/sci/ - Science & Math

Why bother?

>>4912301

What happens when my asshole family stops paying?

>>4912317

A chance at future life? Making death a personal medical decision as opposed to an inevitability?

>>4912326

Third party payment models haven't been in used since the eighties. They turned out to be a pretty bad idea (Lack of payments from relatives was the main cause of the Chatsworth disaster, along with Robert Nelson being a fraudulent cunt).

>>4912323

>My life is so shit

>Maybe I can spend a shit load of time working hard and saving up so I can get another shot at life


No.


Spend your money on blow and whores and enjoy yourself don't just give it away for nothing, don't scam yourself out of your own life. What you have now is finite use your time NOW you only have one shot!

>>4912341

It costs 600 bucks a year and the money for the cryopreservation goes from your life insurance. Even if you spend your money on blow and whores, you'll probably want to get life insurance, in which case it's just a small payment a year.

Most of the people who signed up for cryonics love life, that's why the want more of it.

>>4912301
>>4912323
>Why aren't you signed up yet?

Combining the ability to live forever with the innate fear of death....i think it would be a mind-fuck, we're "meant" to die.

Although, has anyone seen "The Man from Earth"? it's pretty cool.

>>4912350

>innate fear of death

There is no contradiction. If you're in an explosion, or perfusion is not done properly (Ischemia, transport time, take your pick), then you don't have the ability to live forever. And if you do, well, what's the downside? You'll live your hundreds or thousands of years fearing the occasional disease, accident or violence; just like you do now.

>Why aren't you signed up yet?

If we fail to develop SENS in my lifetime, I will.

>>4912301
>Why aren't you signed up yet?

I am. Been a member of the Cryonics Institute since 1995.

>>4912355
>If we fail to develop SENS in my lifetime, I will.

I knew three people who said that. Two died in a car crash and the other got bone cancer and decided to sign up, but died before.

>>4912363

>Cryonics Institute

I know Alcor is expensive, but come on... CI basically straight freezes people. Not to mention half their "Patients" are people who died and were signed up by their families afterwards. Nobody likes a dewar full of decomposing cadavers.

Pic related.

>>4912367
>CI basically straight freezes people.

source?

>>4912368

>http://wiki.transhumani.com/index.php?title=Cryonics#Curtis_Henderson
>CI director Ben Best thought adding polyethylene glycol to the cryoprotectant solution would inhibit the edema, after being told by his own researchers that PEG is incompatible with solutions containing DMSO. This mixture formed a thick gel; which was nevertheless injected into the patient. This clogged the filter; resulting in failure to vitrify the brain and massive injury from ice formation.

He sort of looked like Gary Sinise.

>>4912354
>And if you do, well, what's the downside?
If life CAN be "good", then i guess there really isn't any. For those with brain dysfunction leading to perpetual, metaphysical "hell", then it would lead to an eternity shit with suicide being the only answer (hence the fear of death problem). What happens when parents or the state/system imposing immortality of the newly born etc.

I just see it leading to a great deal of moral hazard and an attempt to control a complex system by those within the system. There may be unforeseen side-effects that aren't known until it's too late.

>>4912373

Nobody's forcing anyone into anything. It's a personal, medical decision.

>>4912374
Agreed...just answering >Why aren't you signed up yet?

>>4912374
Also, medical decisions in our statist world aren't exactly entirely personal decisions...many of them are imposed by law against the will.

>>4912301
You ever read Frozen? It's a book from a former Alcor employee turned whistle blower.

Read it and tell me if you'd ever sign up for Cryonics.

>>4912370
>This clogged the filter; resulting in failure to vitrify the brain and massive injury from ice formation.

Ooookay, I'm switching to Trans Time.

How on earth could future societies overcome acoustic fracturing of dendrites? I've never heard a remotely plausible way of doing it that's physically possible, and I don't see any reason to just assume future societies will magically possess some technology to get around that.

>>4912382

I read it. The accusations in it would take an entire book to refute.

Except for the part about Mike Perry's balls. Other than that he retracted his allegations.

>>4912384

Trans Time doesn't even have patients anymore.

>>4912301
The question is, why do you think you are entitled to live?

Only the greatest scientists and mathematicians should get this treatment, and even then they will probably be idiots in the future.

>>4912389
>Except for the part about Mike Perry's balls.

wat

Can someone give me a reason why I SHOULD do this? They cant even revive people can they? Even if they figure it out eventually, what makes you think that the current cryonics format will be the right one for a system which allows revival? Sorry, but as a lab specialist, it always seemed like a crock of shit to me.

that said, I love new ideas, feel free to sell me on cryonics.

>>4912385

Fracturing is a macroscale problem, the damage that matters the most happens at the microscale, and with vitrification that is reduced to toxic cryoprotectants (That can be cleaned) and the ocassional ice damage to tissue that failed to perfuse to to ischemic damage to the blood vessels.

In the body, fractures to the main arteries could be fixed by a cardiovascular surgeon, some organs would have to be replaced (And growing organs is pretty rapidly becoming possible. Moreover, genetic material survives just about any kind of freezing damage). As for the brain, I don't know how the fractures could be repaired, but I know they don't cause much information loss. Presumably motion in any one direction could be countered by matching the blockface from a scan of tissue on one side of the fracture, and one of the tissue on the other.

>>4912392
>Only the greatest scientists and mathematicians should get this treatment.

Who decides what or who is great? And who decides whether or not it is "best". To me it seems like an untenable attempt to control a complex system.

>>4912398

>They cant even revive people can they?

