The Magnitude of the Problem (Discussion)

The article "The Magnitude of the Problem" was written by me in 2004 and has had minor revisions since. It was written as a lay description of some of the problems cryonicists face, it was not meant to be antagonistic to the idea of cryonics, simply a general overview of why it is hard. The article is deliberately slanted towards 'resurrection' cryonics wherin bodies are frozen in the hope that cellular repair can be effected, and the person re-animated.

Whilst I personally am cautiously optimistic about the prospects of cryonics I believe niaive optimism can actually be damaging, and I see much of this around me in the cryonics community.

There is much we do not know. Ultimately, and importantly, it may not be possible to perfuse brain tissue, cool it down to liquid nitrogen temperatures and then at a later time re-animate it such that personal identity survives. Certainly not without nano or bio-tech intervention in the reanimation phase.

We can not know today what we will only discover tomorrow. (Karl Popper)

Unfortunately much current cryonics research is aimed at preservation of cellular viability rather than simply recognizing that it is cellular information that we wish to conserve. We want to bring 'us' back, and we don't even know what 'us' is yet.

The argument that 'resurrection' cryonics posits now as to future technology being able to effect repair can be put at whatever level of damage is extent, all the way down to entropy. If they believe this argument, which most of the cryonics clearly do, then they should run with it all the way and ignore cellular damage entirely. Importantly, the laws of thermodynamics and quantum physics seem to say there is an entropic limit, and I believe that this is the real train wreck that we should be worried about, not a few trillion non-viable cells.

I am therefore very much of the 'save information at all costs' school of cryonics. I believe our research efforts should be directed at how to conserve information in neural tissue, not necessarily the cells themselves. If this means allowing them to be destroyed in a snap freeze, then so be it.