I’m not claiming all of them are bad at all, but I’d point out that there realistically are only 2 choices if you completely believe in it and assume all the issues I pointed out are resolved or will be resolved, yet are risk-averse.
There isn’t only a few choices with rapa - there are plenty. Plenty of solid preclinical research and human trials. Very different landscape.
One can spend their money however they want. I’m merely pointing out why it’s not a great idea to spend it at the moment on say a 100k WLI on cryonics for now. I’m not claiming some absolute here that it will never happen.
Just one other comment on this area of cryonics and the related issue of hibernation. I read an article recently that discussed the potential need for hibernation as part of space travel to Mars, and apparently this is something that is being actively researched right now. This might help move things forward in the area of cryonics, and is interesting in its own right.
Richard is a great scientist and I highly value his opinions, but his stance on cryonics may not be fully informed. If cell membranes and mitochondria are damaged at low temperatures as he seems to say, it would not be possible to cryopreserve and revive small multicellular organisms and small organs. Yet, this is possible now that cryoprotective agents are used to reduce ice formation.
The cryopreservation and revival of entire mice would be an amazing breakthrough. I think it makes sense to consider cryonics long before this becomes reality, though. It is much more difficult to cryopreserve a mouse than, say, a kidney of the same size as the mouse contains many different tissues and organs. They may require different cryoprotective agents, cooling rates, and warming rates.
For cryonics to be successful, it could suffice to cryopreserve the brain, as future medicine may have the capability to grow a new body. As the brain is a single organ, it could be much easier to cryopreserve than a mouse. The point when cryonics becomes a serious possibility, rather than a speculative bet, may thus be when organs the size of the brain can be cryopreserved and revived. We are not quite there yet, as can be seen from this recent review, but I think we will be soon.
I haven’t been particularly taking issue with cryopreservation of a brain structure, let alone other organs. As I originally mentioned - essentially preserved complex brain function is the issue that needs to be solved big time and we don’t know if it’s even plausible scientifically with current cryoprotectant perfusion protocols or if something is missed even if it does become plausible but only with a different protocol in the future.
I would not pay to be reliant on pure faith for an extraordinary claim when there are other options that are relatively more likely and require money.
As for operational issues, it’s happened before and that should be a huge part even more so. Are we supposed to assume what has already happened before in one way where suspendees were lost to be unlikely when there are so many ways this could realistically happen based on analogous situations from empirical statistics?
Organizations can decay from within and external forces. As an example, simple competition could make the current companies untenable. “Acts of God” (in a legal sense) that would affect suspendees could have a probability of very roughly 1% per year and it can easily be an issue over decades. It doesn’t necessarily even have to be a nuclear war started by Putin which is more of a serious possibility already - it’s any number of natural disasters (revised models after adjusting for global warming changes) that can upend the liquid nitrogen supply chain industry. I’m relatively optimistic it won’t happen in 1 year but I wouldn’t ignore the effects of continuously rolling the dice with cumulative probability inching slowly towards an event. Eventually, the possibility of a rare combination of dice becomes likely every year you roll. Governments can decide let’s ban cryonics facilities for any number of reasons like lack of societal acceptance with public outcry
Pichugin et al. (2006) showed that both the viability and the structure of mature organized, complex neural networks can be well preserved by vitrification. They froze or vitrified rat hippocampal slices and found “severe damage in frozen–thawed slices, but generally good to excellent ultrastructural and histological preservation after vitrification.” Whether the viability and structure of an entire brain is preserved by current cryopreservation protocols, or can be preserved by improved protocols, is an open question. I would be surprised, though, if it turns out that a kidney can be preserved but not a brain.
Indeed, there is a real risk that the cryonics organization you choose will not survive, but if you pass away without being cryopreserved you will have zero future prospects. It is an individual decision whether the chances that cryonics may work outweigh the costs, and it is only natural to reach different conclusions. I have signed up for cryopreservation as a last resort as it has limited downside and a credible chance of working. To me, it seems like a better option than burial or cremation.
It’s many MANY years away and does nothing to improve one’s near-term quality of life (unlike slowing aging rate down). Also, by then AI will “make or break longevity” (and it certainly does not help the probability of AI “making or breaking longevity”)
also by then many known techniques will become obsolete
The premise is that EVENTUALLY science will be so advanced that it can fix not just aging, but also whatever disease killed you and also the damage from freezing all your cells and also restore you to a state that preseves you mind and personality and all that.
