The afterlife of rich "scumbags"

Is there a chance to revive cryonized corpses?

Olga Lazareva, Bloknot

Cryonics, which most scientists consider quackery and pseudoscience, has few followers. Basically, these are very wealthy people who believe in a miracle.

Having watched enough fiction, we have already got used to the idea that in some more or less distant future people can be frozen, stored in cryocapsules for decades, and then thawed and revived as if nothing had happened.

Such technologies do not exist yet, but there are companies that are engaged in cryopreservation — deep freezing and storage of human and animal corpses. It is forbidden to freeze living people, since there are no technologies for defrosting with revival, which means that "cryonation" in this case will actually mean murder.

Cryopreservation is a service (which, as it is easy to guess, costs a lot of money), which has no practical value, but is designed for the fact that in some future science will suddenly make a breakthrough, and bodies can not only be thawed, but also revived (and then also cured of the diseases that caused death).

There is also a company in Russia that freezes corpses — KrioRus. Recently, she came to the attention of the media several times in connection with an internal scandal. Its co—founders — former spouses Danila Medvedev and Valeria Udalova - are in conflict over property rights, land management and, ultimately, vessels with cryonized remains. In early December, it was reported that Udalova allegedly stole three such tanks from the new owner of the company. In September, Medvedev accused his ex-wife of trying to remove these tanks from the site rented for their storage in Sergiev Posad.

When this story spread through the media, ordinary mortals had the opportunity to see what this cryonics service, available only to a select few, looks like. It turned out to be unsightly. Instead of capsules made of silver metal with glass "windows" and flashing lights, the photographs showed something suggestive of a construction site and concrete mixers. Dewar's vessels, in which frozen bodies are stored, are dirty-gray tanks, and it is impossible to guess their purpose without special explanations.

In addition, they were also transported "a la construction site" - on some rented trucks with empty platforms, where oiled rags, pieces of iron and so on were lying around. Having seen this, fans of science fiction, dreaming of being frozen and waking up somewhere in the XXXI century, probably thought about it.

Photo: Lev Shishkov

For the sake of justice, we must admit that all these are so far frivolous ideas. Many scientists oppose cryonics, believing that it is nothing more than a diversion of resources from solving really important problems and a means of luring money from exalted wealthy citizens. There are also critics, and titled ones, who call cryonics nothing but quackery and pseudoscience.

Nevertheless, the "charlatans" and "pseudo-scientists" representing it are already taking colossal sums from people who want to "immortalize" their mortal bodies. The brochures they offer to future customers mention nanotechnology and artificial intelligence — but not a word is said about the fact that the key issues of cryonics have not even come close to the horizons behind which their solutions are hidden.

It all started with a physics and mathematics teacher Robert Ettinger, who in 1964 published something like a manifesto called "The Prospect of Immortality", and then founded the Cryonics Institute and the Society of Immortalists.

He did not hide that he was inspired by Neil Jones' science fiction short story "Jameson's Companion", published in 1931. The plot of the story is simple by today's standards. The scientist decides to preserve his body after death forever and ever. After 40 million years, his corpse is found by aliens, the brain is revived and "transplanted" to a cyborg. As a result, the revived mind of a science worker gets the opportunity to explore new Galaxies. (By the way, Isaac Asimov claimed that it was "Jameson's Satellite" that pushed him to create all the works about robotics).In general, the story is outstanding from all sides — but we must not forget that this is just a literary work, the fiction of the author of a whole series of entertaining stories (it was called "Amazing Stories", and it is quite interesting to read nowadays). Many science fiction fans who were eager to bring the future to life right now and immediately, as well as the first transhumanists, actively picked up this idea and began to promote it with enthusiasm, which now, perhaps, would hardly be possible.

By the early 1960s, human bodies were already frozen in liquid nitrogen, but only for "cosmetic" purposes — to prevent decomposition, if for some reason it was impossible to carry out burial in the usual time.