Right now, with vitrification, the worst damage is chemical damage due to the toxicity of cryoprotectants. Now they are working on non-toxic cryoprotectants: With those, it would be possible to revive a person by simply thawing them, and washing out the CPS and reperfusing with blood. That, and fractures.

>>4912393

He's an eunuch. And apparently he filled the Alcor facility with notes saying he doesn't want to be revived with gonads.

>>4912403
why dont they demonstrate this on, say, a mouse? That would improve human confidence tenfold

>>4912400

...what? No, acoustic fracturing of dendrites happens at extremely small scales, small enough that any beam powerful enough to resolve a picture of them would destroy them. I have no idea why you think it has to do with the glass/crystal problem.

>>4912406

We don't yet have non-toxic cryoprotectants (Although some species have evolved them, like arctic salamanders).

There were some experiments on reviving dogs (successfully) after 5 hours of low temperature hypothermia. I think it was done by Alcor, but I'm not sure.

>>4912409

>low temperature hypothermia

I derped.

>>4912407

then how do they take electron micrographs of vitrified-then-warmed tissue?

Isn't there also the possibility/claim that dendrites are tied to superposition?

>>4912416
err, quantum entanglement

>>4912416
>>4912418
Yeah and it's a fucking retarded claim with no evidence, proposed by dumbfuck theoretical physicists that have no understanding of Neurology.

>>4912407

The only source I found for that was this from RationalWiki:

>The dendrites (10,000 connections for each of the 100 billion neurons — that's 1015 dendrites to check) are cracked badly by the freezing process — "acoustic fracturing events," like when you drop an ice cube into a drink.

But the source is from the Alcor FAQ, which discusses macroscale fracturing (The dozen that are observed by the crackophone), and then says:

>Chemical bonds are broken across the fracture, but nothing moves more than a few microns (millionths of a meter).

So the other dude's suggestion of "matching the blockface from a scan of tissue on one side of the fracture, and one of the tissue on the other." may not even be needed.

>>4912423

>>4912428

If you free neural tissue so that its degradation stops and it transitions to glass, its amorphous position is locked. That means that any kinetic activity in the area of the neural fiber won't result in temporary displacement of component molecules, it'll create cracks.

>>4912407

As for the claim that any form of imaging good enough to get them would destroy them: This is certainly true of 5nm scans of biological tissue. But that kind of resolution seems exaggerated.

Dendrites are 1 to 8 microns in diameter, Ion channels I'm not sure.

>>4912441

Yes, but do you have any evidence of micron-scale fractures?

>>4912428
>RationalWiki

Shit tier ignorant retards that are not actually intelligent enough to be rational, because they hold arrogant opinions about things.

Not a single one of them understands the rules of rationality or what rationality even is.

>>4912428
a micron is a pretty big deal at that scale..

>>4912428

Right. Of course they don't move.
The problem is that when you're dealing with dendrites, which are already extremely small, a crack of "just a few microns" is a big fucking deal. You can't escape the glass state without adding more heat to the system, and in that process the chemical bonds will either fail to reform or will reform chaotically. There's no way around this that we know of, the major cyronics organizations just hand wave it and assert on pure faith that there will be magic in the future that can ignore such problems.

>>4912453

Yeah. But since the severed parts of the brain are integral across large volumes, adjusting them only requires a small motion, with only a small part of the tissue being lost for scanning and determining the proper adjustment.

>>4912451
Yes, that's just how glass freezing of thin biological tissue works. It's the price of escaping the crystal problem.

If there weren't fractures, it wouldn't be a fine-scale glass.

>>4912461
that was gibberish

Anyway, you will die no matter what if the electrical activity in your CNS stops. No cryopreservation techniques can actually keep YOU from dying, at best they can preserve a near exact copy of you in the future.

Continuity of consciousness goes away and the subjective "you" isn't going to exist anymore.

hurr durr freezing causes ice damage

>>4912460

It's not that the crack is just a few microns across, is just that displacement of the whole is only a few microns across.

So, if you'll allow a little speculation: You remove the brain from the skull, and place it in tetrafluoromethane, where a machine removes the split brain parts. An electron microscope takes a relatively low-res scan of some areas that were originally close together, and then determines the delta in every direction. Then, it carefully puts the glass sculpture back together, adjusting for these deltas, and then does whatever revival is necessary.

>>4912474

>Continuity of consciousness
>2012

>>4912481
>believing in some "soul" that jumps your subjective existence back to your body after it's revived
>2012

To deny the requirement for continuity of consciousness to remain alive in the subjective sense means you believe in a non-physical soul.

>>4912484

Of course not! Don't be silly! I believe in a physical 'soul', if you want to call it that. I just don't believe 'consciousness' (Whatever that is) has to be continuous for you to be you.

>>4912474

>the subjective "you" isn't going to exist anymore.

It will reappear if you are revived?

>>4912488

In essence: If your brain is fixed into an unchanging state, then consciousness stops, but it can start up again when metabolic activity begins agian.

>>4912480
None of that fucking matters because the dynamic electrical potential in your brain is what's required for consciousness, not just the relatively static hardware.

>>4912493

The phenomenology of your brain depends on your hardware. It doesn't matter if it stops /if it can be brought back again/.

>>4912488
> I just don't believe 'consciousness' (Whatever that is) has to be continuous for you to be you.

Then you believe in a soul.

If you believe this, you logically HAVE to believe there is some non-physical component to the mind. If you can't understand why I feel sorry for you.

Once the lights go out completely you can't turn them back on.

Even "braindead" people who have been brought back to consciousness had plenty of brain activity going on, brain activity doesn't stop until many hours after death unless your brain is completely drained of fluid or scattered.

