![Cryo surgery](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Cryo_surgery.jpg)
Cryonics (from el, κρύος ''kryos'' meaning 'cold') is the
low-temperature freezing (usually at ) and storage of human remains, with the speculative hope that
resurrection
Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. In a number of religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and is resurrected. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions, which ...
may be possible in the future.
Cryonics is regarded with
skepticism
Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the pe ...
within the mainstream scientific community. It is generally viewed as a
pseudoscience
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or falsifiability, unfa ...
,
[ and its practice has been characterized as ]quackery
Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, ...
.[
Cryonics procedures can begin only after the "patients" are clinically and ]legally dead
''Legally Dead'' is a 1923 American drama film directed by William Parke and written by Harvey Gates. The film stars Milton Sills, Margaret Campbell, Claire Adams, Eddie Sturgis, Faye O'Neill, and Charles A. Stevenson. The film was released on J ...
. Cryonics procedures may begin within minutes of death, and use cryoprotectant
A cryoprotectant is a substance used to protect biological tissue from freezing damage (i.e. that due to ice formation). Arctic and Antarctic insects, fish and amphibians create cryoprotectants (antifreeze, antifreeze compounds and antifreeze prot ...
s to prevent ice formation during cryopreservation. It is, however, not possible for a corpse to be reanimated after undergoing vitrification
Vitrification (from Latin ''vitreum'', "glass" via French ''vitrifier'') is the full or partial transformation of a substance into a glass, that is to say, a non-crystalline amorphous solid. Glasses differ from liquids structurally and glasses po ...
, as this causes damage to the brain including its neural circuits
A neural circuit is a population of neurons interconnected by synapses to carry out a specific function when activated. Neural circuits interconnect to one another to form large scale brain networks.
Biological neural networks have inspired th ...
. The first corpse to be frozen was that of James Bedford
James Hiram Bedford (April 20, 1893 – January 12, 1967) was an American psychology professor at the University of California who wrote several books on occupational counseling. He is the first person whose body was cryopreserved after legal de ...
in 1967. As of 2014, about 250 dead bodies had been cryopreserved in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, and 1,500 people had made arrangements for cryopreservation of their corpses.
Critics argue that economic reality means it is highly improbable that any cryonics corporation could continue in business long enough to take advantage of the claimed long-term benefits offered.[ Early attempts of cryonic preservations were performed in the 1960s and early 1970s which ended in failure with all but one of the companies going out of business, and their stored corpses thawed and disposed of.][
]
Conceptual basis
Cryonicists argue that as long as brain structure remains intact, there is no fundamental barrier, given our current understanding of physical law, to recovering its information content. Cryonics proponents go further than the mainstream consensus in saying that the brain does not have to be continuously active to survive or retain memory. Cryonics controversially states that a human survives even within an inactive brain that has been badly damaged, provided that original encoding of memory and personality can, in theory, be adequately inferred and reconstituted from what structure remains.
Cryonics uses temperatures below −130 °C
The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius scale (originally known as the centigrade scale outside Sweden), one of two temperature scales used in the International System of Units (SI), the other being the Kelvin scale. The ...
, called cryopreservation
Cryo-preservation or cryo-conservation is a process where Organism, organisms, organelles, cell (biology), cells, Biological tissue, tissues, extracellular matrix, Organ (anatomy), organs, or any other biological constructs susceptible to damage ...
, in an attempt to preserve enough brain information to permit the future revival of the cryopreserved person. Cryopreservation may be accomplished by freezing, freezing with cryoprotectant
A cryoprotectant is a substance used to protect biological tissue from freezing damage (i.e. that due to ice formation). Arctic and Antarctic insects, fish and amphibians create cryoprotectants (antifreeze, antifreeze compounds and antifreeze prot ...
to reduce ice damage, or by vitrification
Vitrification (from Latin ''vitreum'', "glass" via French ''vitrifier'') is the full or partial transformation of a substance into a glass, that is to say, a non-crystalline amorphous solid. Glasses differ from liquids structurally and glasses po ...
to avoid ice damage. Even using the best methods, cryopreservation of whole bodies or brains is very damaging and irreversible with current technology.
Cryonics advocates hold that in the future the use of some kind of presently-nonexistent nanotechnology
Nanotechnology, also shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal o ...
may be able to help bring the dead back to life and treat the diseases which killed them. Mind uploading
Mind uploading is a speculative process of whole brain emulation in which a brain scan is used to completely emulate the mental state of the individual in a digital computer. The computer would then run a simulation of the brain's information pr ...
has also been proposed.
