Cryonics is a good idea, and I can afford it. I’ve read plenty of articles from people like Aschwin de Wolf, I’ve read Robert Ettinger’s book, and I’m familiar with today’s trustworthy organizations and their differences, Tomorrow Biostasis, Alcor, and the Cryonics Institute. At my age, I could afford a...
In the August 1990 issue of Cryonics magazine published by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation offering human cryopreservation services, Michael R. Perry, the official historian of the foundation, published an article detailing a mathematical model aimed at calculating the long-term care costs of patients over time and, by extension, their...
Cryonics is a good idea, and I can afford it. I’ve read plenty of articles from people like Aschwin de Wolf, I’ve read Robert Ettinger’s book, and I’m familiar with today’s trustworthy organizations and their differences, Tomorrow Biostasis, Alcor, and the Cryonics Institute.
At my age, I could afford a cephalosuspention with Alcor for only $30 a month, a very reasonable amount for me in practice, though it’s still quite a lot of money.
I’ve come to the conclusion that none of this would truly help me, and that, one way or another, I’m going to die anyway. What difference does it make whether I die in 60 years or in 10,000? In the... (read 172 more words →)
My article focuses on a stable scenario for Alcor without an economic crisis. I believe Alcor could just as well survive 4% inflation, as they are very wealthy. Historically, it’s clear that Alcor has weathered the subprime crisis and other economic downturns, as well as a number of lawsuits from people who didn’t understand biostasis, lawsuits that unfortunately cost them a lot of money. We have no way of knowing for sure whether this trend will continue, but economically speaking, Alcor seems to have fairly good chances of surviving long enough for its cryopatients to be revived.
In the August 1990 issue of Cryonics magazine published by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation offering human cryopreservation services, Michael R. Perry, the official historian of the foundation, published an article detailing a mathematical model aimed at calculating the long-term care costs of patients over time and, by extension, their maintenance until the development of revival technology or their thawing and theoretical death.
Since then, costs have changed, and I propose here an updated version of his mathematical model, which will indirectly allow us to assess the probability that the Alcor Foundation will survive through the centuries and succeed in its mission to save human and animal lives. The model will of course... (read 756 more words →)
We must also consider the possibility that cellular-level information may not be sufficient to capture a person's psychological structure. We might need molecular-level data. Even if information about the synaptic structure of the connectome is sufficient, molecular data could aid in the deduction, reconstruction, and inference of memories by providing greater precision about brain structures. A destructive molecular scan would offer a thousand times more accuracy than a simple microscopic analysis, according to Freitas’s estimates in Cryostasis Revival. Moreover, aldehyde cross-links would need to be corrected, this is essentially a computational task requiring brute-force cryptographic algorithms, as explained by cryonicist Ralph C. Merkle.
A destructive molecular scan of the brain would involve gradually... (read more)
I am revisiting what I wrote earlier. In fact, I am now in favor of chemopreservation. It so happens that some time ago I was concerned about the "paradox of duplicates":
https://www.benbest.com/philo/doubles.html
"I would be happy to know Your Lordship's opinion, namely, whether, when my brain has lost its original structure, and when, a few hundred years later, the same materials are recreated in such a curious way that they become an intelligent being, I should say that this being will be me; or whether two or three of these beings would be formed from my brain; whether they will all be me, and therefore a single identical intelligent being."
— Letter from Thomas Reid... (read more)
The enthusiasm for aldehyde-based chemical fixation preservation seems extremely misplaced to me. Biological viability is lost, and the original proteins can no longer return to a normal state. Traditional cryopreservation is much safer if you're looking for real prospects of revival—at least, that's how I see it.
I see absolutely no point in requesting whole-head preservation when preserving only the brain (which is essentially the same thing) costs significantly less than having your entire head preserved at Oregon Brain Preservation.
The only argument I’ve found in favor of whole-head preservation is that handling a slippery and fragile structure like the brain might cause problems—meaning it could be damaged in the process.