View Full Version : Would you want to be cryonically frozen?
Simon Cowell has revealed that he wants to be cryonically frozen so that he can return to life in the future.
The media mogul was speaking to guests at a private dinner hosted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown when he disclosed that he would be doing the UK an "invaluable service", says the Daily Mail.
He said: "I have decided to freeze myself when I die. You know, cryonics. You pay a lot of money and you get stuck in a deep freeze once you've been declared dead.
"Medical science is bound to work out a way of bringing us back to life in the next century or so, and I want to be available when they do. I would be doing the nation an invaluable service."
The PM replied that he would be a less popular candidate for a second coming, adding: "In fact, there may be a public campaign to stop me being frozen!"
Any of you that would like to go down that road?
Nope, wouldn't want to come back to life to find all my family and friends that I once knew were dead. The world would probably be a worse place to live and everything would be strange. Somebody else would probably be living in my home and I'd still be the age I was when I died.
I don't know. If somebody else, like a friend, wanted to be frozen too, then I might consider it.. I was thinking about this yesterday. I don't want to die, but I don't want to live forever if I'm old and I can't look after myself.. Whether or not I'd like to wake up, alone, and in a completely different place and time, or just die like everyone else, is a hard question. If I'm going off of the fact that I don't want to die, I'll pick being frozen... I'm not sure though.
It's very expensive to be frozen, you're talking hundreds of thousands of quid. I researched it once (for my A levels) and it's not something I'd enter into really.
This company (http://www.alcor.org/) in America do cryogenic freezing.
Yeah, I know. I mean, I would never do it.. The idea is comforting is some weird way though.
StarsOfCCTV
22-02-2009, 19:46
I wouldn't invest loads of money in an unproven technology. How can you wake someone up from being frozen? Its like taking the chicken out of the freezer and expecting it to start walking. :lol:
Except the chicken had it's head and legs cut off, blood drained and organs removed :lol:
But I see your point :p
di marco
22-02-2009, 20:00
i dont think id want it done. it might be hundreds of years in the future and not only would everyone else you know be dead but you wouldnt have a clue how to live as times would have drastically changed. although it might seem like a nice idea to be able to live again, i think it would be horrible to not know what anything is or what life is like, i think it would be pretty scary! having said that, i can sort of see how some people might want it done, especially if they die at a young age due to cancer or something
Chris_2k11
22-02-2009, 20:23
I do not believe that this would even work, it seems fantasy like.
It does work. Cryonics isn't freezing, it's vitrifying. Vitrification is an ice-free process in which more than 60% of the water inside cells is replaced with protective chemicals. This completely prevents freezing during deep cooling.
Blood vessels and whole kidneys have been reversibly vitrified, so it is theoretically possible that whole bodies can be reversibly vitrified. Whether this has been done on humans, I don't know.
di marco
22-02-2009, 20:59
I do not believe that this would even work, it seems fantasy like.
It does work. Cryonics isn't freezing, it's vitrifying. Vitrification is an ice-free process in which more than 60% of the water inside cells is replaced with protective chemicals. This completely prevents freezing during deep cooling.
Blood vessels and whole kidneys have been reversibly vitrified, so it is theoretically possible that whole bodies can be reversibly vitrified. Whether this has been done on humans, I don't know.
i cant remember if i read that someone had been frozen or just that people had already paid for it to be done when they die
obviously the freezing part is possible but i wonder how possible it would actually be to bring people back from the dead
What if you pay out loads of money to get this treatment and then something goes wrong and you come back to life too early or too late, depending on when you wanted to be brought back to life. And would your immune system be able to cope with different kind of bacteria and viruses?
Interesting
I dont really know what I do, I used to like the idea but well im not sure what I think, if it was cheaper and all that then yes and if I could live a lot longer yes
For me im more interested in living longer, rather than being frozen in time sort of thing
di marco
24-02-2009, 22:09
What if you pay out loads of money to get this treatment and then something goes wrong and you come back to life too early or too late, depending on when you wanted to be brought back to life. And would your immune system be able to cope with different kind of bacteria and viruses?
i dont think you can choose when to be brought back can you? i thought it was just when they found a cure for whatever killed you then you would be brought back to life
And would your immune system be able to cope with different kind of bacteria and viruses?
I was watching Amazon With Bruce Parry earlier. He was in the Amazon and went back to visit a tribe he had met a couple of years before. The tribe have been hit with Hepatitis, and because their immune systems aren't able to cope with modern day infections (these were tribes that had never been in contact with anyone from the "outside world"), they are dying. Their own doctors (Shamen) have also died from Hep B so there is nobody to treat these people. It was the same in another tribe that he visited. Two children had the 'flu because they had been in contact with civilised people and their immune systems weren't able to cope with the foreign virus and bacteria.
So in answer to your question, probably not. Viruses and bacteria are constantly mutating (think MRSA and MSSA) so what your body can fight now probably won't be the same in a couple of hundred years.
Why would a person want to come back to life with no family or friends left? Would they even know who they are after being vitrified for so long?
I have seen that programme too and that was what got me thinking about how the immune system might cope or not cope. The same would apply to try to bring back an extinct species using DNA from fossils etc. I suppose. And can somebody cope with the new life? I imagine that a Neandertal man or woman would probably not be able to cope with today's lifestyle.
Simon Cowell was only joking when he said that he wanted to be cryonically frozen, according to his representative.
The American Idol judge was reported to have announced that he wanted his body placed in a "deep freeze" when he died so that he could return to life in the future.
"Medical science is bound to work out a way of bringing us back to life in the next century or so, and I want to be available when they do. I would be doing the nation an invaluable service", he said.
However, Lisa Dallos has assured reporters that the star's comment was made as a tongue-in-cheek remark and had been taken out of context.
:lol:
I was watching American Idol for 5 minutes or so at the weekend.
Simon Cowall looked as if he had already been frozen - or was that just the botox?
StarsOfCCTV
25-02-2009, 16:02
:lol:
I think its more sensible to invest in growing replacement organs. I think its been done with bladders. If we could do that then we could replace organs over and over again whereas now for example a transplanted heart only lasts 5-15 years and loads of people die waiting for organs.
for example a transplanted heart only lasts 5-15 years and loads of people die waiting for organs.
Wow! I never knew that
why is that?
Organ transplants don't last long. A kidney lasts around five years.
In some cases, it will be down to the disease that the recipient has. For example, Cystic Fibrosis is a genetic disease so even after a heart-lung transplant, mucus will still build up. Eventually the new organs will become as damaged as the previous ones.
Another reason is the age of the transplanted organ. If you get a heart from an 80 year old, it's not going to be as strong as the heart of a 20 year old. Although still transplantable, the older heart won't last as long as the young one will.
Yeah I guessed about the age thing I knew in those cases it would be like that
I just didnt really think of the organs having an 'expirory date'
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