Hello! I’m Joe DiBuduo
and I’d like to share why I wrote Cryonic
Man: A Paranormal Affair, my sci-fi / paranormal romance novel.
During my research for Cryonic Man, I studied the procedures used in cryopreservation and I explain
this
process in the novel. I first read that the concept of cryonics was
introduced by Robert Ettinger, the founder of the Cryonics
Institute, in his landmark 1962
book, The Prospect of Immortality
(latest edition is Ria University Press, 2005).
At this
writing (2015) it is illegal to perform cryonic suspension on someone who is
still alive. A person who undergoes this procedure must first be pronounced legally
dead – that is, their heart must have stopped beating. I’m sure your first
question is, “But if someone is dead, how can they ever be revived?”
According
to scientists who perform cryonics, “legally dead” is not the same as “totally
dead.” Total death, medical science says, is the point at which all brain
function ceases. Legal death occurs when the heart stops beating, but some
cellular brain function remains. Cryonics preserves what little cell function
remains so that, theoretically, the person can be resuscitated in the future.
How people are
able to
survive on the brink of death depends upon medical technology. A hundred years
ago, cardiac arrest was irreversible. People were declared dead when their
heart stopped beating. Today, death is believed to occur six minutes after the
heart stops. After that time interval, it’s difficult to resuscitate the brain.
However, with new
experimental treatments, more minutes of cardiac arrest can be survived without
brain injury. Future technologies for molecular repair may extend the ability
to resuscitate people beyond what is imaginable today. The definition of death
may be revised from “a permanent cessation of all vital functions” to “a
temporary pause in vital functions.”
Millions
of people are captivated by the concept of living, dying, and awaking dozens or
hundreds of years from now. Cryonics may be a simple form of time travel that
doesn’t involve wormholes, speed of light travel, curved space-time, or
breaking the scientific laws of Einstein’s theories. Cryonic suspension could
be used in long interstellar space flights.
Cryonics
slows down or stops molecular activity to halt aging, and more importantly, to
avoid or extend to the future, the process of dying. For most of us, cryonics
seems bizarre, but it is plausible. When we get used to the idea that medical
science will advance to the point in which dying people can be healed and even
aging can be reversed or slowed down, we can accept the idea that
cryopreservation is obtainable in our lifetime. Even now, molecular healing via
nanobots is under research and will become a viable process in the near future.
Essentially,
advanced technology in the future will restore
any cellular function destroyed by hypoxia, disease, the cryonic preservation
process, or reperfusion injury – damage caused when
the blood supply returns to tissue after a period of ischemia, or lack of
oxygen, such as after a heart attack. The point
of cryogenics is that nearly everyone
who dies is only “mostly dead.”
Often, people confuse cryonics with
cryogenics. Cryonics is a process and cryogenics
is a field of study – the study of the production and the behavior of materials
at very low temperatures (below −150 °C, −238 °F or 123 K). Cryonics
borrows from cryogenics but it is not subjected to the same rigors and is
intrinsically based on assumptions that seem quite plausible at the present
time, but may or may not turn out to be true.
American baseball champ Ted Williams was cryopreserved in
two parts – head and body – after his death in 2002. Stories about his body undergoing disrespectful treatment
emerged soon after his cryonic procedure. Larry Johnson, a former chief
operating officer of Alcor Life Extension in Arizona, came forward to report
“horrific” and “unethical” practices by the company at that time.
Cryopreservation includes a full-body
preservation option or the “neuro option” of having only the head preserved, on
the premise that the brain is the seat of memory and that the human body and
its organs may be easily regenerated from DNA in the future.
The following questions filled my mind
after reading Ted Williams’ story:
1. If
Ted were revived, who would own his DNA?
2. Would
those who had inherited his property have to return it if and when he is
resuscitated?
3. The
skills of most anyone revived after a number of years would be outdated. Could
an athlete regain championship status?
4. Should
a person who wants to be frozen for future resuscitation invest in some type of
insurance program to assure they’d have an income when revived?
5. If
a young person were cryonically preserved, would he or she age?
6. What
if he or she was brought back to life after fifty years and he remained the
same age at time of death and cryopreservation?
7. Where
does the cryopreserved person’s soul go for fifty years?
8. Is
there a spiritual world where people go after they die?
9. Does
the cryopreserved person go to heaven, hell, or someplace else?
10.
Could another spirit or soul possess a cryopreserved person’s body when that
person is resuscitated after years in a cryonic state?
11. What
if a cryopreserved patient’s body is possessed by an evil spirit? Would the two
souls combine and become one, or would a battle for the body ensue?
12.
How would a cryopreserved person feel about children or other loved ones who
are physically older?
13. How
would a cryopreserved patient feel about their spouse or partner who may end up
being twice or three times their age after their revival?
14. If
a cryopreserved patient is a champion sports figure like Ted Williams, would he
or she want to resume their career?
15.
Will there be laws written to protect the rights of cryopreserved and
resuscitated persons?
I wrote Cryonic Man: A Paranormal Affair
to answer these questions. So if
you’d like to see my answers, please purchase
a copy!
