I woke up on Saturday to a heartbreaking front-page article in the New York Times about a terminally ill young woman who chooses to freeze her brain. She is drawn into a cottage industry spurred by transhumanist principles that offers to preserve people in liquid nitrogen immediately after death and store their bodies (or at least their heads) in hopes that they can be reanimated or digitally replicated in a technologically advanced future.

Proponents have added a patina of scientific plausibility to this idea by citing the promise of new technologies in neuroscience, particularly recent work in connectomicsa field that maps the connections between neurons. The suggestion is that a detailed map of neural connections could be enough to restore a persons mind, memories, and personality by uploading it into a computer simulation.

Science tells us that a map of connections is not sufficient to simulate, let alone replicate, a nervous system, and that there are enormous barriers to achieving immortality in silico. First, what information is required to replicate a human mind? Second, do current or foreseeable freezing methods preserve the necessary information, and how will this information be recovered? Third, and most confounding to our intuition, would a simulation really be you?

I study a small roundworm, Caenorhabditis elegans, which is by far the best-described animal in all of biology. We know all of its genes and all of its cells (a little over 1,000). We know the identity and complete synaptic connectivity of its 302 neurons, and we have known it for 30 years.

If we could upload or roughly simulate any brain, it should be that of C. elegans. Yet even with the full connectome in hand, a static model of this network of connections lacks most of the information necessary to simulate the mind of the worm. In short, brain activity cannot be inferred from synaptic neuroanatomy.

Synapses are the physical contacts between neurons where a special form of chemoelectric signalingneurotransmissionoccurs, and they come in many varieties. They are complex molecular machines made of thousands of proteins and specialized lipid structures. It is the precise molecular composition of synapses and the membranes they are embedded in that confers their properties. The presence or absence of a synapse, which is all that current connectomics methods tell us, suggests that a possible functional relationship between two neurons exists, but little or nothing about the nature of this relationshipprecisely what you need to know to simulate it.

Additionally, neurons and other cells in the brain are in constant communication through signaling pathways that do not act through synapses. Many of the signals that regulate fundamental behaviors such as eating, sleeping, mood, mating, and social bonding are mediated by chemical cues acting through networks that are invisible to us anatomically. We know that the same set of synaptic connections can function very differently depending on what mix of these signals is present at a given time. These issues highlight an important distinction: the colossally hard problem of simulating any brain as opposed to the stupendously more difficult task of replicating a particular brain, which is required for the promised personal immortality of uploading.

The features of your neurons (and other cells) and synapses that make you you are not generic. The vast array of subtle chemical modifications, states of gene regulation, and subcellular distributions of molecular complexes are all part of the dynamic flux of a living brain. These things are not details that average out in a large nervous system; rather, they are the very things that engrams (the physical constituents of memories) are made of.

While it might be theoretically possible to preserve these features in dead tissue, that certainly is not happening now. The technology to do so, let alone the ability to read this information back out of such a specimen, does not yet exist even in principle. It is this purposeful conflation of what is theoretically conceivable with what is ever practically possible that exploits peoples vulnerability.

Finally, would an upload really be you? This is unanswerable, but we can dip our toes in. Whatever our subjective sense of self is, lets assume it arises from the operation of the physical matter of the brain. We could also tentatively conclude that such awareness is substrate-neutral: if brains can be conscious, a computer program that does everything a brain does should be conscious, too. If one is also willing to imagine arbitrarily complex technology, then we can also think about simulating a brain down to the synaptic or molecular or (why not?) atomic or quantum level.

But what is this replica? Is it subjectively you or is it a new, separate being? The idea that you can be conscious in two places at the same time defies our intuition. Parsimony suggests that replication will result in two different conscious entities. Simulation, if it were to occur, would result in a new person who is like you but whose conscious experience you dont have access to.

That means that any suggestion that you can come back to life is simply snake oil. Transhumanists have responses to these issues. In my experience, they consist of alternating demands that we trust our intuition about nonexistent technology (uploading could work) but deny our intuition about consciousness (it would not be me).

