Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives By the Year 2100, by Michio Kaku, Ph.D. New York: Doubleday, 2011.

A review by Mark Plus

Many cryonicists like to think about something called “the future” (TF) more than other people, and in a more self-interested way than most. Our quest for cryotransport assumes that we can reach a time in TF when the advanced art of medicine can revive us from the cryopreserved state and restore us to good physical and cognitive health, and preferably keep us that way indefinitely. So we have an emotional investment in visualizing and trying to create the kinds of futures which will allow us to make that happen. Ironically I’ve lived long enough to experience arriving at earlier versions of TF. For example, I can remember thinking as a child after seeing Stanley Kubrick’s movie that the year 2001 seemed like a long way off in TF; now that year lies a decade in our past.

Physicist Michio Kaku likes to think about TF as well, but to the best of my knowledge he hasn’t expressed interest in cryopreservation. He doesn’t mention cryonics in his new book, and he calls the year 2100 “the far future,” when at least some cryonicists could already have tentative plans for that year and consider it practically “the near future” instead. Yet cryonicists might want to read this book anyway to see what a well known science popularizer thinks could happen in the balance of the current century.

Kaku lists reasons early in the book to defend his claim that he can make some plausible forecasts about new technologies through the year 2100 (pp. 9-10):

1.  This book is based on interviews with more than 300 top scientists, those in the forefront of discovery.
2.  Every scientific development mentioned in this book is consistent with the known laws of physics.
3.  The four forces and the fundamental laws of nature are largely known; we do not expect any major new changes in these laws.
4.  Prototypes of all technologies mentioned in this book already exist.
5.  This book is written by an “insider” who has a firsthand look at the technologies that are on the cutting edge of research.

Given these assumptions, what does Kaku see as a likely state of affairs for human life by the year 2100? He writes (pp. 10-11):

By 2100, our destiny is to become like the gods we once worshipped and feared. But our tools will not be magic wands and potions but the science of computers, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and most of all, the quantum theory, which is the foundation of the previous technologies.

 By 2100, like the gods of mythology, we will be able to manipulate objects with the power of our minds. Computers, silently reading our thoughts, will be able to carry out our wishes. We will by able to move objects by thought alone, a telekinetic power usually reserved only for gods. With the power of biotechnology, we will create perfect bodies and extend our life spans. We will also be able to create life-forms that have never walked the surface of the earth. With the power of nanotechnology, we will be able to take an object and turn it into something else, to create something almost out of nothing. We will ride not in fiery chariots but in sleek vehicles that will soar by themselves with almost no fuel, floating effortlessly in the air. With our engines, we will be able to harness the limitless energy of the stars. We will also be on the threshold of sending star ships to explore those nearby.

I find much to like and little to object to in this vision of TF, apart from the comparison of these technological abilities to the powers of the gods. No one ever attributed to a god the ability to create the iPad I’ve used to write this review, for example. In mythology the gods seem to depend on scrolls, stone tablets or rune carvings to keep their records.

Probably of main interest to cryonicists, Kaku divides up the medical aspects of his view of TF between Chapter 1, “Future of the Computer,” and Chapter 3, “Future of Medicine,” with a few mentions in other chapters. Apparently considerations about his own health have started to weigh on Kaku’s mind. In Chapter 1 Kaku writes (pp. 34-35) that between now and 2030:

A visit to the doctor’s office will be completely changed. For a routine checkup, when you talk to the “doctor,” it will probably be a robotic software program that appears on your wall screen and that can correctly diagnose up to 95 percent of all common ailments. Your “doctor” may look like a person, but it will actually be an animated image programmed to ask certain simple questions. Your “doctor” will also have a complete record of your genes, and will recommend a course of medical treatments that takes into account your genetic risk factors.

To diagnose a problem, the “doctor” will ask you to pass a simple probe over your body. In the original Star Trek TV series, the public was amazed to see a device call the tricorder that could instantly diagnose any illness and peer inside your body. But you do not have to wait until the twenty-third century for this futuristic device. Already, MRI machines, which weigh several tons and can fill ups an entire room, have been miniaturized to about a foot, and will eventually be as small as a cell phone. By passing over your body, you will be able to see inside your organs. Computers will process these 3-D images and then give you a diagnosis. This probe will also be able to determine, within minutes, the presence of a wide variety of diseases, including cancer, years before a tumor forms. This probe will contain DNA chips, silicon chips that have millions of tiny sensors that can detect the presence of the telltale DNA of many diseases.

All this by 2030, eh? This gee-whiz speculation about medicine in the next 20 years ignores the social context in which medicine operates, including debates in many countries with aging populations about what health care to offer, and whom to offer it to, under politicized systems which struggle to control escalating costs. Kaku must know about this reality, but the prospect of heavily regulated, rationed and non-progressing health care in the 21st Century doesn’t fit in with his futurist narrative, nor does he discuss how to break out of this trap.

Kaku also writes things here and there which make him sound like the cryonicist and transhumanist FM-2030, who currently is a patient at Alcor. For example, Kaku writes (p. 35):

Today, if you are in a bad car accident on a lonely road, you could easily bleed to death. But in the future, your clothes and car will automatically spring into action at the first sign of trauma, calling for an ambulance, locating your car’s position, uploading your entire medical history, all while you are unconscious. In the future, it will be difficult to die alone. Your clothes will sense any irregularities in your heartbeat, breathing, and even brain waves by means of tiny chips woven into your fabric. When you get dressed, you go online.

