CRYONICS UK

act

The New Ice Age

WORDS Maria Paggetti
PHOTOGRAPHS Dan TobinSmith
Esquire April 2003

Austin powers may be its most famous proponent, but having yourself frozen and coming back in the future is no joke - certainly not for the world's 1,000 cryonicists.

"I don't want to miss out on the future. In a few hundred years time, space travel will be commonplace. I'd like to visit different planets. Everything will be utterly computerised, too. I am definitely looking forward to a total man/ machine interface."

Mark Walker is a 40-year-old automation analyst from Stafford. What he's talking about may sound like sci-fi fantasy, but Mark has bet his £18,000 life insurance on his seeing it become a reality. And so have a thousand other people all over the world.

Welcome to cryonics. We've read about the possibilities, we've seen the celluloid interpretations, from Woody Allen's future fantasy Sleeper, to Austin Powers emerging with his Sixties attitudes in the Nineties, to the crazy idea of Futurama's museum of talking preserved heads in jars. But what we want to know is what's involved... and why?

Cryonics is a branch of cryogenics, the science that deals with very low temperatures. It is the name given to the process of cooling a human body to -196⁰C immediately after death and then preserving it at that temperature until medical science has developed to such an advanced degree that the body can be "cured" of whatever killed it, and the patient returned to the land of the living. It is the promise of everlasting life based on a blind faith in science: a pretty crazy idea, but humans have lived their lives according to more crazy ones than this, suggests Bob Newport, a psychiatrist who sits on the medical advisory board of Alcor, a company that provides such a service. "Humans are so afraid of death, it's almost impossible to think about it rationally. Exploring death irrationally is what brought us religion. Depending on cryonics for immortality is `barely rational', but it's more rational than depending on Jesus to provide everlasting life."

THE PROSPECT OF EVERLASTING LIFE

In 1962, the US physicist and mathematician Robert Ettinger wrote a book called The Prospect of Immortality. In it, he argued that science had already shown that embryos and small organs could be cooled to the temperature of liquid nitrogen (-196°C) with DNA surviving intact. (Test-tube babies are living proof of this.) It would only be a matter of time before science worked out how to revive an entire human body, and in that time other medical advancements would work out a cure for cancer, a cure for heart disease, a cure for ageing...

Over the course of the Sixties, individuals influenced by Ettinger's ideas formed cryonics groups. In January 1967, retired psychology professor Dr James Bedford became the first human being to be placed in cryonic suspension. In 1976, the Cryonics Institute (CI) became the first (non-profit) commercial organisation offering such a service. The CI and Alcor, the two biggest cryonic-suspension providers, now boast almost 1,000 members between them, with 100 people already packed away in their huge cylindrical metal units.

BET YOUR LIFE ON IT

Pascal's Wager is a pragmatic argument for justifying belief in God. Which is worth the risk of error - belief or non-belief? If there is no afterlife, then everyone ends up equal, but if there is, only believers will get into heaven while non-believers will end up with eternal damnation. Is opting for cryonics suspension just the sensible bet in a modern-day version of Pascal's Wager? Cloning, the internet, space travel - all these things would have been laughed off as fiction before science invented them for real. So why not cryonics?

THE BIG CHILL

If you have signed your afterlife over to Alcor or the Cryonics Institute, they will try to be waiting at your bedside when the time comes, ready to spring into action the moment you've drawn your last breath (well, not your last if everything works out). You will then be lowered into an ice bath while your circulation and lungs are artificially restored by a CPR machine. Surgery will then be performed to gain access to your femoral artery and vein, and cryo-protectant (antifreeze) will replace your blood. You will be immersed in alcohol for cooling to -79⁰C (the temperature of dry ice) over the next 48 hours. Then you will be transported to the US to be cooled to -196⁰C, where you will be stored until your inevitable revival.

PROOF OF LIFE AFTER FREEZING

The cryogenic freezing and revival of animals already exists in nature and science labs. For example, wood frogs freeze themselves every winter and thaw out into perfect health each spring - one day they're frogsicles, the next they're hopping around and croaking to their heart's content.

