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We agree there is more to the mind than the synaptic connections between neurons. The exact molecular and electrochemical features of the brain that underlie the conscious mind remain far from completely explored. However, available evidence lends support to the possibility that brain features that encode memories and determine behavior can be preserved during and after cryopreservation.
Cryopreservation is already used in laboratories all over the world to maintain animal cells, human embryos, and some organized tissues for periods as long as three decades. When a biological sample is cryopreserved, cryoprotective chemicals such as DMSO or propylene glycol are added and the temperature of the tissue is lowered to below the glass transition temperature (typically about -120 oC). At these temperatures, molecular activities are slowed by more than 13 orders of magnitude, effectively stopping biological time.
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Direct evidence that memories can survive cryopreservation comes from the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, the very animal model discussed in Hendricks's response. For decades C. elegans have commonly been cryopreserved at liquid nitrogen temperatures and later revived. This year, using an assay for memories of long-term odorant imprinting associations, one of us published findings that C. elegans retain learned behaviors acquired before cryopreservation. Similarly, it has been shown that long-term potentiation of neurons, a mechanism of memory, remains intact in rabbit brain tissue following cryopreservation.
Going to sleep and waking up in a time when the world will finally have flying cars is appealing, but would you really enjoy life as a walking anachronism?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jdavidb on Tuesday October 20 2015, @12:57AM
I already am a walking anachronism. I play emulated 8 bit games, watch 80s, 60s, 40s, and 30s cartoons with my kids, and my phone has real buttons and can't run apps. I would enjoy being given another hundred years of life, yes. I would enjoy meeting my grandchildren's grandchildren. I would enjoy celebrating my 100th and my 200th Christmas. I would enjoy seeing technological developments of the future. I would enjoy continuing the rewarding things I do in life for myself and for other people.
Cryonics is fascinating for me and has been ever since my dad and I saw an article about Thomas Donaldson's lawsuit back around 1991 or so. We were pretty freaked out, but the idea stuck with me (a couple books, movies, and occasional news interviews kept it on my mind every so often), and a few years ago I looked up Alcor and the Cryonics Institute and got fairly well educated, including corresponding briefly with some of the cryonics' industry's leaders and early pioneers who were still around.
I would love for this sort of thing to become possible. Cryonic suspension is the second worst thing that could happen to anybody. The worst thing, of course, is not being suspended.
I recommend the James Halperin novel The First Immortal to get a taste of the possibilities.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Informative) by jdavidb on Tuesday October 20 2015, @01:21AM
Other interesting reading:
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday October 20 2015, @01:40AM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday October 20 2015, @12:23PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday October 20 2015, @01:25AM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings