumanUser talk:Human 01:48, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
I sent kind email explaining that they need to handle it properly. Not that I know exactly what that means, but credit for copied text is pretty basic, I think. ħumanUser talk:Human 01:53, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
I hope you used nice easy words, because the (apparent) author, one "!Jill Pleasuremodel", does not seem to speak English very well.--CentimeterINCHES 01:56, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
It's links like these that Ken so desperately wants and epically fails to get. AceX-102 01:59, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Nice one Ace! ħumanUser talk:Human 02:09, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Now linked back at top and bottom and CC by-sa noted - David Gerard (talk) 22:37, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Excellent. I thought they would want to "do it right". ħumanUser talk:Human 03:52, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Pascal's Wager Section

David Shaw has a paper on Pascal's Wager and cryonics which could be used to expand the section on that subject: http://philpapers.org/rec/SHACSL

Not relevant

But there's now a prog on BBC2 about low temperature surgical operations. Just sayin' 20:04, 27 September 2010 (UTC) SusanG Toast

Cryonics Meets Medicine

http://cryomedical.blogspot.com/ - Melody Maxim has been really pissing cryonicists off by pointing out the blithering incompetence of the people handling the corpses, and the quackery of Alcor calling people with no medical qualifications whatsoever "surgeons". Note Quackwatch quote at top of blog. Still in search of the cryonicist cultural list of reasons she is evil and stupid and incorrect - David Gerard (talk) 06:57, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Charles Platt gets pessimistic

Cryonicist (and SF author) Charles Platt writes a reality check article that is rejected from Cryonics by the board of Alcor: [1] [2] Anyone want to digest it into the article in a useful fashion? (i.e. not sure when I will) - David Gerard (talk) 18:32, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

And Luke promptly responds elsewhere, not linking to what inspired him - David Gerard (talk) 18:53, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Why do think "Cryonicist (and SF author)" is redundant? ħumanUser talk:Human 04:23, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
My LW post was not intended as a direct response. It was, as stated, "something of" a response. As in, Charles said something about optimism and I afterward said something contrary about pessimism. That's a rather tangential sort of relationship, however (contrary to the above statement) I did in fact add links to the two messages for anyone curious -- right after you brought up the notion in the comments section. His main points regarding the financing of Alcor were not addressed, as that was not related to the premise I was interested in writing about. Luke (talk) 05:55, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Interestingly, there has been a recent bequest of $7M to Alcor. Rather than allot any of it directly towards Alcor operations (where there might be the temptation to waste it) they are putting half of it into the Patient Care Trust (a separate legal entity which is responsible strictly for the patients and assets necessary to care for them), and half into an endowment fund, from which the interest will go to Alcor operations. Patient care costs have been hiked from $180k to $200k for full body patient. Luke (talk) 05:55, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Probably not article-worthy...

...but that Mitchell and Webb Look make fun of the topic. I saw it at the end of one section, beginning of another, then searched for M & W L/cryonics, this better be right. I loved the guy with "fluids" leaking out of holes in his body, also the guy trying to re-freeze himself. ħumanUser talk:Human 07:40, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

The burning topic

You've come here to read about cryonics and I know what you're asking. You're wondering: is cryonics a ... SATANIC CULT??? - David Gerard (talk) 00:46, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Styles responds. Luke (talk) 00:07, 11 December 2010 (UTC)