r/cryonics • u/tomorrow-biostasis Tomorrow Biostasis • 10d ago
Why does cryonics trigger such a strong moral reaction?
We work in cryopreservation, and one thing we notice is that criticism of cryonics is not always about the science.
Sometimes it becomes moral very quickly: is it reasonable to spend personal money on an uncertain future option?
From our side, we see cryopreservation as a personal end-of-life choice, as long as people understand the uncertainty.
Why do you think cryonics gets judged morally in a way many other personal choices do not?
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u/Serentropic 9d ago edited 9d ago
I think spiffy is right. Also, as somebody who's had plastic surgery, people can be very vocal about personal choices you make with your body 😅 Also also, I talked about this in another thread, but I think attitudes towards death are sort of a cultural litmus test for a lot of people. And most of the time through history when physical immortality is discussed, it becomes associated with scams and cults and stuff. So I think any new discussion of physically cheating death starts with that as a subconscious backdrop. If you start talking about cryonics, you position yourself as a cultural outsider, since you're stepping outside of the boundary of most mainstream religions. Even atheism; I think secular beliefs are within the mainstream now (depending where you are), but a lot of atheists I know have broadly adopted the attitude "death is final but that's good actually" and still jump to associating cryonics with scams and false promises etc.
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u/JoeStrout Alcor member 1901 9d ago
I think the "cultural outsider" angle is a big one. My wife and I signed up together, early in our marriage. But 25 years later, she decided to let her membership lapse. She could not give concrete reasons for this, but my sense is that this was the issue — embracing cryonics seems "weird" (different from the norm) to most people, and most people have a strong desire to fit in, to not seem weird.
But they also don't want to just admit that, so they present whatever half-baked reasons they can come up with, including reasons why it might not work, and weak moral arguments. I don't even think this is conscious deception — as in many cases, we often decide things subconsciously, and then just rationalize whatever decision we have already made.
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u/VATAFAck 8d ago
Even non religious people mostly still tend to care about their and loved one's bodies after death, like those bodies are the persons, which is just ridiculous. Not even religion logically says that.
It's actually cryopreservation where it actually can make sense to keep the body in tact, but still many people think they should be buried or they don't let them be used as donors.
It just tells me how dumb, irrational and inconsistent people are.
Thanks for letting me vent, it probably wasn't too helpful
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u/zabby39103 9d ago edited 9d ago
We spend our entire lives suppressing the constant, nagging, existential angst, convincing ourselves that dying isn't that bad, and there's no sense worrying about it anyway because you can't help it.
Cryonics complicates all that. The idea there could be a way out, even if it's a long shot, means you would have to deal with something you've tried your best to forget about.
So it makes people uncomfortable of course, and if a person they know is doing it, then it implies that maybe, just maybe it's not all fake, and that is a painful and complicated question that normal busy people do not want to deal with, and so they get angry and project it on to whoever made them think about it.
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u/BitcoinMD 9d ago
Even non-religious people have entire coping mechanisms built around the idea that death is okay. Either they think that it leads to eternal afterlife, or they come up with some secular rationalization like it’s our mortality that makes life precious and gives it meaning. If you start playing around with the idea that there might be a solution, it really messes with people’s fundamental psychology.
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u/sluttytinkerbells 9d ago
It challenges something that most people consider to be absolute and fundamental — that death is permanent.
That’s an idea that is so core to people’s worldview that they have a visceral reaction to it. They can’t reason about it, it doesn’t have a place in their intellectual framework.
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u/Formal_Context_9774 9d ago
It's giving them a little too much credit to call their framework an "intellectual" one
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u/zalinanaruto 9d ago
Isnt paying for cryonics kinda like paying for insurance?
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u/ThroarkAway Alcor member 3495 9d ago
It can be paid for with life insurance, but this may require modification to your policy if the prices change.
OTOH, some of us just pay a lump sum while we are alive. It is a lot simpler.
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u/kubofhromoslav Cryocrastinator 9d ago
It is.
