Cryo-what-ifs

The search for immortality, youth, and prolonged life is made up and embellished in fiction, stories, television shows, and movies. We’ve seen it all from the magical flower in Gilgamesh to Rapunzel’s hair in Tangled to horcruxes in Harry Potter. It’s evident that we as humans are extremely concerned, or even obsessed, with living healthier, younger, and more beautiful lives. Some would go so far as to want to live forever.

Then it’s no surprise that with our increasing capability to alter ourselves with the help of medicine and technology and our insatiable desire to perfect and change our human form, we turn to transhumanism, science’s very own form of the fountain of youth. Transhumanism is the idea and growing movement that we can change human beings for the better, releasing ourselves from most of our natural inhibitions, with the help of technology. The most common forms of transhumanism include areas of anti-aging, DNA altering, robotics, and molecular manufacturing.

However, the area that most caught my attention was the field of cryonics, a technique used to store human bodies at extreme temperatures with the hopes of one day reviving them in the future. Branching from cryogenics, the study of what occurs at relatively low temperatures, cryonics is probably something that most people have heard of, or at least seen in science-fiction literature, film, and television. Though it may seem outlandish to some (after all, cryonics was even shown in an episode of SpongeBob Squarepants where Squidward is frozen in a refrigerator and later revived in the future), it is actually a process that is becoming more and more common and aspects of cryonics are already in use. With the help of cryogenics, doctors in neuroscience help prevent blood vessels from rupturing in the brain. Moreover, CPR and defibrillators are used everyday to help revive those who suffer from heart attacks. Alcor, one of the largest cryonics facilities, currently has two hundred patients and 20,000 potential candidates.


Cryonics....Squidward Style

            To quickly sum up the process of cryogenic freezing, once a patient is pronounced “legally dead”, a term here that means heart functioning has stopped but brain functioning still occurs, specialists work to remove quantities of water from the body and insert a type of anti-freeze to prevent cells from expanding and shattering. With a price of $400 annually and close to $150,000 total, companies like Alcor will preserve the body and its organs, allowing them to remain in this state of “cryonic suspension” with the help of liquid nitrogen for as long as it takes for technologies to catch up.

But what does catch up mean? That’s the other, more mysterious part of cryonics: we don’t have the technology yet, in layman’s terms, to unfreeze people without killing them. There has yet to be a case in which a human being has been “brought back” from his previous cryonic state. Scientists hope that with the help of molecular nanotechnology, or MNT, cell damage can be repaired during the freezing process. Keeping that in mind, potential candidates go in knowing that they will most likely “wake up” (if they ever do), decades to centuries from now. It is predicted that we’ll have the technology by 2040, though that’s just a rough estimate.

            With all this science and uncertainty in mind, why go through with cryonic freezing? To be honest, I wouldn’t go through with it. Even with the prospect of another life in the future, I can’t imagine living in a world without my family and friends. Nothing, in my opinion, is actually wrong with cryonics. I can definitely see the benefit in living longer or maybe even living better in the future. That’s one case made for cryonics: current incurable disease may find solutions in the future, allowing those living right now to potentially be cured and live healthier lives in the future. Apart from this reason, I personally don’t see any benefit to my life. There is so much uncertainty with waking up decades apart from your current state. No one knows the effects of living in a completely new world. I can’t even imagine the psychological and mental effects it would have, even if you were to wake up as a brand new, less human you. Moreover, would you really be willing to start another life without knowing anyone?

We have yet to see the implications of cryogenic technology. With its growing number of candidates and patients, it’s easily bound to be one of the leading technologies and fields in years to come. Though for some people, it may seem like a route to a different and improved life, for me and countless others, it’s complexity, confusion, and disorientation in the guide of perfection.