It would actually be better to have cryonics legally recognized as a burial ritual than as a cadaver experimentation. In that way it can be performed on someone who hasn’t formally signed a will, granting their body as an anatomical gift to the cryonic service provider. Sure, ideally it should be considered a medical procedure on a living person in a critical condition, but passing such legislation is next to impossible in the foreseeable future, whereas the former sounds quite feasible.
The stabilization procedure should be recognized as an acceptable form of active euthanasia. This is probably the shortest way to get to work with not yet brain-dead humans, and it would allow people to trade couple of months or years of rather painful live for better chances at living again.
Insulin injections should probably be a part of the stabilization protocol (especially in the previous case). According to “Glucose affects the severity of hypoxic-ischemic brain injury in newborn pigs” by LeBlanc MH et al, hypoglycemic brains sustain hypoxia much better than normally. That totally makes sense: oxygen is mainly consumed for glycolysis, so if there’s nothing to oxidize, oxygen consumption will decrease.
Some of the major problems of cryonics can probably be solved by preventing water from expanding upon freezing. According to 1 and 2, ice is denser than water at about 30 kbar. That is a bit technically complicated, but I would speculate that with this trick we could have reversible freezing in wood frogs right now.
Vitrification also amounts to antifreeze poisoning. Quite a big deal if you’re counting on full-body revival (which, granted, I don’t consider feasible in the first place—cryonics is, in the best case, an information backup as far as I’m concerned).
That’s the whole point: if we can if we can prevent water from expanding by freezing and keeping the sample under high pressure, thus making crystal formation harmless (probably), we can use less cryoprotectant. I don’t know if it’s possible to get rid of it completely, so I mentioned wood frogs, that already have all the mechanisms necessary to survive slightly below the freezing temperature. It’s just their cryoprotectant isn’t good enough to go any colder, but it’s not so poisonous either. Also, they’re small, so it’s easier to find high pressure units to fit them in—they’re perfect model organisms for cryonics research.
As of now, cryonics is at best an information backup indeed, but I see no reason why we should be content with that. Yes, we will probably eventually invent advance nanomachinery, as well as whole brain simulation and scanning, but that’s too many unknowns in the equation. We could do much better than that.
That would destroy cryonics companies who make money via insurance that depends on people legally dying.
The insurance companies would have to alter their contracts. Ideally, whatever legislation classifies cryonics as a medical procedure would include a clause that for the purposes of any contract written before then, it counts as death.
That would destroy cryonics companies who make money via insurance that depends on people legally dying.
Wouldn’t it just shift to health insurance in this case? But generally, yes, recognizing cryonic patients as alive has a lot of legal ramifications. On the other hand, it provides a much better protection against unfreezing: just like with the patients in a persistent vegetative state, someone authorized has to actively make a decision to kill them, as opposed to no legal protection at all. I’m not sure which of these is the net positive. Besides, that would challenge the current definition of death, which currently basically boils down to “we positively can do nothing to bring the patient back from this state”. Including potential technologies in the definition is a rather big perspective change, that can also have consequences for vegetative patients as well.
If I understood it right then vitrification is done to prevent ice crystals from forming. Do you mean something different?
As ZankerH mentioned below, vitrification leads to cryoprotectant poisoning, which is a sufficiently big problem to prevent us from experimenting with unfreezing even in small organisms. If the function of the cryoprotectant can be fully or partially replaced by keeping the sample under the high pressure, that problem is mostly solved. That doesn’t prevent crystals from forming, but unlike normal ice, these crystals take less volume than the water they were made of, so they shouldn’t damage the cells. In addition, amorphous solids aren’t guaranteed to be stable, and can undergo slow crystallization. I’m not sure how pig of a problem that is for cryonics, but in case of going directly to ice-IX, that’s definitely not a problem anymore.
Wouldn’t it just shift to health insurance in this case?
Health insurance doesn’t automatically pay for everything.
On the other hand, it provides a much better protection against unfreezing: just like with the patients in a persistent vegetative state, someone authorized has to actively make a decision to kill them, as opposed to no legal protection at all.