This invites comparison with FM’s description of the “Life Support Suit” he imagined in his 1973 book Up Wingers, and his “Immortality Module” in the recently published e-book of Countdown to Immortality, the last book FM wrote before his cryopreservation in 2000.

Kaku covers a lot of material in the rest of his book, but he ties it all together in the last chapter in a story about the life of an ordinary New Yorker named John in the year 2100. I laughed at the passage where John, whom Kaku refers to in the second person, has the following conversation with an AI named Dr. Brown which serves as his main health care provider (pp. 364-5):

Dr. Brown’s image instantly appears on the wall screen. “Is there something bothering you, son?” he asks in a fatherly way.

“Doc, I have to ask you a question that’s been troubling me lately.”

“Yes, what is that?” asks Dr. Brown.

“Doc,” you say, “how long do you think I’ll live?”

“You mean what is your life expectancy? Well, we don’t really know. Your records say you are seventy-two years old, but biologically your organs are more like thirty years old. You were part of the first generation to be genetically programmed to live longer. You chose to stop aging at around thirty. Not enough of your generation has died yet, so we have no data to work with. So we have no way of knowing how long you will live.”

“Then do you think I will live forever?” he asks.

“And be immortal?” Dr. Brown frowns. “No, I don’t think so. There is a big difference between someone who lives forever and someone who has a life span so long that it hasn’t been measured yet.”

“But if I don’t age,” you protest, “then how am I supposed to know when to get . . . ” You stop yourself in mid sentence. “Ah, okay . . . you see, I just met someone, ah, special, and, assuming I want to plan a life with her, how do I  adjust the stages in my life to hers? If my generation hasn’t lived long enough to die,” you continue, “then how am I supposed to know when to get married, have kids, and plan for retirement? You know, how do I set the milestones in my life?”

“And when do I buy my cemetery plot?” John could just as well have asked. This shows a lack of imagination on Kaku’s part, not to mention a lack of due diligence. Kaku doesn’t seem to appreciate fully what an excellent “problem” John has, even while portraying John’s radical life extension in a positive way. Cryonicists have generated a body of literature going back nearly 50 years now which deals with exactly these questions about how to use extreme longevity productively in TF. Kaku could have looked up Robert Ettinger’s first two books online for some of Ettinger’s well thought-out answers, then he could have cribbed from them and offered them to John care of the AI physician; or better, Kaku could have written that the AI searched for and evaluated this literature on the Internet of 2100 and “prescribed” some of it to John as a reading assignment, like the use of self-help books as an adjunct to psychotherapy. Science fiction writers have also produced many novels and stories which try to show how people with extremely long lives could fruitfully employ their extra time, with varying success, and the AI could have prescribed some of those as well. However, by the year 2100 in Kaku’s version of TF, contemporary thinking would have started to deal with John’s issues as practical realities, not as far-future speculations.

Despite its limitations, Kaku’s book deserves reading, and to his credit he has become cryonicists’ ally in the culture war against deathism. He also adds to the case for rational optimism about TF in a time when progress seems to have decelerated and we hear talk of a “great stagnation.” I’d like to see Dr. Kaku sign up for cryonics so that he has a shot at experiencing the world beyond what he currently considers “the far future.”

By Mike Perry

Review of God Is Technology: How the Singularity of Monotheism Transcended Biology and Primed the Techno­logical Genesis of God by Mitchell Heisman, from Suicide Note, http://www.suicidenote.info/ebook/suicide_note.pdf, pp. 32-358 (2010), accessed Dec. 6, 2010.

Mitchell Heisman, a self-styled sociobiological scholar with a degree in psychology, labored five years on a treatise running to some 1,900 pages, finally finishing it last September. Two days later the 35-year-old secretive researcher took his own life by gunshot to the head, standing on the steps of a chapel at the Harvard University campus. His magnum opus, appropriately if unsettlingly titled Suicide Note, is freely available on the Internet: he wanted people to read it (and not alter it). Included in its ample pages are ruminations on technology, transhumanism, religion, biology, psychology, Western history, and pervasively, existential nihilism—the position that overall life has no meaning. Near the end he announces his intention “to kill myself,” then, after going through some details of his life including his father’s early death which deeply affected him, almost jauntily adds, “I’ll try anything once!” followed by, “There is nothing to take seriously!”

Arguments about the meaning of life, or whether it has any, are unavoidably self-centered and particular; what you find meaningful I may not, and vice versa. A “rational” attempt such as Heisman’s, to argue against life’s having meaning so that existence is not to be valued over nonexistence, invariably runs aground on this fundamental incongruity. Most of us, in fact, are not prepared to embrace Heisman’s comprehensive nihilism or repeat his tragic feat of self-sacrifice. But here I will not dwell at length on his personal problems, nor address the whole of his lengthy treatise. Instead I want to focus on a portion that is a standalone volume in its own right, and also a remarkable manifesto of a kind of religious transhumanism.

God is Technology, the first major part of Heismann’s opus, is surprisingly positive and upbeat, given its context and overlooking a few deathist excursions (mainly in a single paragraph near the beginning). It also differs from many transhumanist works in that it finds strong and convincing links between ancient religious traditions and the modern quest for immortality through technology.