I just don’t believe that process, should it actually eventually exist, would result in something that is philosphically “me” in the end. Even if they can revive my body and somehow get my brain working again even though the cells have exploded with ice crystals, the relationship between that organism and the me that exists today seems pretty tenuous.
I also really DO NOT want to be uploaded into any future immortal virtual computer world. Virtual immortality is one of the scariest concepts imaginable. If something exists forever, then the chance of someone or something malevolent eventually hacking into the system approaches 100%. And if that happens, that bad actor would be able to turn the virtual world into literal hell. It could make you suffer in ways that aren’t even physically possible in the real world. Pain a million times more than a physical human body is capable of experiencing. It could make 1 second feel like a trillion years. By the end of a day, you would have suffered longer than the existence of the universe.
To me, it seems once you have an AI capable of building an AI more intelligent than itself, and then that AI can build an AI more intelligent than itself… the intelligence curve just turns into a hockey stick and goes straight up.
Complex brain function is not the same as brain structure - which still has pretty deep problems in terms of preservation but I’m already generously glossing over preservation of observable structure. In medicine, we know any tiny undetectable deviation in the brain can make huge changes to brain function. A range of many things are difficult to detect. Partly why a large part of psychiatry does not use any “brain scans”.
Extrapolating from the preservation of other organ structures doesn’t necessarily even apply. The brain is a much more complex organ.
I suggest addressing the bigger elephant in the room even though preserving brain structure is an elephant in itself. Of course anyone can claim hypothetically possible.
Let’s use an analogy - I can make up some trendy, believable hypothesis that sounds “sciency” on say quantum mechanics mattering for some supposed “soul” in the brain and say you can’t disprove that it is not scientifically impossible with current technology, thus we should have hope and “place faith in science” because eventually, I believe science will prove it can be possible and such a hypothetical “soul” exists. Now this new probably implausible hypothesis I claim could end up causing cryogenics to be inherently approaching impossibility to preserve brain function in humans. Now try to prove me wrong.
I hope you see the issue there. There are a large number of hypotheses that can result in a similar situation.
And that’s not even combining all the other risky aspects of cryogenics operations when you look at it from a long term perspective. People tend to have trouble looking at risk from a multidecade time span.
Keep in mind, I have no qualms if the cryogenic industry flourishes in a legitimate manner and I sincerely hope there is “true progress” in cryogenics. If there is any interesting very preclinical evidence to me, I’m quite happy to change my mind on it.
I merely have qualms about how the claims and marketing are presented in a potentially misleading fashion by the industry, leading to hope that does not appear to be warranted at this time.
I tend to agree with this. All the marketing by Alcor and others for freezing seems more than a little premature. Its a little like if companies were out there selling “Freezers” for people to use to preserve their food, but had never demonstrated that frozen food was edible after freezing".
I’m all for the concept of cryonics and I hope its ultimately proven successful, but until someone can prove that resuscitation is possible I don’t think its very ethical to sell the freezing service. Just my opinion.
I have not signed up to be cryopreserved only because it is hypothetically possible that it may work. I have signed up because I believe there is a credible possibility that it will work, which is worth more to me than the cost, amounting to approximately 0.5% of my annual income.
There is evidence that cryonics may work, such as the successful cryopreservation of small multicellular organisms with intact memory upon revival and a clear trend of technological progress that may eventually enable repair of damage at the molecular level.
You may look at the evidence and conclude that there is essentially zero chance cryonics may work: the brain is so complex and sensitive that you feel personality and memories must irrevocably be lost through cryopreservation. Cryonics therefore does not make sense to you. I look at the same evidence and feel that there is a credible possibility that it works, maybe as good as 5-10%. Cryonics therefore makes sense to me, especially as the alternative is burial or cremation. Current evidence is consistent with a wide range of probabilities, spanning from the very small to the rather large.
Given the current state of uncertainty, it is natural that people reach different conclusions about the feasibility of cryonics. It is also natural that people assign different value to that possibility. Some may say it is not worthwhile whatever the possibility; others like me think it is worthwhile even if the chance of cryonics working would be as low as 0.1%. As a result, opinions on the value of cryonics vary greatly.