A bit but not that much. A company that can’t afford to freeze would still shut down. Nobody is foreced to pay to keep the machines on in every case.
Couple of random thoughts about cryonics:
It would actually be better to have cryonics legally recognized as a burial ritual than as a cadaver experimentation. In that way it can be performed on someone who hasn’t formally signed a will, granting their body as an anatomical gift to the cryonic service provider. Sure, ideally it should be considered a medical procedure on a living person in a critical condition, but passing such legislation is next to impossible in the foreseeable future, whereas the former sounds quite feasible.
The stabilization procedure should be recognized as an acceptable form of active euthanasia. This is probably the shortest way to get to work with not yet brain-dead humans, and it would allow people to trade couple of months or years of rather painful live for better chances at living again.
Insulin injections should probably be a part of the stabilization protocol (especially in the previous case). According to “Glucose affects the severity of hypoxic-ischemic brain injury in newborn pigs” by LeBlanc MH et al, hypoglycemic brains sustain hypoxia much better than normally. That totally makes sense: oxygen is mainly consumed for glycolysis, so if there’s nothing to oxidize, oxygen consumption will decrease.
Some of the major problems of cryonics can probably be solved by preventing water from expanding upon freezing. According to 1 and 2, ice is denser than water at about 30 kbar. That is a bit technically complicated, but I would speculate that with this trick we could have reversible freezing in wood frogs right now.
That would destroy cryonics companies who make money via insurance that depends on people legally dying.
What do you mean exactly? If I understood it right then vitrification is done to prevent ice crystals from forming. Do you mean something different?
Vitrification also amounts to antifreeze poisoning. Quite a big deal if you’re counting on full-body revival (which, granted, I don’t consider feasible in the first place—cryonics is, in the best case, an information backup as far as I’m concerned).
That’s the whole point: if we can if we can prevent water from expanding by freezing and keeping the sample under high pressure, thus making crystal formation harmless (probably), we can use less cryoprotectant. I don’t know if it’s possible to get rid of it completely, so I mentioned wood frogs, that already have all the mechanisms necessary to survive slightly below the freezing temperature. It’s just their cryoprotectant isn’t good enough to go any colder, but it’s not so poisonous either. Also, they’re small, so it’s easier to find high pressure units to fit them in—they’re perfect model organisms for cryonics research.
As of now, cryonics is at best an information backup indeed, but I see no reason why we should be content with that. Yes, we will probably eventually invent advance nanomachinery, as well as whole brain simulation and scanning, but that’s too many unknowns in the equation. We could do much better than that.
The insurance companies would have to alter their contracts. Ideally, whatever legislation classifies cryonics as a medical procedure would include a clause that for the purposes of any contract written before then, it counts as death.
Wouldn’t it just shift to health insurance in this case? But generally, yes, recognizing cryonic patients as alive has a lot of legal ramifications. On the other hand, it provides a much better protection against unfreezing: just like with the patients in a persistent vegetative state, someone authorized has to actively make a decision to kill them, as opposed to no legal protection at all. I’m not sure which of these is the net positive. Besides, that would challenge the current definition of death, which currently basically boils down to “we positively can do nothing to bring the patient back from this state”. Including potential technologies in the definition is a rather big perspective change, that can also have consequences for vegetative patients as well.
As ZankerH mentioned below, vitrification leads to cryoprotectant poisoning, which is a sufficiently big problem to prevent us from experimenting with unfreezing even in small organisms. If the function of the cryoprotectant can be fully or partially replaced by keeping the sample under the high pressure, that problem is mostly solved. That doesn’t prevent crystals from forming, but unlike normal ice, these crystals take less volume than the water they were made of, so they shouldn’t damage the cells. In addition, amorphous solids aren’t guaranteed to be stable, and can undergo slow crystallization. I’m not sure how pig of a problem that is for cryonics, but in case of going directly to ice-IX, that’s definitely not a problem anymore.
Health insurance doesn’t automatically pay for everything.
A bit but not that much. A company that can’t afford to freeze would still shut down. Nobody is foreced to pay to keep the machines on in every case.