Usually – well often at least – the Opinion Journal email newsletter delivers interesting stories with an interesting spin on them. But today they went off the deep end with a Cryonics story. It seems Ted Williams may be an Alcor customer. For those in the know, the Alcor Life Extension Foundation is the premier organization of its’ kind. I have met and dealt with many of Alcor’s founders and customers. They are uniformly well educated, intelligent and interesting people. Fortunately none of those I know well are suspendees yet.
The silliness with which the OJ approached the topic showed a low standard of care in research. The writer shows a lack of general knowledge of the subject and uses cuteness to cover ignorance.
There are many reasonable questions that could be asked. What exactly is Alcor? Who are its’ customers? What does it stand for? Why would someone have their self frozen? I will attempt very short answers, but I suggest those who are really interested go to their web site and perhaps some others I will reference.
What is Alcor Alcor is an organization dedicated to cryonic suspension of its’ members upon a declaration of death under current medical criteria. Alcor has an experienced staff that will then do their absolute best to get the member into long term suspension in liquid Nitrogen with the minimum possible extra damage possible under current technology.
Who are its’ customers? The customer base of Alcor is drawn from the ranks of extremely intelligent and creative people. They are not fanatical believers in some pseudo-science. They are lovers of life who are taking one last gamble. If the medical technology of 100 or 200 years hence is advanced enough to fix both the original cause of “death” and the possibly severe cellular damage from the freezing process, they win. If they lose, they will never know the difference and so don’t much care.
What does it stand for Alcor believes nanotechnology will advance to a point at which repair at a cellular level will become possible. Life expectancy will then jump to hundreds if not thousands of years. The primary cause of death in the future will be accidents that destroy the brain structure. The difficulty Alcor sees is most of us will be dead long before this becomes possible. Their premise is to just “bite the bullet” now and use the best techniques we have at hand in an attempt to bridge the gap.
Some experiments have shown excellent long term tissue preservation in LN2; in one experiment a dog was taken down to freezing and brought back. It lived out a normal doggy life afterwards. Many in the cryogenics field have a political dislike for the whole concept so few have actually been doing the experiments. None expect it to be easy; none give the current techniques any more than an outside chance of working. Alcor people will tell you that up front. It’s in their paperwork and disclaimers.
Why would someone have themselves frozen???? “All things considered, I’d rather be in Philadelphia”. If you are cremated, you ain’t comin’ back. If you’re buried to rot, you ain’t comin’ back. If you’re cut up for medicine, you ain’t comin’ back. If you are frozen in liquid nitrogen for a century or two… well you might not be coming back. But… If you love life why not take a shot? You can’t take the money with you anyway; Alcor isn’t a big profit corporation, it’s a member run organization and all funds go to the purpose. Their employee salaries and benefits suck. It all goes back into keeping those dewars icey.
I first ran across the concept of Cryonic suspension a long time ago. Way back in the late 60’s or early 70’s I believe (the oldest still viable suspendee dates from that early period). I thought it was technically preposterous but somewhat interesting. Nothing about it interested me enough to dig further until after I read and commented on Eric Drexler’s drafts for Engines of Creation in the early 80’s. The penny dropped. If you can manipulate atoms, repairing or even rebuilding a body becomes technically conceivable. I have watched the field of nanotechnology grow from a handful of Eric’s friends to a globally known buzzword in less than two decades. Some of the first products of the field will be out in a couple years. It is expected to be a major economic sector within the next twenty years.
There are critics of the whole scenario. They may be right. I don’t think so, but they might be. So read the literature, take my opinions with two grains of Sodium Chloride, study the technical issues, pick your horse and lay your money down.
If you are interested in a quick education on nanotechnology, check out Foresight Institute. And oh yeah. Jim Bennett, Glenn Reynolds and myself all have ties of one sort or another to Foresight.
