Unrelated Pause: The Life and Death and Life Again of Cryonics

This is partially what I've been working on for the past two days..

I. Brief Overview

            About two hundred years ago, modern science of that time thought the instant we stopped breathing, we were dead.  The Society for Recovery of Drowned Persons helped to change that perception by spreading awareness of a crude form of cardiopulmonary resuscitation ("CPR")[i].  Modern science is well aware that just because someone stops breathing does not necessarily mean a person is dead. 

            Cryonics, the low temperature preservation of humans, operates on the principle that today's modern science is incorrect in its assumption of death.  For someone to be declared legally dead depends on the medical professional, but an often used guideline is the irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions[ii].  When someone is declared dead, their condition is considered irreversibly permanent.  Even though legally dead, most cells inside a person's body can still be alive immediately after being declared dead[iii].  It can take hours after being declared dead before all of the cells in a person's body truly die.  The cryonics industry operates on the assumption that if a body can be preserved immediately after it's legally declared dead, some day in the future, the person can be revived because future medical science will define death at a much later stage.  This is similar to today's modern definition of death being at a much later stage than two hundred years ago.  It's hoped that the medical technology of the future will advance to a stage where people can be revived from a cryogenically frozen state and can be cured from their original cause of death.  Patients who choose to have their body cryonically frozen are wagering that any remote possibility of being revived in the future outweighs the costs of being cryopreserved.

            The method currently used to preserve a body involves replacing the blood with a preservation solution and then the freezing the body and brain with liquid nitrogen[iv].  If frozen in this manner, the body and brain will suffer the least form of ice crystal damage and can be preserved for a long period. 

            The costs for cryonic preservation can be very expensive.  The Alcor foundation charges $80,000 to $150,000[v].  The Cryonics Institute charges $28,000 to $100,000[vi].  Because of the high costs, an insurance policy can be bought for the procedure at a cost of less than $100 a month.  Because of the remote possibility of being revived in the future, patients set up trust funds in jurisdictions without Rules Against Perpetuities[vii].  The funds are to be returned to an individual if they're revived.  Through the magic of compounding and assuming market returns will continue in the future, the revived individuals should have a small fortune waiting for them in the future.

            Currently, there are no methods of resuscitating and reviving cryonically preserved bodies.  There are no scientific procedures that can prove the success of cryonics.  Patients who choose to be cyropreserved are hopeful that future technologies to revive them might include computer mind uploading or tissue regeneration through molecular nanotechnology[viii].