Drawing on his own Jewish roots, the author sees powerful precedents of modern, technological developments in the struggle of the ancient Israelites to escape the slavery of Egypt. The struggle itself is exemplary of the overall struggle of humanity, ultimately a pitched battle between life and death. On one hand there is natural selection which favors the strong (ancient Egyptians) over the weak (Israelites, their slaves). More generally natural selection sacrifices all individuals in the end, even those who are “favored,” the differential rates of death determining what genetic traits are handed down and become dominant in the ever-changing population of successive descendants. In challenging the authority of their owners and overlords, the Israelites in effect challenge the more “biological” order of society that favors brute strength and coercion, and seek to substitute a rule of perfection, in this case through belief in a supreme Deity who treats all with justice and fairness.

Heisman himself is not a theist but sees the ancient beliefs as foreshadowing a new concept of God as an advanced AI, which will be put in place through modern technology, in an event its enthusiasts call the Singularity. The Singularity, when it happens, will be the ultimate victory of technology over biology—no longer will individuals be sacrificed or treated badly because of bad luck that gave them inferior genes or other weaknesses. Heisman’s own, Jewish people, in their struggles through history, demonstrate the tenacity of human efforts to overcome the limitations of biology and eventually bring about the Singularity. The Nazis, by contrast, offer a striking example of misguided humanity that sought a “biological” furtherance of progress, through the domination of a “master race” with “survival of the fittest” through extermination of rivals. As Heisman poignantly phrases it, “Auschwitz and the Singularity are two diametrically opposite final solutions to the paradox at the core of Judaism.”

As to the “paradox,” which is not confined to Judaism alone: in favoring the victory of technology over biology, there is danger in going too far. Every advance is actually made against a backdrop of “equality”—the strong become stronger, and some may not at all benefit. If one really favors “all” impartially and fairly, it seems to mean that, for example, animals should have civil rights. Going from there, individual cells (fertilized human egg cells and embryonic stem cells in particular) must also be accorded privileged, maybe even human status, as they are by antiabortionists. Once we start down that path, we get to the absurdity that, with no easy dividing line between what should and should not be considered to have rights, even inanimate matter, some at any rate, might have rights. This would especially follow if the dream of uploading is realized, so that in fact persons with full feeling and consciousness are expressed in nonbiological substrates.

An answer to this conundrum is that the presence and quality of sentience must be considered, however a “person” or other entity may be expressed. It should not matter what stuff a being is made of, so long as feeling and consciousness occur, together with personality traits that call for respect or privilege. I think this point is somewhat lost on the author, and once it is recognized it serves as a powerful counterweight to nihilism. An additional counterweight is the thought that progress affecting individuals should always be possible: there is nothing to stop any being becoming a more advanced being, in all the ways that count, and progressing ultimately to any level. So, instead of being dominated by a single, overarching authority, God-AI, we should all become gods in our own right, a privilege that could be extended even to nonhuman life forms.

Another thought is that biology is not simply antagonistic to technology. Traits of personality that were naturally selected, even if through brutal means involving death, can nevertheless serve lofty aims. We see this, for example, in the basic moral sense we have that other people, not necessarily our mates or kinfolk, are important and should be loved and treated fairly and helped in time of need. This sort of altruism actually has advantages—increasing mutual benefit through cooperation and reduction of violence—that translate to enhancements of reproductive fitness, but it also ties in well with the idea of a postmortal world in which material needs are supplied by advanced technology. Heisman, at any rate, concludes this first portion of his larger work on a positive note. “Everything possible that one ever wanted to accomplish, or do, or experience in life, could be accomplished in God-AI. The human world may thus come to an end voluntar[il]y through the very best possible life in supra-self-realization in God.”

Two additional thoughts are that, despite the emphasis on transhumanism and technology, nowhere is cryonics mentioned, and also, that the author recognizes that to truly bring about justice for all it would be necessary to resurrect the dead. It is clear that many challenges remain before a Singularity can be realized, and there may be further difficult steps before the tougher problems preventing a true “heaven” can be resolved. But the challenge is an exhilirating one, one which is open to people of today, even if so much remains to be done, with all the associated uncertainties. It is unfortunate that Heisman could not take this positive prospect more seriously, notwithstanding the insights shown forcefully in his writings.

By Max More, Ph.D

Cryonics is an odd service. When you pay for a service—whether it’s having your car cleaned, your taxes prepared, or your dinner served—you typically want what you’ve paid for as soon as possible. Cryopreservation is unusual in that those who pay for it hope never to need it. If we do need it, we hope it will be later rather than sooner. (Of course it’s not unique in this; companies retain lawyers who they hope not to need.)

Those of us with arrangements for cryopreservation have a well-worn but deeply wise aphorism: “Cryonics is the second worst thing that can happen to you.” Both the uncertainty of the cryonics endeavor and the fact that we want to remain in direct control of our fate means that we should attempt to put off the need for cryopreservation for as long as possible. Extending maximum life span is tough. Calorie restriction might do it, although Aubrey de Grey and Michael Rose have argued that the effect in humans is likely to be modest.

We have many more options for reducing our chances of dying early—and for enjoying improved health, vigor, and well-being in the meantime. The subject of this article is a currently unfashionable option with a potentially huge health payoff. This is the paleo diet, also known as the caveman diet, the new evolution diet, and the primal diet. The plan is actually more than simply diet. It includes a perspective on exercise and other aspects of healthy living. The topic is complex. My aim here is merely to introduce and hopefully intrigue you to investigate further.