No one who has experienced the disbelief of losing a loved one can help but sympathize with someone who pays $80,000 to freeze their brain. But reanimation or simulation is an abjectly false hope that is beyond the promise of technology and is certainly impossible with the frozen, dead tissue offered by the cryonics industry. Those who profit from this hope deserve our anger and contempt.

Michael Hendricks is a neuroscientist and assistant professor of biology at McGill University.

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The False Science of Cryonics - MIT Technology Review

Cryonics is an effort to save lives by using temperatures so cold that a person beyond help by today's medicine might be preserved for decades or centuries until a future medical technology can restore that person to full health. Cryonics is a second chance at life. It is the reasoned belief in the advancement of future medicinal technologies being able to cure things we cant today.

Many biological specimens, including whole insects, many types of human tissue including brain tissue, and human embryos have been cryogenically preserved, stored at liquid nitrogen temperature where all decay ceases, and revived. This leads scientists to believe that the same can be done with whole human bodies, and that any minimal harm can be reversed with future advancements in medicine.

Neurosurgeons often cool patients bodies so they can operate on aneurysms without damaging or rupturing the nearby blood vessels. Human embryos that are frozen in fertility clinics, defrosted, and implanted in a mothers uterus grow into perfectly normal human beings. This method isnt new or groundbreaking- successful cryopreservation of human embryos was first reported in 1983 by Trounson and Mohr with multicellular embryos that had been slow-cooled using dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO).

And just in Feb. of 2016, there was a cryonics breakthrough when for the first time, scientists vitrified a rabbits brain and, after warming it back up, showed that it was in near perfect condition. This was the first time a cryopreservation was provably able to protect everything associated with learning and memory.

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Osiris Cryonics

My primary strategy for living through the 21st century and beyond is not to die, Ray Kurzweil, the futurologist and Google engineer has said. But in the event that plan A doesnt work out, he has opted to have his body cryogenically preserved at the worlds largest facility, the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Cryonics was first proposed in the 1960s by a Michigan professor, Robert Ettinger, in a book called The Prospect of Immortality, which argued that death could, in fact, be a reversible process. Ettinger, who died in 2011, went on to found the Cryonics Institute in Michigan where he, his mother and his first and second wives all now reside in metal flasks kept at 196 C.

While the concept has never become mainstream, the number of people choosing to sign up is steadily increasing year on year. There are now nearly 300 cryogenically frozen individuals in the US, another 50 in Russia, and a few thousand prospective candidates signed up.

The central idea is simple: preserve the body in a pristine condition until such times as medicine has developed a cure for whatever brought about death in the first place at which point the corpse is thawed and reanimated.

Calling someone dead is merely medicines way of excusing itself from resuscitation problems it cannot fix today, Alcors website states.

The real question, though, is not whether medicine will advance clearly it will but whether the frozen bodies will be in a fit state to bring back to life.

The worlds three major facilities - two in the US and KrioRus, a Russian centre on the outskirts of Moscow, differ slightly in price and ethos. Alcor has a reputation for celebrity clients, while KrioRus offers budget service, probably due to its communal approach to storage, with bodies sharing tanks with a menagerie of 20 or so pets (cats, dogs, birds) that owners have paid to preserve.

We have big cryostats, each about 3 cubic metres. About seven bodies fit in, says Danilo Medvedev, the companys CEO. Theyre placed in sleeping bags. Theres no point in having separate metal containers. It would only make it more complicated.

About half of KrioRuss 50 clients opted for entire body freezing, with the rest choosing to just preserve their heads. The bodies are placed vertically, with their heads at the bottom of the tank, where it is coldest, so the feet would thaw first in the case of a technical glitch.

The companies all use the same basic technology. First, the body is obtained as soon as possible after death, packed in ice and transported to the facility. Here the blood is drained and replaced with a mixture of anti-freeze and organ-preserving chemicals. This transforms the corpse into a glassy vitrified state, ready to be lowered into liquid nitrogen, at a temperature of -196C.

