There are different types of deaths. No, I do not mean this metaphorically, but literally.
I
was having a discussion with my employer the other day and he informed
me that a 2-year old girl in Thailand is the youngest person so far to
have undergone the cryonics procedure. (Please scroll to the bottom for
terms I have pilfered off Wikipedia to aid understanding). I was
astounded. Why would a parent make such a decision regarding their baby?
I did a little bit of research and hers is a sad story.
Two
years old with severe brain cancer and she had undergone at least 27
surgeries due to that. When she eventually died, her parents decided to
preserve her brain in the hope that in the future there will be a cure
for it, and also a new body (?) as the report does not say her body was
preserved.
Here is my first problem
with Cryonics. I once read a book and there was this quote “we all owe
death a debt”. Sometimes it is unfair when you lose loved ones in
bewildering circumstances and tragic ones too as the case of this young
girl but what becomes of her? Let us say a cure is found by 2070 and she
is awoken, she might well be all alone in the world bereft of friends
and family. Alcor is the pioneering company that undertakes Cryonics and
it prides itself on being a “family” and one of its mission statements
is to help people reintegrate into the society, but will that be enough?
I decided to go through Alcor’s website with a fine toothed comb.
I
was informed that only “independent and intelligent people” have the
presence of mind to choose to be preserved as they live life to the
fullest and will want to continue the same. They also tell you that
cryonics can be paid for by your life insurance; full body preservation
is worth $200,000 whilst the brain is a mere $80,000. Yes, just your
everyday run of the mill insurance policy huh? However, another part of
me, the very gullible part that will buy a tin of cat food based on an
inviting advert for cat food on TV starts to think – Why not? I do want
to see what the future looks like as I have always wondered. For a
minute I forget that I have termed this procedure a horror movie waiting
to happen and I began to imagine futuristic Temi.
But
that did not last long. I am a firm Dualist. I believe that the human
is made of mind and body. Body and soul, the “ghost in the machine” and
what have you. Does your soul stand idly by and twiddles its thumb as
you hang upside down in Alcor’s freezer?
I
have never been able to accept the Monist argument that the sum of my
existence begins and ends with my brain. The brain is just that, a
physical organ. It cannot account for the myriad experiences I get and
feel that are not logical and have no basis in reality. For this and
various other reasons, I have rejected Monism. On the other hand,
I
also believe that there is Universal energy everyone keys into like the
movie Avatar. (Do you see how I am the architect of my own troubled
mind?) Energy is physical. Have you ever concentrated your thoughts on
someone and the person either calls you or text you almost immediately?
Yes. That is what I am talking about. Therefore, it makes sense to some
extent that when the “dead” people are resurrected, they can resume life
normally to the degree that they can be a part of this Universal energy
again; unless a soul is required to do so. I don’t know. This is too
much philosophy for me, and I am confused as well.
Another
interesting thing I found out is that this procedure is not completely
governed by law. Can you blame the law makers? I started to imagine
various possibilities of the future. Would we have a different category
of “people” as distinct from people born by natural birth? Who governs
how many times you can preserve yourself. You have to admit that it will
be unfair to go on an endless stream of cryopreservation just because
you can afford it. If the government gives a limit, how will they arrive
at this number? What if you owe a debt, will contracts include the
possibility of your resurrection so that your property can be inherited
by your heirs, but your debts will be solely yours to resume and pay off
on resurrection? Oh the fun I have had imagining various scenarios of
this kind.
In marriage, would death
truly do you part? What if the government decides its top and best
officials should be preserved as well to continuously govern the world?
Would we have a new and improved system of “Democracy”? Oh the
questions! And it does not stop there. I have deliberately left out
faith from this as I want you to decide and comment as to how this
affects your faith if it does at all. Do you think it is a horror movie
waiting to happen as well because Alcor may truly own the world in 100
years to come? Do you agree with it? If you had the means would you
consider it? Do you have any possible solution to any of my myriad
questions and musings? A bit heavy but it had to be done I’m afraid.
**Terms (Courtesy of Wikipedia, Alcor website and free online dictionary)
1:
The term Information-theoretic death relates to physical damage to the
brain and the loss of information. It is the destruction of the
information within a human brain to such an extent that recovery of the
original person is theoretically impossible by any physical means…The
term information-theoretic death is intended to mean death that is
absolutely irreversible by any technology, as distinct from clinical
death and legal death
2:
Cryonics (from Greek kryos meaning icy cold) is the low-temperature
preservation of humans who can no longer be sustained by contemporary
medicine, in the expectation they can be healed and resuscitated in the
future using more advanced medical technologies. Cryopreservation of
people is not reversible with current technology, and is today only
practiced following legal death.
3:
Dualism: In philosophy of mind, dualism is a view about the
relationship between mind and matter which claims that mind and matter
are two ontologically separate categories. Mind-body dualism claims that
neither the mind nor matter can be reduced to each other in any way
4:
Monism: The doctrine that mind and matter are formed from, or reducible
to, the same ultimate substance or principle of being.
Photo Credit: Dreamstime | Howard Sandler
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