Why are People Dying?
After all, there is another option!
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The way I see it, you have essentially three choices of what can be done with your body after you are declared legally dead:
- Your body can be embalmed with toxic fluids and buried.
- Your body can be destroyed by fire via cremation.
- Your body can be cryopreserved for future revival.
I have recently discovered the third option, cryopreservation, and I am in the process of evaluating it for myself. Now that I have seen how real and viable it is, I am finding it difficult to grasp why anybody would voluntarily choose anything other than cryopreservation. I just cannot seem to understand most of the reasons against cryopreservation that I have heard from people — I mean, choosing the possibility of a renewed life over the certainty of permanent death seems a no-brainer to me!
I think I must be missing some important factor in this decision because it seems so clear-cut to me. Therefore, I am thinking that perhaps by listing the reasons I have heard and carefully analyzing them in writing, I can better understand them. So here are the main reasons I have heard against human cryopreservation.
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“I didn’t realize that cryonics actually existed — I thought it was just science fiction”.
This is reasonable. It was my situation until recently. I knew that “freezing” people and “suspended animation” were active theories of preserving life. However, I had no idea how far actual science and technology had advanced in the application of cryopreservation to people who were declared “heart dead” which is essentially the legal standard of death in the USA. There appear to be four cryonics facilities in the USA in which a few hundred people have already been cryopreserved and a few thousand have signed on for cryopreservation upon their deaths.
Cryopreservation is all about the preservation of the human brain, the repository of the memories and knowledge that define us as individuals. It is the irreversible “brain death” (called “information-theoretic death”) which cryonics seeks to prevent. By quickly and properly preparing the brain and the body for “freezing” in a liquid nitrogen solution, a person can be preserved for revival at a future time when advances in medical knowledge and technology will make it possible to cure the “frozen” person and restore him to health and vigor.
“I think it is unlikely that my body can be successfully revived in the future.”
The brain is the key because it is the knowledge and the memories in the brain that is the only part of the person that cannot be duplicated in some way. The rest of the body can be restored or replaced by natural or artificial means in the future. Advances in fields such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, medicine, and cybernetics are making the “mechanics” of physical restoration increasingly less daunting.
I’m not sure where the odds of successful revival stand. I suspect that the science and technology of restoring people will not be the significant barrier in the future — the critical factor will be how well the brain has been preserved by the techniques available at the time of each individual’s initial cryopreservation. Cryopreservation techniques are constantly improving, so the later in time you are preserved, probably the better your odds of a successful preservation and restoration in the future.
Realistically, it is best to think of your odds of revival as a long shot, simply because there are a lot of unknowns in the mix. However, I don’t see this uncertainty as a reason not to be preserved. I mean, even if the probability of restoration is small with cryopreservation, at least it is not zero as it is with cremation and burial. In my book, a small chance at life in the future is infinitely preferable to certain death in the present.
“I believe it is unlikely that people in the future will want to revive me.”
Who knows? It is as easy to come up with reasons why future beings would want to revive people as it is to come up with reasons why they would not want to restore people. And if you end up not being revived, then you have suffered no worse fate than if you were cremated or buried. So there really is no downside in this factor.
“What if people or machines are evil in the future and do horrible things to my body!”
Well, I guess this could happen. It is a bit difficult to figure out why evil entities would want to mess with cryopreserved bodies when they would have plenty of living creatures to abuse. Personally, I find this strange scenario an acceptable risk to take in exchange for the possibility of living again in the future.
“I don’t want to be old forever.”
This is a common comment I have heard. When I then ask people if they would like to be 21 forever, their opinions about cryopreservation often change!
The point of cryopreservation is that you will be revived at a future time when the age and disease that plagued you at the time of your “heart death” can be cured or reversed. Or, if not, then a vibrant artificial body can be provided. You will likely be more vigorous and healthy in your new life than in your previous one.
“I will not know anybody in the future — the people I knew will be dead, and I will be alone.”
This is a common comment also. I cannot quite figure this one out. There will be plenty of opportunity to build a new life with new people in the future. Or why not simply help your loved ones also be cryopreserved so that you can have a lot more time with them in the future?
“If I choose to be cryopreserved, my friends and family will think I am loony.”
Unfortunately, this seems to be an extremely common reaction. Cryopreservation is certainly not a mainstream practice, and most people know little about it. There are actually people who react with hostility toward the very idea of people choosing cryopreservation over a traditional death practice such as burial and cremation. Remarkably, even among the people I talked with who believed in the possibility of revival in the future, the fear of embarrassment or confrontation in the present appeared to be compelling enough for some of them to accept death over cryopreservation!
