Depressed Metabolism

In spite of the empiricist trend of modern science, the quest for certainty, a product of the theological orientation of philosophy, still survives in the assertion that some general truths about the future must be known if scientific predictions are to be acceptable.  It is hard to see what would be gained by the knowledge [...]

In the March 2010 issue of Reason magazine Tim Cavanaugh writes about the rift between transhumanists who favor biological enhancement versus those who favor non-biological “mechanical” enhancement:

These days transhumanists talk a lot about subcutaneous data ports, permanent immersion in virtual reality, even extending male life spans by removing the gonads. But they spend noticeably little [...]

There are various competing strategies how to achieve meaningful life extension or rejuvenation, including , but not limited to, genetic manipulation, periodical elimination of damage, caloric restriction,  molecular nanotechnology and mind uploading. A useful review of these strategies has been published in the book The Scientific Conquest of Death: Essays on Infinite Lifespans (2004) by [...]

Cryonics Institute President Ben Best talks about cryonics and how cryonics is related to rejuvenation in this one-hour long interview on “It’s Rainmaking Time!”
Further Reading: Depressed Metabolism Interview with Ben Best

Peter Thiel, one of the few original minds in the life extension and accelerating-technological-change community, is featured in a short interview at Wired. Thiel seems to be aware of the limitations of extrapolation of trends:

We’ve been living in a unique period of accelerating technological progress. We’ve gone from horses to cars to planes to rockets [...]

Scientific consensus seems a reasonable concept. If a great number of individual scientists arrive at a similar opinion this is generally a sufficient reason to have confidence in those views. Skeptics about scientific consensus often use examples of scientific views that started out as a minority view to become the majority view later. Although these [...]

Singularity skeptic Mark Plus drew my attention to the following blog post. The author writes that:

Chalmers’ (and other advocates of the possibility of a Singularity) argument starts off with the simple observation that machines have gained computing power at an extraordinary rate over the past several years, a trend that one can extrapolate to a [...]

Once a year I try to attend at least one biogerontology conference. Although I attend biogerontology conferences out of personal interest, and at my own expense, they are the most fruitful grounds for promoting cryonics I have found, and this is especially true of SENS conferences.
I have missed none of the four SENS conferences that [...]

There is a growing literature that discusses the technical aspects of revival of cryonics patients. The following list of the published literature was compiled by Ralph Merkle and Robert Freitas and published as an appendix of their article on molecular nanotechnology in Cryonics Magazine 2008-4:
Robert C.W. Ettinger, The Prospect of Immortality, Doubleday, NY, 1964
Jerome B. [...]

This past weekend Motel X, the Lisbon (Portugal) International Horror festival, had its third anniversary. It is one of the smaller international horror festivals around, but this year they managed to have both Stuart Gordon, director of several Lovecraft adaptions, and John Landis, director of the horror classic An American Werewolf in London, as special [...]

Today is the second anniversary of Depressed Metabolism. As of writing, this website has close to 200 feed subscribers. On an average day the website has 150 unique visitors, which is an encouraging increase in traffic since our last update. This is even more remarkable in light of the fact that new blog entries with [...]

In his classic book Significance and Basic Postulates of Economic Theory (1938) Terence W. Hutchison  makes the case for economics as an empirical science.
An interesting aspect about this book is the ease with which Terence W. Hutchison uses logical empiricist authors like Moritz Schlick, Rudulf Carnap, and Otto Neurath but also the “critical rationalist” Karl [...]

Max More, founder of the Extropy Institute, and one of the few futurist thinkers with a solid understanding of the philosophy of science, outlines his current views on the global warming controversy after being identified as a “denier” and “anti-science” by  some of his (transhumanist) critics:

We skeptics (okay, “planetary traitors” if you prefer) actually hold [...]

Most contemporary philosophers and social scientists have little interest and understanding of logic or the physical sciences and  therefore have little to offer to those who want to understand the philosophical aspects of knowledge. The following five books have been written by thinkers who have a great respect for science and the importance of empirical [...]

From the preface of Michael Munowitz’s Principles of Chemistry:

The wonder of the world is not its complexity, but its simplicity. Given enough color and canvas, anybody can make a mess; that, we do ourselves. More to admire is the artist who makes do with little, the artist whose art is to conceal an economy of [...]

