Death

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Ben Best on the feasibility of cryonics at SENS3

Death is Gruesome…Cryonics Only Makes it Less So!

William Faloon is a Licensed Funeral Director and Embalmer (Florida license number: F042784)
Human beings are largely unaware about the gruesome nature of “death”
Humans also shy away from the mutilation that occurs during hospital surgery.
Hollywood films portray cryonics in a glamorous high-tech manner that makes it appear that one’s body can easily be placed into a [...]

Baby boomers confront the reaper

One question that is going to be of great interest is how aging baby boomers will confront aging and death. Where previous generations have found peace in religion and silent resignation, there are reasons to believe that this generation will not be so complacent. The baby boom generation, or at least those who have shaped [...]

Cryonics and philosophy of science

The 2008-3 issue of Alcor’s Cryonics Magazine contains a number of articles about the pitfalls of (excessive) scientific optimism and its potential adverse effects on the organizational and practical aspects of cryonics. My own contribution contrasts cryonics as medical conservatism with the kind of scientific meliorism that is often associated with movements such as transhumanism [...]

A simple method to resuscitate rats from cold circulatory arrest

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 [...]

Resusciation of larger mammals from subzero temperatures

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 [...]

Behavioral effects of ultraprofound hypothermia in rats

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 [...]

Methods to resuscitate rodents from ultraprofound hypothermia

This is the fifth entry in a series about resuscitation of non-hibernating rodents from circulatory arrest at ultraprofound hypothermic and high subzero temperatures. As we have seen, Radoslav Andjus had determined a method for achieving excellent (75-100%) recovery rates in rats cooled to 0-2 degrees C by local cardiac heating prior to warming the whole [...]

Resuscitation of rats from high subzero temperatures

This is the fourth entry in a series about resuscitation of non-hibernating rodents from circulatory arrest at ultraprofound hypothermic and high subzero temperatures. Up to this point we have discussed the groundbreaking research in the early 1950s performed by Radoslav Andjus in resuscitating rats from body temperatures between 0 and 2 degrees C. Having determined [...]

Microwave diathermy to resuscitate hypothermic rats

This is the third entry in a series about resuscitation of non-hibernating rodents from circulatory arrest at ultraprofound hypothermic and high subzero temperatures. Andjus and Smith were delighted that they had managed to modify Andjus’ chest-wall heating technique from using a hot metal spatula to using a focused beam of light in order to preferentially [...]

Improved methods for resuscitation of cold rats

This is the second entry in a series about resuscitation of non-hibernating rodents from circulatory arrest at ultraprofound hypothermic and high subzero temperatures. As discussed previously, in 1951 Radoslav Andjus developed a simple method for resuscitating rats cooled to deep body temperatures between 0 and 2 degrees C which involved applying a hot spatula to [...]

Resuscitation of rodents from hypothermic circulatory arrest

This is the first entry in a series about resuscitation of non-hibernating rodents from circulatory arrest at ultraprofound hypothermic and high subzero temperatures. Prior work in hypothermia began in the early 1900s, but because cardiac and respiratory arrest were observed in the animals around 15 degrees C, researchers assumed they were irreversibly dead [...]

Experiment made on the mummy

As documented in David M. Friedman’s The Immortalists: Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever, Lindbergh and Carrel considered the human body a living machine made of replaceable parts. A major reason why Carrel was interested in developing and refining equipment to perfuse isolated organs is because he believed that [...]

Facing death with Epicurus

James Warren is to be complimented for writing a thorough and persuasive book on Epicurean thinking about death. In Facing Death: Epicurus and his Critics, Warren offers a detailed review of Epicurus’ view that “death is nothing to us.” His treatment of Epicurus’ critics should be considered a success for the following three reasons. The [...]

Famous preserved body parts

The website TopTenz recently published a list of the Top 10 Most Famous Preserved Body Parts. The list includes Galileo’s finger and Albert Einstein’s brain. As has been discussed on this blog before, the preservation of human brains (no matter how frivolous the intention) raises a number of important questions about the nature of death [...]

My road to a possible future

My experiences with death began in 1974, when I was age 10.
On Labor Day Sunday, while watching the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon, my father told me to turn the TV off.
When I asked why, he said my grandfather, age 74, died.
I would learn years later that he had emphysema and heart trouble.
I did not know [...]

The secular case against immortality

In 2003 George Hart published an article called “The Immortal’s Dilemma: Decontructing Eternal Life” , making a secular case against immortality.  Hart mainly uses logical arguments and provides a fair amount of room to address a number of possible objections to his position. In a nutshell, Hart considers two variants of immortality, one without [...]

