Talk:Cryonics

• I have included the relevant policies and the MOS in my edit summary: WP:LOADED, WP:IMPARTIAL, and WP:TSI. I'm sure you're as familiar with those as I am.
• The tone throughout the article is inappropriate. The policies are well known.
• Contributions are appreciated, and it's best to stay civil, for the benefit of the Encyclopedia and the editors involved. That does of course include the edit summaries.
• It's hard to miss the many threads in the archive, the existence of venues carrying long and tiresome engagements, and the patterns of the arguments. Could you remind me of how many reverts are allowed per day on this topic?
• This is not a dispute over the facts or the sources, but the tone of the article, and the use of specific words throughout. That, as I see in a summary, degrades the article.
• The characterization as pseudoscience and quackery is shown prominently in the lead, as well as the skepticism of the practice by the scientific community; the issues with the technology are explained and cited in each relevant section. Even newer citations, from good and respectable sources are available for use. It's the wording in the prose that's problematic. The use of "corpse" throughout, in place of "body", creates the impression that you're reading about horror fiction. (Leaves a bad taste to be frank.) Few times is it used in the sources, and WP:IMPARTIAL, all that, still applies.
• You may not have noticed reverting a 2022 citation about the twins born from frozen 30-year embryos. An example from that particular section, the order of "animal cells, human embryos, and even some organized tissues" is a clear and unambiguous illustration of this problem. Others aplenty.
• My wording is reasonable and I hope to reach a consensus here without excessive reverts, so that other things can be worked on.
• Again it is good and best to collaborate and to keep the arguments short, for the sake of all. As they say, there are No Angry Mastodons here, except the ones we raise from the frozen ground. In good and excellent faith here.

Skullers (talk) 05:06, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

You're seeking to replace clear language with fuzzy language. Sometimes telling as it is has to be appreciated. tgeorgescu (talk) 05:35, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Exactly. The current language is careful and accurate. The mooted changes are either wrong, ambiguous or fringey. A news piece about embryos is of no relevance here. Bon courage (talk) 05:54, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

• What's ambiguous about "bodies"? Celestial bodies? Newtonian bodies? Who's going to not know what it refers to in this context? Skullers (talk) 09:46, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

• The additional reference about long-term cryopreservation of human embryos supports the statements made (cryopreservation of cells, tissues, and embryos). The section also needs updating. The 2015 article was 7 years before the event. Secondly, the text "animal cells, human embryos, and even some organized tissues" for some reason emphasizes tissues over the entire body, which is much more relevant to long-term cryopreservation of humans. Vitrified, stored in liquid nitrogen, for 30 years, brought to life. They were in fact selected for being stored the longest. Embryos are made of tissues and tissues are made of cells, to put human embryos in the middle and then to emphasize "and even some organized tissues" is something else. Skullers (talk) 09:46, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

• Bodies can be living; corpses aren't. Cryopreservation is a separate topic, and not relevant here. Bon courage (talk) 10:03, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Does not exist in a vacuum; relevant advances in cryopreservation and cryobiology are applied to cryonics and the relationship and distinction is discussed in academic sources on the subject.

• While it's possible and practical with embryos, to then explicitly say it's impossible with anything else, going forward, is something other than skepticism. Matters of information theory and of available technology determine the outcome. That the required tech, in this case nanotech is not sufficiently advanced (as of) is really not enough to state with confidence that something is not possible. Not impractical or currently not possible or speculative. Nanotechnology is mentioned exactly once, ought to be expanded on. Is it hard to believe how many times the same things were said about AI-anything, with just as much certainty, only to move the goalposts? Much like the definitions of life/death, except faster. Skullers (talk) 04:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

This is WP:NOTAFORUM. This article is based on reliable sources. Ones about cryonics. Bon courage (talk) 04:49, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

We should replace the term 'cadavers' with 'patients' throughout the article, as referring to them as cadavers does not seem appropriate. Syd Lonreiro (talk) 18:57, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Replacing the plain language of the article with the industry's preferred marketing euphemisms is not making the article more neutral, it is moving in the opposite direction. MrOllie (talk) 14:30, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