>>4912494
>The phenomenology of your brain depends on your hardware.

Incorrect. Hardware is only one aspect of consciousness. If it was purely hardware then our thinking would be extremely slow, obviously that isn't the case.

>>4912497

>Then you believe in a soul.
>If you believe this, you logically HAVE to believe there is some non-physical component to the mind.

I'm sorry, I sincerely can't understand it.

Your consciousness depends on the state of your brain, which is essentially the state of its hardware. If your brain is fixed in an unchanging state, the hardware is maintained, but the activity ceases. Then, the activity begins again once the brain is metabolically stable. It, once more, arises from that same hardware, since it was preserved.

(Sorry for the use of the term hardware, before you reply; no, I don't believe the brain to be anything like a computer)

>Even "braindead" people who have been brought back to consciousness had plenty of brain activity going on, brain activity doesn't stop until many hours after death unless your brain is completely drained of fluid or scattered.

Yes, of course, I wasn't going to make that argument.

>>4912486
>It will reappear if you are revived?

Why would YOU wake up after you've died and your electrical activity ceased completely? Your consciousness isn't just the wetware brain, it's the electrical potential activity going on within it. That's why we can think quickly.

Memories and even personality might be retained, but not subjective consciousness. When the lights go out you completely cease to exist.

Think about it cunts.

>>4912501

What are the other aspects? Activity? Endocrine exchanges? All of those depend on the hardware.

Why do you say our thinking would be extremely slow?

>>4912504
>Your consciousness depends on the state of your brain, which is essentially the state of its hardware.

That's wrong though. Brain activity is electro-potential activity. Dynamic ionic current flows. More long term changes, things like learning and memory and personality, are wetware changes induced by those neuron potentials, but the actual real-time subjective experience of existing and thinking is all electro-potential.

Once that goes away you're as dead as a doorknob, you cease to exist.

>>4912506

The activity ceases, then it starts again. Differently, of course, you can't fix ions in flight through the synaptic cleft the second the person is pronounced. But even if you can't continue your past train of thought, all that makes you 'you' is preserved. Memories, and personality. You don't even have to subjectively know your consciousness has been interrupted. They could have told you it's still 2012 and you just went to sleep and you are still terminally ill, and you wouldn't know.

>>4912509

But the dynamics of the brain can be rebooted if the tissue is preserved. Sure, you lose consciousness for some 300 years. I don't see how this has any significant impact on anything.

You have your memories, you have your personality, but, boo hoo, your consciousness was discontinuous for a while. That doesn't require a non-physical 'soul'.

>>4912507
>They depend on the hardware.

Yes they depend on the hardware but that is not the same as BEING the hardware.

Think of your "mind" as being a program running on the your computer "brain". This is an extremely simplistic analogy but it works. That program is a self modifying multi-threaded system that also modifies the hardware itself.

If you unplug the computer completely, the program vanishes and you die. You can possibly, with technology that we don't even have, reboot the computer and maybe turn it back on and run the system again, but it WON'T be the same exact system as was running before that existed in a different time and space. That is gone forever.

>>4912506
>Memories and even personality might be retained, but not subjective consciousness.

Isn't subjective consciousness just the "belief" in the continuity of experience. Technically, from one moment to the next is a unique experience/reality...but it feels like it's "me" transitioning through the experience?

>>4912522

You yourself conceded that personality and memories remained. All that happened was that one particular, probably useless train of thought was interrupted.

>>4912513
>The activity ceases, then it starts again.

No it doesn't. A new consciousness is created that is nearly identical to the old one but it is NOT the same one.

You need to accept this truth, it's not up for debate.

>>4912301
My easiest argument against cryogenics is the biggest argument people make for cryogenics.

When asked "How do you revive dead cells that have been frozen?" people for cryogenics say: "Well, nanotechnology!"

What a stupid fucking thing to say. You freeze a body and hope that things will work out using a technology only realized in science fiction. We're not even sure nanotechnology will/can be used in this way.

You really think you can rebuild every cell, bring every cell back to life THEN bring back the entire multi-cellular organism back to life? The people that were frozen also died from natural causes. So they propose to bring them back to life- then they die from the previous complications? All this and not be retarded after the fact?

You idiots are putting WAY too much faith into the future.

>>4912528

A new consciousness with the same memories and personality and the same thoughts immediately up to death is indistinguishable from the original.

Why do you place so much importance on consciousness? What empirically observable process is it?

>You need to accept this truth, it's not up for debate.

It sure sounds like philosophy that is unsupported by any empirical reality.

>>4912527
Personality and memories are not consciousness.


Do 2 people that have the exact same personalities and memories have the same consciousness? Of course not, that's fucking absurd.

But for some reason, idiots think that someone can have their electro-potential system completely destroyed, have their brain frozen for 300 years, and then (insert technology that doesn't exist in the foreseeable future) they'll just wake up!

No. You aren't going to fucking wake up faggot. Some new being is going to wake up with all your memories but it won't be YOU goddammit.

It's obviously fucking simple if you're able to think about it properly.

>>4912528
> A new consciousness is created that is nearly identical to the old one but it is NOT the same one.
This is the same from one moment to the next already, even without it shutting off.

So this wasn't even proven on a mouse, but people are paying for it.

I am seriously interested in selling this sort of thing. You guys are bro tier, I can see potential to this...

>>4912532

>cryogenics

Cryonics. Please don't confuse them, not for us, but for the people selling cryogenic dewars who get really pissed when they are associated with freezing cadavers.

>"Well, nanotechnology!"

