Having got 15 net upvotes but no replies, I feel an obligation to be my own devil’s advocate: All three of my examples deal with the heart, which is basically a pump with some electric control mechanisms. Cryonics deals with the brain, which works in very different ways. It follows that, unless we can come up with some life-prolonging techniques that work on the brain, my suggested reference class is probably wrong.
That said, we do have surgery for tumours and some treatments to prevent, reduce in severity, and recover from stroke. Again, though, these deal with the mechanical rather than informational aspects of the brain. I do not care to hold up lobotomy as life-prolonging. Does anyone know of procedures for repairing or improving the neural-network part of the brain?
An example regarding the brain would be successful resuscitation of people who have drowned in icy water. At one time they would have been given up for dead, but now it is known that for some reason the brain often survives for a long time without air, even as much as an hour.
Repairing? To what? How can you tell what the original setup was?
Improving? Same problem? What is considered an improvement? I guess that might be subjective.
In my opinion imaging techniques will make cryonics disappear once the captured information is enough for neural-network reconstruction.
Having got 15 net upvotes but no replies, I feel an obligation to be my own devil’s advocate: All three of my examples deal with the heart, which is basically a pump with some electric control mechanisms. Cryonics deals with the brain, which works in very different ways. It follows that, unless we can come up with some life-prolonging techniques that work on the brain, my suggested reference class is probably wrong.
That said, we do have surgery for tumours and some treatments to prevent, reduce in severity, and recover from stroke. Again, though, these deal with the mechanical rather than informational aspects of the brain. I do not care to hold up lobotomy as life-prolonging. Does anyone know of procedures for repairing or improving the neural-network part of the brain?
An example regarding the brain would be successful resuscitation of people who have drowned in icy water. At one time they would have been given up for dead, but now it is known that for some reason the brain often survives for a long time without air, even as much as an hour.
Repairing? To what? How can you tell what the original setup was? Improving? Same problem? What is considered an improvement? I guess that might be subjective. In my opinion imaging techniques will make cryonics disappear once the captured information is enough for neural-network reconstruction.