Why Cryonics Makes Sense

Why Cryonics Make Sense is a post on Wait But Why written by Tim Urban in 2016 about cryonics. The post explains how cryonics work and argues the case for the use of it.

The post tackles Tim's initial idea of cryonics word by word, correcting his assumptions. It starts with separating cryonics from cryogenics, as they have different meanings.

There are two main cryonics companies, the Cryonics Institute (CI), and Alcor. The American Cryonics Society also exists, but it stores with CI.

It then explains how becoming a member isn't that expensive, not much more than cable, even if you subscribe to Alcor. Alcor is more expensive because the membership fee also includes a backup monetary reserve in case of financial crisis. Preserving only your head is also cheaper than preserving your whole body.

The article then goes into how the preservation process works. Cryonicists see death as a process. To them, what we consider death is a point when the body is not revivable with current technologies. To them what is considered dead is dead because they cannot be saved with current technology but can be saved with future technology. Therefore, cryonics is not really bringing someone back to life, but preserving their brain. The hope is that in the future technology can be made to make those brains conscious again. There is a point where the brain becomes irreparably damaged that it cannot be read, called Info Death (information stored in the brain's neurons is lost), so there is a range when someone can get preserved. Of course, if someone dies violently and their physical body is destroyed, there is no hope.

It then says how when someone is preserved in cryonics, water is not being frozen. Rather, medical grad antifreeze called cryoprotectant solution is pumped through blood vessels and lowers the body temperature of the patient. The person is then put into liquid nitrogen until they can be revived.

The main factors determining how long you will be vitrified are the quality of the preservation and how advanced the revival treatments would be.

It then goes into the obstacles in front of you being able to wake up in the future, and notes how the future will most likely be very advanced and a utopia.

The idea is that as the quality of preservation gets better over time, disregarding other factors, those who were preserved the latest would be revived the earliest, because those who got the best preservation need the least amount of technology to be revived.

The rest of the post then shows a cryonisist's response to the most popular criticism about cryonics, both from the general public and scientists.

The post ends with Tim saying that while cryonics may not be for everybody, if you're interested in cryonics you should sign up immediately, because one can legally die at any time and nothing can be done if they haven't signed up for cryonics.

## Full post

https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/cryonics.html

## Gallery

A graph showing how cryonicists view legal death (what the government defines as death), clinical death (when a patient’s heart rate and breathing stops), and Info Death.Cryonics technology, like all technology, will experience exponential growth.Note that the graph only uses straight lines for simplicity. It should be exponential growth. This graph shows the technology gap between cryonics preservation technologies and revival technologies.This graph shows how those who had the best and latest preservation would be revived first compared to those who preserved themselves earlier.