Not necessarily. See:

http://wiki.transhumani.com/index.php?title=Cryonics#Revival

this thread has turned into pure speculation as to whether the brain's memory is volatile or nonvolatile

yeah i'm out

>>4912535
>A new consciousness with the same memories and personality and the same thoughts immediately up to death is indistinguishable from the original.

You're too stupid to understand that MEMORY AND PERSONALITY IS NOT CONSCIOUSNESS, AND CONSCIOUSNESS IS ALSO NOT SOME IMMATERIAL THING.

Fucking ignorant piece of shit. I'm actually getting angry now.

>>4912536

Continuity of consciousness may be important, epistemologically, but practically it makes no difference. Nothing at all. Why do you care?

Memories and personality are not consciousness.

You people really need to educate yourselves in some basic neurology before you start talking about this shit.

>>4912528
>No it doesn't. A new consciousness is created that is nearly identical to the old one but it is NOT the same one.
Bullshit semantics. By the same token, you will die when you sleep tonight and another similar guy (BUT NOT THE SAME GUY) will wake up tomorrow with your old memories.

>>4912546
YES, IT PRACTICALLY MAKES A HUGE FUCKING DIFFERENCE, BECAUSE "YOU" ARE GOING TO DIE EITHER WAY WHEN YOUR HEAD IS FROZEN.


YOU WILL CEASE TO EXIST. THERE IS NO MAGICAL FORCE THAT WILL TRANSFER YOUR MIND-STATE INTO YOUR BODY 1000 YEARS FROM NOW.

ITS A VERY SIMPLE CONCEPT.

>>4912548

Of course it's not. Where did I imply that?

Memories and personality are 'hardware'. Consciousness is 'software'. If the software is stopped, it can be started again. The initial conditions will be different from the final conditions of the 'previous' software. A minute difference. Your consciousness is discontinuous, without any soul involved.

I would still feel the same, and would be functionally equivalent to a guy who went to sleep.

>>4912550
Wrong.

Sleeping people only go into a different sort of consciousness, they don't lose consciousness at all and brain activity continues.

People who have been rendered "unconscious" also retain brain activity.

>>4912551
Stop being a moron. For instance, see
>>4912550

If continuity of consciousness is necessary for identity, you've only existed since you woke up, and you'll die when you lose consciousness (probably through sleep).

>>4912556
You're wrong, sorry.

I've already explained why you're wrong, but you don't want to accept it. It's your problem of being irrational, not mine.

>>4912557
>they don't lose consciousness at all
That's completely wrong.

>>4912563
>I've already explained why you're wrong, but you don't want to accept it.
Not that guy, but I don't think you have. Cite a post of yours that does more than just make a bare assertion.

>>4912561
According to the chart you just posted I'm 100% right faggot. Brain activity does not cease in any of those situations.

Alright then CAPS guy, give the/your definition of consciousness, so we don't stay stuck in semantics.

>>4912550
There was a guy once on sci who was actually claiming this. He wasnt even trolling, since his argument was that each morning a different copy of you wakes up, which would make mind uploading possible. It was too stupid to be troll.

>>4912565
Actually I have.

>bare assertion

Actually the assertion that consciousness is only memory and personality is the one that lacks merit.

>>4912557
Prove that it is continuity of "brain activity" that keeps you being yourself. What if I say continuity of "awareness" is OBVIOUSLY required or else you are not you anymore. Welp, I guess someone else will be living your life tomorrow if you can't prove me wrong.

>>4912567
>doesn't lose consciousness at all
Yeah, the guy in the coma is TOTALLY conscious, man.

You're basically arguing that a car ceases to exist when you stop the engine. That might be true if you believe it's impossible to restart engines, but there's nothing that makes this impossible in principle for brains. People thought that the loss of a pulse was death, until we learned how to reverse it.

GUYS, GUYS, SHUT THE FUCK UP.

We can actually sell this.

>>4912572
I think we're all talking past each other. You two actually seemed to agree.

There's no immaterial soul, for instance.

>>4912568
Consciousness is the continual mind-state in your brain created by distributed electrical potentials over neural pathways.

It's actually a really simple definition when you think about how the brain works and what thoughts are.

The problem is people can't get over the mind-brain duality bullshit and they still instinctively think of the mind as being as immaterial soul, even if they vigorously deny it.

The subjective experience of existing is due to electrical potentials flashing around in your brain.

>mfw this thread

Well, shit, I can't believe anyone actually read that page. Or that wiki. At all. Sorry if I gave a negative impression by writing the Chatsworth section before anything else, lololol.

It's rather sad, though, how philosophy takes precedence over the myriad technical and social issues, when people argue against cryonics.

>>4912572

Nobody actually argued that, in this whole thread.

OP, thanks for some enjoyment. CI guy, just switch to a non dead cryonics org already.

>>4912580

>Consciousness is the continual mind-state in your brain created by distributed electrical potentials over neural pathways.

That's vague enough to capture any mental phenomena you silly dengus.

>>4912580

I agree with everything you just said, how are we reaching different conclusions?

>>4912542
You know how regular graveyards work? You RENT a plot. After 50 or 100 years when no one gives a shit about you, they remove your headstone, dig you up and bury you in a mass grave in the corner of the graveyard.

Hint: Cryogenics/cryonics works the same way. Eventually they'll just bury you out in the back.

>Also, who's going to pay the fuckton of money to revive you? Are you hoping for a StarTrek like moneyless altruistic future too? You people are worse than religious people.

>>4912573
Prove that personality and memory = consciousness.


I've already posted a bunch of reasons ITT why they aren't.


By your logic, if you clone a guy's brain and mind-state the 2 people will actually have one experience of reality. This is obviously bullshit.