What are the marketing euphemisms? Bodies? Actual euphemisms exist, such as references to "patients", already in quotes. Skullers (talk) 04:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, and you removed them in favor of non-quoted euphemistic terms like 'subjects', 'bodies', 'clients' etc. That's not neutrality, that is embracing industry marketing jargon. MrOllie (talk) 13:42, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Why talk about a 'marketing euphemism'? First of all, cryonics is not commercial—there isn’t really any marketing involved. And secondly, these are not euphemisms but rather labels and definitions that are far more accurate than referring to patients as cadavers or other such horrific terms. It makes no sense to treat cryonics patients as cadavers—at least, that’s just my personal opinion. Syd Lonreiro (talk) 19:00, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia will still follow the mainstream view of the subject rather than substituting the preferred language of those who are involved in selling these services. Per WP:NOR and WP:NOTFORUM this isn't a place to share your personal opinions. MrOllie (talk) 19:03, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with calling corpses "corpses". Other articles about the disposal of human remains use that wording. (And, of course, "human remains") It's not the preferred euphemism of the cryo companies, but that's because they are biased and have a very obvious axe to grind. Following their lead would take the article away from neutral. ApLundell (talk) 17:06, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

And it's not as if this very point hasn't been discussed here ad nauseam. Bon courage (talk) 17:17, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Multiple independent editors have taken issue with the wording, and for good reasons, and brought up reliable sources that use the word "body" exclusively. Some are currently used as references, including academic ones. A problem is that they're not here all at the same time or watch the changes vigilantly or even partake in what has been described as edit wars. I don't remember even doing two reverts in a row, let alone that fast. Skullers (talk) 09:46, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Every fringe article will have 'multiple independent editors' who take issue with it if you run through the talk page. That does not necessarily mean their concerns warrant a change. MrOllie (talk) 13:34, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

There is a tendency to get carried away and go the extra mile. The same language would be used against religion and anything related to it, if it was permitted. The application and interpretation of undue, contentious, not teaching the controversy etc suggests one no longer has to maintain encyclopedic tone or write in good taste or adhere to norms as in other subjects. Even articles on terrorists aren't written that way. Another thing is that neutrality is essentially made to be impossible, you are either with or against, with nothing in-between, as with political subjects. Skullers (talk) 04:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

encyclopedic tone does not mean WP:FALSEBALANCE. When mainstream sources are critical of a topic so to should be the Wikipedia article. - MrOllie (talk) 13:38, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I can see the ad nauseam. Ought to be avoided as a time sink. One could attempt to summarize it with one robot or another. (beans) Skullers (talk) 04:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

This is not an issue of WP:OWN, but one against many. And as someone with over a decade of experience in the medical field, "corpse" is a neutral term for a dead body. You don't have to like it, but there it is. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:28, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

As far as I know, medicine is practiced on living subjects while cryonics is considered to be in the realm of funeral services. Skullers (talk) 09:46, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

But the vendors typically describe it as "preserving life" or "pausing death". Hence the quackery. Bon courage (talk) 10:05, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Suppose it would be weird to say "we'll have your corpse frozen for $280k!" Generally, they don't claim to diagnose or treat any illness or condition but to prevent decomposition, minimize the damage to the cells, the formation of ice crystals etc. Skullers (talk) 04:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Medicine has to deal with the dead quite a bit, unfortunately. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:24, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

So I've looked around a bit, the language varies in different ways, with some patterns:

• Body bag
• Medical examiner
• Autopsy, ugh.
• Ancient Egyptian funerary practices#Mummification
• This very subject (cryonics), sources use both words, sometimes interchangeably
• Interment. Generally people tend to use more respectful language.

Macabre. Who would want to spend that much time examining the details? It would be appropriate to add a footnote on etymology and uses. From Latin corpus (meaning body) and before that, from Old English all the way to PIE. Not like it needs a separate etymology section or anything. - Skullers (talk) 04:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

• Some recent and peer-reviewed sources are found, will take some time to read and examine references and to present things with integrity. Does take a lot more patience than many other things. Skullers (talk) 04:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

There are aspects of cryonics that can face reasonable skepticism, such as whether it preserves sufficiently well the brain of people, whether it will be possible to recover the brain or its information without too much damage, and whether the resulting person would really be the same person. Cryonics is highly speculative.

