Is cryopreservation worth paying for?

Yvette d'EntremontBS chemistry, MSc forensic science (self-stated, not independently verified) · science writer, former analytical chemist

Not for her, and not on the evidence available. Revival would require curing the end stage of the illness that killed you, in a body preserved with decades-old technology, and she would rather spend the money now. She does not rule it out.

What it rests onHer column of 1 Mar 2021. She separates cryogenics and cryopreservation, which she calls fascinating and useful and lists working uses for including sperm, eggs and embryos, from cryonics, the revival claim, which is the only part she attacks. She describes the vitrified rabbit brain result accurately as preservation, noting in her own words that it guarantees nothing about reanimation or function, and that many organs have never been successfully thawed. Her conclusion is a personal spending decision, and the sentence right before it is 'I'm not ruling it out'. Her title is the harshest thing in her catalogue and her argument is milder than it.

Max MorePhD philosophy · cryonics advocate, former Alcor president and CEO

Worth it for him, as a personal decision made under acknowledged uncertainty, and he refuses to attach a probability to it.

What it rests onHis Biostasis post 'What is the probability of cryonics working?', 19 Jul 2023. His summary opens 'In the end, it is not possible to objectively calculate the odds of cryonics working.' He separates the chance that cryonics works as a technical matter from the chance it works for a particular person, and reports hearing advocates give 1, 5, 30 and occasionally 90 percent. Just before the summary he writes that making arrangements may not rest on estimates of individual success at all, that he made his own in 1986 at 22 when he was unlikely to need them, partly to support the cause, and that 'the decision to take the journey is a highly personal one', calling his own choice venturesome rather than calculated. He has a declared interest: he holds equity in, advises or founded a company in this field.