Alcor acknowledges that the process is tricky and that sometimes the brittle corpses, or patients as it refers to them, can fracture on immersion. Medvedev says issues with hospitals and relatives means that the freezing process is not begun in an optimal timeframe.

The overall theory is extremely sound, Medvedev says. Its not correct to say there havent been experiments. His own team, he says, have shown that rats can be cooled to zero degrees and kept in suspended animation for several hours before being re-awoken. He cites another case, in which a rabbit brain was vitrified and then thawed, appearing structurally intact although the brain was first set in a formaldehyde-like substance, that would rule out it ever functioning as a living organ in the future.

These examples, and clinical advances in storing sperm and egg cells, bear little relation to the technical challenge of trying to perfuse the entire human circulatory system, and, crucially, the brain, with anti-freeze without causing any damage.

This is where the science of cryonics really falls apart, according to Clive Coen, a professor of neuroscience at Kings College London. The main problem is that [the brain] is a massively dense piece of tissue. The idea that you can infiltrate it with some kind of anti-freeze and it will protect the tissue is ridiculous.

Since the brain is so densely organised and so well shielded by the blood-brain barrier and the fatty myelin coating around neurons, the cocktail of cryonic chemicals would need to be vigorously pumped in to ensure every nook and cranny was infiltrated. Youre dealing with an organ that is deliberately protecting itself from things coming in, says Coen.

This means that achieving full vitrification is likely to lead to the exact kind of damage membranes being ruptured, neuronal connections being lost that the technique is designed to avoid.

Coen argues that by the time the cryogenic support team arrives at the side of the patients hospital bed it may already be too late. Within a few minutes of anoxia, your hippocampal neurons are dead. Gone, he says, adding that global brain damage would be inevitable.

Would you really want to wake up in 100 years time and be basically a cognitive vegetable and have your cancer fixed? he asks. These vulnerable people dont realise theyre paying for something to be stored that is massively damaged.

KrioRus charges $36,000 (29,000) for whole body storage or $18,000 (15,000) for just the head, and Medvedev says that after the running of the facility and its expansion is paid for, hes not making much profit. By contrast, Alcor charges $200,000 (162,000) for the full body and $80,000 (65,000) for head-only preservation, and also offers the option of clients taking out a life insurance that will pay out to the company.

Anders Sandberg, of Oxford Universitys Future of Humanity Institute, has such a life insurance policy that, for 15 each month, will pay for his head to be frozen in the hope that the brains contents might be downloaded into a robotic agent in the future. He gives the freezing, thawing and reanimation process maybe a 5% chance of working. Thats actually worth quite a lot, though, he says.

The funny thing about cryonics is that theyre selling immortality, but very few people buy it, he adds. Is this because people dont actually want to live for ever, or because people think its nonsense? I think its partially the nonsense part, he says.

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The cryonics dilemma: will deep-frozen bodies be fit for new ...

A 14-year-old dying girl has won the right to have her body cryonically preserved immediately after she died, according to a recent UK High Court decision.

The girl, known as JS, hoped that sometime in the future, when doctors found a cure for her cancer, she might be brought back to life. She had spent several months researching the science of cryonics and the judge had no doubt that she had sound capacity when making her decision.

The judge noted that under the UKs Human Tissue Act cryonics is not illegal. However, it is unregulated. The closest the act comes to cryonics is regulating the freezing of sperm and embryos, in the form of cryopreservation. The judge did, however, acknowledge the need for new legislation relating to cryonics.

This case has received a huge amount of public attention.

But how realistic is cryonics chance of success? Is it a nonsensical waste of money and resources, selling snake oil for hope in dying patients? Or is it the new frontier of modern medical science, the path to post-humanism?

Cryonics involves freezing the body to preserve it immediately or very soon after death. The intention is to re-animate the body in the future, when doctors find a cure for the disease that caused death in the first place.

The general term cryogenics relates to the effects of low temperatures on materials. However, in this latest case, the judge referred to the practice of cryonics.

