[ExI] Cryonics a theory or belief?

[John Grigg]

Terry wrote:
Hi, I would not demean cryonics as a cult but since you described
cryonics as a scientific hypothesis/theory where are the supporting
evidence/facts that can be tested to work as proposed by your theory?
The proposition it would work five hundred years from now is a mere
guess. Why wait that long if you cannot test it now?
>>>

Terry, cryonics is an experiment currently "in progress."  And if you are
signed up with a cryonics provider, then you are part of the control
group!  By reading up on cryonics you will find the two main
cryonics organizations make no guarantees that it will succeed.  I consider
it an "educated person's gamble."  You are right, the proposition that it
will work 500 years from now is merely a guess.  The people frozen may be
brought back fifty years from now (a Singularity happens) or not for several
millennia (freezing damage and information loss may take a truly godlike
level of technology to reverse).  And I realize I'm just guessing, myself!
lol  But the big picture is that technological progress has been both steady
and amazing over the last five decades and we can expect it to continue or
even exceed current rates of development with the passage of time.  So,
whether I have to wait fifty years or five millennia to be brought back, my
body can wait it out in a dewar of liquid nitrogen.  It is only when medical
science can confidently attempt to bring me back from a frozen state that
this experiment will reach fruition.

you continue:
Genetic engineering has been successful in many scientific experiments
why not cryonics? If you can show the success now, I imagine you would
get a lot of funding from all sources both private and public.
>>>

The damage to frozen human tissue is so severe at the temperatures involved
in cryonics, that reversing them and restoring a person to life is
*currently* totally beyond conventional science.  It is the dream of
cryonicists to be able to bring a frozen person back to full health and reap
the social and financial rewards, but that time is still a long way off.

I recommend you carefully read over the Alcor and Cryonics Institute
websites to learn more.


John Grigg
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