cryonics - why do you need to die first?

Isn't that the whole point of cryonics? They freeze your body in the hope that whatever you died from can be cured in the future. Why on earth would you want to be frozen while alive? Am I missing something? Probably am

Because they would be killing you otherwise and guilty of murder?
Try spending a night in a chest freezer with the lid down and see if you are capable of even having an opinion in the morning!

If I got to the stage where I couldn't lead a meaningful life, I'd much rather opt for euthanasia rather than be frozen.

Who would want to be revived and cured 100 years down the line when all that's familiar has vanished and friends and family long gone?

I agree Ana. In the recent case of the girl who opted for this I did have concerns about the storage of the bodies. If they are kept for say 100 years, who pays for this to be maintained, what if the firm goes bankrupt, what if, what if. So many questions, it's a scary process.

www.cryonics.org/

There's big bucks in freezing and not a lot of customers ask for their money back.
Not like M&S for instance.

Daphne

Cryonics, is the victory of hope over scientific knowledge.

Most of the body is water and water expands when it freezes. Although the flowing body fluids are replaced by some type of antifreeze and the body is frozen very slowly, the water in every cell in our body cannot be replaced and when the water in the cell expands the walls of many cells will, almost certainly, rupture. When this happens to the brain cells that puts paid to any chance of revival

When there was all the interest in cryonics after the young teenager asked for it, I read a long article that investigated the subject and the facilities in the US where the bodies were stored and one technician admitted that using specialised listening devices they could hear the sound of rupturing cells taking place in the freezing pods.

Regrettably, or not, once you are dead, you are dead, and no cryonics method now being used is able to preserve you undamaged so that your corpse is still viable when a cure for your final disease is found.

DaphneBroon perhaps you could send that link to Mr Trump with this suggestion: I'm in favour of choosing to have this done while you're still alive..

And if you are not dead M0nica I assume you pretty soon would be.

The decision to allow that teenager to be cryonogenically frozen was very very wrong.

That was the conclusion I came to.

Anyway, to be dead that vital element that is life needs to have gone. As far as I can see that vital spark, is just that, the play of electrical impulses in the body. Quite how you recreate these impulses as they were when the person died I do not know and I have never seen discussed. A bolt of lightening gave Frankenstein's monster life but I think the problem is a bit more complicated than that.

If a body was defrosted and the basics of blood circulation and breathing were got going, although even the autonomic systems require some brain imput. I suspect the actual result of defrosting would be the same as we now have when someone dies and is kept on a life support system until any organs needed for transplants are removed. They are dead, but with machinery, have a working circulation and breath mechanically.

As for being frozen while alive - hypothermia kills.

Not so sure the decision was wrong Jalima, for a young girl facing death it gave her some comfort to think she may be cured eventually. The decision was never about the rights and wrongs of the process but about giving some hope to a dying girl.

I agree with Monica - you can't be brought back if you're dead when you're frozen, which is why I'm suggesting it is done while people are still alive. I'm supposing there will be an injection that closes the body right down first.
People who choose cryonics assume that scientists will not use these frozen bodies for some sort of experiment - either in their frozen state or, more probably, when they've woken them up - no relatives to complain.
My worry would be - what sort of state would the world be in? Would I actually want to live in it?

janetmaile, you cannot be brought back if you are frozen when alive either. The cells in your body will still rupture during and after the freezing process and all electrical activity in the brain will cease. Remember, hypothermia kills. It kills you at temperatures far higher than those used to freeze and store your body.

Oh dear shall I defrost my frozen suckling pig. Will it get up and walk off the kitchen table?

I was worrying about my two partridges.

The mere thought makes me shudder.
Imagine waking up 50 years after everyone you know and love is dead, and the world you find yourself in is infinitely changed from what you knew.
Nightmare!
To me, anyway.

To be honest I have not heard so much rubbish as the liklihood being revived from cryonic preservation. Not to mention practical issues like the costs of the storage and the fact that if you were revived the people you knew would not be around. This is crazy science fiction or someone's money making scheme.

I'll own up. I've written a science fiction novel in which people are woken up after 2,000 years and wish they hadn't been! I was interested to have people's view of cryonics, especially in the light of the 14 year old. My own personal view is that when I die, I'm going on somewhere else, so don't bring me back here, anyone.

OK Janetmaile I can see why you kept your idea of a book quiet. I am suprised people were as polite about your post to start with as they were.
Maybe GNrs are in general a pretty sceptical and savvy bunch who don't go in for believing such BS might work.

If you go ahead with writing it, good Luck.

I kept quiet because I haven't come here to promote my book, which has just been published (by a publishing firm, not by me). I see no reason why the technology should not be available one day to freeze people while they are alive. Who would have thought, years ago, that conception outside the womb would one day be possible?

I've been doing some research. Before freezing the body, a type of antifreeze is given to prevent the formation of ice crystals and damage to the cells. The only reason a live person has not been frozen is that it is illegal. It's a moral issue, not a science issue.

It is a good theme for a book about how life can change while you are away, though - Rip Van Winkle for the 21st century. Most time travel books have their heroines go back in time (where they meet a dashing highlander and decide to stay, thus participating in key events in history)