Cryonics could never work, could it?

[Mattabet]

There's a thousand ways that you could be stopped from jumping, such as a simple nervous system override that prevents you from actually taking the final leap.

I can never remember, is it grammatically correct to put the words 'simple' and 'nervous system override' adjacent to each other?

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[GeraldMonroe]

I can never remember, is it grammatically correct to put the words 'simple' and 'nervous system override' adjacent to each other?

Err, I mean, simple compared to the ability to rebuild your whole nervous system molecule by molecule. I mean, "all" they'd have to do is to leave a small device wired into some of your somatic tracts somewhere up in your brainstem that would give them the ability to shut down your somatic efferent nervous system on a whim. Or, better still, force you to twitch your muscles a certain way.

Devices like this already exist today, used in experiments with monkeys.

 

[synapse lapse]

Wow, a thread on cryonics on SDN, I'm actually very surprised. This is a topic I know quite a lot about, as I plan on being cryogenically frozen by Alcor when I die. It is refreshing to see at least one person going into medicine that believes the impossible may one day be possible. Generally my classmates/residents/attendings just think I'm somewhat loonie or going to being conned out of money when I discuss this. I think it's quite obvious that reanimation is at least a possibility, even if it can't be considered a probability. OP, I am glad you share my interest, and are rational enough to see that there is a scientific basis for cryonics. There will always be people who are naysayers, who lack vision, or who take moral/ethical qualms with future technology, but I believe there is atleast some probablity that I will come back to life, and I look forward to that opportunity.

Oh, and you should watch Ghost in the Shell if you haven't seen it. This topic is too extensive to talk with at length online (takes too much of my time to type what I'd like to say),but I also believe that we will one day have AI, with accurate reproduction of a "human" mind through a biomechanical or entirely synthetic substrate. You should also check out some of Ray Kurzweil's work, I think you'd find it interesting.

 

[KeyzerSoze]

Fear of mortality + self delusion = profit.

 

[AUD]

Scientists have known to be way off with their predictions. For example, during the Space Race in the 60's and into the 70's, humans were conquering space with crappy computers. It was predicted that by now we'd be colonizing space using our poor computers, but instead we have amazing computers and we're still stuck on Earth.

 

[TMP-SMX]

Scientists have known to be way off with their predictions. For example, during the Space Race in the 60's and into the 70's, humans were conquering space with crappy computers. It was predicted that by now we'd be colonizing space using our poor computers, but instead we have amazing computers and we're still stuck on Earth.

Post cold war it hasn't exactly been a priority.

 

[GeraldMonroe]

Space doesn't make anyone any money. Rockets cost vastly more money than any foreseeable economic returns. Neither do "flying cars" and or jetpacks. Massive liability risk, massive fuel consumption, high cost to construct - people who need a flying car use helicopters. Better computers make lots of money. An artificially intelligent computer, or one that was close, would make the creator the richest entity on the planet. (well, until everyone else joined the party with AIs of their own)

 

[medhawk1]

I think it is far more likely in the future that humans and machines will become hybrids, rather then humans being enslaved by machines. Integration of machine hardware with our "soft ware" to improve memory a few thousand-fold would be nice for the boards at least.


OP if you haven't already I think you would enjoy reading Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near.

 

[Ben Best]

Wow, a thread on cryonics on SDN, I'm actually very surprised. This is a topic I know quite a lot about, as I plan on being cryogenically frozen by Alcor when I die. It is refreshing to see at least one person going into medicine that believes the impossible may one day be possible. Generally my classmates/residents/attendings just think I'm somewhat loonie or going to being conned out of money when I discuss this. I think it's quite obvious that reanimation is at least a possibility, even if it can't be considered a probability.

There is a scientific justification for cryonics practice

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18321197

Science relies on indirect evidence and model-building. Predicting future
technologies is not less scientific than constructing a model of the
universe one microsecond after the big bang.

 

[GeraldMonroe]

There is a scientific justification for cryonics practice

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18321197

Science relies on indirect evidence and model-building. Predicting future
technologies is not less scientific than constructing a model of the
universe one microsecond after the big bang.

Human beings have to invent those future technologies, at least up to the point of making technology that can self-improve. That's a lot harder to predict than the Big Bang, since the base assumption is that the laws of physics have always been the same, from the big bang until know, and that all of the stars that we see follow those laws.