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(Cryonics) can I be frozen before being near-death? — LessWrong

CryonicsPractical

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[ Question ]

(Cryonics) can I be frozen before being near-death?

1st Mar 2023

1 min read

6

For a number of reasons, I'd like to wake up in the future instead of sticking around in the present, and I'd like to know about the options. Is there a cryonics company which will freeze me without me first being near-death, and without qualifying for euthenasia (which I probably wouldn't)?

My understanding is that there's legal hurdles that prevent cryonics companies from freezing individuals who aren't dead or near-death. This makes my mind generate potential workarounds, such as (after setting up arrangements) stating I've taken a pill which will kill me in x hours, to give the company the impression I'm near-death. For those more familiar with the process, could something like this work? What other options are there?

(Cryonics) can I be frozen before being near-death?

3Richard_Kennaway

4Vladimir_Nesov

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Mar 01, 2023

54

As resident hyperlocal cryonics sort-of-expert-I-guess, I do not recommend this; see mukashi's answer. Relatedly: The legal hurdle is that it's considered murder.

[-]Tetraspace4y62

Further to it being legally considered murder, tricky plans to get around this are things that appear to the state like possibly a tricky plan to get around murder, and result in an autopsy which at best and only if the cryonics organisation cooperates leaves one sitting around warm for over a day with no chance of cryoprotectant perfusion later.

Richard_Kennaway

Mar 01, 2023

3-1

The longer you wait, the better the cryopreservation technology may become. If and when revival technology becomes available, then the later you were frozen, the better your chances of successful revival. Last in, first out, most faithful reconstruction. Even enthusiasts regard it as a fairly long shot, e.g. 10 to 20%. Russian roulette with only 1 empty chamber.

And the more people duck out of making that future, the fewer working to make it happen. There's an XKCD about that.

mukashi

Mar 01, 2023

310

Are you aware that the chances of not waking up at all are very high, right?

[-]hollowing4y30

I'm not, what makes it unlikely? Would it prevent an AGI from reviving me, too?

8Biff Wiff4y

Wait But Why's Why Cryonics Makes Sense is a great overview. Some reasons that come to my mind: * Issues with the initial preservation * Preservation doesn't last * We never develop the technology necessary for revival * Social reasons why future generations don't choose to revive * Legal reasons why future generations don't choose to revive * The cyronics organization having financial issues * Humanity is wiped out by one of the many existential risks we face Also, I collected some these data points in the past regarding what various people who I respect think about the probability of revival: * Steven Harris (Alcor): 0.2-15% * Michael Perry (Alcor): 13-77% * Robin Hanson: 6% * Experienced LWers: 15% * Inexperienced LWers: 21% * Ralph Merkle: >85% (conditional on things like good preservation, no dystopia, and nanotech) * A lot of people don’t give numbers because it’s too speculative. (Ben Best) * 69 super smart leading scientists say that it’s a “credible possibility". (Although there’s suspiciously few neuroscientists) Note that these predictions are all however many years old and the authors might have since changed their minds.

4niplav4y

Also: Metaculus gives 4% for revival happening before 2050, and 5% for personal revival.

4Vladimir_Nesov4y

Unusual circumstances of death make initial preservation more likely to fail. Cryonics companies also wouldn't want to do anything with such cases, to avoid reputational and legal trouble. Other than that, I think cryoprotectant and other such things are irrelevant, but warm time could be crucial at unknown timescales. Something could go wrong with storage later (pre-singularity chaos, including of financial nature, legal action against the cryonics company, technical problems). And finally doom, where future AGI doesn't bother waking anyone up. At least there are some years pre-singularity left. And if it's not doom, revival might be expensive given how few people are suspended (uploading is going to be cheaper). There would need to be a research project just for this, possibly individual research projects for each patient. Alignment might only be partially successful in the sense that it's not total doom, but AGIs still take most of the Future for themselves, leaving relatively little to humans. So even if it's trivial for a superintelligence in the sense of inevitability of success (assuming little warm time before initial preservation, and getting to this point through all the intervening risks), it might still be expensive in terms of wealth that individual humans end up holding, creating a need to wait until the superintelligent research necessary for revival becomes cheap. Finally, revival might happen with sufficient delay after general uploading, with cryonauts ending up in a culturally distant future, if biological existence ends up not being affordable for humans (otherwise some would choose to remain biological and there will still be a slow culture that won't change too much by the time superintelligent research needed for revival is cheap enough).

2mukashi4y

I'm not sure if you are trolling me, but I will answer honestly. There are way too many uncertainties in the future. We might develop the technology to resucitate people in the future, or we might not. Right now, doing what you suggest is playing Russian roulette with a gun that might well be fully loaded.

Mar 01, 2023

03

You are contemplating suicide. Seek help.

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CryonicsPractical

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[-]Biff Wiff4y42

Meta: I think that having oneself cryonically frozen prior to first being near-death is likely to be a bad idea. And I think that is worth calling out. However, I also think that it is something plausibly worthwhile for certain people, and thus deserves to be discussed seriously. So then, claims that it is a bad idea should a) include reasoning and b) be comments, not answers.

I think this is not possible. The closest I've heard is some rumors (don't want to source it, to protect the source) that if you have a neurodegenerative disease, there might be things that can be done. If that is the case, you might want to talk to cryonics organizations.

It might be worthwhile to address the reasons, if not here then with a professional. There are certainly good reasons to want to get frozen before being near death (e.g. a chronic physical or mental illness that causes one severe suffering yet does not reduce life expectancy and can potentially be cured in some distant future), and possible options are best discussed carefully and in depth.

[-]hollowing4y10

What kind of professional could I discuss this with?

If you know or suspect that you had a childhood trauma and may have a CPTSD from it, then with a trauma therapist. If your desire to do high-risk time travel into the future is because of something else, then probably with a relevant mental or physical health professional.

[-]Biff Wiff4y20

A psychologist, and potentially also a psychiatrist. But consider Navigating And/Or Avoiding The Inpatient Mental Health System. My judgement is that it is still very much worth seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist though.

Another option would be to discuss it with your primary care physician and have them recommend a specialist to follow up with.

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