Cryonics involves killing a brain (or preparing a dead brain) in such a way as to maximize the chances that some future technology can extract its instantiated mind.
[edit to take away the quibble about definitions]
Cryonics keeps open the possibilities both of uploading and robust repair scenarios. Assuming that it will play out one way or the other is unnecessarily specific for a belief about the future. There may be e.g. cultural or contractual reasons to repair people instead of extracting the information to instantiate on a digital substrate.
I haven’t claimed that the person dies; I’ve claimed the brain does.
Sure, perhaps future technology will include the ability to reconstruct the person from the dead cells of the person’s brain, in which case the person survives… no argument. And in that case cryonics is, as you say, a form of survival.
But the cells remain dead, as does the organ they comprise. And the comment I was responding to was talking about ways to allow a brain to survive without the body’s blood flow, not about people.
And, sure, it’s possible that future technology will include the ability to reconstruct a living brain from the brain’s dead cells. Actually, I suspect that will be much easier than reconstructing the person. And it’s possible that it will include the ability to repair the cells themselves and restore them to their former state.
Personally, I would say it’s still a dead brain, much as my ability to reforge a broken sword doesn’t prevent the sword from breaking. But that’s a purely semantic question… the reality is the same whether we call the brain “dead” or not.
So, OK, what term would you prefer I use? (Resting? Stunned? Pining for the fjords? Passed on? This brain is no more! It has ceased to be! It is an ex-brain!)
Or do you object to using any terminology to differentiate a post-cryonics brain from a pre-the-event-that-ordinarily-entails-a-funeral brain?
But the cells remain dead, as does the organ they comprise.
In the case of vitrification under ideal conditions this is not true of most of the cells. There is a spectrum of cryonics cases, and many of them do have a high rate of cell death, but the goal of cryonics is to prevent cell death to the greatest degree possible.
Death is a process, not an all or nothing proposition. You don’t really need to assign a category “dead” or “not dead” to understand what’s going on. The brain is broken beyond simple repair and ceases to be animate. Maybe a more useful term would be one that connotes brokenness rather than irreparability.
Most cells survive for several hours after clinical death. Ten minutes or so without oxygen (blood flow) initiates an ischemic cascade that current technology cannot halt, but this cascade takes a lot of time before most of the cells actually die.
ETA: It is a good point that cell death isn’t the same problem as information loss. A really powerful AI with high grade molecular nanotech could probably recover more information by analyzing non-viable cells than a more minimalistic rejuvenation technology that simply rescues the remaining viable cells and replaces missing ones.
My problem with “broken” in this context is that it fails to distinguish between a brain that fails to function as intended in some important capacity—for example, one that is incapable of identifying its person’s wife—and one that fails to function as intended in any capacity at all.
I guess I can go with “inanimate,” if you want (since you say “ceases to be animate”). It seems weird to fail to distinguish between a corpse and a statue, but not unbearably weird.
Perhaps a different prefix would make it more clear that it is a formerly animate object, or between stages of being animate. E.g. postanimate or transanimate.
Thanks for the information. Edited out. The main issue I had with the original comment was that it seemed to assume everyone would agree with a specific, vastly oversimplified definition of organic death. In reality organic death is a process that happens over a long period of time and has not happened completely by the time the brain reaches LN2 temperatures in ideal circumstances. It could easily be reversible via biological means.
[edit to take away the quibble about definitions]
Cryonics keeps open the possibilities both of uploading and robust repair scenarios. Assuming that it will play out one way or the other is unnecessarily specific for a belief about the future. There may be e.g. cultural or contractual reasons to repair people instead of extracting the information to instantiate on a digital substrate.
I haven’t claimed that the person dies; I’ve claimed the brain does.
Sure, perhaps future technology will include the ability to reconstruct the person from the dead cells of the person’s brain, in which case the person survives… no argument. And in that case cryonics is, as you say, a form of survival.
But the cells remain dead, as does the organ they comprise. And the comment I was responding to was talking about ways to allow a brain to survive without the body’s blood flow, not about people.
And, sure, it’s possible that future technology will include the ability to reconstruct a living brain from the brain’s dead cells. Actually, I suspect that will be much easier than reconstructing the person. And it’s possible that it will include the ability to repair the cells themselves and restore them to their former state.
Personally, I would say it’s still a dead brain, much as my ability to reforge a broken sword doesn’t prevent the sword from breaking. But that’s a purely semantic question… the reality is the same whether we call the brain “dead” or not.
So, OK, what term would you prefer I use? (Resting? Stunned? Pining for the fjords? Passed on? This brain is no more! It has ceased to be! It is an ex-brain!)
Or do you object to using any terminology to differentiate a post-cryonics brain from a pre-the-event-that-ordinarily-entails-a-funeral brain?
In the case of vitrification under ideal conditions this is not true of most of the cells. There is a spectrum of cryonics cases, and many of them do have a high rate of cell death, but the goal of cryonics is to prevent cell death to the greatest degree possible.
Death is a process, not an all or nothing proposition. You don’t really need to assign a category “dead” or “not dead” to understand what’s going on. The brain is broken beyond simple repair and ceases to be animate. Maybe a more useful term would be one that connotes brokenness rather than irreparability.
Most cells survive for several hours after clinical death. Ten minutes or so without oxygen (blood flow) initiates an ischemic cascade that current technology cannot halt, but this cascade takes a lot of time before most of the cells actually die.
ETA: It is a good point that cell death isn’t the same problem as information loss. A really powerful AI with high grade molecular nanotech could probably recover more information by analyzing non-viable cells than a more minimalistic rejuvenation technology that simply rescues the remaining viable cells and replaces missing ones.
My problem with “broken” in this context is that it fails to distinguish between a brain that fails to function as intended in some important capacity—for example, one that is incapable of identifying its person’s wife—and one that fails to function as intended in any capacity at all.
I guess I can go with “inanimate,” if you want (since you say “ceases to be animate”). It seems weird to fail to distinguish between a corpse and a statue, but not unbearably weird.
Perhaps a different prefix would make it more clear that it is a formerly animate object, or between stages of being animate. E.g. postanimate or transanimate.
More optimistically, pre-reanimated.
Incidentally, I suspect that this was downvoted for starting an argument over definitions. (The downvotes weren’t mine, FYI.)
Thanks for the information. Edited out. The main issue I had with the original comment was that it seemed to assume everyone would agree with a specific, vastly oversimplified definition of organic death. In reality organic death is a process that happens over a long period of time and has not happened completely by the time the brain reaches LN2 temperatures in ideal circumstances. It could easily be reversible via biological means.