It's a space related issue. Cryonics is a time and space related one but still the same thing.

>>4912580
Would you agree that continuity of this evolving brain state called "consciousness" is not required for maintaining a coherent identity?

Basically, that you can lose consciousness temporarily without losing identity.

>>4912580
>The subjective experience of existing is due to electrical potentials flashing around in your brain.
So then subjective experience is a process and not a thing, right? If the exact same processes exists...how is that not having the same consciousness?

>>4912587
>Prove that personality and memory = consciousness.

I don't think anyone is arguing that.

>>4912585

Alcor has been up and running for 40 years without a single patient lost.

>>4912585
If we had a well-preserved guy from 1700 that we could bring back, we'd do it.

>>4912581
You're the neuro-student right?

Tell these people that freezing a brain and killing off all electrical activity within them is going to kill you permanently.

PLEASE.

If they aren't teaching this then the state of the science is worse off than I thought.

>>4912589
BUT ITS NOT THE EXACT SAME PROCESS. THAT PROCESS WAS KILLED WHEN YOU FROZE THE BRAIN. YOU'RE CREATING A WHOLE NEW PROCESS.

IT'S REALLY REALLY FUCKING SIMPLE TO UNDERSTAND

>>4912589
(another anon here)
If there's a perfect copy of you somewhere, you don't share experiences with it. Because of differing environment, your experiences immediately diverge in similarity anyway.

Forking a person gets hairy with things like property issues, but if we can't even get past bringing back a person from a frozen brain or a backup scan, we should deal with that concept first.

>>4912584
Because you aren't thinking about it rationally I guess.


It's only one leap in logic. Just one.

>>4912591
Why don't you revive a mouse which was dead/frozen for one year?

Let's see a proof of concept in model animals and then we can talk money.

>>4912592

What neuro student? No, I've read about neuroscience in my own time but have no real education in it.

>If they aren't teaching this then the state of the science is worse off than I thought.

I do suppose they are teaching students less eschatological things.

>>4912592
>You're the med-student right?

>Tell these people that stopping a heart and killing off all circulatory activity within them is going to kill you permanently.

>PLEASE.

>If they aren't teaching this then the state of the science is worse off than I thought.

>>4912599
We can't do it quite yet. There are some cool hibernation studied with severely suppressed metabolism, but we can't bring back a vitrified mouse ATM.

Besides, lots of people going in for cryonics expect to be uploaded from a scan of the brain, not rebuilt.

>>4912591
Except that you never "brought back" any living organism until now.

Hey, guys, what if consciousness isn't the same as identity?

Do you come out with the same consciousness?

>>4912598

I think it's more of an issue with definitions.

>>4912594
Isn't the process just being rebooted with slight variations after-the-fact?....just like going to sleep, dreaming, then waking up again?

>>4912609
You're missing the point. See
>>4912608

If it were possible now, we would already have clinical immortality.

>>4912595
You're still not thinking about it rationally though.


How is a brain separated 300 years in time any better off than one seperated a few meters in distance?

Think of the body after it's been frozen as a new "fork", because you KILLED the original process off when you froze his fucking head.


Or, lets think of it in another way.


A machine that can perfectly scan the brain down to all the tiniest little details is invented.

Your brain is scanned, the data is put into a databank and then your skull is smashed and incinerated.

They use the perfect scan to print your brain and start it back up.

Do you wake back up? Of course not.

Physically this is the exact same thing as freezing the brain.

>>4912602
Shut the fuck up ignorant nigger, that analogy is pointless.

>>4912611
Yes, it is.

But he's going to go on about "IT'S NOT REALLY YOU" bullshit that just isn't very well thought-through.

>>4912614

Define 'you'.

>>4912611

Yes. But that depends on a definition of personal identity and consciousness that we both share but he doesn't, which is why this debate is so sad.

Let's all look at the patient list instead and try and speculate about their personal lives.

http://wiki.transhumani.com/index.php?title=Cryonics#Patients

>>4912616
Actually it is very well thought through, you're just fucking stupid and you think the mind is independent of neural activity, because you're a fucking idiot.


If you stop the physical activity, you die forever, period. You can re-start it but it's only going to bring back a copy of you, not you.

End of debate.

Sounds like we need to develop some augmentation to bolt on and create some artificial neural circuitry that can be kept active indefinitely while the rest of the brain is in suspension.

>>4912590
yeah, 40 years. I bet the people's "contract" ends in 75 or so years.

What do you think keeps the lights and freezers on? The initial payment? (lol) all you need is some smart trustfund brat who owns the company to someday liquidate it and have all the bodies disposed of. Who would complain? You're dead and you don't have a grave to visit so family members won't miss you. Hell, there is no accountability at all. You're just a frozen corpse and your cost a lot of money. It's not hard to do the math.

You aren't coming back to life. Sorry.

>>4912619
It seems just as valid as your statement.

>>4912614
You think "rational" means "thinking what I think". It's making you look silly.

>A machine that can perfectly scan the brain down to all the tiniest little details is invented.
>Your brain is scanned, the data is put into a databank and then your skull is smashed and incinerated.
>They use the perfect scan to print your brain and start it back up.
>Do you wake back up? Of course not.
You're wrong.

You're latching on to some kind of physical continuity as a source of identity, but there is none. The bits and pieces (molecules and atoms) that make up your brain are changed out all the time, and you don't cease to be "you".

>>4912624
You believe in a soul without realizing it if you believe that someone can wake up in a new body after having their brain destroyed.

>>4912592
Not the neuroguy you're talking to, but still another neuroguy here.

