Cryonics

Cryonics is a technique whereby human or animal remains are preserved and stored at very low temperatures in the hope that future technological advances will allow resuscitation. Proponents of cryonics believe that if a person is preserved quickly enough following a pronouncement of legal death, the body's cells, especially those in the brain, may be revived with the help of future medical and scientific advances. Because of the belief that the cryopreserved may one day be revived, supporters do not consider people “absolutely dead” unless there is irreversible brain damage that would negate any hope for a future independent life. Rather, supporters argue that the clinically dead—traditionally defined as those without a heartbeat—are revived all the time thanks to cardiopulmonary resuscitation and thus there is reason to believe that, in time and with proper preservation techniques, all clinically dead people may indeed be cured. Based on the premise that cryonics may have the ability to save basic brain information, including memory and identity, proponents do not refer to the cryopreserved as deceased but rather as patients.

History of Cryonics

In 1962 Robert Ettiger first began thinking about cryonics as a preservation technique. As a physics professor in Michigan, Ettiger proposed that currently fatal diseases may not be as threatening in the distant future, as technology and medicine continue to improve, and that freezing a recently diseased person may allow for future resuscitation. His 1964 book The Prospect of Immortality is often considered the foundational text for many cryonicists although at roughly the same time, Evan Cooper founded the Life Extension Society, the first cryonics organization in the world. By 1965 Ettiger began the Cryonics Institute, located in Clinton Township, Michigan, which was the first organization to successfully cryopreserve a human, Dr. James Bedford, a 73-year-old professor. Dr. Bedford still remains suspended in liquid nitrogen, although cryonicists currently use much more sophisticated preservation techniques. At the time of printing, the Cryonics Institute holds 87 patients, more patients than any other cryonics institution. Other cryonics facilities in America include Alcor Life Extension Foundation (1972) in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Suspended Animation (2002) in Boynton Beach, Florida. A Russian organization, KrioRus, maintains a small facility with four patients, and Australia is currently planning on opening a facility in the near future. Support groups currently exist in Europe, Canada, and the United Kingdom but do not yet offer services.