When a dead body is cryonically preserved, it is packed with ice and injected with anticoagulants, a treatment to stop blood from clotting. The body is then transported to one of three cryonic centres in the world.

There, in a process known as vitrification, the body is drained of its blood, which is then replaced with chemicals and anti-freeze. The body is placed in a sleeping bag and housed in a tank of liquid nitrogen at -196. The US company Alcor, for example, advertises cryonic preservation for the whole body costing about US$200,000 all up; preserving just the brain is cheaper, at around US$80,000. With some companies, people can pay with their life insurance.

The premise of cryonics is based on a possibility rather than a probability of success. There is no scientific evidence to suggest that it is possible to revive a person back to a living state.

Cryobiologists hope that with future technology, including nanotechnology, they will be able to repair cells and tissues that are damaged during the freezing process. But theyve not been successful yet.

There are some arguments in favour of cryonics, the simplest of which is one of free will and choice. As long as people are informed of the very small chance of success of future re-animation, and they are not being coerced, then their choice is an expression of their autonomy about how they wish to direct the disposal of their bodies and resources after death.

In this light, choosing cryonics can be seen as no different to choosing cremation or burial, albeit a much more expensive option.

However, this case raises several other ethical and problematic concerns. There is the issue of potentially exploiting vulnerable people. Some might argue vulnerable people are trading hype for hope.

But if we were to replace the science of cryonics with the promises of religious or spiritual healers made at the bedside of the dying of earlier access to eternal life in return for large payments known as indulgences would this be so different?

Legal and ethical issues aside, there are other serious issues to consider.

How can dying people have confidence in the ability of a company to keep their remains intact? If the cryonic company were to cease operating because of financial difficulties, what would happen to the frozen body?

Although highly unlikely to work, cryonics if successful might harm people. Depending on the length of time they were preserved, what would they wake up to? They would have no living family, social or support networks. People would be reanimated into a world that has radically changed, with little or very few resources to support them.

In the case of JS, if she is re-animated in the future, who would act as her parent or guardian? Assuming the company is able to trace any family descendants, would they consent to looking after her needs? Would JS consent to being placed in their care? These are all unanswered questions with no immediate answers.

The cryonic process might work, but imperfectly. During the process of re-animation, there may be some brain damage. That would mean rather than waking up as you, you might be unconscious or trapped in some disordered, uncontrollable painful stream of consciousness. Companies must be required to test the success of their product; it remains to be seen what the markers of success of re-animation are.

It might be heaven but it might also be hell. The key issue is that people must be made aware of the risks as well as the benefits, and are not exploited.

Most troubling are the questions of natural justice. How long should people live? What is a fair innings? A life of 80 years, 100 years, 500 years? Do we have an obligation to die at some point and turn the world over to the next generation, instead of hanging around indefinitely? This is fast becoming an unavoidable question not only because of cryonics, but also because of the prospect of gene editing and regenerative medicine to prolong life.

Cryonics raises issues about the meaning of life and the definition of death. If someone was frozen before their heart stopped, would they be dead or in a state of suspended animation? Freezing might be an attractive alternative to conventional euthanasia.

As early as 2017, New South Wales might see the launch of its first not-for-profit cryonic centre that hopes to also act a self-regulatory body for the cryonics industry in Australia.

The sad and worrying part of this is that the case of JS might influence some desperate parents whose children are suffering incurable diseases to consider cryonics as a last chance of hope.

However, without any regulation or certainty in the law, this would be a disaster. If the cryonic process is not successful for JS or others, then at least it seems like a considerable waste of money. If it misfires, it could be an unparalleled disaster for the person or society.

If it is successful, the lack of any regulation (now or in the future) might mean that it is effectively like placing a person in a time-capsule to be woken at some stage in the future, with no guarantees about what that future looks like technologically, materially, or socially.

It might not only be a hell for the individual it might be a hell for the next generation, who are left to decide and care for out of date members of a previous generation.