I am not sure how to react to this factor. The discomfort and hostility over cryopreservation will certainly diminish over time as it becomes more common, just as it did with the practice of cremation in the USA. In the meantime, it is depressingly sad to me that a person would choose to die rather than face embarrassment.
“I assume it is too complicated and expensive for me.”
It is no more complicated than many things you do in life. Just fill out some paperwork and let people know of your plans. And it is affordable to all but the poorest in the USA if the choice of cryopreservation is made early enough in your lifetime.
The process of covering the cost of cryopreservation can be as simple as getting the equivalent of a life insurance policy with a death payment that covers the cost of sustaining your preservation. The most common cost of cryopreservation appears to be in the range of $15,000 to $200,000, depending on the facility and procedures selected. This is expensive, but much less than I thought it would be — it seems a bargain for the chance at a future renewed life!
Many people spend a lot more money on discretionary (and less important) things in their lives than it would cost them to be cryopreserved. If it became common for people to get a cryopreservation policy early in their lives, they would feel little financial burden at all. Waiting until old age makes the policy more expensive, but still affordable for most people in the USA if it is treated as a priority in their lives.
“I would feel guilty spending money on cryopreserving myself instead of leaving it to relatives.”
This is strange reasoning to me. First, these are not necessarily mutually exclusive options — do both if you can. Better yet, instead of simply leaving your loved ones money, leave them with a cryopreservation policy of their own so that they can join you in the future. Personally, I would feel a lot more guilty about not choosing life for myself and my loved ones than I would about spending money on cryopreservation.
For goodness sake, if people love you, they would much prefer that you live again in the future rather than allow you to die just so that you can leave them a bit of money in the present. And if they don’t feel that way, then they don’t deserve your money!
“There are already enough people in the world. People must die to make room for others.”
Well, if people in the future feel this way, then they will not revive you, and you will be no worse off than if you had been cremated or buried. However, I suspect this will not be an issue in the future. After all, the humans who will be reviving you will already be taking advantage of the medical and technological advances that they will apply to you upon your revival. It is likely that these future humans will already have greatly extended lifespans, and the implications of that advancement to human population will already have been addressed.
In the worst case, if it is an issue, it still seems likely to me that at least some people will be revived. Maybe you will be one of the fortunate ones. Again, I prefer any chance of revival, however small, over no chance at all.
“It is against my religion.”
If cryopreservation is genuinely against your religious beliefs, then you should not do it. However, even though I assumed this would be the most common objection to cryopreservation, I seldom heard it, even among the most fervently religious of my friends. Based on my research, to the extent that the topic has been addressed by religious figures, there has been little objection to it. Preservation of life is a tenant of most religions, and a long life is generally celebrated in religion.
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So there you have it. Based on my own (admittedly limited) survey, probably the main reason there are not already a lot more people opting for cryopreservation is simply because not many people know much about the topic. Out of the few dozen people with whom I talked, not a single one had any significant knowledge of the current state of cryopreservation practice. Therefore, none of them had really had a chance to carefully consider the idea.
The quick gut response of most people about cryopreservation seemed to be discomfort and skepticism at what seemed an alien concept to them. Behind the negative responses to the idea of cryopreservation, I think the underlying objections of most people boil down to the fact that the process is still unusual (non-traditional), and its outcome is not totally predictable. Death is an unsettling topic for most people, and many seem to find a kind of comfort in the ritual and certainty of the current death practices of cremation and burial.
I could definitely sense that many people with whom I talked did not want to think about a new option for a future life — after all, many had already made their death pre-arrangements, had already reached a kind of internal settlement with the inevitability of death in their own life, and had tucked the topic away so as to think about it as little as possible.
I understand the unsettling nature of the topic and the desire people have for certainty and a sense of closure about death. But, honestly, I just cannot grasp why a certain death in the near-present would be more appealing or comforting to a person than the possibility of a renewed life in the future.
By the way, I noticed a pronounced gender difference in the responses to the topic of cryopreservation among the people with whom I talked. Men were decidedly more open to the idea of cyropreservation than women. This gender difference seemed to cut across all factors other than gender that might explain it. I find this result fascinating and will follow this essay up with another one to describe and explore this gender difference.
My final thought is that I guess I don’t really need to fully understand the reactions of others to make my own decision about cryopreservation. For me, the discovery of cryopreservation and the possibility of additional life adventures in the future is incredibly exciting. In fact, knowing that death is not certain is liberating and life-affirming!
In addition to cryopreserving myself, I am also going to place a copy of this essay in the storage container the cryonics facility provides. I will read it when I am revived, and I will write a follow-up essay then. I hope you are there in the future to read it also.
See you in 2201 (or thereabouts)!
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