Californian company BioTime Inc has already made some progress in this field. In its search to find a blood substitute for organ transplants and cold-temperature surgery, it conducted freezing/heating experiments on hamsters, with surprising results. Paul Segall, Chairman and CEO of BioTime Inc, reported "getting a decent percentage of these guys back. You warm them up and, to and behold, they breathe again. You can squeeze their paw and they'll respond. They'll even walk around."

But this is uncommon. Most animals experience molecular damage when they are frozen and cannot be brought back to their former glory. This is known in scientific circles as the "Strawberry Argument", in honour of the way the fruit, when frozen, thaws out to a mushy shade-of its formerly robust self. This chemistry of life and death is the challenge of cryonics.

THE PRIZE OF A LIFETIME

Last year, New Scientist magazine ran a competition offering the choice of cryonic freezing as one of its prizes. Although, in the event, the winner actually chose a holiday in Hawaii instead, over a quarter of the entrants specified cryonic freezing as their preferred prize option.

CI has gained six new members since New Scientist publicised their cause. What inspires people to take such an expensive gamble? The main thread that links all Alcor and CI members, whatever their circumstances, is their reluctance to die. "I can't really see the benefit of dying," says Alcor subscriber Simon Hancock. "It occurred to me one day that in the future it will come under our control."

Any concrete idea of what cryonicists actually want from the future, or what benefit their extended lifespan could bring to the world, is less clear, however. Twenty-seven-year-old Steven Vachani, another Alcor subscriber, believes that "everything will fall into place. If you want the answers immediately, you'll never do anything." British CI member Chrissie de Rivaz claims to have "a lot of idealistic hopes" for any future society, but mainly stresses her belief in human self-preservation: mankind will continue and she wants to be there to see it. Cryonicists have a tendency to gloss over questions about the possible pitfalls of future societies, of eternally living their age of "first death" and of why it would be a good thing for us all to live forever.

Cryonics members hope that the necessary strides in life-restoration and body regeneration techniques will allow them to be revived in about 50 to 100 years' time. Graham Sharpe at William Hill would give you odds of io,ooo-i on being revived in 2050, and odds of 1,000-1 of being revived in 2100. Sharpe says a lot can happen in loo years, especially in science. (The last time William Hill offered 1,000-1 on a similar bet was in the Sixties, when at least one punter bet a termer that man would walk on the moon by the end of the decade. Unfortunately, his luck ran out when he died crashing the sportscar he bought with some of his winnings.)

THE APPLIANCE OF SCIENCE AND A LEAP OF FAITH

At present there are two main barriers to the successful thawing of cryogenically suspended patients. One is cell damage from "freezing" the human body. The other is the "cure" for whatever killed them in the first place. Cryonicists have put their faith in two technologies they believe will provide answers to these problems.

The first, vitrification, is cryopreservation without the formation of cell-damaging ice crystals. Though it is still in its infancy, it may be used for cryopreservation within the next decade. The other, nanotechnology, was first outlined in Dr Eric Drexler's 1986 book, Engines of Creation. It refers to the technologies emerging from the ablility to engineer materials on a molecular scale. The possibilities extend across many fields, but in medicine nanotechnology has the potential to develop tiny robots that will live inside humans and "fix" them when they go wrong. Such cell-repair machines could theoretically not only tackle cancer or other diseases, but also reverse the effects of ageing at a molecularlevel. So the theory is that by the time the technology to revive cryogenically suspended patients exists, it will have rendered cryonics obsolete because eternal youth will be available to all.

SO YOU WANT TO BE SUSPENDED?