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Cryonics: hype, hope or hell? - The Conversation

Updated February 26, 2020 12:34:04

When Ron Fielding tells people he plans to be brought back to life long after he dies, he gets a few curious looks, but that is just what he has signed up for.

Cryonics has been a passion of Mr Fielding's for decades.

The 78-year-old from Goulburn in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, is a member with The Cryonics Institute in the United States.

He has spent years researching the process of having his body frozen, or put into a state of 'suspension' and is hoping that one day, his own frozen body will be brought back to life.

Mr Fielding had initially planned that at age 84 he would leave his family and move to the US to be closer to a cryonics storage facility.

But he is now hoping his move across the world may not need to go ahead as groundwork for the first cryonics storage facility in the southern hemisphere started this month in Holbrook, in southern NSW.

Mr Fielding visited the site on the weekend to take a sneak peek of the facility where he hopes to be kept in suspension and to start the long wait for science to maybe, one day, bring him back into the world of the living.

Mr Fielding said while he was used to facing scepticism about the possibility of being brought back from the dead, he remained an optimist.

"People might laugh, but someone had to be a pioneer," he said.

"They always laughed at people when they're going to do something [new], but I feel this is the start of another exploration.

"The way science and that are today, just ask yourself, 'why should you die?'"

Mr Fielding said he hoped he would not be waking up alone in the future if he ever is brought back to life.

But he should not worry too much as his son, Guy Fielding, has also signed on to be suspended.

Guy, who describes himself as having "an open mind", decided to be frozen after learning about the process from his father.

It was an exciting moment for Mr Fielding and his son to inspect the foundations of the storage facility in Holbrook this month.

"I'd rather Dad stayed in Australia if it's at all a possibility, rather than go to America at one the cryonics institutes in the States," Guy said.

"This is really exciting to keep Dad with us here in Australia.

"If one day we can be together again, that will be fantastic [and] if we're here in Australia, that will be a better option than being overseas."

The warehouse at Holbrook will be operated by Southern Cryonics and is expected to be completed by the end of 2020.

Zoning, location, and a reduced risk of natural disaster all helped lead to the small town becoming one of the cryonics capitals of the southern hemisphere.

The warehouse will only be around 100 square metres and will host up to 40 clients.

For those undergoing the process, a designated response team will step into action after a client is declared legally dead.

The body will be stabilised to help preserve the brain as best as possible and slowly cooled, before the body is wrapped in ice and injected with an anticoagulant to stop blood clotting.

Water will then be removed from cells and replaced with a glycerol-based chemical.

The body is cooled to dry-ice temperatures to about minus 130 degrees Celsius and is then placed upside down in a vacuum-sealed tank filled with liquid nitrogen.

Being upside down will protect the brain from any potential leaks in the tank, where temperatures hover around minus 200 degree Celsius.

Different specialist teams will be in charge of different steps of the suspension process, with Southern Cryonics in charge of the final storage stage.

"We have the technology for the suspension part," Southern Cryonics founder, director, and chairman Peter Tsolakides said.

"Where the technology does not exist, very clearly, is technology and science of the future, and that is to bring people back."

That has not deterred future clients, whom Mr Tsolakides described as "optimists".

"Most of the people who are interested in cryonics are male [and] either they've got a science or STEM-type background or they're interested in that," he said.

"They've got an interest in the future and normally they're very positive about the future, they have a positive aspect, they're optimistic type people generally."

Being frozen is more expensive than a standard funeral or cremation.

So far 27 founding members of Southern Cryonics have committed $50,000 each to help build the facility, and will receive a free suspension.

Founding memberships will be closing on March 31, this year and after that, associated members who want to be frozen will have to pay $150,000.

Mr Fielding and his son Guy have weighed up the financial obstacle and agree it was "an issue".

"Things like insurance and having something there when you pass away usually you have some assets saved up, and that's when you make the commitment to spend," Guy said.

"Certainly being able to raise the funds and do it now would be difficult while you're still living but I think it's something you have in place when you do pass."

Executive officer of the Cryonics Association of Australasia, Phil Rhoades, who joined the Fieldings on their tour of the site, is expecting cryonics to become more mainstream.