Cryonics in practice
Cryonics can be expensive. , the cost of preparing and storing corpses using cryonics ranged from US$28,000 to $200,000.
When used at high concentrations, cryoprotectants
A cryoprotectant is a substance used to protect biological tissue from freezing
Freezing is a phase transition where a liquid turns into a solid when its temperature is lowered below its freezing point. In accordance with the internationally es ...
can stop ice
Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaq ...
formation completely. Cooling and solidification without crystal
A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macros ...
formation is called vitrification
Vitrification (from Latin ''vitreum'', "glass" via French ''vitrifier'') is the full or partial transformation of a substance into a glass, that is to say, a non-crystalline amorphous solid. Glasses differ from liquids structurally and glasses po ...
. The first cryoprotectant solutions able to vitrify at very slow cooling rates while still being compatible with whole organ survival were developed in the late 1990s by cryobiologists Gregory Fahy
Gregory M. Fahy is a California-based cryobiologist, biogerontologist, and businessman. He is Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at Twenty-First Century Medicine, Inc, and has co-founded ''Intervene Immune'', a company developing clinical ...
and Brian Wowk
Brian G. Wowk, Ph.D. is a medical physicist and cryobiologist known for the discovery and development of synthetic molecules that mimic the activity of natural antifreeze proteins in cryopreservation applications, sometimes called "ice blockers". ...
for the purpose of banking transplantable organs. This has allowed animal brains to be vitrified, warmed back up, and examined for ice damage using light and electron microscopy
An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a hi ...
. No ice crystal damage was found; cellular damage was due to dehydration and toxicity of the cryoprotectant solutions.
Costs can include payment for medical personnel to be on call for death, vitrification, transportation in dry ice to a preservation facility, and payment into a trust fund intended to cover indefinite storage in liquid nitrogen and future revival costs. As of 2011, U.S. cryopreservation costs can range from $28,000 to $200,000, and are often financed via life insurance. KrioRus
KrioRus (russian: КриоРус) is the first cryonics company in Russia. It was founded in 2005 by the ''Russian Transhumanist Movement'' NGO. It's the only cryonic company in Europe to possess an own cryonic storage. The company offers the serv ...
, which stores bodies communally in large dewars
Dewar's () is a brand of blended Scotch whisky owned by Bacardi, which claims the brand's "White Label" to be the top-selling blended Scotch in the US. Dewar's is also the world's most awarded blended Scotch whisky with more than 1,000 medals ear ...
, charges $12,000 to $36,000 for the procedure. Some customers opt to have only their brain cryopreserved ("neuropreservation"), rather than their whole body.
As of 2014, about 250 corpses have been cryogenically preserved in the U.S., and around 1,500 people have signed up to have their remains preserved. As of 2016, four facilities exist in the world to retain cryopreserved bodies: three in the U.S. and one in Russia.
Considering the lifecycle of corporations, it is extremely unlikely that any cryonics company could continue to exist for sufficient time to take advantage even of the supposed benefits offered: historically, even the most robust corporations have only a one-in-a-thousand chance of surviving even one hundred years. Many cryonics companies have failed; , all but one of the pre-1973 batch had gone out of business, and their stored corpses have been defrosted and disposed of.
Obstacles to success
Preservation damage
Cryopreservation has long been used by medical laboratories to maintain animal cells, human embryos, and even some organized tissues, for periods as long as three decades. Recovering large animals and organs from a frozen state is however not considered possible at the current level of scientific knowledge Large vitrified organs tend to develop fractures during cooling, a problem worsened by the large tissue masses and very low temperatures of cryonics. Without cryoprotectants, cell
Cell most often refers to:
* Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life
Cell may also refer to:
Locations
* Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...
shrinkage and high salt
Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...
concentrations during freezing usually prevent frozen cells from functioning again after thawing. Ice crystals can also disrupt connections between cells that are necessary for organs to function.
