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Comment by Bandwagon_Smasher on Congratulations to Paris Hilton · 2007-10-22T07:18:00.000Z · LW · GW

I'm new to this whole cryonics debate, so I have a question: How long do you all believe you'll be frozen for? If you think that being revived is scientifically possible, what are the developments that need to be achieved to get to that point?

Off the top of my head, I would think you'd need, at the very least, (1) prevention of cellular damage of the brain cells during the freezing and reviving processes; (2) the ability to revive dead tissue in general; and (3) the ability to perfectly replicate consciousness after it has been terminated.

I would think paying money (I would assume it is very costly) for any freezing service now makes no sense now since a better system might be developed in the future, more closely to the time of one's own death. Also, you don't know how you're going to die, and to what extent your brain will be destroyed in the process. Furthermore, if you're talking hundreds of years, you have no guarantee of whether your physical remains or contractual rights to be unfrozen will survive, since things in the world might change significantly. Finally, if (2) or (3) is achieved at all, I would expect some serious social upheaval that might endanger the ability of anyone to get unfrozen at all anyway.

Based on all this, I would think the small probability of success is not worth giving up dinner and movies. Of course, Paris doesn't really have to make the trade off, so I guess my reasoning doesn't really apply to her. Perhaps its not that she's smarter, just luckier. But I'm not a scientist, so please inform me if I'm missing something.