"I'm expecting a non-foundation member to happen relatively quickly in the next year or two," he said.

"I'm guessing the first person [to be frozen] is going to be a non-foundation member who is going to come out of the blue, finding out that the facility is working and wanting to take advantage of it.

"There's the possibility also of preserving pets, so I wouldn't be surprised if that happened sooner than a human as well."

Like the Fieldings, Mr Rhoades is also an optimist about what the future holds.

"People are starting to think that anything might be possible," he said.

Topics:science-and-technology,health,community-and-society,medical-research,death,holbrook-2644,goulburn-2580,united-states

First posted February 26, 2020 11:43:20

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Work begins on first cryonics storage facility in southern ...

Can people preserve themselves when at or near death? The goal of cryonics is to create circumstances where people who are dying or have just passed away could be potentially resurrected and cured when technology advances to the point that beneficial care could be provided. These cryonics pros and cons must be carefully evaluated to determine if the benefits of this science outweigh any risks.

1. It could revolutionize the medical industry.Cryonics could allow people with a deadly virus to be preserved so that the illness doesnt progress until a cure or treatment can be found. It could help ship donated organs awaiting a transplant across longer distances. If cancer becomes metastatic, the growth could be slowed or stopped. The theoretical benefits are literally too numerous to list.

2. It could preserve life on Earth. Natural disasters seem to be happening everywhere these days. Earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis all have destructive powers that are sometimes beyond comprehension. Cryonics could preserve life so that after a disaster, the region could be repopulated with native plant and animal life.

3. It may provide an answer to space colonization. For generations, science fiction authors have theorized that cryonics could be the answer to how humans can travel safely in the stars. The science is starting to catch up with those theories.

1. Human cells may continue to age while cryonically preserved. Although the cryonics process slows down the metabolism of cells, it may not actually slow cell aging. Someone may emerge from being cryonically preserved only to rapidly age.

2. It interrupts the natural cycle of life.Death is a natural part of life. It is also one of the scariest things people face because there is so much unknown about dying. Cryonics might relieve those fears, but it also places a certain burden of false expectation on people.

3. It may not do anything. The costs and work to preserve people through cryonics may ultimately be pointless. The theories might not ever translate into facts.

These cryonics pros and cons show that there is still much work to do. The benefits show that further research may prove beneficial in a number of areas, but those benefits may not be what we think they will be.

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Cryonics Pros and Cons - Vision Launch

Until the day he died, in 2011, Robert Ettinger hoped humanity would figure out a way to cheat death. Today, his body is stored in a cryonic vessel filled with liquid nitrogen and frozen to 196 degrees Celsius. He lies in cryopreservation at the Cryonics Institute in Michiganwhich he foundedalongside his late mother, his first and second wives, and more than 150 other deceased.

Were classified as a cemetery, but I would like to think of us as being more like a hospital, caring for patients that are metabolically challenged, says Ben Best, the president and CEO of the Cryonics Institute, in Myles Kane and Josh Kourys short documentary about the institute, We Will Live Again.

Robert Ettingers history has a familiar ring: a science teacher and middling science-fiction writer with a grand vision for the future, Kane told me. But instead of creating Scientology and a legion of believers, he preached faith in the restorative potential of science itself.

Ettinger, known as the father of cryonics, popularized the idea in his 1962 book, The Prospect of Immortality. (Isaac Asimov, the renowned biochemist and science-fiction writer, helped Ettinger publish the book.) Cryonicists believe that technology will sufficiently advance to a point where cells can be rejuvenated and the aging process reversed. In practice, legally deceased patients arrive at a cryonics facility packed in ice. Cryonicists interrupt the dying process by draining the blood from the body and perfusing the corpse with a mixture of antifreeze and organ-preserving chemicals, known as cryoprotective agents. The body is then transformed into a vitrified state and lowered into a below-freezing chamber filled with liquid nitrogen, where it lies in wait for a future generation to restore it.

