Accelerating Future

From the Miami Herald:

Cryonics movement leader `deanimates’

The Plantation psychologist was a funny guy who was serious about life after death.

Dr. Steven P. Rievman, a Plantation psychologist, believed in a better world to come and figured his best shot at being part of it was putting himself on ice.

So after he ”deanimated” on May 12 at North Broward Medical Center — as cryonics proponents call dying — technicians pumped anti-clotting drugs into his body, cold-packed it and shipped it to Arizona.

Rievman, 64, who co-founded the Cryonics Society of South Florida in the 1960s, now resides in a deep-freeze capsule at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, awaiting the day when medical science can ”re-animate” him and cure his ills: lupus and Type I diabetes, which afflicted him starting at age 17.

He had undergone cardiac surgery twice in nine weeks and died of a heart attack, friends said. A life insurance policy is paying the $150,000 perpetual-care tab at Alcor.

Cryonics ”fascinated him from the first time he heard of the concept,” said Deborah Rievman, his wife of 30 years. He was born Jewish, but “cryonics was his religion.”

Austin Tupler, who owns a Davie-based trucking company, met Rievman in the 1960s when both were involved in a fledgling cryonics group.

”Over a period of time we formed the society and established our own little clinic equipped to freeze a person,” in a Davie warehouse, Tupler said. “We bought a lot of equipment but we never used it. We didn’t have enough members and they were not dying fast enough.”

The group merged with Alcor in the 1980s. Among its frozen clients: the head of baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams.

Continue.

In my opinion, you’re not “dead” until the neural patterns that correspond to your knowledge and personality are irreversibly rearranged. In cryonics, these structures are frozen in time, and the scientific knowledge of the indefinite future can be brought to bear on revitalizing them. (Unless we destroy ourselves through nuclear war or some other global catastrophe, an issue that life extensionists need to start paying more attention to immediately.)

Sad, but not nearly as sad as becoming worm food, like Arthur C. Clarke or Timothy Leary. I’d say “rest in piece”, but they aren’t resting, they’re annihilated, never to come back.

Old transhumanists never die… they just get frozen in Scottsdale, Arizona.

There, our friends like Tanya make sure that everyone gets their regular dose of liquid nitrogen. It’s a slow way to live, but hey, at least those microorganisms aren’t all up in your brain consuming all the knowledge you built up throughout your life.

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No joke! This is big news. Paris Hilton is going to be cryopreserved. I never thought I’d be posting about Hilton on Accelerating Future, but there you go. This news is via Eliezer Yudkowsky on Overcoming Bias, who broke it as follows:

“Anyone not signed up for cryonics has now lost the right to make fun of Paris Hilton, because no matter what else she does wrong, and what else you do right, all of it together can’t outweigh the life consequences of that one little decision.

Congratulations, Paris. I look forward to meeting you someday.”

I totally agree. You can make fun of Ms. Hilton all you want, but if in 100 years you’re rotting in the ground, and she has her frozen cells repaired and remetabolized by nanomedicine, guess who’s laughing now?

Here is the article from FemaleFirst:

“Paris Hilton wants to be frozen with her beloved pets when she dies.

The hotel heiress is keen to live forever and has invested a large sum of money in the world’s biggest suspended animation cemetery, Cryonics Institute.

She wants her body to be preserved and then brought back to life, along with her favourite pets, including her famous Chihuahua Tinkerbell and new mutt, Yorkshire Terrier Cinderella.

‘The Simple Life’ star said: “It’s so cool. Almost all the cells in the body are still alive when death is pronounced.

“And if you’re immediately cooled, you can be perfectly preserved.

“My life could be extended by hundreds and thousands of years.”

Earlier this week, Paris revealed her partying lifestyle left her feeling “empty inside”.

The 26-year-old blonde - who spent 23 days in jail for driving offences in June - is now determined to turn her life around and do worthy things instead of being seen falling out of nightclubs.

Paris - who is planning a visit to Rwanda - said: “Before, my life was about having fun, going to parties - it was a fantasy. But when I had time to reflect, I felt empty inside. I want to leave a mark on the world.”

Whether she’s serious or not, I don’t know, but signing up for cryonics isn’t the sort of PR stunt to do for popular support — so it was obviously her personal decision. I myself associate signing up with cryonics with long-term thinking about the future of humanity, but maybe some see it as selfishness. Your mileage may vary.

In the comments, Carl Shulman pointed out that she might have gotten the idea from a magician she worked with on The Simple Life. They have signed up for different companies, however — Hilton with Cryonics Institute, and the magician with American Cryonics.

Immortalism marches forward, now with Paris Hilton’s support. Who’s signing up next?

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Early last August, the 138th cryonics patient in history underwent cryogenic suspension, thanks to the Michigan-based Cryonics Institute. The patient was pronounced dead at 6AM on August 12, 2005. By that evening the patient had arrived in Michigan and was intravenously administered a vitrification solution which would allow the patient to be cooled to the temperature of liquid nitrogen without fear of damage to the neurons. After 105 hours of cooling at the Cryonics Institute facility, the patient was transferred to a cryostat where she will remain indefinitely, along with 68 others who have been preserved the same way.

Our memories, personality, likes, dislikes, loves, and dreams are all encoded in the neural network of our brain. When our heart stops beating, the flow of oxygen to the brain is cut off, and neurological deterioration begins to occur. The information that constitutes who we are begins to be lost. But complete loss is not certain. If the body is quickly transferred to a cryonics facility and cooled to very low temperatures, the connections between the brain’s neurons stay pretty much the same. In some cases, the difference between the two cannot even be detected with a microscope.

In the future, it should become possible to do light repair on a cryosuspended body, heat it back up to room temperature, and reboot the metabolism and vital organs by restoring the chemical and thermodynamic environment of the body to that as it was before death. This will require advanced technology capable of extreme precision and care - most likely medical nanotechnology. But it will be done. And if a civilization has the desire and means to revive cryonics patients, it’s overwhelmingly likely that it would be a fascinating place to live - for a very long time.

This leads to the conclusion that we have an obligation to consider the possibility of making cryonics arrangements for ourselves and loved ones. An action as simple as freezing the body after death could lead to a very long-lasting and fulfilling life, a life that extends beyond what would have otherwise been our ultimate end. Cryonics arrangements are very affordable - the Cryonics Institute offers contracts for a low annual fee of $120 and possession of a life insurance contract which names the Cryonics Institute as a beneficiary (also about $100/year). Something you should consider!

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