"Cryonics: What, Why, and How" at Oxford University

I had the pleasure recently of speaking to a group of 60 or so engineers, scientists, and philosophers at Oxford University, having been invited by Alex Flint of the Oxford Transhumanists group.

I had been asked to give an overview of cryonics in general, and the situation regarding cryonics in the UK in particular. This was quite pleasing to deliver, given the various recent positive developments in our area.

I called the presentation "Cryonics: what, why, and how" and set about answering those questions;

* What cryonics is - with an emphasis on outlining the basics in fashion that makes clear the premises
* Why cryonics, despite the fact a (fully developed) human has not (yet) been brought back from cryosuspension, is a demonstrably viable medical procedure
* How cryonics is implemented - with a focus on the (now good and rapidly excelling) situation in the UK

In terms of how I went about the above, I will give only a nutshell version notes here, but:

An important part of the "what" included my adjustment to the standard definition of cryonics; I redefined cryonics thus:

"Cryonics is the science of using lowered temperatures to suspend the biochemical processes that would otherwise further harm the body of a (legally) dead person."

This is an improvement on previous definitions that have generally involved such terms as "suspending the body of a..." which is not very clear and leaves room for ambiguity. It is much clear to elucidate what exactly is being "suspended", using the word in a more meaningful fashion.

It is also an improvement on definitions that just say "dead" rather than "(legally) dead". The term "dead" is remarkably nebulous if one does not include some kind of qualifier. By loose definitions, many people "come back from the dead" if they suffer clinical death that is successfully reversed by the application of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Note well: if such a person (who was clinically dead and reanimated by CPR) had enjoyed the benefit of a doctor on the scene who noted the clinical death and pronounced him dead, then he would have been not only clinically dead but also legally dead as well - so, just like a cryonics patient. And, just like the cryonics patient, he had a good chance of revival if given the necessary treatment (in his case, CPR; in the case of a cryonics patient, CPS, cooling in a PIB, administration of medications, perfusion, and further cooling).

It also is a better definition than most because it omits the common "in the hope that future medical technology will be able to restore them to health"; since this is something that comes after cryonics, and is not cryonics itself, so why has it been previously included in the definition of cryonics? It is rather unreasonable to suggest that the definition of something should include mention of in what ways it is not the panacea that it never claimed to be.

One does not define a quadruple heart bypass surgery as "the process of disconnecting the heart of a terminally ill person and plumbing it back in again, this time attached with bits of leg, in the hope that medical care afterwards will be able to restore them to health".

So why has cryonics previously suffered such shoddy defining? The answer is obvious, and is analogous to how if you had performed CPR prior to the 1950s you'd have been arrested for molesting a corpse (which would also be a poor definition of that activity, by the way).

As for why cryonics is (despite a (fully developed) human not (yet) being returned from cryopreservation) a demonstrably viable medical procedure, I point to the obvious and abundant proofs of principle; including, but not limited to:

* Cryopreservation and later rewarming of human embryos such that the survival rate of cryopreserved embryos is quite good
* Studies demonstrating that time spent in cryopreservation does not affect the viability of stored embryos
* Studies in which small mammals (eg rats) have been suspended around freezing temperatures and restored to viability
* Studies in which large mammals (eg dogs) have been suspended to close to freezing temperatures and restored to viability
* A case study in which a dog was suspended below zero degrees Celsius and restored to viability
* Case studies of comatose patients that demonstrate that brain functions can cease totally and yet still be restarted later without extensive memory loss
* The fact that it has been demonstrated by example that an organ can be vitrified, rewarmed, and transplanted with viability.

Regards to the "how" element, I focussed on my own field, that of the standby, stabilisation, and transport side of cryonics services, being less qualified to speak on the finer details of the cool-down between -96 and -196 degrees, as the last my side of the work sees of the patient is at dry ice temperatures rather than liquid nitrogen (which is performed at the facility of the patient's chosen long term storage provider).

I gave an overview of the start-to-finish of the SST process, and spoke briefly on what occurs thereafter.

As part of the explanation of the SST process, I talked the audience through the following parts:

* Cardiac arrest
* Resuscitation failure
* Continued cardiopulmonary support (Michigan Instruments / Ambu-CardioPump / Zoll AutoPulse)
* PIB and squid
* Medications (and meds support kit use; IVs, F.A.S.T intra-osseous infuser, CombiTube, etc)
* Transport in specialised ambulance
* Washout and perfusion with vitrification solution (benefits cf. other solutions such as 8M glycerol, or even simply mRPS-2, as these had been our options prior to the availability of CI VM-1 in the UK)
* Further cool-down to -96 degrees
* Transport in Sinclair dry ice shipper

With respect to the final preparations made at the other end, I skirted through these briefly, and mainly used that section to talk about the very promising likelihood of viability, citing various studies that demonstrate this.

As I had the slides to hand from a previous speaking engagement, I also made mention of some peripheral aspects of CUK's recent activities, situations in the media, etc.

I additionally touched on the progressive implementation of reliable cryonics emergency standby, stabilisation, and transport capabilities through Europe, something that has been very slow progress but is very soon about to accelerate very rapidly indeed.

Upon coming to what would be the end of my talk, it occurred to me that I had not addressed any of the philosophical considerations, and spoken only of the engineering and scientific aspects. To this end, I gave a short overview of the various common philosophical objections to cryonics, and demonstrated how each of those objections was based on bad logic - contrariwise highlighting how the logical arguments in favour of cryopreservation are pretty much unassailable.

I thereafter fielded questions on the topic I had covered, and also on a few that I hadn't, but are peripheral to cryonics (such as uploading, and suchlike).