As of 2014, there were more than 300 cryogenically frozen individuals in the United States, another 50 in Russia, and a few thousand contracted members who had signed up to be frozen upon death.

Im thinking that in 50 to 100 years, people will start being recovered, Best says in the film. People will be rejuvenated to a youthful condition, and any disease they had, cured.

Kane said that cryonicists dont pretend to know what form these death-evading technologies will take, so the current focus is on how to best preserve the body so that future advanced generations can successfully revive them.

In the film, Ettinger, whom Kane and Koury interviewed before his death, says that many people mistakenly regard cryonics as an effort to achieve immortality. Im not talking about living forever, he says. Im talking about waking up tomorrow. When people say they dont want to extend their lives, theyre talking without thinking. There are very few people who dont want to wake up tomorrow.

Koury told me that he was pleasantly surprised by Ettingers confidence surrounding the processnot that it would definitely happen, but that it was definitely the right decision to take the chance. If it works, well have an opportunity to live again. If it doesnt, then the worms get you either way.

In a 2015 article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, the University of Oslo philosopher Ole Martin Moen upheld Ettingers perspective. Reviving cryopreserved persons, though it cannot be done today, Moen wrote, does not require the development of radically new technologies; it requires further refinement and convergence of technologies that already exist it is rational to opt for a small chance of survival when the alternative is no chance at all.

Cryonics has also met with skepticism across the scientific community. The main argument is that cryopreservation techniques would cause irreversible brain damage, rendering revival an untenable proposition.

When I asked Koury and Kane whether they were willing to sign up to be cryonically preserved after their own death, neither seemed totally convinced. Its just not for me, Koury said. I certainly dont bemoan anyone who chooses to take this path, though. Its a little strange, but not really that much weirder than some of our other traditions surrounding deathembalming and showcasing a dead body is pretty weird.

Kane was slightly more amenable to the idea. I have to admit that sometimes, when Im having one of those moments late at night, staring into the existential abyss, I try to envision it, he said. But it ends up feeling like a Band-Aid for the larger spiritual, eternal mysteries we all must face eventually.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

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Cheating Death: Inside the Cryonics Institute, Where Your ...

Immortality could also be cause for alarm. An uploaded brain, in a sense, will have beaten death, which raises basic psychological and philosophical questions. We can say that death is at the root of consciousness, normative law and human existence, Kauffman says. The loss of death is likely to radically alter who or what the being or creature is.

Theres no guarantee that this being would be the same one who first entered into the cryogenic process, either. As de Grey says, the question remains of whether scanning the brain and uploading it into a different substrate is revival at all, or if youd be creating a new individual with the same characteristics.

Regardless of who or what that ghost in the machine turned out to be, programming in a digital suicide option would likely be necessary just in case the experience proved too overwhelming or oppressive. I think theyd have to decide in advance what the escape hatch would be if it didnt work out, Callahan says. Is it that the company is authorised to kill you, or are you left to do it yourself?

Despite the unknowns, some would still be willing to give such an existence a shot. If the option was complete oblivion and nothingness or uploading my mind into a computer, Id like to at least try it, Kowalski says. It could be pretty cool.

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If cryonics suddenly worked, wed need to face the fallout ...

Updated February 26, 2020 12:34:04

When Ron Fielding tells people he plans to be brought back to life long after he dies, he gets a few curious looks, but that is just what he has signed up for.

Cryonics has been a passion of Mr Fielding's for decades.

The 78-year-old from Goulburn in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, is a member with The Cryonics Institute in the United States.

He has spent years researching the process of having his body frozen, or put into a state of 'suspension' and is hoping that one day, his own frozen body will be brought back to life.

Mr Fielding had initially planned that at age 84 he would leave his family and move to the US to be closer to a cryonics storage facility.

But he is now hoping his move across the world may not need to go ahead as groundwork for the first cryonics storage facility in the southern hemisphere started this month in Holbrook, in southern NSW.

