---
title: "Cryonics"
chunk: 3/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:51:15.099798+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Reception ==
Cryonics is generally regarded as a fringe pseudoscience. Between 1982 and November 2018, the Society for Cryobiology rejected members who practiced cryonics, and issued a public statement saying that cryonics "is an act of speculation or hope, not science", and as such outside the scope of the Society.
Russian company KrioRus is the first non-U.S. vendor of cryonics services. Yevgeny Alexandrov, chair of the Russian Academy of Sciences commission against pseudoscience, said there was "no scientific basis" for cryonics, and that the company was based on "unfounded speculation".
Scientists have expressed skepticism about cryonics in media sources, and the Norwegian philosopher Ole Martin Moen has written that the topic receives a "minuscule" amount of attention in academia.
While some neuroscientists contend that all the subtleties of a human mind are contained in its anatomical structure, few will comment directly on cryonics due to its speculative nature. People who intend to be frozen are often "looked at as a bunch of kooks". Cryobiologist Kenneth B. Storey said in 2004 that cryonics is impossible and will never be possible, as cryonics proponents are proposing to "overturn the laws of physics, chemistry, and molecular science". Neurobiologist Michael Hendricks has said, "Reanimation or simulation is an abjectly false hope that is beyond the promise of technology and is certainly impossible with the frozen, dead tissue offered by the 'cryonics' industry".
Anthropologist Simon Dein writes that cryonics is a typical pseudoscience because of its lack of falsifiability and testability. In his view, cryonics is not science, but religion: it places faith in nonexistent technology and promises to overcome death.
William T. Jarvis has written, "Cryonics might be a suitable subject for scientific research, but marketing an unproven method to the public is quackery".
According to cryonicist Aschwin de Wolf and others, cryonics can often produce intense hostility from spouses who are not cryonicists. James Hughes, the executive director of the pro-life-extension Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, has not personally signed up for cryonics, calling it a worthy experiment but saying, "I value my relationship with my wife."
Cryobiologist Dayong Gao has said, "People can always have hope that things will change in the future, but there is no scientific foundation supporting cryonics at this time." While it is universally agreed that personal identity is uninterrupted when brain activity temporarily ceases during incidents of accidental drowning (where people have been restored to normal functioning after being completely submerged in cold water for up to 66 minutes), one argument against cryonics is that a centuries-long absence from life might interrupt personal identity, such that the revived person would "not be themself".
Maastricht University bioethicist David Shaw raises the argument that there would be no point in being revived in the far future if one's friends and families are dead, leaving them all alone, but he notes that family and friends can also be frozen, that there is "nothing to prevent the thawed-out freezee from making new friends", and that a lonely existence may be preferable to none at all.

== In fiction ==

Suspended animation is a popular subject in science fiction and fantasy settings. It is often the means by which a character is transported into the future. The characters Philip J. Fry in Futurama and Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek exemplify this trope.
A survey in Germany found that about half of the respondents were familiar with cryonics, and about half of those familiar with it had learned of it from films or television.

== In popular culture ==
The town of Nederland, Colorado, hosts an annual Frozen Dead Guy Days festival to commemorate a substandard attempt at cryopreservation.

== Notable people ==

Corpses subjected to the cryonics process include those of baseball players Ted Williams and his son John Henry Williams (in 2002 and 2004, respectively), engineer and doctor L. Stephen Coles (in 2014), economist and entrepreneur Phil Salin, and software engineer Hal Finney (in 2014).
People known to have arranged for cryonics upon death include PayPal founders Luke Nosek and Peter Thiel, Oxford transhumanists Nick Bostrom and Anders Sandberg, and transhumanist philosopher David Pearce. Larry King once arranged for cryonics but, according to Inside Edition, changed his mind.
Sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein wanted to have his head and penis frozen after death.
The corpses of some are mistakenly believed to have undergone cryonics. The urban legend that Walt Disney's remains were cryopreserved is false; they were cremated and interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery. Timothy Leary was a long-time cryonics advocate and signed up with a major cryonics provider, but changed his mind shortly before his death and was not cryopreserved.

== See also ==
Aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation
Brain in a vat
Cryptobiosis
Deep hypothermic circulatory arrest
Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation
Embryo cryopreservation
Extropianism
Hibernation
Life extension
Organ cryopreservation
Supercooling
Targeted temperature management
Tissue cryopreservation
Technological utopianism

== References ==

=== Footnotes ===

=== Citations ===

== Further reading ==
"Mistakes Were Made". This American Life. Episode 354. 18 April 2008. The Public Radio Exchange (PRX). WBEZ Chicago. Transcript.

== External links ==