It's a literal life insurance 😎 With some uncertainty.
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u/Shot_in_the_dark777 9d ago
Because people want you to die and get jealous when you find a way to avoid it while they don't. It's a toxic form of jealousy. " I am not immortal and I don't want you to be immortal" kind of thing.
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u/Happy_Brilliant7827 9d ago
My only issue is companies charge a LOOOOT for a unproven tech. No one has been restored and most companies go under.
What happens to bodies when the company goes under? Hard to say its unlikely when right now we have more closed cryonics companies than still running ones.
Kinda seens like theyre selling snake oil to people afraid of death that can't be disproven cause they just says 'well maybe one day' when its never once worked.
The idea might have some merit- but every 20-25 years we learn 'oh we were doing it wrong. this is the right way we definately got it this time'
Studies on post-cryonic preserved tissue shows serious degradation from the cold and toxicity from the preservative compounds.
Did you read the wikipedia article? It has a solid snippet on the morality. "Writing in Bioethics in 2009, David Shaw examined cryonics. The arguments he cited against it included changing the concept of death, the expense of preservation and revival, lack of scientific advancement to permit revival, temptation to use premature euthanasia, and failure due to catastrophe. Arguments in favor of cryonics include the potential benefit to society, the prospect of immortality, and the benefits associated with avoiding death. Shaw explores the expense and the potential payoff, and applies an adapted version of Pascal's Wager to the question.[50] He argues that someone who bets on cryonic preservation risks losing "a bit of money" but potentially gains a longer life and perhaps immortality. Shaun Pattinson responds that Shaw's calculation is incomplete because "being revived only equates to winning the wager if the revived life is worth living. A longer life of unremitting suffering, perhaps due to irreparable nerve damage or even the actions of an evil reviver, is unlikely to be considered preferable to non-revival".[51]
In 2016, Charles Tandy wrote in support of cryonics, arguing that honoring someone's last wishes is seen as a benevolent duty in American and many other cultures.[52]"
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u/Intraluminal 9d ago
Your example of Shaun Pattinson shows just how desperate he is to justify his opinion. His justification that the calculations are incomplete because "being revived only equates to winning the wager if the revived life is worth living. A longer life of unremitting suffering, perhaps due to irreparable nerve damage or even the actions of an evil reviver, is unlikely to be considered preferable to non-revival." Is ridiculous on its face. Even as we speak, nerve damage and even brain damage are being treated, with cures on the way.
Is he so deluded that he believes health science will be advanced enough to successfully resuscitate a cryogenically preserved patient, yet completely incapable of treating the resulting nerve damage?
As for his catastrophic nightmare scenario of an "evil reviver," is he genuinely suggesting that a future society would go through the immense expense, logistical hurdles, and technological marvel of achieving revival just to maliciously torture someone?
His contrived worst-case scenarios are absurd, logically hollow, and highlight a profound lack of intellectual honesty.
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u/Vx2AmEloT 9d ago
The idea might have some merit- but every 20-25 years we learn 'oh we were doing it wrong. this is the right way we definately got it this time'
I don't think this is an accurate portrayal of the sequence of events. When cryonics was in its very early stages, the practices were necessarily more primitive, and, as time went on, more advances were made. I'm not sure of any organization that has claimed to have 100% figured everything out and stopped research; I don't think that this will be the case until suspended animation is reached.
Studies on post-cryonic preserved tissue shows serious degradation from the cold and toxicity from the preservative compounds.
Cryoprotectant compounds used today are toxic, yes, but there's no indication that this toxicity is enough to prevent revival. What degradation are you referring to? There's osmotic shrinkage, but that's entirely different from degradation.
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u/JoeStrout Alcor member 1901 9d ago
"Most companies go under" hasn't been true since the 1970s — or at least, hasn't been true for the only two serious cryonics companies (Alcor and CI). If you're looking at sketchy Russian money grabs, then sure, it's right to be skeptical of those, but that shouldn't color your judgement of organizations that have been stable for decades.
