From Joseph Strout
Your article on cryogenics and cryonics
(“Life on Ice”, 2 May, p 24)
neglected to mention important points concerning the freezing of whole humans.
The article seems to imply that a cryonics patient would be revived simply by
being thawed out—and the cryobiologists rightly point out that this is
impossible.
A cryonics patient would have to be revived by some technological feat which
simultaneously repaired freezing damage, cryoprotectant toxicity and the
original cause of death. Nanotechnology, with its ability to manipulate matter
on the atomic scale, might provide just such a feat.
The article also appears to miss the key point that a cryonics patient is in
a stable condition, and will remain that way for many decades. Despite the
damage, all the information that makes the patient who he or she is, is probably
intact and stable as long as the brain remains frozen. Future technology may be
able to use that information to rebuild the living person by some means we can
now only imagine. Who can know what will be impossible a century from now?
San Diego, California
