Doctors' estimates of the feasibility of preserving the dying for future revival

Reactions to Physician Probability Estimates

• Commenters are surprised that US physicians gave a median ~25% chance that ideal cryopreservation preserves enough neural information for possible future revival.
• Some suspect selection bias (doctors interested in the topic responding) and influence from funders connected to cryopreservation.
• A coauthor clarifies methods: both generalists and many specialists were surveyed with quotas; no post‑hoc exclusion; hypothermia examples were meant as precedent, not equivalence.
• Others argue that asking current clinicians to assign probabilities to never‑attempted future tech is inherently speculative and comparable to guessing about fictional technology.

Feasibility, Incentives, and Legal Structures

• Major skepticism that, under capitalism, organizations will actually maintain bodies for centuries: risk of bankruptcy, cost‑cutting, or outright fraud, with no recourse for the dead.
• Nonprofit status and the fact that staff are often signed up themselves are seen by some as stronger incentives; others note non‑profits can drift or be hijacked.
• Proposed mitigations: independent trusts that drip‑feed funds to storage providers and can replace them; but trusts themselves can be mismanaged or misaligned.
• Historical examples of cryonics failures (bankrupt firms, thawed bodies) fuel doubt that infrastructure can last 100–200 years, especially amid political and climatic instability.
• Technical debate touches on ice‑crystal damage vs vitrification; some claim the “ice crystal problem” is solved in principle, others stress that “ideal conditions” ignore real‑world error rates.

Philosophical Views on Death, Time, and Self

• Many compare death to anesthesia or dreamless sleep: no passage of time subjectively, possibly followed by “waking” elsewhere if some recurrence or revival occurs.
• Others push back on assumptions about infinite time: infinity doesn’t guarantee every configuration reoccurs; heat death or eternal proton “vapor” states may preclude recombination of a specific brain.
• Boltzmann brain and multiverse scenarios are discussed, with some noting they lead to unsettling solipsistic conclusions.
• There’s debate over whether consciousness could be restored by mere atomic (or structural) recombination, and over whether quantum effects matter at that scale.
• Several commenters express Buddhist‑style or no‑self views: “you” are an evolving, distributed process, so worrying about the exact same self being revived may be a category error.
• Others find comfort in the Lucretian symmetry: nonexistence after death is no worse than before birth, and fear should focus more on suffering while dying than on what follows.

Personal Stories, Risk, and Moral Responsibility

• A long subthread centers on a story of an overweight father dying of a heart attack after hiking to protect his daughter, and the poster’s guilt for not going instead.
• Responses range from reassurance (“not your fault”) to reminders about personal responsibility and lifetime health choices, to criticism of fat‑shaming.
• Several people reflect on the “butterfly effect” vs obvious risks (e.g., frail seniors on strenuous hikes), and how becoming a parent raises one’s appetite for safety.
• The discussion branches into how to think probabilistically about risky behavior and how much responsibility we bear for others’ choices.

Cultural and Fictional References

• Commenters invoke Star Trek: TNG, Arthur C. Clarke’s “3001,” Transmetropolitan, and Mark Twain’s quip on pre‑birth “nonexistence” to explore social shock, ethics, and personal attitudes toward death.
• One asks whether cryonics work in animals parallels well‑established cryopreservation of cells and embryos; no clear consensus or detailed answer emerges.
• A minority questions the point of revival in a future where the economy may not “need” humans; others reply that motives for preserving life go beyond economic utility.