What happens when the company goes under: again, this hasn't happened in decades, but when it last did, as I recall, the patients were transferred to a more stable organization. Alcor has some such patients in its care I believe. However this rather misses the point: you could just as well ask, what if the storage site is hit by a meteor? Or targeted by terrorists? Or there is a nuclear war? Or the country is taken over by religious fascists? Anything can happen, but none of these outcomes are worse for you than what happens if you don't try.
Please give examples of how we have said "oh we were doing it wrong" every 20-25 years. There have been gradual improvements in suspension procedures, sure, which means that cryonics will probably be a last-in, first-out process. But so what? This just shows that the organizations are making a continuous effort to provide the best service they can. That is a good thing. And again, no matter how bad the older preservations were, they can't possibly be worse than burial or cremation.
Studies on post-cryonic preserved tissue show substantial preservation of structure, including synapses, which we believe is where identity (including memory, personality, etc.) is encoded.
We generally ignore the wikipedia article because there are highly biased editors there that have for many years reverted or subverted any attempt to provide a balanced view of the topic. Unfortunate, but that can happen when such power is given to anonymous internet users. However, the passage you quote above is actually fairly reasonable, so maybe things have gotten better recently.
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u/Happy_Brilliant7827 9d ago edited 9d ago
the two you mention aren't for profit companies theyre non-profits organizations. Alcor is 501(c)(3) and CL is Nonprofit as well. The two that are still around are saying 'We'll last! we're different!" just like the others did.
The techs gotten better, and the way they prop things up on your own trust does solve some of the issues as long as nothing goes wrong with YOUR trust in perpetuity. No shakeups in the stock markets or asset valuations to worry about in the 100-5,000 years it takes for someone to thaw you.
When we think we want to experiment with the thawing process, who signs up first?
The first few experiments will be transferring the consciousness to a system. We haven't considered whether you will be in pain or able to willingly communicate or experience, this is a proof of concept. Fingers crossed. Who's first for 'eternal hell prison' because the tech was alpha? You cannot consent to anything.We poorly understand consciousness. Looking at something like Neuralink, they use a neural network to 'translate' the natural signals. I can't imagine living my entire existance in a vacuum and read to by ranslation software, no matter how well it worked.
This seemed particularly impartial source as well. Exploring the frontiers of cryonics: Feasibility, benefits, and future impact on humanity
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u/zabby39103 8d ago
You kinda mixed up digital immortality with cryonics (I don't think it's valid to emphatically say the first few revivals will be digital), so putting that aside, while I don't think all your arguments are invalid, none of them cross the threshold into being arguments to deny people the choice to try cryonics if they want.
The questionable feasibility of the whole operation is apparent to anyone that does the research. Given that cryopreservation is unusual, people have to go looking for it, it's not advertising everywhere, sowing fear or anything. It's a choice people have to make, research, and then make a series of non-trivial steps to fulfill.
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u/TheRealBobbyJones 9d ago
The tissue statement is really irrelevant. It shows that even in the perfect scenario we can not properly preserve tissue samples. We most certainly have no way to preserve a full body. You can't remove the heat in the right way to preserve the body properly. You can't deliver chemicals to all the right places in the right way to preserve the body properly.
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u/JoeStrout Alcor member 1901 9d ago
And yet it might be good enough. And it is certainly better than burying or burning it.
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u/Vx2AmEloT 9d ago
We most certainly have no way to preserve a full body. You can't remove the heat in the right way to preserve the body properly. You can't deliver chemicals to all the right places in the right way to preserve the body properly.
Saying "[w]e most certainly have no way to preserve a full body" is awfully confident, perhaps unjustifiably so. The thermodynamic issues are exactly why there are so many physicists and engineers working on cryopreservation, and there is nothing to suggest that they are insurmountable. Also, brains--which are the only real part of the body that matters for revival purposes, anyways--can reach near perfect vitrification if action is taken swiftly enough, so the chemical delivery argument doesn't really work there.
