I think a strong case for body preservation is not necessarily biological restoration of the body itself, but to use the preserved body as data for construction of a humanoid robot with the same physical structure, for nostalgia and continuity. Same skeleton, but setup for spacefaring.
What do you think that it will look like for revival organizations to collaboratively access patients' body and brain?
Reconstruction of the non-brain human body as a robot
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AndyMcKenzie
- Posts: 35
- Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2023 7:25 am
Re: Reconstruction of the non-brain human body as a robot
You are in good company regarding the potential benefits of whole body preservation. A lot of people have similar thoughts. This is why we are happy to offer whole body preservation to people who have this perspective.
To answer your question, and assuming you are talking about Sparks Brain Preservation in particular, then we would still be responsible for the preserved person and have a contractual obligation to act in their best interests. If a separate organization developed a credible revival technology, and pursuing this option was most consistent with the preserved person’s interests and known preferences, then one possibility is that Sparks Brain Preservation would cooperate with them and provide them with the access to the preserved patients' body and brain that would be necessary to perform the revival procedure.
However, to be clear, I strongly expect any actual revival procedure would be highly, highly regulated. It would not simply be a matter of Sparks Brain Preservation and another organization privately choosing to try a particular procedure. I strongly expect there to be substantial medical, legal, and ethical oversight, potentially involving independent parties helping to determine whether a proposed procedure were sufficiently credible and whether it was in the preserved patient's best interests.
I also personally expect that, if revival technology becomes practical, its cost will fall substantially over time and that revival will eventually be heavily subsidized or effectively free to the preserved person, much as healthcare is highly subsidized in developed countries today. In my view, bringing someone back to life who signed up for brain preservation with that goal would be clearly the ethically right thing to do, in the same way that CPR is today -- and healthcare professionals don't check if you can pay before they do it.
To answer your question, and assuming you are talking about Sparks Brain Preservation in particular, then we would still be responsible for the preserved person and have a contractual obligation to act in their best interests. If a separate organization developed a credible revival technology, and pursuing this option was most consistent with the preserved person’s interests and known preferences, then one possibility is that Sparks Brain Preservation would cooperate with them and provide them with the access to the preserved patients' body and brain that would be necessary to perform the revival procedure.
However, to be clear, I strongly expect any actual revival procedure would be highly, highly regulated. It would not simply be a matter of Sparks Brain Preservation and another organization privately choosing to try a particular procedure. I strongly expect there to be substantial medical, legal, and ethical oversight, potentially involving independent parties helping to determine whether a proposed procedure were sufficiently credible and whether it was in the preserved patient's best interests.
I also personally expect that, if revival technology becomes practical, its cost will fall substantially over time and that revival will eventually be heavily subsidized or effectively free to the preserved person, much as healthcare is highly subsidized in developed countries today. In my view, bringing someone back to life who signed up for brain preservation with that goal would be clearly the ethically right thing to do, in the same way that CPR is today -- and healthcare professionals don't check if you can pay before they do it.