I’ll sketch out what the paleo diet is, its rationale, highlight some of the crucial ways in which it differs from standard dietary advice, and consider how a backward-looking paleo perspective fits with the forward-thinking typical for cryonicists, how it benefits health, how intermittent fasting can add to the benefits, and what a paleo approach to exercise looks like.

What is the paleo diet?

Answering this question is complicated by disagreements among its advocates and by the range of foods eaten by our Paleolithic ancestors. The basic idea is that the paleo diet is the only diet that ideally fits our genetic makeup. Our genes and the functions they regulate change very slowly, over many generations. The human genetic endowment was formed over millions of years of evolution. The genus homo is almost two and half million years old, and includes humans and species closely related to us. The Paleolithic era (or, more informally, the Stone Age) accounts for 99.5% of that human history.

During that time, our ancestors lived as hunters and gatherers. This changed dramatically with the advent of agriculture, a mere five to ten thousand years (really little more than two thousand years in most of Europe). We lived as hunter-gatherers for over a hundred thousand generations, compared to six hundred generations as farmers and ten generations living in the industrial age. Our genes have been almost entirely shaped by the conditions of the Paleolithic era.

Hunter-gatherers (HGs) consumed large amounts of animal food, some getting 100% of calories from meat or fish. The HG diet was higher in protein compared to today and higher in fat. Crucially, it was much lower in carbohydrates. Carbohydrates that were eaten generally had a low glycemic load. Even the fruits then were less sweet than today’s, because we have bred for sweetness over centuries. Refined, high-carbohydrate foods have been eaten only for the last few hundred years—just for the last thousandth of one percent of our 2.5 million years as humans. We did not evolve to eat easily digestible starches, refined carbohydrates (such as flour and white rice), and sugars. Paleo advocates also prefer to eat grass-fed beef and free range chickens because of their superior fatty acid profile (a higher omega-3 to omega-6 ratio) as compared to factory-farmed, grain-fed animals.

Probably the leading paleo advocate (and perhaps the most scientifically grounded) is Loren Cordain. In his book, The Paleo Diet, he condenses the paleo approach to food into six ground rules: All the lean meats, fish, and seafood you can eat. All the fruits and nonstarchy vegetables you can eat. No cereals. No legumes. No dairy products.  No processed foods. (Other paleo writers dispute the need for meat to be lean.)

Expanding on that highly compressed outline, Cordain also offers Seven Keys of the Paleo Diet: 1. Eat a relatively high amount of animal protein compared to the typical American diet. 2. Eat fewer carbohydrates, but lots of good carbohydrates—from fruits and vegetables, not from grains, starchy tubers, and refined sugars. 3. Eat large amounts of fiber from nonstarchy fruits and vegetables. 4. Eat a moderate amount of fat, with more monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats than saturated fats and nearly equal amounts of omega 3 and omega 6 fats. 5. Eat foods with a high potassium content and a low sodium content. 6. Eat a diet with a net alkaline load. 7. Eat foods rich in plant phytochemicals, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.

Other versions of the paleo diet look more similar to the Atkins diet. But even these more fat-friendly versions differ from Atkins in that the latter allows any amount of processed meat, and can be more restrictive of vegetables and fruit (especially in the early stages of weight loss). Although the Zone diet shares some recommendations with paleo, the Zone is too high in carbs, too fat-phobic, too structured, and wrongly recommends soy.

Paleo Variations

Sometimes I prefer to talk of a “NeoPaleo” diet, to emphasize the point (often misunderstood) that we are not trying to exactly emulate a unique Paleolithic diet while rejecting all modern innovations in nutrition. Critics who point out that there was no single, universal diet over those 2.5 million years are right, of course. But I don’t know of any paleo advocate who argues otherwise. Clearly, ancestral diets varied significantly at different times and in different environments. A major difference exists between the Ice Age Paleolithic and post-Ice Age. Sometimes we were more hunters than gatherers; at other times the opposite. Sometimes (actually quite a lot of the time) Paleolithic people ate practically no fruits or vegetables, but in temperate times non-starchy fruits and vegetables became a larger part of the diet.

Anyone wanting to be a paleo purist will also run into the problem of disagreements among advocates. The good side to this is that it encourages you to examine the evidence for yourself rather than blindly following a unitary regimen. Some of the differences—such as whether any amount of salt should be used—are relatively trivial. We can find a more substantial divergence on the issue of the optimal level of carbohydrates, and on the related matter of whether glycemic index or glycemic load is important. While all paleo writers agree on throwing out starches, legumes, and grains, and refined sugars, that leaves fruits (and to a lesser extent vegetables and nuts) as a source of carbs. Is any amount of fruit good or not?

Cordain recommends a relatively high 22% to 40% of calories from carbohydrates. For a 2,000 calorie diet, that would amount to 440 to 800g. Mark Sisson, author of The Primal Blueprint, specifies  100 to 150g as the “Primal Maintenance Zone”, while 50 to 100g is the “Primal Sweet Spot for Effortless Weight Loss”. The paleo-compatible analysis by Gary Taubes, author of Why We Get Fat and Good Calories, Bad Calories, recommends 20g or less. Nora Gedgaudas, author of Primal Body, Primal Mind, agrees with Taubes’ view that there is no human dietary requirement for carbohydrates.