But the article dismisses the concept as "quackery", and regularly shows a strong stance against it. Cryonics is controversial, but I don't think the mediatic and research coverage justifies it. Healthy skepticism cuts both way, even supposing that it's unlikely to work, we should clearly explain the reasons why it may or may not work without making such strong judgments. Alenoach (talk) 15:24, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Mainstream science has a strong POV, so per WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE so should this article. We've had a number of dicussions about the 'quackery' and 'psuedoscience' lines. The sources are strong and so is the editorial consensus. MrOllie (talk) 15:28, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Skepticism is not the same as relentlessly "both-sidesing" everything.

The burden of proof is very clearly on the side of the people taking money for doing a thing, not on the people saying there's no proof.

Literally anything might work, but a crazy idea doesn't automatically get put on equal footing with other, legitimate, experimental treatments just because people are turning it into a business. And there's nothing about "skepticism" that "cuts both ways" and forces us to pretend otherwise. ApLundell (talk) 00:48, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Healthy skepticism cuts both way

As ApLundell states, no, that's not the case. We do not include false "balance" when mainstream science is very clear about the facts. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:25, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

1. Semen cryopreservation (1954)
2. Embryo cryopreservation (1984)
3. Oocyte cryopreservation (1986)
4. Ovarian tissue cryopreservation (2004 to now)
5. Organ cryopreservation for animals (Still under research)
6. Organ cryopreservation for human
7. Brain cryopreservation for animals
8. Brain cryopreservation for human
9. Small animal whole body cryopreservation (e.g. mouse)
10. Larger animal whole body cryopreservation (e.g. monkeys, dogs, cats, pigs)
11. Cryonics for Human
12. Repeat and repeat the experiment for Cryonics for humans
13. Commercial Deployment of Cryonics for humans
14. Massive Deployment of Cryonics for humans

Cloud29371 (talk) 03:52, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Does this section have a purpose or are you just expressing your love for the subject? WP:NOTFORUM 2A02:C7E:205B:3D00:2129:CE12:37EB:8A1C (talk) 17:59, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Cryonics is a pseudoscience because it present as science but do not offer falsifiability. If cryonics success, of course it proved success. But if cryonics fail forever, you still cannot prove it fail, and you cannot falsified cryonics claims. Currently no way to revival any cryopreserved brain and body, but you still difficult to falsified it. So it is not just speculative but is an unfalsified theory, and that is why it is a pseudoscience. Cloud29371 (talk) 06:23, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

You may be right to describe cryotransport as pseudoscience from a philosophical standpoint, but in reality, it is not pseudoscience in the sense of being a cult or a scam offering false hope. Cryonics is practiced by serious and intelligent people who genuinely believe it can work—and ultimately, that’s what matters. Their work may one day save lives. It is counterproductive to devote massive efforts to obstruct or hinder cryonics, as it is a noble and ethically sound endeavor. Syd Lonreiro (talk) 18:53, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Most Pseudosciences are practiced by people who truly believe in them, but Wikipedia is still required to follow the mainstream views of such things. MrOllie (talk) 18:59, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Mainstream views don’t seem to be anti-cryonics; rather, I get the impression that mainstream media is more anti-biostasis. The strong scientific consensus is actually supportive. I’m thinking, for example, of Ralph Merkle, Nick Bostrom, Anders Sandberg, and Aubrey de Grey. Syd Lonreiro (talk) 19:03, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

See WP:FRINGE. Bon courage (talk) 19:04, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

