Editor's Letter
The Cryonics Issue
— “Technologies Of The Sublime” —
To Revivals 2022
“Life imitates art far more than art imitates life” - Oscar Wilde
For the editorial letter of Immortalists Magazine’s Issue No. 11, our first issue focused on Cryonics, let’s start with a thought experiment:
“Imagine you are diagnosed with a terminal illness. You do all you can to cure it, but it spreads rapidly throughout your body. The pain becomes excruciating and unbearable. Your mind is deteriorating; your memories and personality could soon fade away, leaving no trace of who you once were. Since the illness is hereditary, years ago, you made the decision that if you ever found yourself in such agonizing and irreversible health conditions, you would choose Death With Dignity followed by Cryopreservation.
You make preparations, and within a few days, arrangements for the day of your imminent death are made. Within a few days, you have a gathering with friends and family to say goodbye. You take your medications, and you start fading away. Painlessly, you go to sleep, dreaming of a place where you reunite once again with your conscious self and your loved ones.
Now. You wake up.
The last thing you remember is the gathering with your friends and family. But you no longer feel the unbearable pain in your body due to the illness that was rapidly killing you alive. Your eyes start to adjust to the light, you look around, and the room looks familiar. You are on your bed and feel the softness of your sheets. You take a deep breath and smell the aroma of your favorite scents. You hear the birds singing outside the window. You stretch, look at your hands, and see the hands of your younger self: no wrinkles, no sunspots, no arthritis deformity. You immediately feel a rush of awe, curiosity, energy, and excitement throughout your body.
"Is this a dream?" You ask yourself. Testing your voice, you shout out loud: “Bambi!!” Your beloved dog immediately rushes in, jumps on your bed, starts licking your face, and barks with excitement. You cry tears of joy and ask yourself, "what year is it?" Your mind immediately connects to the web, and information about current events downloads into your awareness. You realize that a few hundred years have passed by. You actually never died!
Your future cyborg self has just woken up to the miracle of "A Second Chance At Life.” (Excerpt from IM Transhuman, the trilogy. Screenplay 2022. Dinorah Delfin)
As far out as this reading might sound, it is the future humans today are building. It is a future where technologies are no different from magic, and miracles are truly possible.
The prospect of cryopreservation, also known as Cryonics or Biostasis, is real.
However, while cryopreservation has never been used to bring anyone back from death, the science is profoundly important and relevant today, not only to establish the infrastructure to support the reanimation of humans, and their pets, in the future, but also to better understand the human brain and how memories are stored, and to create better technologies, such as for organ storage and preservation, to save and eventually revive lives.
The Eminent Protection Of A Mother
If you are a parent like me, you know that worrying about the life and safety of our children never ends. From the moment of conception, the love grows ever stronger, including the instinct to protect.
When I started researching cryonics, I had the realization that the only technology that could potentially bring back a child from a tragic death, whether accidental or through illness, was cryonics. Cryopreservation is the only insurance (for those who can afford it) that offers a sense of protection against the irrecoverable loss of a child.
Though we are not delving into the subject of children and cryonics, I invite IM readers to dive deep into this introductory issue highlighting some of the latest advances in the science of cryonics. This enlightening issue of IM features interviews with world-leading cryobiologist, Dr. Greg Fahy, and Dr. Max More, president emeritus of Alcor Life Extension Foundation, the largest cryonics facility in the world. Followed with the groundbreaking research on long-term memory after the cryogenic revival of simple animals by Dr. Natasha Vita-More.
Learning about cryopreservation would be incomplete without delving into the controversial topic of the Right To Death featuring the compassionate, thought-provoking article on the subject of Cryothanasia by prominent transhumanist philosopher David Pearce.
A recently featured article by Neo.Life, Assisted Suicide, tells us that perception on this delicate subject is changing and that “the future of assisted suicide is ripe for disruption.”
This issue of IM concludes with an illuminating interview about what it means to be transhuman by leading metahumanist philosopher, Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, and a hopeful note and update on our emerging interplanetary journey and space industry.
The future is bright.
To Revivals!
Dinorah Delfin
IM Founder & Editor-in-Chief
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