But I think skepticism is very reasonable. I really enjoy being alive. As long as that is true, I want to try to hang around. But it's of course a gamble. Other than some life insurance money. And for me, it's worth it. And if it does work, oh my God, we just stumbled across a cure for death, at least temporarily. Register or Log In. The Magazine Shop. Login Register Stay Curious Subscribe. Newsletter Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science news.
It is expensive. The concept was developed in the early 20th century. The first person on whom the process was performed after his legal death was Dr James Bedford, who died of cancer on 12 January The day of Dr Bedford's death and cryopreservation is marked within the community as Bedford Day.
This is a highly contentious area. Alcor's co-founder Linda Chamberlain says the company is providing a realistic service that gives hope. Others are dismissive. Many scientists and doctors argue that it is unlikely that revival in such a way can be achieved because organs such as the heart and kidneys cannot be successfully frozen and thawed.
They suggest cells will be damaged during freezing and cannot be returned to living tissue. Ethics experts say it poses greater problems as a whole for society, as it would appear to be a way of delaying the acceptance of the death of a loved one. Watch Live. Some enthusiasts are optimistic, using the law of accelerating returns to justify predictions that within the next 30 to 40 years we could develop medical technologies capable of enhancing biological systems, preventing disease and even reverse-engineering aging.
The bodies preserved today are considered legally dead, but our descendants might not see it that way Credit: iStock. If such advances take longer, on the order of or more years, however, patients would not have such immediate social support in the contemporary world. Some, like Kowalski, are getting around this by simply sticking together: he, his wife and their children have all signed up for cryogenic suspension.
Indeed, lifetime members of the Cryonics Institute can enroll their spouse for half price, and underage children are free. But even if a cryogenically preserved person was on his or her own, Kowalaski does not think that would necessarily be a deal breaker for eventually attaining happiness.
Or would you go out and put your life back together, and make new family and friends? Other cryogenically revived people would be a good starting point for replacing lost connections. Like refugees arriving in a new country, communities of formerly vitrified persons would likely bond around their shared experience and temporal origins.
Where members of those communities would live or how they would support themselves are other unanswered questions. The hope is that future returns can help revived persons get back on their feet, so to speak. To be bodiless but aware is a ghost-like state completely foreign to what any human has ever experienced before Credit: iStock. It is possible, however, that money will no longer exist by the time cryonics pays off, and that people will not have to work for a living.
A society that has achieved the medical breakthroughs necessary to cure disease and end aging, Kowalski and others believe, may also be one bereft of poverty and material want. In such a scenario, clothing, food and homes, fabricated with 3D printers or some other advanced means, would be abundant and freely available. Still, even if cryogenically revived persons come back to a more equitable and advanced future, the mental flip-flops required to adjust to that new world would be substantial.
Dislocated in time, alienated from society and coming to grips with the certainty that everyone and everything they had ever known is irretrievably lost, they would likely suffer symptoms of intense trauma. Communities of formerly vitrified persons would likely bond around their shared experience and temporal origins Credit: Getty Images. Kowalski agrees, pointing out that people who move from developing countries to more industrialised ones often do well in their new environment.
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