In 2016, Robert L. McIntyre and Gregory Fahy
Gregory M. Fahy is a California-based cryobiologist, biogerontologist, and businessman. He is Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at Twenty-First Century Medicine, Inc, and has co-founded ''Intervene Immune'', a company developing clinical ...
at the cryobiology research company 21st Century Medicine, Inc. won the Small Animal Brain Preservation Prize of the Brain Preservation Foundation
The Brain Preservation Foundation is an American non-profit organization with the goal of promoting validated scientific research and technical services development in the field of whole brain preservation for long-term static storage, as well as ...
by demonstrating to the satisfaction of neuroscientist judges that a particular implementation of fixation and vitrification called ''aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation'' could preserve a rabbit brain in "near perfect" condition at −135 °C
The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius scale (originally known as the centigrade scale outside Sweden), one of two temperature scales used in the International System of Units (SI), the other being the Kelvin scale. The ...
, with the cell membranes, synapses, and intracellular structures intact in electron micrographs. Brain Preservation Foundation President, Ken Hayworth, said, "This result directly answers a main skeptical and scientific criticism against cryonics—that it does not provably preserve the delicate synaptic circuitry of the brain." However, the price paid for perfect preservation, as seen by microscopy, was tying up all protein molecules with chemical crosslinks, eliminating biological viability.
Some cryonics organizations use vitrification without a chemical fixation step, sacrificing some structural preservation quality for less damage at the molecular level. Some scientists, like João Pedro Magalhães, have questioned whether using a deadly chemical for fixation eliminates the possibility of biological revival, making chemical fixation unsuitable for cryonics.
Outside of cryonics firms and cryonics-linked interest groups, many scientists show strong skepticism toward cryonics methods. Cryobiologist Dayong Gao states that "we simply don't know if (subjects have) been damaged to the point where they've 'died' during vitrification because the subjects are now inside liquid nitrogen canisters." Biochemist Ken Storey argues (based on experience with organ transplants), that "even if you only wanted to preserve the brain, it has dozens of different areas, which would need to be cryopreserved using different protocols."
Revival
Revival would require repairing damage from lack of oxygen, cryoprotectant toxicity, thermal stress (fracturing) and freezing in tissues that do not successfully vitrify, finally followed by reversing the cause of death. In many cases, extensive tissue regeneration
In biology, regeneration is the process of renewal, restoration, and tissue growth that makes genomes, cells, organisms, and ecosystems resilient to natural fluctuations or events that cause disturbance or damage. Every species is capable of rege ...
would be necessary. This revival technology remains speculative and does not currently exist.
Legal issues
Historically, a person had little control regarding how their body was treated after death as religion held jurisdiction over the ultimate fate of their body. However, secular courts began to exercise jurisdiction over the body and use discretion in carrying out of the wishes of the deceased person. Most countries legally treat preserved individuals as deceased
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
persons because of laws that forbid vitrifying someone who is medically alive. In France, cryonics is not considered a legal mode of body disposal; only burial, cremation, and formal donation to science are allowed. However, bodies may legally be shipped to other countries for cryonic freezing. As of 2015, the Canadian province of British Columbia prohibits the sale of arrangements for body preservation based on cryonics. In Russia, cryonics falls outside both the medical industry and the funeral services industry, making it easier in Russia than in the U.S. to get hospitals and morgues to release cryonics candidates.
In London in 2016, the English High Court ruled in favor of a mother's right to seek cryopreservation of her terminally ill 14-year-old daughter, as the girl wanted, contrary to the father's wishes. The decision was made on the basis that the case represented a conventional dispute over the disposal of the girl's body, although the judge urged ministers to seek "proper regulation" for the future of cryonic preservation following concerns raised by the hospital about the competence and professionalism of the team that conducted the preservation procedures. In ''Alcor Life Extension Foundation
The Alcor Life Extension Foundation, most often referred to as Alcor, is an American nonprofit, federally tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization based in Scottsdale, Arizona, United States. Alcor advocates for, researches, and performs cryonics, the ...
v. Richardson'', the Iowa Court of Appeals
The Iowa Court of Appeals is the intermediate-level appellate court of the state of Iowa. Its purpose is to review appeals from trial court decisions which are referred to the court by the Iowa Supreme Court. The court decides the vast majority of ...
ordered for the disinterment of Richardson, who was buried against his wishes for cryopreservation.
A detailed legal examination by Jochen Taupitz concludes that cryonic storage is legal in Germany for an indefinite period of time.
Ethics
In 2009, writing in ''Bioethics
Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, med ...