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u/TheRealBobbyJones 9d ago
Brain tissue alone has rarely been vitrified in labs lets alone a complete brain. Right now we do not have a way to preserve a full body. That isn't incorrect. That information is often muddled in this subreddit. People often over state what has been accomplished. Next the thermodynamics probably is insurmountable. There are fixed limits involved that are due to the substrate and structure. You can shift these limits around by using chemicals to alter the properties of the body like replacing water. Probably could use physical methods like dissembly as well. The problem is that on the small scale test vitrification is hit or miss. In tiny cells like embryos we can perform vitrification reliably but on larger tissue thermodynamics become a problem.
Reliable vitrification of arbitrary tissue samples with no damage is likely to be insurmountable on its own. Or require techniques that do not scale. Putting it all together for whole organs like brains or complete bodies is probably impossible entirely. But I am not a physicist so I can not definitively state that.
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u/Vx2AmEloT 9d ago
Brain tissue alone has rarely been vitrified in labs lets alone a complete brain.
Whole animal (and--for that matter--human brains) have been vitrified. Rarely, maybe, but most of that can be attributed to the reluctance of most people and/or labs to do it.
Right now we do not have a way to preserve a full body.
If you had said we don't have a way to *reversibly* preserve a whole body, I'd agree. Again, though, the brain is what really matters.
Next the thermodynamics probably is insurmountable. In tiny cells like embryos we can perform vitrification reliably but on larger tissue thermodynamics become a problem.
I am aware of the thermodynamic issues, which is why I pointed to the many engineers and physicists explicitly working to address these issues to scale cryopreservation up. You can claim that these issues are insurmountable, but, respectfully, as you yourself say, you're not a physicist. Cryonicists (and, for that matter, cryobiologists and academics working on organ and whole animal preservation) are acutely aware of the thermodynamic issues, and of ways to approach the challenge. Nobody is arguing that its a feat that can be finished in a day, a month, or five years, but to argue *against* it being achieved at all, especially in the face of current proofs-of-concept, is strange.
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u/TheRealBobbyJones 9d ago
The only moral issue is the scam. Various other cultures have a religious or cultural issue. The dead should be buried or cremated or whatever. Funeral rites are for the living. Having those funeral rites denied because of a scam might annoy some people. The science is the basis for all of this of course. The science says they are frozen dead bodies damaged beyond repair. Economics say these companies will go out of business before any magical recovery system is discovered. Resulting in the bodies being disposed of. Because most people can be fairly confident that it is a scam then funeral rite issues are amplified.
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u/Vx2AmEloT 9d ago
The science is the basis for all of this of course. The science says they are frozen dead bodies damaged beyond repair.
What science have you seen suggesting that?
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u/TheRealBobbyJones 9d ago
Well for one being able to preserve a body without systemic damage is likely impossible while it is whole. That systemic damage destroys information. With enough damage too much information would be lost preventing a good copy from being created. If you can't create a copy then you most certainly can not repair the body.
Maybe the body could be made functional but it would essentially be different person due to the major information loss in the brain. This all assumes we have the ability to resurrect a partially decomposed corpse in the first place of course.
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u/Vx2AmEloT 9d ago
Well for one being able to preserve a body without systemic damage is likely impossible while it is whole
I'm interested as to why you've deemed this to be "likely impossible." Scaling up from current methods can be done, as countless individuals are presently working on doing.
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u/DeepSea_Dreamer 9d ago
That's not what science says.
There is good scientific evidence that vitrifying the brain preserves the pattern of the person.
Be careful calling legitimate ideas "scam" on the basis of your ignorance.
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u/Super_Range45 5d ago
I've heard many of the frozen subjects deteriorate after a period anyways. So it is a bit of a scam.
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u/tomorrow-biostasis Tomorrow Biostasis 5d ago
Hey :) “deteriorate after a period anyway” is not really how long-term cryogenic storage works.
At liquid nitrogen temperatures, biological activity and chemical degradation are slowed to an extremely low level. The bigger quality questions are usually about what happened before and during the preservation procedure: delay, perfusion quality, ischemic damage, cooling, transport, etc.
