We Asked an Expert if Reanimation Could Actually Work

This post originally appeared on VICE UK.

A 14-year-old girl, who died of cancer in October this year, has had her final wish granted as part of a historic legal battle this week to have her body cryogenically frozen. The unnamed London teen has been sent to America where the preservation has begun until a time she can be brought back. She wrote a letter to a judge saying how she did not want to be "buried underground."

But what are the practicalities of this, and what can this girl—known only as JS—expect to find if she wakes up in 100 or so years? Rohit Talwar is a global futurist, CEO of Fast Future Publishing, editor of the Future of Business and A Very Human Future, and we asked him a few questions about cryogenics and the future.

VICE: How long will it be until people can be reanimated do you think?
Rohit Talwar: The science on this is yet to be proven. It would be very optimistic to say we would get there in 30 years and realistically that girl could be frozen there 50 to 100 years. We're talking about regenerating life itself, regenerating her memory, regenerating whatever it is that's stored in our DNA that we don't understand. We're in a space of huge uncertainty. God bless the people doing this stuff—and I understand why—but I don't believe we're anywhere close to knowing how to regenerate the body once it's been frozen.

What are the chances that the body will just not work when it's pumped back to life?
We're in unchartered territory, but a couple of things we can assume: Firstly, the technology for preserving our bodies will get better and better and better. But the regeneration process is a wholly different field of science. We don't yet understand enough about the body and the brain and what creates consciousness, so that person may come to life and be literally like Frankenstein's monster, with no sense of who they were and no sense of how to be.

I think at some point in the future, governments might step in. There are people building these cryogenic freezing facilities—and there's some incredible ones either being built or planned—but ultimately this could be seen as a huge scam. You might well see governments put a moratorium on it until we've got a much greater sense of what the science can deliver.

I can understand if you've got a child that's dying or whatever. There are lots of reasons to want to do it. But hope isn't necessarily the greatest basis of a business model. We're a long way off of having answers that would convince me. People need protection, they need to be told that as much as you want to live forever, this isn't the way. There's much more likely to be progress in the other stuff around extending the longevity of life than there is in the cryogenic regeneration.

What kind of world do you think someone awakened 100 years in the future can expect to inhabit?
There are different schools of thought. One is that by then we will have evolved and become technology, and there could be multiple versions of humans. Then there is the argument that we might be "un-evolved"—there will be very different life forms living on some island that have evolved from humans today. With synthetic biology, technological implants, 3D and 4D printing, you could have hundreds of different varieties of human—or what used to be a human by that point. The person who's cryogenically frozen today—let's say we can bring their memory and their experiences back, it's going to be like one of those films where someone arrives in a totally different world. They won't understand it, there won't be anyone around who they remember, and if those people are around, they'll be very different. Say you are 120 when you come back—you won't have the context of the last 100 years to really understand how to exist in society. It'll be like having been in prison, but worse.

Is cryogenic freezing something you've ever considered yourself?
I've thought about it, sure. A lot of my friends in that world are big proponents of it, but my view is that when I'm gone I'm gone. I'll let my kids and everyone else get on with their lives. I don't want 90 year-old kids or 190-year-old kids worrying about their dad still hanging around. We have to let each generation breathe. There's a real arrogance on the part of the people who want to live forever and mess it up for the next generation.

What sort of measures would have to be in place for the care of a child who's been frozen?
Well, the parents will have moved on. They may still be alive, they may not. What support system are you buying into for the child to look after them? You'd have to pay for the whole thing, the whole service experience, not just the regeneration. I don't think there's enough being thought through on that. Just because we can, doesn't mean we should, is my view on this stuff.

Do you know how much it costs?
I've heard figures that range from $40,000 up to a couple of million depending on what you're buying.

Do you pay per year, or is that a flat rate?
I think the $40,000 is typically a per year type thing and a couple of million dollars is a one-off payment. The whole cryogenic community comes across as very creepy to me, and leaves me cold to be honest. I don't think they're very human in their attitude; I don't think they're very social. I think they're very blinded by the science of it and not at all thinking about those kinds of issues.

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