I believe there are species of lizards and frogs that can survive being frozen solid. During that time they have no brain or metabolic activity, but still thaw out just fine. So the mere loss of brain activity won't kill you. Rather it's the ensuing loss of all bodily functions that kills you. Of course, in most cases if you've lost all brain activity it means most of the cells in your brain are dead and thus you're already dead, but assuming you found a way to do it safely the loss of activity itself wouldn't be a problem.

All of this said though, cryonics is a joke. No scientist takes it seriously. Maybe in the far future it'll be possible, but right now it boils down to "HURR LETS FREEZE CORPSES AND REVIVE THEM WITH MAGIC".

>>4912628
Only because you're fucking stupid and ignorant of how the brain works.

>>4912627

Their costs are supposed to be covered for perpetuity by the Patient Care Fund or whatever it's called.

I personally think the organizations will collapse in ~30 years, though, which is why I probably won't sign up (Along with the fact that Alcor has a shitload of problems and Max More looks like a mad scientist), but I think it's an interesting subject.

>>4912591
But we can't you idiot. That's the whole problem with cryionics/cryogenics.

>>4912630
>
I believe there are species of lizards and frogs that can survive being frozen solid. During that time they have no brain or metabolic activity, but still thaw out just fine.


But I'm not talking about that. I'm not saying it's impossible to revive a brain. I'm saying the original person/frog still experiences subjective death because their mind-state is destroyed.

>>4912616
>>4912622
>>4912625
Then i still hold to:
>>4912523

>>4912630

>FREEZE

Vitrify*

>>4912629
Not at all. I just deny that continuity is required for identity. This is pretty much the opposite of believing in a soul.

>>4912636
Then you hold to a functionally delusional mindset that is completely refuted by the fact that you experience existing.

Consciousness is really difficult to understand for stupid people, I'm aware. You just need to trust your betters.

>>4912635

>I'm saying the original person/frog still experiences subjective death because their mind-state is destroyed.

How is subjective death anywhere near important if everything that makes you 'you' is preserved?

>>4912632
30 years? Hell I'm amazed their investments weren't wiped out in the last 4 years by madoff and the fucking market collapses.

Give it time. One might shutter its doors any day now.

ITT: Closet dualists calling other people stupid instead of being able to examine their ideas

Hooray for /sci/!

>>4912642
Well...some people actually want to LIVE, to experience subjective long life, not just have a copy of them live forever.

They need to be aware that cryopreservation allows the latter *possibly* but not the former.

>>4912643
2/10 for blatant arrogance trolling

>>4912635
>I'm saying the original person/frog still experiences subjective death because their mind-state is destroyed.

What is "subjective death"? You don't really ever experience death. You can experience dying, but you'll never have the realization of "okay I'm dead now, fuck". And when it comes to dying in this context, it would be no different than going unconscious. In fact, if you've ever been put under global anesthesia, you've experienced what it's like to die (if you haven't, I'll spoil it for you: "Oh man, I'm feeling so sleepy all of a sudden I'm about to...oh shit the surgery's over? When the fuck did I pass out?")

>because their mind-state is destroyed.
pic related

>>4912638
>>4912643
> I just deny that continuity is required for identity.
>refuted by the fact that you experience existing.
So time plays no factor in identity? I can only experience existing through passage of time...it seems some your conclusions are contradictory. Explain.

>>4912651
>>4912649

Like I said, you're pretty much just too stupid to understand.

>>4912645
>calling me a closet dualist when I'm the only one ITT that doesn't believe subjective experience of existing can be transferred between brains or restarted in a dead one

>>4912647
> just have a copy of them live forever.
Bullshit metaphysical non-problem. If I wait till you're asleep, make a copy of you, kill one of them... will the guy who wakes up in the morning have any real reason to care which body I destroyed?

>>4912654
If time is required then so is continuity. You can't have one without the other.

>>4912644

Sorry, I wasn't clear: I set ~30 years as an upper bound.

I think the Cryonics Institute will last longer because it's a mom and pop operation, basically, but their perfusion protocol is the biggest joke medical science has seen. Mother of Christ, see >>4912370

Alcor I presume will sink faster, due to their financial problems, the fact that it's run and operated by utter whackjobs, and stupid decisions (Bullet proof glass for the Patient Care Bay -- While surrounding walls are wood. Perfusions stopping for *up to an hour* for no apparent reason).

Trans Time will last forever because it's some kind of weird investment machine that probably has the wealth of a couple nations stored in those dewars, but it's basically one guy periodically topping off a gigantic inefficient piece of shit (The section on the King Kong dewar is coming up sometime soon) that houses pets of dead people.

>>4912608
>We can't do it quite yet.

We can't so it at all you dip shit! There are huge technical problems to account for. But you assholes are saying "Just freeze them and SCIENCE will figure it out later!"

That's now how science fucking works! This is a fucking scam!

>>4912659
>Bullshit metaphysical non-problem.

But it isn't. Like I said, you don't actually understand how the mind works. I don't blame you, very few researchers at this point do, but my viewpoint will become the majority view in about 10 years, because it's the only position that completely rejects duality.

>>4912654
You lose consciousness every night, but nonetheless the guy who wakes up in the morning asserts he's the same guy as the guy from yesterday. And yet there is no continuity of consciousness connecting them.

What they have in common is their causal information flow, their properties, etc. That's the basis of identity. Not which atoms you're made of, or which prior conscious states you're in an unbroken temporal connection with. Your atoms change out constantly, and you lose consciousness every night.

>>4912667
>You lose consciousness every night

No you don't retard.