Death is nothing to us

The idea that death gives meaning to life is widespread but does not reflect careful reasoning, and is often a  desperate rationalization of human mortality. As a consequence, life extensionists have not been at great pains to defeat “pro-death” arguments. A (secular) philosophical position that is harder to refute is that we should not fear [...]

Liberty and oblivion

In 1991 the Libertarian Alliance published an article called “Immortality: Liberty’s Final frontier” (PDF) by David Nicholas. In this article the author argues that “the continuing fact of death renders all talk of liberty ultimately futile.” The author further argues that our concern for the future will diminish as we approach death. But instead of [...]

Immortality and boredom

If immortality means a zero chance of death, it is doubtful whether mankind (or any lifeform) will ever achieve this. Nevertheless, advocates for extending the maximum human life span often face arguments that address the negative features of being immortal. It is important to be aware that arguments against immortality do not necessarily apply to [...]

Edvard Munch’s Death in the Sick Chamber

Edvard Munch's Death in the Sick Chamber

Edvard Munch’s painting “Death in the Sick Chamber” (1895) portrays death as expressed through the survivors. A striking aspect of this work is that all the people in the room do not console one another and are physically and emotionally isolated.

In “Modern Art and Death”, Carla Gottlieb writes:
….the faces are contorted, not in mourning for [...]

Carl Jung on the soul and death

Carl Jung on the soul and death

In the future, Carl C.G. Jung may not be so much remembered for his contributions to science as for his beautiful writing, imagination, and wide range of interests. In his meditation on death, “The Soul and Death” (“Seele und Tod”), Jung treats death as the inevitable descent after an ascent up a hill. Jung’s stoic [...]

Suspended animation is not cryonics

On the Immortality Institute cryonics forum, Alcor Board member and researcher Brian Wowk has posted some insightful comments on the difference between suspended animation and cryonics. Although  impressive technical advances in cryonics to date, such as vitrification, have failed to translate into increased membership growth for cryonics organizations, many cryonics observers believe that demonstration of [...]

The history of scientific immortalism

Now online is Mike Perry’s article “Historical Steps Toward the Scientific Conquest of Death.” This article was previously published in 2003 in Physical Immortality, a short-lived publication by the Society for Venturism.
The article is adapted from Chapter 2 of Mike Perry’s book, Forever For All: Moral Philosophy, Cryonics, and the Scientific Prospects for Immortality.

This book [...]

Herbert Marcuse on the ideology of death

Herbert Marcuse on the ideology of death

Although critical philosophers like Herbert Marcuse (1898 – 1979) are not known for their contributions to economics or analytic philosophy, Marcuse’s essay “The Ideology of Death” (1952) should appeal to those who think that death is not a necessary part of existence, let alone something to celebrate. In this essay, the author discusses the phenomenon [...]

Cryonics as an elective medical procedure

The two most popular technical arguments against human cryopreservation are that cryonics causes irreversible freezing damage and that the delay between pronouncement of legal death and the start of cryonics procedures causes irreversible injury to the brain. Such arguments can be countered by pointing out that freezing damage and prolonged periods of warm ischemia do [...]

Insurance against death through cryonics

Let’s face it: we’re all (still) getting older, and aging leads to death. This is a major reason for cryonics’ existence — to preserve ourselves, usually in an aged, diseased, and/or deteriorated state, until medical science is capable of curing our ailments and prolonging our lives. Because many people (especially young cryonics supporters) tend to [...]

Curing aging does not make cryonics redundant

Most life extensionists and transhumanists do not buy into many of the myths about cryonics. But one perspective that is sometimes voiced by futurists is that cryonics is a rational backup plan until aging is cured. This position has some serious shortcomings and potentially lethal implications.
Human cryopreservation is the practice of placing terminally ill patients [...]

Teaching children about cryonics

Teaching children about cryonics

How do you teach a child about something that is so far “unproven”?  How do you bring up the subject of cryonics and how it may allow someone to be reanimated in the future?
I am a cryonicist, I’ve been a signed member for years, I’m also a mother, social activist, environmentalist and author.  I teach [...]

Transforming the death industry

In August 1968, Cryonics Reports (a publication from the Cryonics Society of New York) published an editorial that advocates the re-evaluation of the mortician and the funeral profession to make it a part of long term medical care, i.e. to create a life industry.  A part of this editorial is published below:
In 1964, with the [...]

Radical life extension and information-theoretic death

Immortality as a zero probability of information-theoretic death may not be possible or realistic. A more practical (and less controversial) objective of radical life extension would be to minimize the chance of information-theoretic death. In analogy with Aubrey de Grey’s objective to cure human aging by engineering negligible senescence (SENS), the objective of radical life [...]