Engineering Survival through Biostasis
Pushing back against death and miserabilism one post at a time
Welcome.
The Greek philosopher Epicurus famously wrote:
Death is nothing to us, since when we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist.
Epicurus addressed subjective experience. We can now add a scientific corollary: reports of “death” are often premature and greatly exaggerated.
For most of history, aging and death were incomprehensible and final.
There was nothing actionable to do about it.
That has changed.
Here we do not treat death as binary, inevitable, sacred, or morally necessary.
We now have
Demonstrated vitrification of mammalian organs
Structural preservation of the brain
Continued progress in cryoprotectant design
Imaging methods that verify preservation outcomes
Molecular strategies to characterize and repair damage at nanometer scale
Rapid progress in AI and deep learning
A growing experimental literature on biostasis technologies
The proposition
You are not irreversibly dead until the physical basis of your identity has been erased.
If that physical substrate can be preserved or inferred, death need not be final.
This publication explores that preservation challenge.
Topics
Metabolic arrest and hypometabolism
Cryoprotection and vitrification
Cerebral ischemia and neuroprotection
The chemistry of death
Structural preservation of neural tissue
Revival technologies
Philosophy of mind
Rejuvenation technologies
Biostasis providers and protocols
The tone of this publication is:
Empirically grounded
Technically serious
Skeptical of hype
Skeptical of resignation
Open to uncomfortable conclusions
If you are looking for simplistic promises, this is not the place.
If you are looking for miserabilism or dystopian fatalism, this is also not the place.
Some posts will be technical.
Some will be philosophical.
Most will live in the uncomfortable territory between.
Continuity
This publication continues the original Depressed Metabolism cryonics blog.
A growing library of historical, scientific, and technical documents is available at:
biostasis.com
Please also follow The Biostasis Standard, the Substack of my organization Biostasis Technologies.
For regional meetings in Washington and Oregon, subscribe to Biostasis Pacific Northwest.
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