Like I said, you're fucking ignorant, you don't know what basic terms mean.

Brain-computer interfaces will be created before revival is invented.

We've already figured out how to see via brain signals what your eyes are seeing in a basic way (letters and numbers).

>>4912663
It's a much better chance of continued existence than just rotting. Once your information is gone, that is final death.

>>4912672
>implying people in deep sleep are conscious
Looks like you're the one with semantic issues.

>>4912661
Then how can i "experience existing" without time?

>>4912667
>What they have in common is their causal information flow

And casual information flow stops when you stop electro-potential activity in the brain. It becomes a hunk of dead matter.

>>4912676
That's consciousness. Not identity. You're the same guy you were yesterday (your identity is preserved), yet there is no continuity of consciousness between those two "you"s.

>>4912675
Looks like you're fucking ignorant.

What you're claiming is factually fucking incorrect.

Butthurt cryonics and uploading babbies are religious at this point.

>>4912656
I don't know what I'm talking about?

This here is my degree.

Where'd you get your's from? I mean, you do have a degree in neuroscience, right? Surely you're not just some faggot who watched a documentary on TV about the brain one night and thinks he's a fucking expert on all neuroscience related matters because of it.

>>4912678
Prove that identity is retained after your brain stops working.

Prove that identity is some immaterial factor independent of brain activity.

You're really just substituting the word "soul" with "identity" now.

>>4912677
The question is whether the vital information required to recreate a living-brain-state is contained within the vitrified brain or not.

It seems to me that the history of people recovering from traumatic brain injury and deep states of unconsciousness and low brain activity suggests that your vital information is not just the current action potentials.

>>4912681
>BS in Nueroscience
>doesn't believe that consciousness is linked to brain activity

So, is this a way of legal assisted suicide?

>>4912682
Dude, listen.

I'm not saying anything about souls. I'm not saying there's any magic here. I'm not saying there's any fairy that keeps your "identity" online, because identity is not an ontologically existing thing. It's subjective "being-me-ness". And the very fact that you're asking for "proof" about identity shows you're deeply confused. Identity is entirely constructed - there is no real facts to which one can point to to say "AHA! IDENTITY IS HERE!"

It's not an ontological claim.

>>4912683
Them recovering doesn't prove consciousness is retained anyway.

Also you're right, that IS the question, and the current evidence suggests that real time subjective experience is based in the electro-chemical potentials, not in the brain matter.

I can't tell if we've got trolls or just buttmad guys ITT, but boy are they angry.

this is all bullshit, why is this a thread? Thinking about doing experiments != doing them

>>4912688
>because identity is not an ontologically existing thing

Cogito ergo sum.

>>4912686
I never said consciousness wasn't linked to brain activity retard. I'm >>4912651 and >>4912630

What I said was that just because you lose all brain activity doesn't necessarily mean you're dead, it could just be a state of very deep hibernation. Maybe you could try to argue that loss of consciousness is a type of death, but that's just philosophical bullshit that has no place in science. I mean, the vast majority of life on Earth doesn't even have a single neuron and yet you wouldn't say that all of it is dead would you?

>>4912678
>That's consciousness. Not identity
Wait a sec, i think i have it. It's actually something ive been working on in my head for a while. So consciousness is basically all metaphysical experience. And brain processes tap into the metaphysical/conscious experience. So identity is a subset (i think i have that right) of consciousness.

That, ultimately, consciousness/metaphysical reality is fundamental, and and identity is an adjective of consciousness.

Is that anywhere close to what you're saying?

>>4912689
>prove
You're using that word again. There is nothing that can even in principle be proved here. There is no experiment that can even in principle decide what is fundamentally a semantic issue, a perceptual one, not an ontological one.

>>4912692
I'm not arguing against that, at all. I'm talking about identity (what links past-me to current-me). Subjectively it's a "feeling-like-being-me" perception. There is nothing to "prove" about being the "same" guy you were yesterday, because that very notion of identity inherent in saying you're the "same guy". It's always going to be circular. It's semantics.

>>4912695
>I never said consciousness wasn't linked to brain activity
>What I said was that just because you lose all brain activity doesn't necessarily mean you're dead

>>4912696
What he's saying is bullshit.

Identity isn't separate from conciseness.

>>4912699
You seem to be having immense difficulty with this concept. I honestly can't understand how someone can be this retarded, so I'm just going to assume you're a troll.

>>4912673
how exactly is this any better than rotting? An equal argument can be made for reviving a mind from cremated ashes. The damage to the cells from freezing or vitifying is really no different than setting the whole fucking head on fire. It just looks "more human" or "prettier" as a whole frozen head rather than a pile of ashes. The results will however be the same!

The mind is so fragile. The smallest amount of damage makes a person crippled and completely retarded. After being dead for a while (even an hour or two) then frozen/vitified how do you expect the brain functions to ever be the same? How?

Who the fuck is going to want to invest into bringing back stroked-out, brain dead, zombie vegetables from the 21st century?

>>4912696
I think so. Consciousness is "being an aware person here now". Identity is the sense of being the "same" person as had the prior experiences you have memory of.

I'm conscious. I have memory of being conscious yesterday. I assert that I'm that same guy. Only that last bit is identity. I'll go to sleep tonight, lose consciousness (and as a consciousness, I basically won't exist as an active consciousness, just as information in my brain), and then tomorrow morning my brain will "boot up" conscious me again, and I will continue to assert identity with previous iterations of "me".

>>4912705
>An equal argument can be made for reviving a mind from cremated ashes
Burning destroys all the vital information that makes you "you".

>>4912700
Whatever dude.

