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Cryonics On The Way Raising The Dead Philosophy Essay

Paper Type: Free Essay Subject: Philosophy
Wordcount: 2314 words Published: 1st Jan 2015

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Today technology plays a vital role in every aspect of life. Increasing standards in technology in many fields has been taken man today to high esteem. But the present available technologies are unable to interact with atoms, such a minute particles. Hence nanotechnology is used in this context. Nanotechnology is nothing but a technology which uses atoms with a view to creating desired product. It has wider application in all fields, the important application is CRYONICS.

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Cryonics is nothing but an attempt of raising the dead – making them alive. In this technical paper we would like to present how the process of cryonics goes on and why nanotechnology is being used and description of molecular machines which has the capability of repairing damaged cells and its effect on Culture, Health, and Longevity. And we also present the philosophical and ethical considerations of cryonics and benefits of supporting cryonics society. Cryonics is an area in which most of the work is to be done in the future.

INTRODUCING CRYONICS:

Cryonics is nothing but an attempt of raising the dead- making them alive. Actually the word “cryonics” is the practice of freezing a dead body in hopes of someday reviving it. A cryonics is the practice of cooling the people immediately after death to the point where the molecular physical decay completely stops, in the expectation that scientific and medical procedures currently being developed will be able to revive them and restore them to good health later. A patient held in such a state is said to be in “cryonic suspension”. There is reason to believe that current cryonics procedures can preserve the anatomical basis of mind. Cryonics works became more effective with the implementation of nanotechnology in it.

PREMISES OF CRYONICS:

The central premise of cryonics is that memory, personality, and identity is stored in cellular structures and chemistry, principally in the brain. While this view is widely accepted in medicine, and brain activity is known to stop and later resume under certain conditions, it is not generally accepted that current methods preserve the brain well enough to permit revival in the future. Cryonics advocates point to studies showing that high concentrations of cryoprotectant circulated through the brain before cooling can prevent structural damage from ice, preserving the fine cell structures of the brain in which memory and identity presumably reside.

HISTORY:

The first mention of nano technology occurred in a talk given by Richard Feynman in 1959, entitled. Historically cryonics began in 1962 with the publication of “THE PROSPECT OF IMMORTALITY”

Referred by Robert Ettinger, a founder and the first president of CRYONICS INSTITUTE. However, the modern era of cryonics began in 1962 when Michigan College physics teacher Robert Ettinger proposed in a privately published book, The Prospect of Immortality that freezing people may be a way to reach future medical technology. Even though freezing a person is apparently fatal, Ettinger argued that what appears to be fatal today may be reversible in the future.

NEUROPRESERVATION: Neuropreservation is cryopreservation of the brain, often within the head, with surgical removal and disposal (usually cremation) of the rest of the body. Neuropreservation, sometimes called “neuro,” is one of two distinct preservation options in cryonics, the other being “whole body” preservation. In some Neuropreservation cases, only the brain is cryopreserved. Neuropreservation is motivated by the brain’s role as the primary repository of memory and personal identity. The advantages and disadvantages of Neuropreservation are often debated among cryonics advocates. Critics of Neuropreservation note that the body is a record of much life experience, including learned motor skills (muscle memory). While few cryonicists doubt that a revived neuro patient would be the same person, there are wider questions about how a regenerated body might feel different from the original. Partly for these reasons (as well as for better public relations), the Cryonics Institute preserves only whole bodies. About three-quarters of the patients stored at Alcor are Neuropreservation patients.

CRYONICS AND NANO TECHNOLOGY:

1. Why only nanotechnology is used in cryonics:

Biological systems and molecules have a number of attributes that make them highly suitable for nanotechnology applications. Remote control of DNA has proved that electronics can interact with biology. Gap between electronics and biology is now closing. The key to Cryonics eventual success success is nanotechnology, manipulating materials on an atomic or molecular scale, according to most techniques who are interested in cryonics suspension. Current medical science does not have the tools to fix damage that occurs at the cellular and

molecular level, and damage to these systems is the cause of vast majority of fatal illness. Nanotechnology is the ultimate miniaturization can achieve. A nanometer is equivalent to the width of six bonded carbon atoms. A DNA molecule is 2.5nm wide. Cryonics basically deal with cells, these cells is in order of nanometers. At present there is no any technology which deals with such minute cells. Only nanotechnology can have the ability to deal with such cells.

Normally fatal accidents could be walked away from, thanks to range of safety devices possible with nanotechnology. Viruses, prions, parasites and bacteria continue to mutate and produce new diseases. Our natural immune system may, or may not, handles. In theory, a nano ‘cell sentinel’ could make our body immune to any present or future infectious disease.

Fracturing is special concern for new vitrification protocol brought online by Alcor for neuro patients. If advanced nanotechnology is available for patient recovery, then fracturing probably causes little information loss. Fracturing commits cryopatient to the need for molecular repair at cryogenic temperature a highly specialized and advanced form of nanotechnology. Whereas unfractured patients may be able to benefit sooner form simple forms of nanotechnology developed for more main stream medical applications. Damage caused by freezing & fracturing is thought to be potentially repairable in future using nanotechnology which will be enable manipulation of matter at the molecular level.