Views also diverge on the issue of the optimal amount or range of saturated fat. Cordain favors lean meat, whereas Sisson, Gedgaudas, and Taubes argue that higher levels of saturated fat are fine. Sisson allows modest amounts of dairy but most others rule out dairy other than eggs. Cordain used to be an exception in recommending canola oil, but no longer does. One point that probably all the authors would agree on to some degree is that the optimal amount of dairy and saturated fat will vary across individuals. Some can tolerate dairy better than others, and genetic differences (such as possessing the apolipoprotein E3 variant) may mean some people do well with a lower intake of saturated fat.

Among the other differences of opinion, Cordain and Taubes seem unconcerned about diet sodas and artificial sweeteners, whereas Sisson is less accommodating (without entirely ruling them out). Everyone agrees that being vegetarian and paleo is difficult and not a good idea from an optimal health standpoint but some take a harder line on the compatibility of the two. They would all agree it’s better to be a paleo-vegetarian than just a vegetarian.

Futurist-Paleo

Looking for health guidance by looking back, say, 40,000 years, may seem odd coming from a cryonicist, transhumanist, and someone known for thinking about the future. That impression might be reinforced by reading paleo proponent Mark Sisson’s book or blog posts, since he often rails against genetically modified foods and almost any kind of modern changes to our food. If the construction were not so clumsy, I might call my position “Futurist-NeoPaleo”. That would emphasize the point that old is not necessarily optimal, that modern doesn’t mean bad, and that paleo is an approximation that forms a good starting point but not the whole truth.

Grains may be bad for us (see below) but what if we could genetically modify our foods (or ourselves) to use them without any downsides? That may even be essential if we are to feed the global population in good health. Personally, I would be delighted if I were able to stop eating animals and instead eat animal nutrients grown in a vat. Only someone dogmatically committed to an absolute, a priori paleo position (one not entirely tied to the conditions of health) would reject these possibilities out of hand. At the same time, it’s crucial to acknowledge that until we can reengineer ourselves or have reengineered grains to work better with our biology, we should take into account the diet for which we are adapted.

Some modern additions to diet and health, while not available to Paleolithic people make excellent sense given the different conditions in which we live. (And due to our living, on average, much longer since we are far less susceptible to deadly infections and accidents.) It’s sensible to wear sunglasses, since we live a lot longer than paleo people and can accumulate more eye damage. It also makes sense to get flu shots, even though these were unavailable throughout almost all of our history.

It probably also makes sense to take some nutritional supplements. While Paleolithic people in many regions were regularly exposed to hours of sunlight, our modern life style keeps most of us out of the sun, perhaps indicating a need to supplement our diets with vitamin D. I don’t see any sensible paleo objection to taking a general vitamin supplement, and perhaps additional fish oil and probiotics.

Paleo is an excellent starting point. But we can’t be sure that it is optimal for health. We must remain open to direct evidence. For instance, the evolutionary argument behind paleo eating would suggest that we should consume no more than a very few grams of salt per day. But the body, being a complex system, might never have become optimized to that level. It’s possible that a higher intake is better. Paleolithic people may have eaten a lot of food raw, but that doesn’t mean it’s not better to cook moderately at least some kinds of meat.

Health benefits of going paleo

For thirty years I was a believer in the standard wisdom that a healthy diet is one low in fat and high in carbohydrates primarily from high-fiber sources. The shift to paleo (which took place last year) is therefore a major change of mind. If you hold the views I did (and hadn’t looked into the subject for many years), you may be skeptical, and you certainly won’t find the detailed evidence to change your mind in this article. I’m going to make naked assertions about the health of going paleo, leaving you to take a look at the sources provided at the end for the details.

The advent of agriculture was followed by a decline in human stature, bone density, strength, dental development, and health. There was an increase in birth defects, malnutrition, and degenerative diseases. Evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond has gone so far as to declare agriculture and the advent of grains as the “worst mistake in the history of the human race”. Despite improvements in medicine, numerous health problems have greatly expanded over the last century as we replaced animal fats with vegetable oils, trans fats, and carbohydrates (especially refined carbs including high fructose corn syrup).

Low-fat diets encourage us to load up on grain products (wheat, rice, bread, pasta, cereal, corn). Unfortunately, consumption of grains yields relatively poor nutrition but provokes a high insulin response. Grains (and legumes) also contain problematic anti-nutrients such as phytates, lectins, gluten, and goitrogens (thyroid-inhibiting substances). Lectins are natural plant toxins that can inhibit healthy gastrointestinal function and provoke an autoimmune response.

Gluten is a large, water-soluble protein found in most grains, including wheat, barley, and rye. Perhaps one third of us are gluten-intolerant or gluten-sensitive. The rest of us may suffer negative consequences (such as disruption of healthy immune function and inflammation) that are less obvious. Those who are gluten-intolerant can develop conditions including dermatitis, joint pain, acid reflux, reproductive problems, autoimmune disorders, and celiac disease.

The phytic acid found in grains inhibits the absorption of minerals by binding them and eliminating them from the body. Heavy consumption can lead to deficiency of minerals including calcium, iron, magnesium, and zinc. Legumes also contain lectins as well as protease inhibitors, which can damage the pancreas and reduce the body’s ability to digest and use protein. It’s true that phytic acid and other anti-nutrients can be reduced or eliminated if you take the trouble to pre-soak, sprout, or ferment these foods, but are you going to do that often?

