Believing Cryonics example essay topic

Cryonic suspension is an experimental process whereby patients who can no longer be kept alive by today's medical capabilities are preserved at freezing temperatures for medical treatment in the future. For example a person who has recently died, due to an incurable disease, might decide to have their body, or just their head, preserved by means of cryonics. Then when science finds a cure for the disease the body would be resuscitated back to life, and then treated for the disease. This is similar to the process currently being used by medical technology by means of organ transplants. Where organs are preserved (frozen) and then thawed and transplanted into human beings.

Although the process of preserving the organ is very similar, the process thereafter is completely different, and much more technologically complicated. Plus, an organ cannot really be compared to a human brain. The brain thinks and controls emotions, behavior and memory. An organ (such as a kidney or a heart) does not think or control thoughts or behavior. Plus, there is just not any evidence that shows, or even gives a glimmer of hope, that cryonics could ever become possible. Scientists don't even know how to bring a body back to life from a cryogenic state.

And if cryogenics ever did become non-fiction it would only lead population problems and major ethical arguments within society. The practice of cryonics was first introduced in 1964 by a math and physics teacher named Robert Ettinger in. Ettinger's goal was to discover how to obtain human immortality. He even published a book on the subject, "The Prospect of Immortality, which was published in 1964.

Nevertheless, his motive wasn't to cure disease or help mankind. Ettinger was obsessed with the idea preventing death. His irrational, unrealistic thoughts have evolved throughout the last three and a half decades. Scientists have tried to add ethical grounds to Ettinger's theory behind cryonics, but only to deceitfully persuading society into accepting cryonics as a legitimate practice. Hoping people would buy into the idea and help support their research. Kenneth B. Storey, a biochemistry professor at Canada's Carleton University who experiments with freezing small animals and bringing them back to life.

Storey firmly believes that "we cannot freeze whole humans in order to revive them intact and function in the future. "Desperate cryonics organizations and their followers have responded to scientific skepticism about failed human cryopreservation by classic tactics of changing the base of the argument from reality to 'future magic' to keep the paying public coming into their circus tent", he said. "By confusing the public into believing that magical machines, strange cryo solutions and unnamed 'medical advances' will be available and allow them to live after preservation, they keep the converts coming". If cryonics ever became achievable, most of society would probably oppose the idea. There would be protests and riots. Our court systems would most likely be clogged with petitions to ban the practice of cryonics.

Of course, there will most likely always be cryogenic believers. On the other hand, there are the religious believers. In that Christianity believes it was not God's intention to put man on earth to become immortal. Take for instance what Dr. Michael She rmer, a Pasadena psychologist who published Skeptic magazine, says, "Cryonics is almost its own faith-based secular religion in the sense that it is based on the idea of achieving immortality and being resurrected."There is not a shred of evidence that is ever could be done. It all depends on having faith in the future of science".

Now imagine a future where death was a choice. Of course most people would rather be alive than dead. Therefore, if cryonics was possible, most people would probably choose to be reanimated. One might ask how much it costs to be cryogenically suspended.

Well, it cost about $130,000 to suspend a full body and about $50,000 to suspend a decapitated head. Sounds like a lot of money. Well, you can take out a life insurance policy for approximately $15.00 a month, and the insurance company will cover the cost of suspension and all the up-keep until your eventually resurrected. With that as an option one might assume that thousands of hopeful people would do it. But if cryogenic ever become possible it could eventually lead to a major population problem. Subsequently, the Government would have to implement new laws to control the population of newborn births and resurrections.

Kind of like how China does now, with controlling the birth rate. However, ironically society hasn't made too much of an argument about cryonics as of yet. But this may be due to the lack of knowledge on the subject. There are so many grey areas and issues that have not been addressed. Therefore, it makes it very difficult for a person to even develop an opinion on the subject. It's an expensive gamble, and with those odds one is probably more likely to win the million dollar lottery three times consecutively.

One scientist even comments: "Believing cryonics could reanimate somebody who has been frozen is like believing you can turn a hamburger back into a cow.".