Earthly Eternity?

Cryonic Condos

Q:  What do Walt Disney, Ted Williams and Robin Hanson have in common?

A:  A connection with cryonics, the process of deep-freezing remains in the hope that someday they can be restored to life.

Walt's body is rumored to be in a chamber under the "Pirates of the Caribbean" attraction at Walt Disney World.  Actually, his ashes reside at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Williams was an avid fisherman whose will directed he be cremated and his ashes scattered off the Florida Keys, but he signed a controversial note while in a hospital sick bed.  His body is stored in liquid nitrogen at -321F in two containers:  his head's in one and the rest of him occupies another.

Robin Hanson is alive and teaches economics at George Mason University.  Unlike the others, he wants his brain frozen.  He's doing it to satisfy his curiosity.

It's quite a process.  The body must cut through coroner's red tape, be properly packed, and hop a flight to the cryonic facility. There the patient (the subject quickly goes from patient to cadaver to patient again) is infused with a solution that replaces the blood, hardens like glass and won't freeze.

 Speed is important and it helps if the patient's legal guardian cooperates.  This can be a problem:  in the cryonics world it's called the "hostile wife phenomenom."  According to Kerry Howley of The New York Times Hanson's wife, Peggy, finds his plan disturbing.  Robin says, "Cryonics has the problem of looking like you're buying a one-way ticket to a foreign land" and committing an act "of betrayal and abandonment."  Peggy thinks it's an act of "cosmic selfishness."

J.S.  is a software engineer who sees his brain as a computer hard drive storing his memories.  But his wife isn't on board and he won't reveal his name for fear she'll divorce him.  When he finally "deanimates" (cryonicists do this instead of dying) they may both be in for surprises.  She'll be shocked at how much he's spending on this, and he'll be surprised when she buries him just like everybody else.

 What happens if someone eventually "deglassifies" Hanson's brain?  Does it go into the cranium of a pre-owned body?  Or a glass jar filled with a bubbly fluid like in a bad science fiction movie? Or do technicians download its data only to find unremarkable memories and outdated knowledge?  If so, then what?  His legally dead brain may be unceremoniously discarded.

 Even if reanimation goes well it won't be pretty.  You may want to observe them, but mainly they'll be observing you.  In the end you may just become an item of curiosity.  The cryopreservation decision is apparently based on an emotional but understandable desire for immortality.  But the endgame simply doesn't look promising.

 Christians get an afterlife without the mess, fuss and expense.  We'll have perfected bodies, they'll last forever and your spouse will like the idea.  And you can leave your money to do some good for others instead of using it to top off your tank with liquid nitrogen each week.

Want to get the heebie-jeebies?  Click on http://www.cryonics.org/phases.html

Photo Credit:  Alcor.org

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