ISSN Imprimer: 2151-805X
ISSN En ligne: 2151-8068
Cryonic Life Extension: Scientific Possibility or Stupid Pipe Dream?
RÉSUMÉ
The central quest in cryonics is to preserve brain-encoded information essential to personhood after cryonic preservation. Advocates of cryonics seek to use cryoprotectants, vitrification, and extreme cold to extend the life of an individual when conventional methods fail. This means of life extension is employed for an intended period of decades, or even centuries, until safe reversal of the preservation process, as well as treatment for the underlying medical condition, becomes feasible.
Such an undertaking is predicated on three principles, only one being well established. The first is that life can be suspended as long as attention is directed at preserving the basic biological structures upon which life is based. The second is that technology will become available to extend the first principle to human organisms. The third is that post-thawing cellular damage might be repaired, for example using nanomedicine.
However, a number of problematic scenarios may emerge as the required innovations are developed. Consider some possible outcomes where only the head is cryopreserved: (1) failure to reanimate the individual, (2) existence as a reanimated head attached to a new body, and (3) existence as a reanimated head existing independently from a body. Additional issues emerge: What moral standing does the cryopreserved individual now have? What is the legal and moral status of individuals who end up technically alive but with severe neurological damage? And finally, who should be responsible for the care of a thawed patient who requires complex medical care?
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Dein Simon, Cryonics: Science or Religion, Journal of Religion and Health, 61, 4, 2022. Crossref