REVIVING PATIENTS BY MEANS:

1. MOLECULAR MACHINES: They could revive patients by repairing damaged cells but for making those cell repair machines, we first need to build a molecular assembler. The fundamental purpose of assembler is to position atoms. Robotic arms are other position devices are basically mechanical in nature, and will allow us to position molecular parts during the assembly process. Molecular mechanics provides us with an excellent tool for modeling the behavior of such devices. The second requirement is the ability to make and break bonds at specific sites. While molecular machines provides an excellent tool for telling us where the tip of the assembler arm is located, current force fields are not adequate to model the specific chemical reactions that must then take place at the tip/work piece interface involved in building an atomically precise part. For this higher order sufficient calculations are needed. The methods of computation chemistry available today allow us to model a wide range of molecular machines with accuracy sufficiently in many cases to determine how well they will work.

2. COMPUTATIONAL NANOTECHNOLOGY:

It includes not only the tools and techniques required to model the proposed molecular machines it must also includes the tools required to specify such machines. Molecular machine proposal that would require million or even billions of atoms that have been made. The total atom count of an assembler might be roughly a billion atoms. While commercially available molecular modeling packages provide facilities to specify arbitrary structures it is usually necessary to point and click for each atom involved. This is obviously unattractive for a device as complex as an assembler with its roughly one billion atoms.

The software required to design and model complex molecular machine is either already available or can be readily developed over the next few years. The molecular compiler and the other molecular CAD tools needed for this work can be implemented using generally understood techniques and methods from computer science. Using this approach it will be possible to substantially reduce the development time for complex molecular machines.

ACTUAL PROCESS OF CRYONICS:

The procedure explaining is the practical one how an Alcor patient’s body is frozen and stored until medical technology can repair the body and revive the patient, or grow a new body for the patient.

Patient declared legally dead

On way to Alcor in Arizona, blood circulation is maintained and patient is injected with medicine to minimize problems with frozen tissue. Cooling of body begun. (If body needs to be flown, blood is replaced with organ preservatives).

At Alcor body is cooled to 5 degrees.

Chest opened, blood is replaced with a solution (glycerol, water, and other chemicals) that enters the tissues, pushing out water to reduce ice formation. In 2 to 4 hours, 60% or more of body water is replaced by glycerol.

Freezing the body

The patient is placed in cold silicone oil, chilling the body to -79oC. Then it’s moved to an aluminum pod and slowly cooled over 5 days in liquid nitrogen to -196oC (minus 320oFahrenheit), then stored.

Actual process starts:

After preserving the body for someday, they will start the surgery. As a part of it, they will apply some chemicals like glycerol and some advanced chemicals to activate the cells of the body. By doing so, 0.2% of the cells in the body will be activated. After that they will preserve the body for future applications.

.Storage vessels

Stainless – steel vats formed into a large thermos – bottles – like container. Wait for up to four bodies weighs about a ton; stands 9 feet tall.

CRYONICS AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS:

CRYONICS IN SCIENCE FICTION AND IN MOVIES:

There are so many science fiction films that feature cryonics that it is hard to know where to begin. Woody Allen’s Sleeper has always held a particular place of affection in the hearts of cryonics advocates. But most films take it more seriously. CRYONICS AND HEALTH:

One of the world’s leading cryonics organizations has observed that the percentage of doctors among its membership is ten times that of the general public. Many in cryonics match their thirst for life in the future with a passion for enhancing life today. Their goal is not to live recklessly and badly now in hopes that future repair can restore what has been abused today.

CRYONICS AND LONGEVITY:

The fact remains, no matter how much exercise you do or however many vitamins you may take to prolong your life, there comes a point where the human body will break down and eventually

Die. A time may be coming when that moment may be pushed back radically, and when good health and freedom from the pain of age and illness are everyone’s choice.

But right now, the choice for a truly extended life comes down to a choice for cryonics. It is certain that new means will be developed in the future to push back aging and sickness. It’s also certain that it can’t benefit you if you’re not there to receive it. Cryonics is an attempt to make sure that you do receive it. That you can reach that future point where the promise of human longevity is fulfilled to its maximum. If longevity matters to you, cryonics matters to you.

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BENEFITS OF SUPPORTING THE CRYONICS SOCIETY

1. Assistance.

2. Information

3. Action.

4. Meaning.

5. Social Support and Public Outreach

6. A Chance for Life

OBSTACLES AGAINST CRYONICS:

PRESERVATION INJURY

ISCHEMIC INJURY

REVAIVAL

FINANCIAL ISSUES

COURT RULES AGAINST PRESERVING:

ETHICAL AND PHYLOSOPHICAL ISSUES:

Cryonics is based on a view of dying as a process that can be stopped in the minutes, and perhaps hours, following clinical death. If death is not an event that happens suddenly when the heart stops, this raises philosophical questions about what exactly death is. Ethical and theological opinions of cryonics tend to pivot on the issue of whether cryonics is regarded as interment or medicine.

FUTURE HOPES OF CRYONICS:

With the knowledge of the cryonics, cryonists are preserving the brains of humans. We know that each person alive today was once a single cell and a complete human being can be grown in the natural surface of that brain begins a process of growth and development that perhaps appends to the brain a complete young adult body. State. Thus they believe that genetic programming of a single cell on the surface of that brain begins a process of growth and development that perhaps

CONCLUSION.

With the implementation of cryonics one can get back the life.

Cryonics is an area in which most of the works is to be done in future until now the concept of this area has been proposed.

So, the scientists are making long promises and greater hopes of the Cryonics World

“Your Last Best Chance For Life–and Your Family’s.”

 

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