I am re-posting a question upon request about cryogenic freezing?

Question

the question is: if people that are frozen are actually reanimated will that person have a soul? my belief is once a person is dead the soul goes on to wherever the souls go. so do they get a second chance with a second soul or will they just be a meat puppet? also why would one be frozen even if a cure is found for whatever it was they died from because all that that person knew or loved will be long dead and gone. what's the point? I realize many dont believe in God so the soul part of the question may be moot.

just waiting on future freezee ellie to answer should be interesting.

Answer 1

Hi! Thanks for waiting for me. ;)

This question doesn't really have a hard and fast answer. Does your soul go to (?) and then come back? I don't think so. I'm not Buddhist, but (I think) they believe that a soul remains with the body for 49 days. (Source, Saving Fish from Drowning, Author: Amy Tan, Fiction) Christians believe that your soul leaves your body immediately and goes to heaven, but some of them believe that when the rapture occurs, your body will be reassembled (even if it has decomposed) and the physical bodies will go with Jesus. Still others believe your soul might get stuck in purgatory.

So, you can see there isn't really a consensus spiritually. Here is some slightly more concrete answers.

Some surgeries in the former USSR involves placing the patient in a very deep hypothermia, the patient is "dead" (no heartbeat) for over an hour in some cases. (This is without a heart-lung bypass machine)

There are several cases of people falling into very cold water and dying, then being revived without brain damage an hour later.

Those are not "frozen" though. The closest non-microscopic thing to frozen are some of the frogs that live in the arctic. They make a special type of sugar that allows them to freeze (except for their heart) and revive.

Many cryonicists believe that what makes a person is the information physically encoded in their brain. Preserving this preserves the person. Whether or not that means the soul is "stuck" is ignorable. A smaller subset believe that if this information could be "downloaded" into a computer, robot, or another brain, that the person would exist in the computer or alternate body. Does that mean the soul switches too?

I consider cryonics to be a medical procedure, where your body is too far gone to be saved by today's medical science, and is preserved for future medicine. In this way I won't really be truly "dead", Only "dead" using today's medical definition. I believe my soul will remain attached, just like it does on the people that fall through the ice into a near-frozen lake.

Following this logic, I will be eligible for the super-senior-citizen's discount at denny's when I am revived. ;)

-ellie

Answer 2

I find this question interesting because of the likelihood in the future that revival is possible through the use of nanotechnology. People will deny that it is possible, but in all reality with use of vitrification the body can be stored with little to no damage caused from ice. Nanotechnology is improving, and with time we are likely to see such wonderful technologies that reanimating a patient stored in Liquid Nitrogen is possible. I can not wait for the explanations.

My own guess, the soul is actually a product of the body. It does not exist without the body, therefore, it never leaves the body.

Answer 3

Interesting question. The Bible tells us that to be absent from the body is to be with the Lord. So, if a body was returned to life,what becomes of the soul? One can only imagine, sounds like a Horror movie in the making. Has anyone ever come back at this point in time? I think if their soul is gone that they can not come back. Once in Heaven who would want to come back to this place.

Answer 4

If my estate has enough money for cryogenic suspension when I die, I might opt for it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of the idea of immortality but there's so much I'd like to do that requires far more advanced technology than will be available in my lifetime.

Give it a few hundred years, then let me come back for a thousand or so years and I think I'd be happy.