Would You Take A Chance At Immortality By Freezing Yourself For Rs. 1.32 Cr?

47-year-old Elaine Walker is a single mother and a part-time college instructor at Scottsdale Community College, Arizona, USA. Her life is pretty similar to yours or mine, except for one glaring difference that cuts her out from the rest of us. She is eligible to be cryopreserved after her death. Or as people are putting it nowadays, she has a shot at becoming immortal, after death. Or something like that. Immortal not in the true sense of the word, of course. Here, for you to live forever, you'd have to die first.

This isn't science fiction. In fact, it might not even be science, but still there are thousands around the world, just like Ms. Walker, who have put their trust and a lot of their money on cryonics.

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What is Cryonics?

The company Elaine is counting on for her 'revival', Alcor, describes Cryonics as an effort to save lives by freezing a person beyond help by today's medicine and preserving them for decades or even centuries until medical technology from the future can restore that person to full health. Based on modern science, it's really an experiment. Cryonics justifies some unknown facts like -

- If the basic structure is preserved at the perfect conditions, life, as we know it, can be stopped and restarted.

- Vitrification can preserve biological structures. No, not mummifying a body, but adding high concentrations of cryoprotectants to cells permits tissue to be cooled to very low temperatures with little or no ice formation. The state of no ice formation at temperatures below -120¡ãC is called vitrification. We can vitrify organs now, without freezing them.

- We are moving towards repairing of cells at a very molecular level.

Given these things are in check, Cryonics should work. However, it cannot be demonstrated right now. And that's the tricky part because it's basically living in the hope that the future will have most of the answers to questions we have today.

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It's not really about death.

It's somewhat like switching off a device. In this case, we are the device. The objective is to prevent death by preserving the cell structure, chemistry and everything in between - including an individual's personality and memories. The word they use is 'resuscitate'. The belief is if people are cryopreserved to be resuscitated later, they aren't dead.

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People are putting their faith in this

Cryonics dates all the way back to the 60s. Since the first cryopreservation case in 1967, more than a hundred people have been cryopreserved. Now, with more and more organisations taking an interest in the practice, Alcor might be the biggest but definitely isn't the only one in the ecosystem.

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How long can you be 'dead' for? What's the process?

In an ideal scenario, the procedure of cryonics should begin right after the heart stops beating (1-2 minutes), preferably within 15 minutes. Taking more time would make it tougher for the future technology to restore the vital organs.

The process of "revival in the future" should begin ASAP, which is why the company that's doing the operation advises the patient to be in their care or in the vicinity. Once the doctor declares the patient dead, Alcor's team prepares an ice bath and begins administering 16 medications and variations of antifreeze until the patient's temperature drops to sub-zero temperatures.

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Is it expensive?

Yes, and there are no two ways about it. It costs $200,000 for one person to undergo cryonics. In fact, this has been a deterrent for a number of people intrigued in the tech. Why would anyone pay 1.32 crores to undergo a process after death without any guarantees? A very valid point with no definitive answers at the time being. But things are looking for those willing to take the leap of faith, as companies like Alcor have started tying up with life insurance policies and making the process cheaper.

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There are other forms of revival as well.

Humai is an Australian start-up that believes it could revive humans from the dead within thirty years. But this isn't cryonics. It's taking the personality of the deceased, and putting it in an artificial body - making the 'robot' have a personality, have a conscious. Quoting from their website, Humai is "using artificial intelligence and nanotechnology to store data of conversational styles, behavioral patterns, thought processes and information about how your body functions from the inside-out. This data will be coded into multiple sensor technologies, which will be built into an artificial body with the brain of a deceased human." The creator of Humai, Josh Bocanegra believes we could have the first "resurrection" in the next 30 years.

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Are we putting too much faith in things we don't know?

You could look at it that way, but here's another question to ponder over. Haven't we always put our faith in things we don't know? Religion? So if there are a majority of us willing to do things based on our faith in religion, why is it so difficult for us to believe that there are others who are willing to put their faiths in cryonics, Humai or whatever there is out there?

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The concept of immortality, even though petrifying to some, does excite us to some degree as well. And that's exactly why you're reading this. To quote Miss Walker here, "I want to see the future, so this is what I'm excited about, the cost is very small considering I have that hope."

Hope is what keeps us going, and will, even beyond what we perceive as life.