At least Aubrey de Grey was focused on increasing an uninterrupted lifespan, not freezing people solid. These figures nonetheless don't automatically justify a subject by expressing their opinion and being namedropped like this, and they aren't the scientific consensus. They are however leading figures of TESCREAL, a movement with cult undertones. 2A02:C7E:205B:3D00:2129:CE12:37EB:8A1C (talk) 18:18, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm afraid pseudoscience can only offer false hope by definition. No matter how many "serious and intelligent" people offer it as a path to immortality (the prize at the end of the grift) there is no credible reason to assume that a person's mind can be connected between the moment of death and the construction of a new brain some arbitrary time in the future. The same goes for thawing out the old lifeless brain. It isn't a matter of future technology, if you concede the field is pseudoscientific you confess it is making claims without merit and any hope predicated on it must therefore be false. 2A02:C7E:205B:3D00:2129:CE12:37EB:8A1C (talk) 18:13, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Quoting from the lead to the current WP “cryonics” article (referencing omitted):

“Cryonics is regarded with skepticism by the mainstream scientific community. It is generally viewed as a pseudoscience, and its practice has been characterized as quackery.”

This sets the tone for what follows. The justification for the “pseudoscience” label is given in the “Reception” section, where over a dozen sources are cited, all of which are more or less scientifically grounded and fairly uniformly dismiss cryonics as something highly dubious and suspect, in defense of calling it “pseudoscience.” None of these sources, however, reports or refers to an actual survey of any sizable number people in a related scientific field. There is such an article, however, Zeleznikow-Johnson, Ariel; Kendziorra, Emil F.; McKenzie, Andrew T. (24 June 2025). "What are memories made of? A". PLOS One. Quoting from the abstract:

“… We surveyed 312 neuroscientists, comprising one cohort of experts on engram research and another of general neuroscientists, to assess this community’s views on how memories are stored. While 70.5% of participants agreed that long-term memories are primarily maintained by neuronal connectivity patterns and synaptic strengths, there was no clear consensus on which specific neurophysiological features or scales are critical for memory storage. Despite this, the median probability estimate that any long-term memories could potentially be extracted from a static snapshot of brain structure was around 40%, which was also the estimate for whether a successful whole brain emulation could theoretically be created from the structure of a preserved brain. When predicting the future feasibility of whole brain emulation, the median participant estimated this would be achieved for C. elegans around 2045, mice around 2065, and humans around 2125. Notably, neither research background nor expertise level significantly influenced views on whether memories could be extracted from brain structure alone. … These findings have important implications for both theoretical neuroscience and the development of technologies aimed at preserving or extracting memory-related information.”

So it would seem that, among this population of neuroscientists, there is something less than a monolithic rejection of the whole cryonics premise and dismissal of cryonics as “pseudoscience.” Instead there is clearly substantial support for the idea that cryonic revival in some form (say, involving brain emulation) might prove feasible.Mkper9 (talk) 02:18, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

The authors of that paper have a very strong conflict of interest. We cannot use it as a basis to change the article. - MrOllie (talk) 02:38, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

The results of this survey are not equivalent to scientific support for the feasibility of cryonics. If you read the actual survey you can see that the questions are significantly limited in scope. In order for us to make a statement based on this survey about scientific opinions on the feasibility of cryonics, we would need an independent, reliable secondary source to interpret the findings of the survey for us. As another editor already noted, this survey's authors are employed by cryonics organizations and so we certainly cannot rely on their interpretation. Luckily there are plenty of reliable sources already cited in the article which tell us what the scientific consensus on cryonics is. Elestrophe (talk) 06:13, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your clarifications of the WP position, and that of the other editor. A question for you: What if someone wrote an article that is published in a respectable scientific journal. The author or authors do not have conflicting or competing interests, unlike those of the survey. However, the article uses the survey as a reference (along with maybe other sources like this or maybe self-published, say). Would such an article be acceptable to WP as a source (a primary source I think) and maybe indeed as a basis to change the WP article? Mkper9 (talk) 17:57, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

You seriously want us to evaluate a fictitious source? Come on!!! - Roxy the dog 18:16, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

All I want is to just get an indicatuon of what rules you would go by, for a hypothetical source like this. Or maybe it would be "case by case"? Mkper9 (talk) 16:39, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

The devil is always in the details, so debating hypotheticals is not productive. MrOllie (talk) 16:50, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