Slowing the aging rate down is clearly preferable to cryonics, if a choice must be made. Fortunately, I can afford to do both without problems. To me, it is great that different possibilities for overcoming the problem of aging and premature death are being explored and I am happy that cryonics exists as a last resort to avoid burial or cremation, should it not be possible to overcome aging in my lifetime.
As an analogy, just because there is evidence that you can reverse cells to a pluripotent state through epigenetic reprogramming doesn’t mean it will be feasible for humans to do the same exact deal. It has minimal to no bearing on the odds such a deal will translate at all. Why that changes the odds in any meaningful sense should be explained in detail.
All we have is good evidence of life extension in terms of maximum lifespan. Not intended to be a semantic squibble.
There is no clear trend. We’ve been through many cycles of exuberance. There is a lot of noise.
Losing closer to ~1% after-tax income compounds into a very large amount of money over time. I’d say that’s roughly a million over a lifetime with a conservative NPV assumption of 5% just as much as close to a 2% inflation rate is a huge amount over time. Compare this to paying for cryonics later when there is better information and the financials make far more sense.
For some people, that may be way more than 1% after tax. The lost opportunity cost makes no sense financially unless you’re absolutely certain of such a high probability which appears to be an overestimate. I’m not sure you’re really playing the odds correctly with respect to the finances involved. If you can’t manage finite resources well - you may be lowering your chances significantly.
Yes, indeed it does. And losing ~80% after-tax income on my primary residence, vacation home, travel, car, books, firewood, restaurants, food, potato chips, liquorice, wines, personal trainer, streaming services, charity and other expenses compounds into a very, very large amount of money over time.
I am happy with my choices as I hope you are with yours.
As much as I would like to continue our discussion, I will leave it here and hope that you and other readers could derive some benefit from my writings and the references I provided. Cryonics - or biostasis as some prefer to call it - is very much a developing field and science will eventually shed more light on the feasibility, or lack thereof, of human cryopreservation.
To be clear, I’m not telling anyone how they should allocate highly variable discretionary spending for their hard-earned money and I’m glad you are happy with how you spend money, but I’m merely applying it to the cost-effectiveness vs odds deal when it comes to an obligatory payment over time with rough assumptions and how one can maximize bets. Socioeconomic factors robustly are associated with life extension.
If it makes you happy to buy hope in the form of what appears to be at best a lottery ticket, as opposed to an investment later on if the situation changes, then by all means. Not being facetious. That’s literally more of a personal preference.
Actually, I would like you to you tell us how we should spend (or save) our hard-earned money for the biggest effects on longevity. Your advice seems to be some of the best I’ve come across here.
I would recommend against that. The results of the hyperbaric oxygen treatment were hyped up and misinterpreted by Efrati and the media. There is no good evidence of it having anti-aging effects.
The first study you linked to is the Israeli study by Efrati. It’s the one that sparked the hype about HBOT therapy being anti-aging. However the study did not show effects indicating that it is beneficial for longevity. The study did show an increase in the average telomere length of blood leukocytes. But that doesn’t mean the HBOT increased the telomere length of the blood leukocytes. There are other explanations for the findings such as changes in the flux of leukocytes from tissues to the blood. To state that it is anti-aging based on that study is misleading and nothing but hype. The news articles about it were almost all just hype.
Regarding the other two studies you linked to. Yes they are from other teams. They do show some interesting effects and HBOT can certainly be beneficial for some conditions. But I have seen nothing that would indicate strongly that it may have benefits for longevity in healthy adults.
And, while I’m behind on the science, my understanding is that most geoscientists don’t think that telomere’s are really a limiting for humans at this point (given 120 year lifespan). It seems you’re up on the science - is that an accurate assessment?
Yes, while I am no expert on telomeres, and am not fully up to date on this, I think it is generally accepted that telomere length is not a major problem in the sense of it limiting lifespan if we’re talking about 120 years or less. Note that humans have shorter telomeres than rodents!
Having said that, even though telomere length may not be a huge problem in terms of limiting life span there are still definite harms associated with having shorter telomeres. Critically short telomeres cause various problems, such as DNA damage, that contribute to aging. Therefore it is beneficial to maintain telomere length with aging even though the increased length is not really needed for continuing cell proliferation.