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Is there any hard science to say if cryogenics is possible?

Or impossible?

I'm thinking what would the freezing - assuming it is possible without cell damage and basically instantaneously - do to your mental state? Is what we define as "us" reliant on some quantum state that would be destroyed by such freezing? Or is it less ethereal? Or is what we call "we" already fragile and none of realize we are a different person every time we wake up or recover from unconsciousness?

And sorry if this isn't religiously or non-religiously related for anyone here. I figured some existential introspection would be good. If only we were theists we could just not bother worrying about such things...

Edit: just to be clear I'm not interested in the biological cellar issues that's why I said "assuming it is possible without cell damage and basically instantaneously". It's about "mind" and if "we" are more than just the cells and their connections in the brain.

An analogy would be some kinds of computer memory that requires continual dynamic refresh so if power is lost so is memory. Others do not require power and retain state. Ditto for your computer... Put it in sleep or hibernate mode and you can pretty much resume later, if not you may have an almost blank slate when you turn it on except for saved files.

There are other tangential ethical and societal issues around freezing and bringing people back to life later that are very interesting. The speculative sci-fi book "The first immortal" was an interesting exploration of that.

prometheus 7 Sep 22
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Cryogenics has always sounded like wishful thinking to me -- a sort of high tech reincarnation based on a purely speculative pseudo-scientific idea. Whether or not it has any foundation in real science is debatable.

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Freezing might preserve you, but your cells will burst as you thaw, much like freezing fruits/vegs makes them fine for cooking but no longer for fresh crispness

I too have seen leafy veggies seriously wilt when thawed.

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The less complex the life-form, the better able it is to survive, dormant, in extreme cold.
Some fish can survive in a state of almost zero metabolic rate, for a very long time, encased in ice,. However, they would not survive the ultra low temperature of liquid nitrogen. Even certain hibernating mammals can lower their metabolic rate to survive in deep, arctic winter, but they still need to metabolise enough to remain above freezing. Once temperatures drop too low, metabolism stops completely.
Think of it as a car engine tticking over very, very slowly. Only when the fuel supply is increased will it rev up. Cut off rhe fuel completely and the engine stops.
In effect, It "dies". A very simple, low tech engine could be booted back into life with a crank handle. A modern engine, with metal alloys and delicate injection systems involved, would deteriorate and be impossible to restart by cranking it - unless it had not been exposed to extreme cold.

I think this ultimately comes down to what is consciousness. And even if something is self aware then what defines the identity of that self? And is the "self" that I experience in the morning when I wake up the same self as yesterday? Or have a long period of unconsciousness or coma? From my experience I don't think I'd notice - I'd believe I'm the same self as yesterday regardless of whether I was or not because I'd have memories of existing before and mostly memory defines who you are from most perspectives.

Definitely not arguing for a "Soul" here - I think I'm like most people in that I don't think soul is independent of the brain - destroy the brain, destroy the "soul".

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No current hard evidence that it works. Lots of people are currently being cryopreserved, but none have been successfully revived. The thought behind it is that we have not yet discovered technology that would be able to treat the negative effects of cryopreservation and the cellular crystallization that occurs. The thought is, though, that the method is intended to preserve enough of the brain information to permit future revival, so I'm thinking self would be sustained as well. Guess we won't know till we start waking those zombies up!

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