Is the human body frozen a business gimmick?

Author | Li Beichen

Source | Whale Fall Business Review

Frozen the human body to recover in the future, this idea can be traced back to science fiction novels in 1931. With the "the first batch of frozen people now", it not recently appeared on Weibo hot search, and the human body frozen technology that walked on the edge of ethics into the public vision again.

Of course, this is destined to be an extremely niche technology. In this world, only a small number of people believe that as long as they let their loved ones "live" in liquid nitrogen tanks, medical progress after many years will allow them to make them make them. The loved ones were returning to life.

According to reports, only 4 institutions in the world can independently complete human freezing, one of which is in China. At present, the number of frozen people in the world is close to 500, of which 10 Chinese are both well -known entrepreneurs and young boys who are only 13 years old. Among these 10 frozen people, only two are independent participation, most of which are decided from their family members: some are children's choices for their parents, some are parents 'choices for their children, and some are their husbands' choices for their wives.

So the question is, what does this choice mean?

Fairy Pascar Gambling

In any case, this is an expensive choice. Taking the world's premier human freezer ALCOR as an example, as early as a few years ago, their charging standards were very high: the whole body frozen charging was about 200,000 US dollars (about 1.35 million yuan ), Only freezing the brain about 80,000 US dollars (about 540,000 yuan), and the cost of freezing equipment and personnel care is required each year.

You may ask, is it worth doing this?

The answer of frozen supporters is: Of course it is worth it.

More than 300 years ago, mathematician Pascal proposed a famous gambling game: Do you want to believe in God? His demonstration logic is: If I believe in God and His existence, then I have eternal life, and the benefits are unlimited; if He does not exist, the loss is only limited. Conversely, if I do n’t believe in God and He exists, then I will be punished by hell, and the loss is unlimited; if He does not exist, the benefits are limited. So I still believe it.

On the surface, choosing a "medical miracle" that believes in the future also follows the same logic. But in fact, if you really choose Pascal's logic to choose to believe in God, it is a bit too hasty. Pascal only gives only a minimalist model. In reality, it is not so black or white. For example, which one do you choose to believe in many "versions"? Can I really get eternal life by relying on "faith"? What if God doesn't like your utilitarian motivation?

Well, the human body is frozen. It is just a belief that the shell net said in an article that although wearing scientific and rational coats, but the foundation of the human body is still a foundation.

"Think about how many presets are hidden behind its eternal life -technology will continue to move forward and even accelerate forever; all diseases will be cured, and even aging itself will be defeated and reversed; in the future Humans will be willing to recover the corpses from distant past, willing to accept these ancients into their own society, and have the ability to feed the population; people who recover can not speak in language, skills are invalid, and they are out of mind. In the case of no text, it is incorporated into this changeable society and lived smoothly. All of this is not evidenced pseudo -hypothesis from science, but an ideology that exists independently of science: This is believed in progress. Believe in transcendence, believe in utopia. In this regard, there is no essential difference between it and the eternal life promised by religion. "

The real question is, is this "belief" reliable?

High emotional value

My answer is: at least as unreliable as religion.

The principle of freezing the human body is not difficult to understand. First of all, freezing can only begin after the party died in the legal sense, but frozen supporters believe that death is just a legal provision, and there is no clear physiological boundary. The body still has a considerable degree of integrity during legal death. Ideally, the dead will accept the preservation injection a few minutes after the heart stops and replace a considerable part of the water in the body. In this way, the "glassization" process will occur inside the cells in the subsequent freezing process. Therefore, many structural integrity can be preserved. If everything goes well, the future technological progress can be used to rebuild a person.

However, with my superficial understanding of life science, the human body frozen at this stage is the last plunder of personal wealth, because they are really unlikely to resurrect.

In fact, the reputation of the human freezing service in the academic world is very poor. Although the maintenance of low -temperature life has been in a very subtle relationship, most scholars have a negative attitude towards human freezing. Because the current level of human beings can only achieve composed of 1090 cells like a beautiful crusher rodworm, we have a very detailed biological freezing and resurrected. Slightly complicated, such as fruit flies, may not be able to resurrect.

In simple terms, human freezing technology has neither theoretical support nor successful cases. It is equivalent to buying an expensive cemetery. It only meets people's high "emotional value". In the eyes of extremes, there is no essential difference between this business and "liar", and for decades, it is difficult for the payer to pursue economic losses. From this perspective, this technology is harmful.

But any existence must be reasonable.From another perspective, "emotional value" is also valuable. If you firmly believe that "hope is more precious than gold", then the word "hope" has a thousand dollars.In fact, at this stage, the essence of the human body is not to resurrect the dead, but to comfort the living people.Although the light is weak, the three words that are not echoed all the time in their hearts are still a ray of light that illuminates their lives. "My family may not die yet", let them make themChoose a medical miracle that is unlikely to appear, because -

If you choose not to believe it, their days will be ashamed.

Choose to believe that their days will be better.

From this perspective, this technology does not seem so unbearable.

After all, whether it is from persistence, selfishness, spiritual sustenance, or self -deception. The reason why this kind of business exists in the world is in the final analysis because of love.

Author: Li Beichen (WeChat Number: Whale Fall Business Review)

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