'', David Shaw examines the ethical status of cryonics. The arguments against it include changing the concept of death, the expense of preservation and revival, lack of scientific advancement to permit revival, temptation to use premature euthanasia, and failure due to catastrophe. Arguments in favor of cryonics include the potential benefit to society, the prospect of immortality, and the benefits associated with avoiding death. Shaw explores the expense and the potential payoff, and applies an adapted version of Pascal's Wager to the question.[Shaw, David. "Cryoethics: seeking life after death." ]Bioethics
Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, med ...
23.9 (2009): 515–521. APA
In 2016, Charles Tandy wrote in favor of cryonics, arguing that honoring someone's last wishes is seen as a benevolent duty in American and many other cultures.
History
Cryopreservation was applied to human cells beginning in 1954 with frozen sperm, which was thawed and used to inseminate three women. The freezing of humans was first scientifically proposed by Michigan professor Robert Ettinger
Robert Chester Wilson Ettinger (December 4, 1918 – July 23, 2011) was an American academic, known as "the father of cryonics" because of the impact of his 1962 book ''The Prospect of Immortality''.
Ettinger founded the Cryonics Institute ...
when he wrote ''The Prospect of Immortality'' (1962). In April 1966, the first human body was frozen—though it had been embalmed for two months—by being placed in liquid nitrogen
Liquid nitrogen—LN2—is nitrogen in a liquid state at low temperature. Liquid nitrogen has a boiling point of about . It is produced industrially by fractional distillation of liquid air. It is a colorless, low viscosity liquid that is wide ...
and stored at just above freezing. The middle-aged woman from Los Angeles, whose name is unknown, was soon thawed out and buried by relatives.
The first body to be cryopreserved and then frozen with the hope of future revival was that of James Bedford
James Hiram Bedford (April 20, 1893 – January 12, 1967) was an American psychology professor at the University of California who wrote several books on occupational counseling. He is the first person whose body was cryopreserved after legal de ...
, claimed by Alcor's Mike Darwin
Mike may refer to:
Animals
* Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum
* Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off
* Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and documen ...
to have occurred within around two hours of his death from cardiorespiratory arrest (secondary to metastasized kidney cancer) on January 12, 1967. Bedford's corpse is the only one frozen before 1974 still preserved today.[ In 1976, Ettinger founded the ]Cryonics Institute
Cryonics Institute (CI) is an American nonprofit foundation that provides cryonics services. CI freezes dead humans and pets in liquid nitrogen with the hope of restoring them with technology in the future.
History
The Cryonics Institute was fo ...
; his corpse was cryopreserved in 2011.[ Robert Nelson, "a former TV repairman with no scientific background" who led the Cryonics Society of California, was sued in 1981 for allowing nine bodies to thaw and decompose in the 1970s; in his defense, he claimed that the Cryonics Society had run out of money.][ This led to the lowered reputation of cryonics in the U.S.]
In 2018, a Y-Combinator
Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, Stripe ...
startup called Nectome was recognized for developing a method of preserving brains with chemicals rather than by freezing. The method is fatal, performed as euthanasia under general anesthesia, but the hope is that future technology would allow the brain to be physically scanned into a computer simulation, neuron by neuron.
Demographics
According to ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', cryonicists are predominantly non-religious white males, outnumbering women by about three to one. According to ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', as of 2008, while most cryonicists used to be young, male, and "geeky", recent demographics have shifted slightly towards whole families.
In 2015, Du Hong, a 61-year-old female writer of children's literature, became the first known Chinese national to have her head cryopreserved.
Reception
Cryonics is generally regarded as a fringe pseudoscience. The Society for Cryobiology
The Society for Cryobiology is an international scientific society that was founded in 1964. Its objectives are to promote research in low temperature biology, to improve scientific understanding in this field, and to disseminate and aid in the app ...
rejected members who practiced cryonics,[ and issued a public statement saying that cryonics is "not science", and that it is a "personal choice" how people want to have their dead bodies disposed of.
Russian company ]KrioRus
KrioRus (russian: КриоРус) is the first cryonics company in Russia. It was founded in 2005 by the ''Russian Transhumanist Movement'' NGO. It's the only cryonic company in Europe to possess an own cryonic storage. The company offers the serv ...
is the first non-US vendor of cryonics services. Yevgeny Alexandrov, chair of the Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...
commission against pseudoscience, said there was "no scientific basis" for cryonics, and that the company's offering was based on "unfounded speculation".