Mr Fielding visited the site on the weekend to take a sneak peek of the facility where he hopes to be kept in suspension and to start the long wait for science to maybe, one day, bring him back into the world of the living.

Mr Fielding said while he was used to facing scepticism about the possibility of being brought back from the dead, he remained an optimist.

"People might laugh, but someone had to be a pioneer," he said.

"They always laughed at people when they're going to do something [new], but I feel this is the start of another exploration.

"The way science and that are today, just ask yourself, 'why should you die?'"

Mr Fielding said he hoped he would not be waking up alone in the future if he ever is brought back to life.

But he should not worry too much as his son, Guy Fielding, has also signed on to be suspended.

Guy, who describes himself as having "an open mind", decided to be frozen after learning about the process from his father.

It was an exciting moment for Mr Fielding and his son to inspect the foundations of the storage facility in Holbrook this month.

"I'd rather Dad stayed in Australia if it's at all a possibility, rather than go to America at one the cryonics institutes in the States," Guy said.

"This is really exciting to keep Dad with us here in Australia.

"If one day we can be together again, that will be fantastic [and] if we're here in Australia, that will be a better option than being overseas."

The warehouse at Holbrook will be operated by Southern Cryonics and is expected to be completed by the end of 2020.

Zoning, location, and a reduced risk of natural disaster all helped lead to the small town becoming one of the cryonics capitals of the southern hemisphere.

The warehouse will only be around 100 square metres and will host up to 40 clients.

For those undergoing the process, a designated response team will step into action after a client is declared legally dead.

The body will be stabilised to help preserve the brain as best as possible and slowly cooled, before the body is wrapped in ice and injected with an anticoagulant to stop blood clotting.

Water will then be removed from cells and replaced with a glycerol-based chemical.

The body is cooled to dry-ice temperatures to about minus 130 degrees Celsius and is then placed upside down in a vacuum-sealed tank filled with liquid nitrogen.

Being upside down will protect the brain from any potential leaks in the tank, where temperatures hover around minus 200 degree Celsius.

Different specialist teams will be in charge of different steps of the suspension process, with Southern Cryonics in charge of the final storage stage.

"We have the technology for the suspension part," Southern Cryonics founder, director, and chairman Peter Tsolakides said.

"Where the technology does not exist, very clearly, is technology and science of the future, and that is to bring people back."

That has not deterred future clients, whom Mr Tsolakides described as "optimists".

"Most of the people who are interested in cryonics are male [and] either they've got a science or STEM-type background or they're interested in that," he said.

"They've got an interest in the future and normally they're very positive about the future, they have a positive aspect, they're optimistic type people generally."

Being frozen is more expensive than a standard funeral or cremation.

So far 27 founding members of Southern Cryonics have committed $50,000 each to help build the facility, and will receive a free suspension.

Founding memberships will be closing on March 31, this year and after that, associated members who want to be frozen will have to pay $150,000.

Mr Fielding and his son Guy have weighed up the financial obstacle and agree it was "an issue".

"Things like insurance and having something there when you pass away usually you have some assets saved up, and that's when you make the commitment to spend," Guy said.

"Certainly being able to raise the funds and do it now would be difficult while you're still living but I think it's something you have in place when you do pass."

Executive officer of the Cryonics Association of Australasia, Phil Rhoades, who joined the Fieldings on their tour of the site, is expecting cryonics to become more mainstream.

"I'm expecting a non-foundation member to happen relatively quickly in the next year or two," he said.

"I'm guessing the first person [to be frozen] is going to be a non-foundation member who is going to come out of the blue, finding out that the facility is working and wanting to take advantage of it.

"There's the possibility also of preserving pets, so I wouldn't be surprised if that happened sooner than a human as well."

Like the Fieldings, Mr Rhoades is also an optimist about what the future holds.

"People are starting to think that anything might be possible," he said.

Topics:science-and-technology,health,community-and-society,medical-research,death,holbrook-2644,goulburn-2580,united-states

First posted February 26, 2020 11:43:20

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Work begins on first cryonics storage facility in southern hemisphere - ABC Local