Going paleo means avoiding grains and legumes, thereby avoiding a major cause of numerous maladies, that are thought to include allergies, food sensitivities, auto-immune disorders, colon cancer, pancreatic disorders, mineral deficiencies, celiac disease, epilepsy, cerebellar ataxias, peripheral neuropathies of axonal or demyelinating type, and myopathologies, autism, and schizophrenia. Obviously we vary greatly in how we react to grains, but I don’t know of any tests that reliably tell you how well you handle grains. You might eat grains and thrive, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t doing you some harm nor that they aren’t a bad bet: some people smoke and live long, healthy lives, yet smoking remains a bad bet.

Eating paleo-style can help avoid or reduce many health problems. Again, it would take up far too much space to support these claims with the relevant evidence (which you will find in the source below). The evidence I’ve seen leads me to believe that eating paleo reduces your chances of insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity, celiac disease (and the combination metabolic syndrome), high blood pressure, cancer, many disorders linked to inflammation, including auto-immune disorders such as arthritis, and improves your blood lipids, reduces your hunger and raises your energy level.

It’s important to note that you can expect a transitional period of adaptation of a few weeks to a couple of months. Your body needs time to switch from primarily burning carbohydrates for fuel to burning fat, especially if you adopt the more carbohydrate-restricted forms of paleo (which I believe to be the healthiest). You might want to take supplemental magnesium, calcium, and zinc during the transition.

While the caution about a transition period is standard in the paleo literature, in my own case I experienced no dip in energy at any time, despite continuing intense workouts (both aerobic and muscular). Nor did I find the restrictions to amount to a significant sacrifice. The almost immediate loss of craving for carbohydrates surprised me. I’ve found the new types of food—especially the highly colorful salads that are now daily treats—to more than make up for the foods I’ve let go of.

Start now or later?

Another wrinkle was added to the paleo story for me last year when I listened to a talk by evolutionary biologist Michael Rose. Professor Rose is a strong proponent of the paleo diet, but only for people over the age of 35 or 40 (earlier if you’re not Eurasian). In his talk (to which you’ll find a link below), he argues that most of us have adapted well to an agricultural diet at earlier ages. But as we get older (a little past the usual age of reproduction) those adaptations begin to fail. I don’t think Rose would disagree that even young people might be healthier on a paleo diet, but he only strongly urges making the dietary switch after the first three to four decades of life.

Intermittent fasting

We’ve become used to eating three square meals per day (and Taco Bell is pushing a “fourthmeal”). Paleolithic man certainly didn’t eat this way; nor do animals in the wild. More likely, after a kill they would eat a lot then rest. They would become hungry and have to go out and hunt or gather more food. They would have been used to going without food for longer periods than we do today. Although not by design, they practiced intermittent fasting (IF). Abundant evidence exists to suggest that IF generates major health benefits, even when it doesn’t lead to a lower total calorie intake.

Intermittent fasting can be done in a variety of ways, although skipping only one meal is probably insufficient to reap significant benefits. One popular, low-level approach is to fast for sixteen hours, leaving yourself an eight-hour window for eating primally. Even better is to fast for a full twenty-four hours occasionally—as often as once or twice per week. This might sound difficult and painful, but it’s much easier to skip meals when your regular diet is relatively low-carb, leading to stable blood sugar and insulin levels. If IF sounds appealing as a health measure but you’re not yet eating paleo or low-carb, it’s probably best to wait for a few weeks until your body has adapted to use fat stores for energy rather than carbohydrates.

What are the likely health and longevity benefits of supercharging paleo with IF? While being considerably easier than permanent calorie restriction, it appears to have many of the same benefits. These include increased insulin sensitivity, stronger resistance to stress, improved cognitive clarity, improved blood lipids (such as healthy LDL particle size and distribution), better neurological health, lower risk of cancer, reduction in risk of metabolic syndrome, and improved autophagy (the cellular recycling of waste material and repair processes).

Paleo exercise

Our Paleolithic ancestors didn’t go to the gym to run on treadmills or bicycles. They didn’t play football or go rollerblading. Yet they certainly got plenty of exercise. Both modern exercise science and our evolutionary history suggest that some forms and ways of exercising are more conducive to health and optimal function than others. For instance, it’s highly unlikely that paleo people ran slowly for long distances. A paleo approach to exercise would include lots of walking and play, lifting heavy things (especially using compound movements rather than isolation movements), and occasional all-out sprinting. Aerobic fitness seems to be achieved much more efficiently and with lower risk of repetitive stress injuries by high-intensity interval training than by jogging for long distances.

Being highly regimented and regular in an exercise program can lead not only to boredom but to a declining level of physiological response. Paleolithic people didn’t exert themselves in exactly the same way every day. They might have to sprint at unpredictable times to catch food or to avoid becoming food. Some days they would have heavier burdens to carry or drag back to camp than on other days. Again, history and modern exercise science agree in recommending that you vary your exercise, mixing it up for variety, and frequently surprising your body with something new.

So that’s Paleo 101 for cryonicists who aren’t eager to dive into the dewar. My goal here has not been to convince you but merely to intrigue you and interest you in investigating further. The evidence for the paleo approach looks strong to me, based not only on the evolutionary rationale but also on the direct evidence.

