Anyone believe in cryonics (people frozen at minus 320 degrees F. till a cure is found for their disease?

Question

I read where baseball great Ted Williams is frozen standing upside down on his head. People are stored in vats of liquid nitrogen. Would you want to be frozen like that if you had a no cure disease? What would happen if a person was not thawed out properly?

Answer 1

I think that one day it will be possible. However, I think that the current technology will result in massive tissue damage and the person will not be able to be revived. The other issue is that today everyone frozen is already dead.

Answer 2

There is a belief that we will eventually be able to cure any disease at some time in the future, so if you could hang around that long, you could be cured of whatever is killing you. The problem is getting to the future so you can receive a cure.

Freezing is the only option that is even remotely possible at this time, or so many believe. The problem with cryonic storage is that presently, freezing can destroy a lot of tissue if it is not done properly. A great deal of progress has been made, but it is still not perfected.

Thawing is the problem - we have no method of reviving somebody who has cell damage from freezing. Cryonics will only be effective when we have a method of repairing freezing damage.

That is the whole point - by the time we have a cure for literally anything, we will presumably have a cure for freezer damage. Most people who believe this point to nanotechnology, where it is possible that germ-sized machines could be injected into the body to repair any form of damage.

We presently can drop some organisms to freezing temperatures for a few days and then revive them successfully, but most of the work has reached a point where it is classified now.

Answer 3

It's not possible with the technology we have right now. Our bodies contain so much water, and what happens to water when it freezes? Sharp, microscopic ice crystals form. These are like billions of tiny razors and they basically shred all your tissue. You'd be pretty mushy when you were unthawed.

There is a certain type of frog that can be frozen and then thaw out and resume living as if nothing happened. This particular frog has an enzyme or something that prevents the water in its body from forming crystals when it freezes. This is why it works on that particular frog, but not people.

Now, if we could isolate the gene that produces that particular feature in a frog and rewrite our genetic makeup with it, we could be frozen and thawed too like so many fish sticks.

All that being said, what would be the point? To live is to risk dying...

Answer 4

The problem with cryogenics is not the thawing process. It's the fact that freezing someone for long periods of time means that you will need to freeze the water in their body. A human body is mostly water molecules to begin with. Thus even at the molecular level ice crystals form and damaged cells from the inside out.

It has been shown that after long periods, a properly and quickly frozen person can be revived.

The only way that cryogenics will really work is if scientists find a way to force water molecules within cells to stop at the liquid versus solid level to avoid hurting cells. In short, this means that water would need to be solid and liquid and frozen in that state before it is perfectly solid or liquid, a rather plasmatic state.

Whether that can be done beats me. Personally I believe in hyper-sleep suceedding, which involves slowly down the bodies processes in every cell, more than cryogenics.

Answer 5

Walt Disney's head is frozen somewhere, too.

Well, hard to know what people will be able to do in another 100 years or so...(just think of the difference in medicine between now and 1906 - practically miraculous!)...but what I can't figure out is WHY the society in the future would even be interested in reviving all these frozen people? What, there aren't enough new people being born? We don't have "enough" people living on this planet?

Answer 6

No one is currently frozen but they are trying to find a way to chirogeniclly freeze people in order to save lives and travel to planets that are years away (pluto) There is a point when teqniclly an orginisum will freeze but they have yet to find a way to COMPLETLY freeze a human being. In order for some one to be really chirogeniclly frozen all body function and everything would have to stop. So far no matter how cold they have gotten things the orginisum's molocules continue to move. I think that we may need to wait for hell to litterally freeze over.

Answer 7

You see, they talk wonders about it.

But the funny thing is they have yet to even find a way to thaw out the people without the ice crystals making a nice slushy of the body. The miniature ice crystals would shred the veins, muscles and any soft tissues once it began to thaw.

How do you expect them to be able to cure your disease whenever they cannot even thaw you out?

Answer 8

Have you ever taken a steak out of the freezer after a year and tried to cook and eat it? EWWWW Now tell me if the same piece of meat could be brought back to moo life.

It's wishful thinking. It's a great concept, and if I knew it worked, it would be worth the expense. I would even freeze my pets.

Answer 9

Even if it could be done, why would you? It's got to be a big disappointment when you're thawed and find out all your friends and family have been dead for years and you're not trained for any job out there! (Except maybe a history teacher) :)

Answer 10

hey if they want to be frozen, more power to them, its not goign to hurt me so i dont have a problem with it, it shoudl be the individuals own decision, and they knwo what they ar egetting themselves into, so if somethign goes wrong, its a risk they were willing to take, when youd rive everyday you take a risk, and you are aware of that risk yet you do it anyway, same goes for those that are frozen, me personally, hell no, i dont want to make it past 65