This week on The #GSPodcast Stephen Knight talks to microbiologist João Pedro de Magalhães (@jpsenescence) about Cryonics. They discuss the fear of dying, the science behind freezing humans, the implications for religion, technological advancements in the field and much, much more!
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A terminally ill patient who opted for assisted death has undergone cryonic preservation at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. This preservation—the first of its kind—signifies an important milestone for cryonics advocates, who argue that the right to death, paradoxically, is a potential pathway to an eternal life.
On October 30, 2018, Alcor performed its 164th cryopreservation. It was an otherwise unremarkable moment for the nonprofit organization, save for the way Norman Hardy of Mountain View, California met his demise. Hardy was diagnosed with terminal metastatic prostate cancer, and it had spread to his bones and lungs. As noted in Alcor’s case summary, his “pain had been poorly managed,” so he opted for assisted death, which was legalized in California in 2016 through the End of Life Options Act (EOLOA).
SAN LEANDRO (KPIX) — It is the stuff of science fiction and Hollywood movies. The promise: upon your death, your body is frozen until some future medical breakthrough restores you to full health.
Roughly 400 Americans — before they died — decided to bank on the possibility that this will happen. Their bodies are now being held at three facilities in the United States, including one in the East Bay.
“This is like a hospital,” explained Steve Garan, who took KPIX 5 reporter Juliette Goodrich on a tour of Trans Time, a Bay Area Cryonics facility in San Leandro.
You might think we’re not in Texas anymore but in some strange episode of Black Mirror, the Netflix series, says Nikos Acuna who is moderating this SXSW panel on transhumanism.
In fact you’d be forgiven if you did as there is talk about cryo-preserving the body after being declared dead, in the hopes you can be resurrected when the science is here to safely defrost your body and cure you of your ailments. There is also talk on mind uploading, and replacing parts of our brains with neural prosthetics. This all sounds like science-fiction but these days the stuff of science fiction has become fact.
Transhumanist technologies are about overcoming the limitations of human biology and Dr Max More and Dr Randal Koene are at the forefront of these technologies.