My personal experience reinforces this. Despite having been following the paleo diet for less than half a year, I’ve gotten significantly leaner (my waist now back to where it was 20 years ago), my triglycerides have come down from an already good level, my HDL/LDL ratio has improved further, my health has been good, and my energy level has been noticeably more stable and my appetite less demanding. I believe that people who are overweight, diabetic, or suffering many other health challenges will benefit even more.

Further reading and resources

You will no doubt have many objections, doubts, and questions that I haven’t the space to answer here. Doesn’t saturated fat cause heart disease? Why do so many mainstream nutritionists (backed by the US government’s Food Guide Pyramid) promote a diet very different from paleo? Very likely, every one of your questions has been thoroughly addressed in one of the following sources.

Loren Cordain, The Paleo Diet.

Nora T. Gedgaudas, Primal Body, Primal Mind.

Mark Sisson, The Primal Blueprint.

Gary Taubes, Why We Get Fat.

Gary Taubes, Good Calories, Bad Calories.

Arthur de Vany, The New Evolution Diet.

Web resources:

http://www.thepaleodiet.com/

http://www.thepaleodiet.com/faqs/

http://www.paleodiet.com/

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/primal-blueprint-101/

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/intermittent-fasting/fast-way-to-better-health/

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/health-benefits-of-intermittent-fasting/#more-19683

http://www.thepaleodiet.com/articles/2010_Organic_Fitness_Physician_and_Sports_Med.pdf

http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-to-achieve-biological-immortality-naturally

Michael Rose’s video (about 38-minute mark on diet): http://telexlr8.blip.tv/file/4225188/

It is certainly something that is on our minds. The seasons have turned through another rotation of holidays, and we find ourselves contemplating our recent enthusiasm at the dinner table.

Caloric restriction, as you may know, is the limitation of food intake to produce positive health and longevity results. In a way, while it would seem similar, it is the opposite of malnutrition, since the focus of caloric restriction is the regulation of the proportions of certain foods, while maintaining proper intake of vitamins and micronutrients. The average person is recommended a daily intake of 2000 to 2500 calories, while caloric restriction would prefer to put you in the 1800 calorie range, depending on your basal metabolic rate, or BMR.

While I do not consider myself “restricted” I am careful of what I eat. I try to measure calories, keep track of my sugars, and drink from vessels with ounces clearly marked on the side to remain mindful of how much I drink, and of what. I have over the years given up on soda except as a dessert option, and have been mindful of keeping up my water consumption since I read the science fiction novel Dune in the early 80s. I find using such a graduated drinking vessel helpful especially in the Fall when hydration can become more challenging in the Northeast. Humidity can drop like a stone in late October and can go down by 25% or more in a single week.

Earlier studies in caloric restriction, or “CR”,  led to theories that oxidative stress, caused by food intake, may be a cause of aging. The ingestion and processing of food is a constant source of free radicals and peroxides, many of which cause damage to just about every cellular component. This interaction in turn creates a wide variety of oxidants, some of which can go on to combine with LDL in your bloodstream to form plaque, or join with one another to produce even more adverse biochemical changes.. Some chemicals, such as organic hydroperoxide and hypochlorous acid (ROOH and HOCl, respectively) are then free to cause additional damage to cell structures and lipids, and break down beneficial proteins.

The accumulation of this damage is seen as a potential source or trigger of a great variety of diseases, including heart disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. The trend to treat free radicals with antioxidants in the past decade can find its roots firmly in this earlier research.

New findings are beginning to support the contention that age related hearing loss could be the result of a protein (known as Bak) that is leaked from mitochondria that have been damaged by these stresses. This protein goes on to damage the cells in the cochlea. We should consider the sensitivity of the cochlea and what damage may be occurring in other parts of the body that does not have such an apparent effect. This could be evidence that more robust systems are also losing function due to our diets.

Of course, human trials of caloric restriction – or trials of any organism with a significant lifespan – will take some time to complete. A few of the larger studies, such as CALERIE (Comprehensive Assessment of Long-term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy) are underway to study the effect of CR on healthy human subjects. The study is looking not only for positive change in lifespan, but also for the mitigation of other age-related problems such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.

To date, the findings surrounding CR support many benefits, including decreased insulin resistance, positive weight loss, and lowered cholesterol – all the things you would normally associate with what would be termed “proper diet and exercise.” Subjects also displayed lower blood pressure, reduced fasting glucose, and higher HDL cholesterol levels.

What is unusual is that the findings show a lower standing body temperature, which in itself has been considered a key to longevity. Analysis has also shown decreased levels of radicals such as nitric oxide and superoxide in the blood, as well as other benefits that are not usually attributed to the traditional proper diet and exercise regimen.

Recently there have been publications with some pretty strong findings. The research indicates that just about any complex organism has the same physiological response to caloric restriction, and that CR plays a consistent and significant role in “life span regulation.” Some very promising results have come out of a study at Harvard that showed reversal of age-based nerve damage to the neuromuscular system.

The neuromuscular system is the pathway that the signals from the brain travel in order to reach your muscle fibers. It is similar in layout to a tree, with the branches ending in neuromuscular synapses, where the nerves plug in to receivers in the muscle tissue itself. Like a tree, over time these connections can weaken, bend, or even begin to wither. This degeneration causes electrical interference to signals coming from the brain that can eventually cut off communication to muscle fibers entirely, resulting in a type of muscular atrophy known as Sarcopenia. This is one of the key components of frailty due to the aging process.