Scientists have expressed skepticism about cryonics in media sources, and the Norwegian philosopher Ole Martin Moen has written that the topic receives a "minuscule" amount of attention from academia.[
While some neuroscientists contend that all the subtleties of a human mind are contained in its anatomical structure, few neuroscientists will comment directly upon the topic of cryonics due to its speculative nature. Individuals who intend to be frozen are often "looked at as a bunch of kooks". Cryobiologist ]Kenneth B. Storey
Kenneth B. Storey (born October 23, 1949) is a Canadian scientist whose work draws from a variety of fields including biochemistry and molecular biology. He is a Professor of Biology, Biochemistry and Chemistry at Carleton University in Ottawa, ...
said in 2004 that cryonics is impossible and will never be possible, as cryonics proponents are proposing to "over-turn the laws of physics, chemistry, and molecular science". Neurobiologist Michael Hendricks has said that "Reanimation or simulation is an abjectly false hope that is beyond the promise of technology and is certainly impossible with the frozen, dead tissue offered by the 'cryonics' industry".[
]William T. Jarvis
William Tyler Jarvis (October 19, 1935 – March 1, 2016) was an American health educator and skeptic.
Jarvis graduated from University of Minnesota, University of Minnesota Duluth and Kent State University. In 1973, he obtained a Ph.D in health ...
has written that "Cryonics might be a suitable subject for scientific research, but marketing an unproven method to the public is quackery".[*
*
*
* ;
*
* ]
According to cryonicist Aschwin de Wolf and others, cryonics can often produce intense hostility from spouses who are not cryonicists. James Hughes, the executive director of the pro-life-extension Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) is a technoprogressive think tank that seeks to "promote ideas about how technological progress can increase freedom, happiness, and human flourishing in democratic societies."Joseph R. ...
, chooses not to personally sign up for cryonics, calling it a worthy experiment but stating laconically that "I value my relationship with my wife."
Cryobiologist Dayong Gao states that "People can always have hope that things will change in the future, but there is no scientific foundation supporting cryonics at this time." While it is universally agreed that "personal identity
Personal identity is the unique numerical identity of a person over time. Discussions regarding personal identity typically aim to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a person at one time and a person at another time can ...
" is uninterrupted when brain activity temporarily ceases during incidents of accidental drowning (where people have been restored to normal functioning after being completely submerged in cold water for up to 66 minutes), one argument against cryonics is that a centuries-long absence from life might interrupt the conception of personal identity, such that the revived person would "not be themself".
Maastricht University
Maastricht University (abbreviated as UM; nl, Universiteit Maastricht) is a public research university in Maastricht, Netherlands. Founded in 1976, it is the second youngest of the thirteen Dutch universities.
In 2021, 22,383 students studied at ...
bioethicist David Shaw raises the argument that there would be no point in being revived in the far future if one's friends and families are dead, leaving them all alone; he notes, however, that family and friends can also be frozen, that there is "nothing to prevent the thawed-out freezee from making new friends", and that a lonely existence may be preferable to no existence at all for the revived.
In fiction
Suspended animation
Suspended animation is the temporary (short- or long-term) slowing or stopping of biological function so that physiological capabilities are preserved. It may be either hypometabolic or ametabolic in nature. It may be induced by either endogen ...
is a popular subject in science fiction and fantasy settings. It is often the means by which a character is transported into the future.
A survey in Germany found that about half of the respondents were familiar with cryonics, and about half of those familiar with cryonics had learned of the subject from films or television.
In popular culture
The town of Nederland, Colorado
Nederland (, ) is a statutory town located near Barker Meadow Reservoir in the foothills of southwest Boulder County, Colorado, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census it had a population of 1,445.
History
Nederland was established in ...
, hosts an annual Frozen Dead Guy Days
Frozen Dead Guy Days (started 2002) is an annual celebration held in the town of Nederland, Colorado, to loosely celebrate the cryopreservation of Bredo Morstoel.
History
In 1989, a Norwegian citizen named Trygve Bauge brought the corpse of his ...
festival to commemorate a substandard attempt at cryopreservation
Cryo-preservation or cryo-conservation is a process where Organism, organisms, organelles, cell (biology), cells, Biological tissue, tissues, extracellular matrix, Organ (anatomy), organs, or any other biological constructs susceptible to damage ...
.
