Cryogenics: freezing yourself so that you may be brought to life sometime in the far future

Eternal Life

Alan Sinclair 67, a retired electrical engineer, is married to Sylvia 54, a housewife. The couple live in Peacehaven, East Sussex and have 4 grown up children. They have been together for 38 years, but only married 7 years ago in Gretna Green.

Alan's fascination with 'Cryogenics' started 20 years ago, when he saw a TV programme about the subject. "Part of the reason that it interested me is because I fear death. Most people don't want to die and I am one of them. Since I signed up to be cryogenically frozen, I am less concerned about what happens to me when I die, because I feel I may have a second chance at life".

10 years ago, he began putting £112 a month into an insurance policy to pay for his own body to be frozen and then resuscitated. As Sylvia is more than 10 years younger than Alan, her policy is far cheaper, at £60 a month. "Sylvia and I felt the same way as soon as we saw the show, it just seemed like the most sensible thing in the world and we can't understand why more people don't want to do it, it is worth the money. It's quite romantic really, the thought that we could meet up again at some point in the future".

Upon death, a team of specialists will rush to their bedside and pump them full of a special type of anti-freeze. This will prevent their bodies from shattering as they will be immersed in liquid nitrogen. Their bodies will then be put on a plane to Arizona where they will be stored at almost minus 200C in a tank that looks like a huge thermos flask. They will be kept there for hundreds, if not thousands, of years until advances in medical science eventually mean they can be brought back to life. "People think that it's like a science fiction film such as Demolition Man, in which Sylvester Stallone is cryogenically frozen and then thawed in the 21st century. But I believe science fiction follows real life rather than the other way round".

Alan and Sylvia are among a growing number of Britons who plan to achieve immortality thanks to "cryonics", which is a form of cryogenics. They both knew that firms in the US had been offering the service for years, so started to investigate the possibility of having it done in the UK. At the end of the show they watched about Cryogenics, a telephone number of an American company was advertised and after receiving a detailed information pack from them, Alan set up a group called Cryonics UK. The group now have regular meetings and have developed a 'standby' team, who with the help of an undertaker, perform the freezing process. Experts from the US had to come over to train them in the embalming process.

In Alan's opinion "People may say it's gruesome but I think this idea is really going to take off. After all, who doesn't want to live for ever? The thought of being brought back to life is surely one of the most exciting concepts in medical science. If you are buried or cremated that's the end of the matter. But if doctors can preserve your body, it's just a case of waiting until the time is right to wake up again. It might take 50 years or it might take 1,000 but I'm confident it will happen at some point".

What is Cyronics?

Cryonics is the preservation of legally dead humans at a very low temperature (below -200ºF, -130ºC) in the hope that future science can restore them to life, youth and health. Cryonicists are people who use cryonics to greatly extend life and youth.

All diseases, including the progressive deterioration known as "getting old", are the result of damage to organs, tissues, cells and cellular components. With enough progress of medicine and molecular repair capability, all diseases should eventually be curable, including aging. Medicine in the future should be able to restore and maintain people in a condition of youth and health.

The Myths-according to the world of Cryonics

Myth 1: Cryonics is consumer fraud.

Some people believe that cryonics is a scam intended to separate grieving families from their money. 'Alcor' and 'The Cryonics Institute' however claim that they are operated by people who sincerely believe in the worth of cryonics, and who want cryonics available for themselves, people they care about, and the world in general. Their primary interest is therefore attracting young and healthy people to join up and help build the cryonics field. They claim to have no interest in pushing cryonics on people who are dead or dying.

Myth 2: Cryonics preserves dead people

The purpose of cryonics is to save the lives of living people, not the bodies of dead people. Death is a neurological process that begins after the heart stops. A stopped heart only causes death if nothing is done when the heart stops. Cryonics proposes to intercept and stop this dying process within the window of time that it may be reversible in the future. The first few minutes of clinical death are certainly reversible, even today. There are good reasons to believe that this window will extend further in the future. That is why cryonics is sometimes implemented even long after the heart stops.

Myth 3: Experts say cryonics cannot work.

Most experts in any single field will rightly say that they know of no evidence that cryonics can work, however very few scientists even know anything about the process. The situation is comparable to the development of space travel before World War II. At that time, "aeronautical experts" were adamant that space travel was impossible. Only a few German rocket scientists knew that multi-stage rockets could escape the earth. As is often the case, the experts best qualified to comment on a new field are the experts working in that field. No properly qualified expert has ever said cryonics can't work.

Myth 4: Cryonics conflicts with religion.

The goal of cryonics is to overcome serious illness by preserving and protecting life. Cryonics is therefore consistent with pro-life principles of both medicine and religion. Hypothermia victims have been revived after more than an hour without breathing, heartbeat, or brain activity. Deep cooling is sometimes used to "turn off" patients for long periods during neurosurgery when the heart must be stopped. Human embryos are routinely cryopreserved and revived. If cryonics works, it will work because it is fundamentally the same as these other forms of "suspended animation" that are already known in medicine. Patients in these states are understood to be in deep coma, not death. Cryonics patients are theologically equivalent to unconscious patients in a hospital with an uncertain prognosis.

Myth 5: Frozen famous people

There have been a lot of rumours about Walt Disney being frozen, but it is now thought not to be true. Very few famous people have actually been cryogenically frozen to date. Probably the most famous person in suspended animation today is baseball great Ted Williams, who's head was removed and frozen.