This isn't some philosophical shit. It's actually empirical and can obviously be tested and reasoned.

Consciousness = brain activity.

Once brain activity goes away, your consciousness goes away forever.

You can bring back brain activity but it's not going to be the same conciousness.


There doesn't need to be any empirical proof of this because it's flat out fucking obvious.

>>4912709
>You can bring back brain activity but it's not going to be the same conciousness.
And you die every time you sleep. The brain activity that is "conscious you" disappears.

>>4912710
>DURRRR FALLING ASLEEP IS THE SAME AS HAVING ALL YOUR BRAIN ACTIVITY COMPLETELY STOPPED


>LOLOLOL IM SO FUCKING STUPID LOLOL

>>4912687
no. People die from natural causes, then after a good while of you being dead and your brain turns to meat pudding someone freezes you in this super cool complicated sciency way in hope that someone will develop very specific technology to revive you someday with magic.

>>4912708
>DURRR BRO THAT'S JUST BULLSHIT METAPHYSICAL CRAP

>SEE YOUR IDENTITY ISNT THE ACTUAL ELECTRICAL SIGNALS, ITS ACTUALLY THE BRAIN MATTER, I DONT ACTUALLY NEED ANY PROOF FOR THIS LOL, EVEN THOUGH ITS DIRECTLY CONTRADICTED BY ALL BRAIN STUDIES

>>4912711
>>4912713
You're angry to the point of incoherence. Just leave if you can't even contribute something that adds to even your own position.

>>4912678
>Consciousness is "being an aware person here now"
So how can consciousness exist outside of time, if in order to be aware it seems to take a comparison. Which would then be the same as identity....?

>>4912709

so imagine a robot with a robot brain, he is able to talk, do science on his own, has almost a perfect memory, he has an IQ as high as the best human (200+), etc.
But he is unconscious, we never programmed consciousness in him.

how would you explain to him what consciousness is?

How would you figure out if he is conscious or not, using your model?

>>4912714
>then after a good while of you being dead and your brain turns to meat pudding
No, this is very much NOT what people intend to do with cryo. Time is very crucial.

>>4912706
>I'll go to sleep tonight, lose consciousness (and as a consciousness, I basically won't exist as an active consciousness, just as information in my brain)
What about lucid dreaming and awareness during dreams?

>>4912716
>So how can consciousness exist outside of time
I'm not sure what you mean.

The information flow from "past me" to "current me" is the only source of identity that makes coherent sense to me (doesn't make retarded contradictions crop up).

>>4912708
>Burning destroys all the vital information that makes you "you".

so does "death" and "being frozen"! Why the fuck do you think it's any better? This is what faith and delusions look like.

>>4912721
They occur, and it's a lesser grade of consciousness, but there's deep sleep too. See
>>4912561

>>4912725
Not if the neuron structure contains the vital information. Hence the need for vitrification, and not just freezing.

>>4912716
>>4912723
Fun talking, GTG though. Have a good one!

I recommend "The Mind's I" by Hofstadter though. Good collection of stuff on exploring these concepts.

>>4912719
So I guess they have sick beds for people waiting to die and be frozen in the lobby of the laboratory?

No? I thought so.

It takes days to get them to the stupid site. You know it, I know it. I don't know exactly what being quicker does for the situation. The people are already DEAD and they sure as shit aren't coming back because "science".

>>4912730
>Not if the neuron structure contains the vital information.

do you have any idea how quickly the brain breaks down? It starts to degrade moments after death. People can have brain damage from being dead a single minute. The longer, the more bizarre the damage ("vitifying") the worse the damage. Might as well crack the skull like and egg and scramble the grey matter.

>>4912723
>>Consciousness is "being an aware person here now"
>So how can consciousness exist outside of time
Here and now require time. As opposed to then and there. It's relative, and cannot exist on it's own...therefore consciousness as you describe it cannot exist on its own...ergo the same as identity needs continuity which is reflected through a comparison, so does consciousness need time to relate it to something else in or to be aware at all....Or else consciousness would just mean everything that is, was and will be.

wow you science and philosophy fags sure are a bunch of idiot savants, no wonder you people never get laid.

why dont we settle this shit once and for all with some good old greentext hypotesis?

according to your view what would happen in this carefully thought out scenario

>guy dies
>guy gets cryonically frozen
>x years later, a way to revive them is found
>guy is revived
>???
>???
>???

>>4913211

What do you mean? You want to fill in the question marks? Well, the possibility most people who do it are hoping for is that they are revived at a point when society can handle the increase of population despite the effective immortality of all humans (and probably pets too), be it by having very few children or by colonizing the galaxy like locusts or by brain uploading into many times more efficient (in terms of intelligence per watt) AI.

While this is not at all certain, you can certainly argue that it's ethically profitable if you can afford it.

>>4913211
>it's really fucking weird
>everyone wishes they didn't do it
>narrow framing strikes again

Thawing or macro cracks are probably not an issue, I think if frozen people are ever revived, it will be by uploading the structure of their brain into a computer and simulating it. The wetware is needed to work again, just preserve the neuronal structure so it can be reconstructed.

>>4913330
>uploading the structure of the brain
>after it's been dead for an extended period of time

>>4913330

Why would I sign up for that? Better to just avoid dying by spending money on rejuvenation research instead.

Who would want to revive me anyway?

No one chronically frozen will ever be revived.. however around 2030-2049, we will have developed the technology for indefinite stasis sleep. With a large sum of money you will be able to be put to sleep until around 2150-2300 when we will have technology to live forever. So if you want to live forever start saving your cash up and dont do anything stupid for awhile.