The June 2009 issue of Rejuvenation Research features an article by Cryonics Insitute President Ben Best about the involvement of nuclear DNA damage in the aging process:

Abstract
This paper presents evidence that damage to nuclear DNA (nDNA) is a direct cause of aging in addition to the effects of nDNA damage on cancer, apoptosis, and cellular [...]

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Genesis 2:7
For breath is life, and if you breathe well you will live long on earth.  – Sanskrit Proverb

In the Beginning…
Since the beginning of modern resuscitation over [...]

The Scientific Conception of the World: The Vienna Circle (Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung: Der Wiener Kreis)

Whenever there is a major economic event (a rapid decline of stock prices, a spike in the price of oil, high unemployment, etc.) the media can be counted on to feature a person who was predicting these events all along. This should not be surprising because there are so many professional economists and commentators who [...]

Hans Reichenbach’s The Rise of Scientific Philosophy is among the most accessible and illuminating statements of logical empiricism. Although the book can be read as an introduction to philosophy, the central message of the work is that most of what constitutes philosophy is either (outdated) pre-scientific speculation or incoherent reasoning.
One of the most powerful chapters [...]

Source: ExtroBritannia
Why the much anticipated medical breakthroughs of the early 21st century are failing to materialize
Saturday 30th May 2009, 2pm-4pm. Room 403 (fourth floor), Birkbeck College, Torrington Square, London WC1E 7HX. There’s no charge to attend, and everyone is welcome.
Speaker
Mike Darwin has 30 years experience in cutting edge medical research. Co-founder of the Institute for [...]

In “Ice Baby” by Tom Mueller, the May 2009 issue of National Geographic announces the recent discovery of a 40,000 year old baby mammoth in Sibera. She is called Lyuba, named after the wife of the Nenet reindeer herder who found her, and is in near-pristine condition, having even her eyelashes. In fact, besides most [...]

Basile J. Luyet (1897-1974) can be considered the father of modern cryobiology. His book “Life and Death at Low Temperatures” is a classic in the field and his journal “Biodynamica” evolved into a publication solely dedicated to the study of low temperature biology. Luyet identified the possibility of solidification without crystallization at low temperatures (vitrification) [...]

Less Wrong is a community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality:
Over the last decades, new experiments have changed science’s picture of the way we think – the ways we succeed or fail to obtain the truth, or fulfill our goals.  The heuristics and biases program, in cognitive psychology, has exposed dozens of [...]

The association of cryonics with “transhumanism” seems inevitable but is problematic.  It seems inevitable because cryonics should be most attractive to people with a very positive perspective on the future capabilities of technology. Barring rapid advances in mitigating aging, cryonics  offers the only credible option for transhumanists to become a part of that future. It [...]

Following the news that mice have been cloned from 16 year old frozen tissue comes an announcement that scientists have made advances in resurrecting  the extinct Pyrenean Ibex. This does not only offer hope that someday other extinct species may be resurrected and returned to nature, it further reinforces the power of low temperatures to [...]

Various approaches are available to investigate cryoprotectant toxicity, ranging from theoretical work in organic chemistry to  cryopreservation of complete animals. Because resuscitation of complex organisms after cryopreservation is not feasible at the moment, such investigations need to be confined to viability assays of individual cells and tissues or ultrastructural  studies.
One simple model that allows for [...]

This is the eighth entry in a series about resuscitation of non-hibernating rodents from circulatory arrest at ultraprofound hypothermic and high subzero temperatures. In 1982, P.D. Rogers and G.P. Webb published some of their observations (based on previous papers and a Ph.D thesis) after carrying out a classroom demonstration of suspended animation in which they [...]

This is the seventh entry in a series about resuscitation of non-hibernating rodents from circulatory arrest at ultraprofound hypothermic and high subzero temperatures. After spending a few years on perfecting on Andjus’ technique for resuscitating rodents (rats and hamsters) from ultraprofound hypothermic and high subzero temperatures, Audrey Smith upped the ante and attempted the same [...]

This is the sixth entry in a series about resuscitation of non-hibernating rodents from circulatory arrest at ultraprofound hypothermic and high subzero temperatures. After successfully reanimating rats from deep body temperatures of 0 – 2 degrees C and subsequent respiratory and cardiac arrest, Andjus allowed the survivors to live for many months afterward in order [...]