Notable people
Corpses subjected to the cryonics process include those of baseball players Ted Williams
Theodore Samuel Williams (August 30, 1918 – July 5, 2002) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 19-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career, primarily as a left fielder, for the Boston Red Sox from 1939 ...
and son John Henry Williams (in 2002 and 2004, respectively), engineer and doctor L. Stephen Coles (in 2014), economist and entrepreneur Phil Salin
Phillip Kenneth Salin (1950–1991) was an American economist and futurist, best known for his contributions to theories about the development of cyberspace and as a proponent of private (non-governmental) space exploration and development.
Ed ...
, and software engineer Hal Finney (in 2014).
People known to have arranged for cryonics upon death include PayPal
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...
founders Luke Nosek
Luke Nosek (; born 1975/1976) is a Polish-American entrepreneur, notable for being a co-founder of PayPal.
Biography
Łukasz Nosek was born in Tarnów, Poland. After emigrating to the US, he earned a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the Univer ...
and Peter Thiel
Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Fac ...
, Oxford transhumanists
Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition.
Transhuma ...
Nick Bostrom
Nick Bostrom ( ; sv, Niklas Boström ; born 10 March 1973) is a Swedish-born philosopher at the University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk, the anthropic principle, human enhancement ethics, superintelligence risks, and the rev ...
and Anders Sandberg
Anders Sandberg (born 11 July 1972) is a Swedish researcher, futurist and transhumanist. He holds a PhD in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, and is currently a senior research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at th ...
, and transhumanist philosopher David Pearce. Larry King
Larry King (born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger; November 19, 1933 – January 23, 2021) was an American television and radio host, whose awards included 2 Peabodys
The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program ...
previously arranged for cryonics, but according to Inside Edition, later changed his mind.
Disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein
Jeffrey Edward Epstein ( ; January 20, 1953August 10, 2019) was an American sex offender and financier. Epstein, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City, began his professional life by teaching at the Dalton School in Manhattan, des ...
wanted to have his head and penis
A penis (plural ''penises'' or ''penes'' () is the primary sexual organ that male animals use to inseminate females (or hermaphrodites) during copulation. Such organs occur in many animals, both vertebrate and invertebrate, but males do n ...
frozen after death so that he could "seed the human race with his DNA."
The corpses of some are mistakenly believed to have undergone cryonics – for instance, the urban legend
An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...
suggesting Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
's corpse was cryopreserved is false; it was cremated and interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery
Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks & Mortuaries is an American corporation that owns and operates a chain of cemeteries and mortuaries in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside counties in Southern California.
History
The company was founded by a group of ...
. Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein (; July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accu ...
, who wrote enthusiastically of the concept in ''The Door into Summer
''The Door into Summer'' is a science fiction novel by American science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, originally serialized in ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (October, November, December 1956, with covers and interior illustr ...
'' (serialized in 1956), was cremated and had his ashes distributed over the Pacific Ocean. Timothy Leary
Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a her ...
was a long-time cryonics advocate and signed up with a major cryonics provider, but he changed his mind shortly before his death and was not cryopreserved.[''The New York Times", "A Final Turn-On Lifts Timothy Leary Off" by Marlise Simons, April 22, 1997]
See also
* Brain in a vat
In philosophy, the brain in a vat (BIV) is a scenario used in a variety of thought experiments intended to draw out certain features of human conceptions of knowledge, reality, truth, mind, consciousness, and meaning. It is a modern incarnatio ...
* Cryptobiosis
Cryptobiosis or anabiosis is a metabolic state of life entered by an organism in response to adverse environmental conditions such as desiccation, freezing, and oxygen deficiency. In the cryptobiotic state, all measurable metabolic processes stop ...
* Extropianism
Extropianism, also referred to as the philosophy of extropy, is an "evolving framework of values and standards for continuously improving the human condition".
Extropians believe that advances in science and technology will some day let people l ...
* Hibernation
Hibernation is a state of minimal activity and metabolic depression undergone by some animal species. Hibernation is a seasonal heterothermy characterized by low body-temperature, slow breathing and heart-rate, and low metabolic rate. It most ...
* Life extension
Life extension is the concept of extending the human life expectancy, lifespan, either modestly through improvements in medicine or dramatically by increasing the maximum lifespan beyond its generally-settled oldest people, limit of 125 years.
S ...
* Supercooling
Supercooling, also known as undercooling, is the process of lowering the temperature of a liquid or a gas below its melting point without it becoming a solid. It achieves this in the absence of a seed crystal or nucleus around which a crystal ...
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{{Pseudoscience
Cooling technology
Death customs
Fictional technology
Health fraud
Life extension
Pseudoscience
Scientific speculation