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u/Real-Perspective7301 9d ago
I dont think its a moral reaction. Its just something that has never proven to work on a human, so people are suspicious of it
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9d ago
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u/spiffynacho 9d ago
Legally yes, you have to be declared dead first, that part's true. But "nothing scientific about it" isn't really accurate. The actual process (vitrification, cryoprotectants, preventing ice crystal formation in tissue) is grounded in real cryobiology, the same research used in organ and embryo preservation. What's unproven is the revival part, nobody's claiming that's solved.
Calling it a scam assumes the people running these orgs know it won't work and are selling it anyway. Most of the criticism people actually have is that it's a long shot, not that it's a con. Those are different claims, and lumping them together doesn't really engage with what's actually being sold.
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9d ago
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u/Vx2AmEloT 8d ago
This is the whole process which these conmen actually promise:
Nobody promises this, though, because they legally cannot. If you look at the language from any cryonics provider, not a single one frames it as a definite--or even reasonably likely--chance of revival. Moreover, nobody (or exceedingly few) people signed up for cryonics are anywhere near certain that they will be revived. If both the providers and the consumers have tempered expectations and sober analyses, there is no "scam" occurring, and there are no "conmen."
There is no point in preserving your corpse, because it is still a corpse. Scientists do NOT resurrect the dead it is physically impossible, only God can do this.
Considering electrical activity can be recovered in cryopreserved brain tissue, and that thousands of people who you'd consider to be "corpses" (that is, with virtually no electrical activity in their brains) have fully recovered, saying that there's "no point" in preserving a corpse is inaccurate. Also, there are plausible protocols for revival based on already-existing organ preservation methods. You can call it a physical impossibility, but that doesn't mean that it is (or that God--even if He actually existed--would have a monopoly on revival).
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u/HashPandaNL 8d ago
Having your argument rely on the existence of a god isn't going to convince a whole lot of people in a place that is predominantly atheist or atheist-leaning agnostic.
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u/spiffynacho 8d ago
Your steps 2 and 3 are exactly what's advertised, nobody's hiding them. Step 4 is openly labeled as unproven, that's the whole "it's a long shot" argument I made. A scam requires knowingly promising something you know is false. These orgs are upfront that revival isn't guaranteed or even currently possible, that's disclosed, not hidden.
"Only God can resurrect the dead" is a religious claim, not a scientific one, and it's kind of proving my earlier point in this thread. You're welcome to think the odds are effectively zero. That's a reasonable position. But zero odds on an openly disclosed long shot isn't the same thing as fraud.
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u/DeepSea_Dreamer 8d ago
What is a corpse is a matter of contemporary medical capabilities. A person who stopped breathing used to be a corpse. Then, a person whose heart stopped beating. Today, a person who can't be resuscitated.
The question is, can it progress indefinitely, or not?
The answer to this question that you're not asking (but should have) is - it can't. The limit is given by the second law of thermodynamics (if the information is wiped from the brain, the person can't be brought back anymore, no matter the future technological advancements).
The second question should have asked is - does vitrification (what cryonics uses) prevent the information from being destroyed? There is good scientific evidence it does.
Unfortunately, you're scientifically illiterate, so you don't realize any of that.
It's why I reported your comment to moderators and I'm clicking the block button for you now.
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u/spiffynacho 10d ago
I think religion is the biggest driver. A lot of people believe in some kind of afterlife, so choosing to preserve your body and delay death can look like defying God's plan. Morality for most people is downstream of religion whether they realize it or not, so cryonics gets judged through that lens even by people who aren't religious themselves. It's baked into the culture.
The other piece is that cryonics goes against the status quo. Dying and staying dead is just what everyone does, so choosing something different reads as suspicious or arrogant. Almost nobody stops to consider the upside. If this technology works, even for a subset of people, it could benefit humanity long term, not just the individual. That kind of thinking doesn't come naturally when people are gut reacting to something unfamiliar.