... and the rules we would go by are WP:RS and WP:MEDRS. - Roxy the dog 16:58, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

Memories may be reconstructable, what's in contention is the resumption of consciousness after an arbitrary amount of time has passed for what is, for all intents and purposes, lifeless and inert matter. In my opinion it should not be more difficult to see that this cannot be done than it should be to sum two 1s together. Intuition is more than enough for everything except pseudoscience. 2A02:C7E:205B:3D00:2129:CE12:37EB:8A1C (talk) 18:24, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

I think a lot of computer scientists (in the scientific mainstream) would disagree with you. Not everybody accepts an analogy between the brain and a computer, but a lot of them do. With a computer, you might first have it running, say running a (very good) chatbot, that shows personality, etc, and seems to be conscious. (Is it really? How do you prove or disprove this?) Then you shut it down, I mean the computer. It's "lifeless and inert." For how long? Might be quite a while. Then you power it up. The chatbot "wakes up" also, and takes up where it left off, as "conscious" as it was before. Mkper9 (talk) 17:28, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Robert A. Freitas Jr. (an expert in nanomedicine known for authoring the Nanomedicine book series, as well as the theoretical designs of respirocytes, microbivores, and others) recently (in 2022) wrote the first comprehensive conceptual protocol for the revival of cryonics patients. The protocol deserves thorough analysis and detailed critique. Although the two proposed plans are purely science fiction at this stage and rely on molecular nanotechnology that currently does not exist and remains unproven, the book is extremely solid and, for the first time, explains in detail how to recover even the most severely damaged patients (through Plan B). The monetary, energy, and ecological costs are simply immense, making any revival to a healthy state clearly impossible for several centuries—assuming the existence of a highly advanced post-human society whose ethics allow for the persistence of the cryonics movement (which seems rather unlikely after some Bayesian calculations). Nevertheless, the book is serious and credible, and it appears to offer genuine hope for revival, which in my view is more than enough to justify becoming a member of a cryonics organization and spending a few dozen dollars per month. Syd Lonreiro (talk) 18:47, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Yes, we've discussed it on this talk page before. But there is nothing we can do with a self published book on Wikipedia. (yes, being published by Alcor Life Extension Foundation still counts as self published). MrOllie (talk) 19:01, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

There is a book something like the Freitas book. It does not go into as much detail, and is not equation-heavy, but it does make the case that nanotechnology could be used for revival of cryopreserved humans. The nanotechnology in question has yet to be developed, which invites the question of how could we ever think it could be developed. The answer given, in part, is that nature has already accomplished amazing things with its own version of nanotechnology, in what we call the biosphere. For example there is a mechanism it has "developed" (without knowing what it was doing or knowing anything as we understand it) for transforming dirt, water, air and sunlight into ripe strawberries. If nature can do all it has done, well, we should be able to do some amazing things ourselves also, and the book goes into details covering hundreds of pages. The book is Engines of Creation by K. Eric Drexler, publihed by Anchor-Doubleday, 1986, certainly a "mainstream" publishing house. The book doesn't seem to be referred to in the "Cryonics" article and I would say it ought to be. In particular it could serve as a counterweight to a claim like that cited by Ken Storey, that cryonics proponents are proposing to "overturn the laws of physics, chemistry, and molecular science." The thrust of Drexler's arguments is that nothing of the sort is being proposed, but cryonics revivals (and many other things nanotechnology would accomplish) would happen within the confines of presently-understood physics and other sciences that depend on it. Mkper9 (talk) 17:57, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

If something is purely science fiction then it is not serious or credible. Your use of "post-human" and "Bayesian calculations" are a tell that you put spiritual significance in speculative technologies like this. People cannot revive from death without an immortal soul (as in they don't technically die in the first place). The cost of normalizing the killing of patients in a society, each one justified by the clone that walks out of the clinic 100 years later, is far more harmful than failing to invest in saving those patients in the present. 2A02:C7E:205B:3D00:2129:CE12:37EB:8A1C (talk) 18:34, 6 October 2025 (UTC)