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Igrokit
New Member
USA
28 Posts |
 Posted - 02/27/2002 : 19:20:38 [Permalink]
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quote:
Well, yeah, given enough time and advances, they may yet be able to revive one of these cryonic subjects. Would bet, though, it won't be the result of any one 'silver bullet,' like nanotech. We're still left with why should we? The wealthy would certainly pay for more life, someone with a special ability might be worth the effort, but we have an ever increasing population as it is. Do we want to also extend normal life spans, too?
Don't tink so... 
Actually I think we want to greatly increase the lifespan. Thats what all this medical tech is for. The right way to cut down exponetial population growth is to get people to have less kids. Longer life spans, extending life further past the reproductive years, will only increase population arithmatically. Much less dangerous.
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2002 : 20:24:16 [Permalink]
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quote:
Actually I think we want to greatly increase the lifespan. Thats what all this medical tech is for. The right way to cut down exponetial population growth is to get people to have less kids. Longer life spans, extending life further past the reproductive years, will only increase population arithmatically. Much less dangerous.
The problem here is of course that extending life past the reproductive years is not that easy for males. And as medical technology picks catches up Woman can have children at a higher and higher age.
On the other hand if you look at statistics from today, you will find that life expectancy and number of children appear to be inversely connected. Those with least acces to medical tecnology have the most children.
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NubiWan
Skeptic Friend
USA
424 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2002 : 11:13:08 [Permalink]
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Mmm.., stand corrected, yes, we do want to extend our lives, and do. Butt this..? Not only are we going to burden our offspring with a national debt, now, in addition, with the care of their hopelessly out of place and time, great-great-(?) kin. Whose only extrordinary trait, is the will and means, to "cheat death," as well as the audicity to expect to be welcomed? Don't bet on it.
Here's the sad tale of a couple, even though their love had grown cold, vowed to stay together untill once again, they walked hand-in-hand in a better place...
Last Laugh
"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." -Voltaire
Edited by - NubiWan on 03/13/2002 11:39:19 |
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TFarnon
New Member
USA
17 Posts |
Posted - 03/20/2002 : 18:59:46 [Permalink]
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Okay. Human tissue is already routinely cryogenically preserved for later analysis and research. Basically, you dissect out the little bits you need and put them into sterile polypropylene tubes. Then you toss the tubes into liquid nitrogen to freeze them instantly. At some later point you grind up the tissue to extract DNA, RNA and/or proteins.
Will freezing whole humans (as in "Sleeper") ever happen? It would be horrendously expensive due to the energy input (to cool the body sufficiently and sufficiently quickly) required. Reviving would still be problematic.
Will humans ever be cloned from their DNA samples? Perhaps. There are a LOT of technical issues here, too. For example, cloned animals to date haven't been quite normal. Dolly has arthritis at 5 years old (very young for a sheep). Cloned mice and cows have had abnormal metabolisms. Nobody knows if CC (the kitten) is phenotypically "okay" yet. And besides, cats being such utterly strange animals, it will be difficult to tell what abnormal is.
Bacteria RULE, Hominids drool |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2002 : 15:05:58 [Permalink]
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"Do ya wanna live forever?" - a line from a vintage '50's war flick.
Perhaps someday it could be done - I know exactly nothing about nanotechnology apart from that it makes 'Seven of Nine' look very damned good, so I must with hold comment.
However, I do not think that it ever will be done. The risks would be too high. What would it be like if critical tissue damage that could not be repaired occured and the newly resurected came back as a healthy idiot (the fact not withstanding that he/she was probably a sick but rich idiot to start with)?
Let's look at it from another angle: What guarentee is there that the thawed 'Joe' would be the same 'Joe' that went into the freezer?
And, with nanotech reparing all the tissues, how does one put 'life' into the corpsickle when thawed? Without that, 'Joe' is no more than a healthy cadaver. Great for disection and research, but not much fun at a party. Will nanotech be able to do that? What is 'life', anyway? Is it really 42?
I do not believe that it will be done. I would certainly hope that it would never be done to me, even if it were possible.
d
"He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."
- Albert Einstein
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The SollyLama
Skeptic Friend
USA
234 Posts |
Posted - 07/31/2002 : 14:33:55 [Permalink]
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the problem with cryogenics is that you have to be dead before you're frozen. Simply curing cancer, for example, will not help. You would first have to cure death.
Be your own god!
(First, and only, commandment of Sollyism)
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 04/07/2004 : 11:06:45 [Permalink]
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| Even if future technology allows revival of the frozen dead - and cure of death - what on Earth would be the future human's motivation to do this? Assuming it's expensive and tedious, why would they start thawing out the long dead and bring them back to life? The only answer to that I can think of is for anthropological and/or archeological research, and you don't really need to bring a lot of people back for that. Given the level of technology they would need to thaw and raise the dead, my guess is they could find out everything they wanted to know by running a frozen brain through some kind of memory scanner and download everything into a computer. Who knows? But if there were tens of thousands of frozen Romans buried in the catacombs of Rome, and we coudl revive them, though at high cost in time and money, how many would we revive? I seriously doubt we'd bring them all back - probably a few for research and the rest would end up in gross anatomy class. |
-Chaloobi
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