The first person frozen for the purpose of the subsequent alleged "revival" was James Bedford — in early 1967. His cold corpse is still stored in one of the dewars (Dewar vessels — cryopreservation tanks) of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation.

Photo: Alcor

Cryonics received a new impetus in 1986 with the publication of the book "Machines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology", written by an American engineer By Eric Drexler under the influence of the speech of a physicist Richard Feynman's "There's a lot of space down There", which he uttered in 1959. Feynman, an outstanding specialist in the field of theoretical physics, took part in the development of the atomic bomb and subsequently put forward a number of hypotheses that had a tremendous impact on the further development of science. One of them concerned nanotechnology.

Drexler in his book depicts a world in which the entire Library of Congress fits into a microchip the size of a sugar cube, and tiny machines — "universal assemblers" — manipulate atoms. They, for example, are able to clean the capillaries of the human cardiovascular system, just as plumbers clean the sewer.

Although Drexler's "Machines of Creation" were positioned as a scientific work, in fact they were fiction. Nevertheless, the supporters of cryonics were so inspired by the publication of the book that they are still based on individual ideas from it in their discussions about the future of freezing/defrosting of human bodies. If such "medical robots" appeared in reality, it would be possible to learn how to revive the dead in a fairly short time, these enthusiasts are sure.

The next breakthrough in cryonics (more precisely, in the method of preserving organic tissues) occurred only in the late 1990s - with the beginning of vitrification, in which the liquid, when cooled, does not turn into ice crystals, but turns into a glassy state. By the way, since then cryonists have liked to say that when a human body containing water is turned into a piece of ice with liquid nitrogen at a temperature of -196 ° C, it is not "frozen", but "vitrified". Cryonics in general is extremely committed to beautiful formulations — and how else, given that this includes powerful marketing.

In 2011, the aforementioned Robert Ettinger, from whose "Perspective of Immortality" all cryonics came out, died and was, as they say, vitrified. Dewar and his body were placed in the Cryonics Institute in Detroit, and he became the 106th "guest" there. By 2015, their number had increased to 250.

The register of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation (Alcor) and the Cryonics Institute lists about 2 thousand people who consider themselves adherents of immortalism. In general, the cryonic subculture is quite narrow — unless, of course, you take into account the giant army of science fiction fans.

Many, having joined the cryonists, soon ran away from them. So, for example, it happened with the scandalous American psychologist Timothy Leary. He became famous for participating in experiments with narcotic substances and seemed to be a very loose person by the standards of the scientific community. Initially interested in the prospect of freezing his body after death, after closer communication with cryonists, he was so disappointed in them that he chose cremation.

There is an urban legend that Walt Disney was one of the adherents of cryonics, and his corpse (or, according to one version, only his head) was subjected to posthumous freezing. In the USA, it is very popular, but researchers are forced to disappoint fans of this kind of folklore: Disney died in December 1966 — that is, only a few weeks did not live to see the first cryonation, which took place in early 1967.

Another legend (however, quite true) is associated with a brilliant basketball player Ted Williams. He died in 2002 and was frozen with liquid nitrogen. A huge scandal broke out between the heirs of the great athlete. The older children demanded that the deceased father be cremated, as he himself wished in his will. The youngest, John Henry, presented Ted's will, not notarized, in which he ordered him to be cryonized. Family squabbles took up most of the summer, and as a result, John Henry and his unofficial document prevailed. Now Williams Sr., along with other adepts of cryonics, is waiting in the wings in dewar.

What will happen when science (purely theoretically) is ready to resurrect all these "scumbags"? There are a few slippery spots here. The main problem is considered to be the restoration of the neural network of the brain, which, recall, was already dead at the time of freezing. Cryonics enthusiasts, however, are sure that the "information death" of the brain occurs only some time after the biological one, and if the body is vitrified before the expiration of this period, then it will be possible to arrange a "reboot".