Signing up for cryonic suspension is a relatively straightforward process. Choose between the self-proclaimed "first-class" suspension techniques of Alcor (www.alcor.org) or the premium economy Cryonics Institute (www.cryonics.org). Both have UK branches, though your ultimate destination in both cases will be the US (Alcor's main suspension facilities are based in Arizona, the CI's in Michigan). All the information you could possibly need is on the internet. Some good starting points are www.alcor.org, www.cryonics.org and www.cryonics-europe.org. There you will find email addresses for everyone involved in cryonics in the UK, and they will be more than happy to answer any queries. CI charges $28,000 for cryonic suspension, while Alcor charges $120,000 for full-body suspension or $50,000 forjust your head (the idea being that technology will exist to build a new, possibly improved body to house your preserved brain). Most people coverthe cost by naming their cryonics service provider as the sole beneficiary in their life-insurance policy.

Sidebars and captions

Safe in their hands - Dr R Michael Perry, patient monitor at Alcor and author of the book ForeverforAll: Moral Philosophy, Cryonics, and the Scientific Prospects for Immortality'. Opposite page, left, portraits of Alcor's customers line the corridor walls. Right, the pins on the map mark the location of each Alcor member

CASE STUDY OF A BRITISH CRYONICIST

MARK WALKER, right, signed up for cryonic suspension with the Cryonics Institute in 1998. He pays £40 a month in life-insurance premiums to cover the cost of cryonic suspension after his death. "The idea occurred to me in my late teens. I was watching a chat show with a family who had all decided to opt for cryonic suspension. I thought only the rich could afford it, but when I started to investigate properly, I realised it was an option forordinary people like me. I want a chance to be around in the future, I'm a real sci-fi fan, and have visions of a Matrix-type future. I have a lot of faith in technology and its advancement. I don't see how cryonics can't work. The definition of death is changing all the time, what with resuscitation and heart transplants. If I can be suspended indefinitely, I can't believe something won't come around to help revive me in health. I'm hoping that my body could be restored to how it was in my early thirties. A lot of my family think I'm starkraving barmy, but in a nice way. They've said they won't interfere. My girlfriend comesto the meetings, but I don't know how interested she is herself. She's a nurse, so I think she's interested in some of the medical procedures. That's the one downside. I'd like someone I'm close to to be revived with me."

Vision of the future Left, Mark Walker, who signed up for suspension with the Cryonics Institute: "I don't see how it can't work." Opposite, the patient-storage room at Alcor. the containers are called "Oewars"and contain five patients each, give or take the odd head

"You warm these frozen hamsters upand, lo and behold, they breathe again. You can squeeze their paw and they'll respond. They'll even walk around"
"William Hill would give you odds of 10,000-1 on being revived in 2050, and odds of 1,000-1 of being revived in 2100. A lot can happen in 100 years, especially in science"

WHAT WILL THE FUTURE HOLD?

Cryonicists' realistic hopes for a revival date start in the year 2050. Kevin Warwick, Professor of
Cybernetics at the University of Reading, predicts what fhey can expect to find when they wake up:

2050 We will have e-everything, especially e-medicine, with direct connections from computers into the human body that will monitor conditions and deliver e-drugs (there'll be much less of the horrible chemical stuff that we have in 2003). We will also have
> an ageing population that will need to be tended by robots and technology.
> little domesticated robots to assist with housework and to act as security guards.
>technological warfare.
There will be no bodybags, simply technology fighting technology - a bit like a game of chess.

2100 Direct implant connections between the human brain and the computer network accessible at your corner shop will have transformed the world. We will be able to
> control technology (for example lights, heating, doors etc) directly from the brain.
> drive transport with thought.
> communicate by thought, both between humans and between human and machine.
> increase the human senses to include infra-red, X-rays and so on. control our eating and drinking to ensure it is exactly the amount we need using a patent device called a "Slimplant".

2200 The big question is, who will be runningthe planet: intelligent machines or cyborgswith part-human, part-machine brains?
> Many humans will have evolved/been upgraded into cyborgs. (Those awaking from suspension will need an instant upgrade.)
> With the ability to think in hundreds of dimensions, they will have solved the problem of travelling faster than the speed of light.
> What remains of mankind will be living a sort of Matrix lifestyle: electronic downloads will give them an apparently idealistic existence, while in reality they act as an energy source for the cyborgs.