Some very insightful questions from members of the audience, addressing sociological aspects that tend to pass most people by. As the evening's primary topic (cryonics: what, why, and how) had attracted a lot of interest, I ended up in a very productive dialogue with the audience that took me up the two hour mark, by which time I had to dash to catch a train (the perils of a busy life; no rest for the wicked), rather than stay for more questions / continue in a pub as invited.

Perhaps next time!

All in all, a great evening.

Life-journalling the easy way - video glasses!

Many engage in life-journalling for the purposes of assisting with cryonics or other related technologies, with the thought that their memory may benefit from a jog regarding the experiences that shape (and for that matter demonstrate) their personality.

http://www.photojojo.com/store/awesomeness...n-video-glasses

I was recently introduced to the availability of this by Danila Medvedev.

These glasses (lenses interchangeable to be sunglasses; looks much less geeky that way) will surreptitiously record what you see and hear while they are activated. They can record around 5 hours, then they will need to download / change card.

I do not plan to use mine to record everything, but representational samples of my life as I go along, as well as functional things that I may wish to have recorded for more immediate practical purposes.

I will assume that I will not want to re-watch huge portions of my life 24/7 in any case, as that would make it take a year to watch a year's worth of experience, which is unlikely to be practical. Snippets thus seem more efficient. More like a documentary film of my life than an unwieldily large all-encompassing indiscriminate record.

There is obviously also the issue of future compatibility, but in this information age, I do not foresee humanity losing the ability to read a .avi video file. Also, data corruption is a possibility, but then data stored in any means can be damaged.

We (I say somewhat magnanimously as this is no specialty of mine) are getting pretty good at reconstructing damaged data from computer files, so this is not too bad a threat.

If absolutely nothing else, it's a fun project that takes up almost no extra time ;)

Neurolinguistic Programming as a Transhumanist tool.

I developed an interest in neurolinguistic programming (Henceforth NLP) in the late 1990s, as it appealed to my ever-present desire to improve my mental attributes.

It came to my attention originally via a fellow I met by chance who introduced me to Ross Jeffries and a series of puerile yet pragmatic low-level NLP methodologies to secretly reorganise the minds of others to cause them to like you, dislike others, screw you, screw others over, etc. Simple stuff with limited applications, but it piqued my interest and got me looking into other wider areas of NLP.

Next along came Paul McKenna, and his series of alledgely hypnotic products. My own personal opinion is that there is no hypnosis involved in these at all, but rather cumulative transformational NLP. I started off with his "Supreme Self-Confidence" half-hour "trance" CD, and listened to it around once a day for the next few years, and have done so on and off since then. That particular product has since been rebranded "Change your life in seven days", by the way, but is the exact same recording, which now comes with a book on the side. I've since picked up a number of his other products, such as "Sleep like a log", "Motivation Power", and "I can make you thin"; the latter more out of curiosity than need. All are good, and I highly recommend them.

No, I had no issues with self-confidence (or motivation, for that matter), nor have I ever; but I am the kind of person who likes to improve everything as much as possible wherever possible. Despite not being stressed, I'm going to order his new "Control Stress" product. I like to do whatever I can to excel in any areas - if I already excel in an area, that's no reason to not want to excel further.

Anyway, the next stage in my journey was an NLP course to gain a Practitioner and Master Practitioner certificate. These were good, beneficial, useful, enjoyable, and altogether nothing I couldn't have got from reading relevant material and teaching myself. However, it's always nice to have papers as it lends credence to its use sometimes when it comes to the public eye. I always put it on my CV, for example.

I do, therefore, recommend doing such courses, but only if you are not concerned with outlaying large amounts of money for only slightly more benefit than you would get from teaching yourself.

Around the same period of time I acquired a lot of literature on the subject, including but not limited to books by Bandler and Grinder, Hall, and other such names, with the latter's "Sourcebook of Magic" being one of my favourites.

What I love so much about NLP is that it is a tool I can never lose, that can be used to fix almost any problem. I consider it a hugely important part of my Transhuman way of living, as in my opinion one of the biggest flaws of the human condition is the inability to become master of one's thoughts rather than slave to them. NLP allows the user to rise above this.

Consequently, after many years of rewiring my brain, it's very different now to how it used to be, and far more removed than the degree one might expect from general life experiences causing change. There are numerous emotions that I have simply "disconnected", that are now very difficult states for me to access; emotions that I consider counterproductive.

Some people say "But isn't that sad; those emotions are part of what makes us human".

Indeed, they are.

The difference is that I don't want to be human.

I want to rise above that.

NLP hastens that greatly!

Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition (CRON).

So this is day 13 of my CRON regime.

I keep to <1500 kCal a day, where the recommended amount for an average man is 2500/day.

This was only close to difficult for the first day or so. It seems a breeze now.

I use most of my calories up in nutrient-dense foods; commonly meat / fish / dairy products. I also now eat far more vegetation than I used to, in addition to my required protein-fix, to flesh-out (if you'll pardon the irony of the expression) my diet, since I like plenty of food despite enjoying the longevity benefits of CR.

I also supplement to Hell and back (by most people's standards, anyway), taking daily:

A (non Calorific) multi-vitamin and mineral drink, to wash down the following in pills / capsules:

Burdock Root
Calcium and Magnesium
Cod Liver Oil with extra Calcium
CoQ10
Dessicated Liver (less than 1g protein; I take it for the vit-B and related goodies)
Echinacea
Ginseng
Ginkgo Biloba
Glucosamine Sulphate
Mulitivitamins
Rosehip
Selenium and Vit A, C, E

I find the Optimal Nutrition part as important as; nay, more important than; the Calorie Restriction part.

That said, the latter part has been just as easy. In fact I often finish the day some way short of the 1500 kCal cap.

The important part was getting over the idea of eating for the sake of it.