It sounds seemingly simple, but in fact we are not talking about a switch that will be invented in some distant year, and it will be enough just to pull it. The most difficult work is supposed to restore the information "encrypted" in the proteins of frozen nerve cells, and then the "revival" of consciousness (and it is unclear in what form — clearly not like the head of Professor Dowell in the novel of the Soviet science fiction writer Belyaev). There is a theory about restoring the mind in the form of a digital image and uploading it to a computer. Supporters of another point of view believe that someday scientists will figure out how to literally revive frozen corpses.

All the instability of cryonics is perfectly visible in this complete absence of any specifics: simply put, from the point of view of fundamental science, all this is based on faith, fantasies and enthusiasm. And also, of course, on the desire to make money. "In fact, in its current state, cryonics is an alternative to the burial rite, comparable to the traditions of the main world religions: freeze a corpse — wait for a miracle," writes one of the American scientific journals.

What happens to those wealthy people who decide to send their mortal body for cryopreservation? In the USA, they sign a contract with one of the organizations providing such services. Of course, there is not a word in it about the subsequent revival and other fantastic stories. The Cryonics Institute in Michigan uses the phrase "a complex form of burial" and freezes the whole bodies, and Alcor in Arizona accepts payment under the guise of donations for the benefit of science and is ready to freeze the heads separately for a smaller fee.

As mentioned above, a person can be frozen only after the death of his brain is officially recorded. Ideally, a "cryonista" should be present — an employee responsible for cryonics — in order to start (or rather stop) all processes as soon as possible.

The body (or only the head) is treated with large doses of drugs that reduce blood clotting and cryoprotectors so that bodily fluids do not crystallize, but "glaze over". Freezing is carried out in a bath with liquid nitrogen at a temperature of -196 ° C. Under such conditions, chemical reactions are almost completely blocked. Corpses are stored upside down — in case, for some reason, the maintenance staff will not be able to add liquid nitrogen to the dewar in time. In this case, the thawing process will begin, but there will be a chance to save your head. In 2016, scientists proved that it is possible to freeze a rabbit's brain, and then unfreeze it while preserving neural connections (only morphologically, because neurons died during freezing – VM) — so there is still hope for cryonized gentlemen (or their heads).

On the other hand, there are a number of fairly obvious problems. So, storing the head or the entire corpse at -196 °C stops chemical processes, but at the same time causes massive physical damage to cells. Cryopreservants injected into the body to prevent crystallization are poisons that need to be removed very quickly during defrosting.

In addition, liquid nitrogen, with all its coldness, freezes tissues not instantly, but gradually — in the same way, a deep fryer heated to a temperature of +200 ° C is not able to instantly evenly and deeply fry a chicken wing from the depths of the freezer. When frozen, crystals are still formed, cells are destroyed, proteins are denatured, and dendrites (branched processes of neurons) crack like tree branches in severe cold. Those of them that survived are highly likely to die during defrosting.

Cryonists claim that freezing methods are being improved from year to year, and when the technology of "reviving" cryonized corpses appears, those who were frozen last will be the first to experience it. And, on the contrary, last of all they will take on those who have been frozen by the "most primitive" methods (it is assumed that by that time science will already know how to neutralize the consequences of their use).

In addition, discrimination against frozen people is inevitable depending on how they died. If the cause of death was a stroke, and the brain was damaged, then the chances of recovery, even in the current fantastic "universe" of cryonists, are assessed very skeptically (but this does not mean that those who died with such a diagnosis are not frozen — as long as they pay).

Another important factor is the age of death. An adult naturally loses up to 0.5% of the volume of his brain annually, so the older the client was when he died, the less likely it is to return his consciousness back in any form.

The main thing that cryonists are silent about is a fairly obvious thing. In order to "revive" frozen corpses, science must first learn how to revive the dead in principle, that is, for example, to bring people who have just died back to life. If a breakthrough that allows you to do this still happens, then it would be more logical and reasonable to spend resources on resuscitation of the body that has not yet had time to cool down, and not on defrosting the head, which has lain in liquid nitrogen for God knows how many years.

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