Larry King: I want to be frozen

I don't. However I do argue that we're far more likely to emulate a brain or end up discarding cryopreserved brains (it's already happened once, a company went bust and the bodies in their care thawed) before we get to the point where we have the technological and theoretical capabilities to do as you suggested.

I suspect that if we have that capability all humans (that could afford it) would also become immortal.

How do you know that in the future we wont be able to use advanced computer modeling to predict many parts of a brains and bodies function based on what we have frozen and correct it with advanced nanotechnology?

That does seem to rather violate the principle of information decay. It is not possible to derive exact information from a decayed state, for the same reason that you cannot determine which exact formula has a derivative of "3".

although I'm not aware of any significant advances since vitrification replaced freezing.

Just a couple of months ago I asked Max More about that very topic. He didn't have much that was very informative to say. I also asked that question back during the time when Regina Pancake was their responst-team coordinator, to a similar response. I know Hugh, Mike, et al, are "working on it" -- but I haven't heard much convincing there. Their current attitude seems to be that the toxicity problems of the vitrification agents are a non-issue in the face of potential destructive-scanning uploading solutions.

I, for one, am not sufficiently convinced that their preservation strategy ensures that as an option, to the degree necessary to actually preserve my me-ness as I today know it. So I haven't signed up.

Thank you for taking the time to give me such a well thought out response. Sorry it's taken me so long to reply in turn. I'd be interested in hearing your further response.

Actually my point was not a person who does not trust presently available cryonics should still invest in research, but that cryonic preservation itself is not trustworthy at the current time and therefore investing in research is a better alternative. Though if someone does have a high enough estimation of the likelihood of it working adequately I'd love to find out why so I can update my own estimation.

You're right though, they may think the research has reached a point of diminishing returns untill the advent of mature nanotechnology but that begs the question why not invest in nanotechnology instead?

Or even better invest in research into the preservation of individual organs? Given the high need for organ transplants, the ability to put them "on ice" would provide invaluable in the saving of lives. Moreover in the increased number of transplants would lead to an increase in income for hospitals and pharmaceutical companies selling anti-rejection drugs. Given that the most likely scenario is that we'll be able to successfully preserve and revive kidneys before we can do the same for (as an example) lungs that money would end up being re-invested in organ preservation research.

This would have a higher expected return as a thriving market in organ-transplant surgery and immunosuppressant’s is much more likely than developing a thriving market in whole body cryopreservation. There are already more people added to the national waiting list for organ donations each month (about 4,100) , four times that of Alcor's membership over four decades (ref: http://www.alcor.org/AboutAlcor/membershipstats.html).

And while the money of those buying cryopreservation may be going into a trust fund, the money will only be useful for regenerative research in the long term. Meanwhile the average cost of immunosuppressant’s is about $1000 per month (ref: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2592494/) for the lifetime of the patient, that along with the larger market results in a far greater spending power for research.

If Larry King were to pay for the freezing of millions of low-income individuals in high population countries I'm not sure it could be considered a philanthropic act. Cryonic preservation is for all intents and purposes still experimental, in many ways equivalent to a drug trial and as such should be governed by the same guidelines. Namely the Nuremberg code (http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/nuremberg.html), and the freezing of low-income individuals is highly likely to violate the first clause of that code. As such individuals are highly likely to have little or no education and as a result won't have enough information/training to make an informed decision, and the amount of education required would bump up the cost per individual considerably.

While I don't agree with religious beliefs about burial (or cremation for that matter) it's a common belief held that burial must be done is a specific way in order to gain entry to heaven (holy ground, intact body etc.) It would be unfair to portray as a sure fire way of preserving their life when if it were to fail, their burial wishes wouldn't be met.

I can't help but agree with you on the matter of cryonics companies having a far more stable business model than the previous pay-as-you-go sort. However it seems to me at least this arrangement is far from indefinite, the longer you wait the more likely something like WW3 is to break out. In fact the longer the wait the less likely cryogenics companies are to honour their contract (200 years from now, not many people will care that much about popsicles from the early 21st century. In 300 years even less people will, the longer it takes the easier it will be to justify the disposal of cryogenically preserved individuals, more so if during that time no major advancements are made.)

To do good in general, and possibly get cryopreserved depending on the outcome and time the research will take.

It's true, my donations alone wouldn't advance cryopreservation much. It's also true that the two pounds a month I pay to the NSPCC doesn't do much to prevent cruelty to children, but I'm not the only contributor. Providing enough people contribute to the cause cryopreservation would be advanced a good deal. It's like game theory, it's better for everyone to contribute to improving cryopreservation than cryopreserve themselves with current technology.

Your life wouldn't be saved anyway. As I was saying, even if you take the possibility of regenerating brains preserved with the current method as a given, it's unlikely it will happen before your brain is disposed of. Chances are we'll have the technological capability to emulate a brain before we have the capability to regenerate one.