The Harvard findings show that while exercise seemed to reverse a good amount of the synaptic damage in mice, caloric restriction reversed all of the damage. Work remains to be done to see that the structural preservation of neuromuscular synapses is relative to their proper function.

Another recent study from the University of Wisconsin–Madison has shown that an enzyme, known as Sirt3, is produced in greater amounts in calorically restricted mice. Sirt3 is thought to play a role in the “reprogramming” of the mitochondria inside the cell, due to the change in metabolism of restricted individuals. Experiments also showed that Sirt3 protected cells from oxidative stress and death caused by free radicals. While past studies have shown a relationship between the family of enzymes known as “Sirtuins” – of which Sirt3 is one – this is the first to conclusively show the role that a sirtuin plays in cellular preservation. So direct are the findings of this study, that one questions how soon a product could come to market. A compound to deliver Sirt3 where needed, or perhaps ldh2, the enzyme it induces, would I think be a high priority for a pharmaceutical company.

In this age we take everything into our own hands, and handle the advice of experts in application to ourselves. We want to know the diagnosis, we want to take copies of our MRIs home and look at them with iRad or OsiriX, to rotate the soft tissue display and see the point of pressure on the nerve. For those who want to have a go at self-maintenance and self-regulation there is of course the CRON diet and its variants, which focus on getting yourself to a “set-point” in your weight and adhering to certain volumes of particular foods, while eschewing others. There are a variety of online calculators and mobile applications to assist with calculating your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) should you wish to do so. Starting numbers for your Body Mass Index and other important information is just a doctor’s visit away, although a variety of BMI calculation tools are readily available, including electronic bathroom scales that now have built-in sensors for BMI, bone mass, hydration, and other important variables.

With regard to aging, it appears that what we are looking at are two distinct strategies: on the one, the evasion of damage, the other, the reversal of damage. Nothing stops you from engaging either stratagem, however some become more important during different life cycles – engaging in a caloric restriction regimen late in life may be ineffective in certain systems.

It is difficult to ignore such compelling evidence. Having only gotten any distance from soda in the past few years, larger changes to diet – and the infrastructure to support such a change – can seem daunting. The largest complaints from participants in the studies have not been about hunger pains, foregoing cake, or appetite fatigue. They have spoken most of all about needing to track meals, eat very specifically, and write everything down. I may be able to ease into something like this, especially if I continue to follow this work. For now I think I will head outside, feed our chickens, and try to walk off a few “unrestricted” calories.

Bret Kulakovich lives in Lakeville, MA with his wife Sarah and their three children. They have been Alcor members since 2005. Bret and his family were also featured in a member profile in Cryonics magazine, Summer 2006, Volume 27:3

References

Someya, S., Yu, W., Hallows, W., Xu, J., Vann, J., Leeuwenburgh, C.,  Tanokura, M., Denu, J.,  & Prolla, T. A. (2010, November 24). Sirt3 Mediates Reduction of Oxidative Damage and Prevention of Age-Related Hearing Loss under Caloric Restriction. Cell, 143, 802-812.

Valdez, G., Tapia, J., Kang, H., Clemenson Jr., G. D., Gage, F. H.,  Lichtman, J. W., & Sanes, J. R. (2010, August 17). Attenuation of age-related changes in mouse neuromuscular synapses by caloric restriction and exercise. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107, 14515-14938.

Chou, S.H., Lee, Y. C., Huang, C. F., Wang, Y.R., Yu, H.P., & Lau Y.T. (2010, March 25). Gender-specific effects of caloric restriction on the balance of vascular nitric oxide and superoxide radical. Cardiovascular Research, 87, 751-759.

Someya, S.,  Xu, J., Kondo, K., Ding, D.,  Salvi, R. J., Yamasoba, T., Rabinovitch, P. S., Weindruch, R.,  Leeuwenburgh, C., Tanokura, M., & Prolla, T. A. (2009, November 17). Age-related hearing loss in C57BL/6J mice is mediated by Bak-dependent mitochondrial apoptosis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106, 19432-19437.

Vaquero, A., Reinberg, D. (2009, July 16). Calorie restriction and the exercise of chromatin.

By Mike Perry

Review of Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease by Dr. Sharon Moalem, with Jonathan Prince (William Morrow & Company, 2007)

Normally we have a clear distinction in our minds between states of “health” and “disease” – or think we do. Survival of the Sickest challenges this thinking in numerous ways. Overall our bodies play host to around three pounds of microbes that comprise about 1,000 different types and many trillions of individual organisms. These are mostly found in the digestive system and play useful roles ranging from helping to break down food products to protecting us against harmful organisms. Certain bacteria, for instance, help protect us from harmful bacteria, and when people have digestive problems from taking antibiotics it is sometimes ironically because the protective bacteria have been compromised. In effect we harbor a vast multitude of “diseases” that are necessary to keep us healthy!

In addition to microbes there are inherited disorders that actually appear to have benefited our ancestors and/or may in mild forms be beneficial today. A case of possible past benefit is hemochromatosis, in which iron is retained in the system and builds up to harmful levels over a period of decades. (Too much iron has complications such as liver failure, heart failure, diabetes, arthritis, and eventually, death.) On the other hand, the body’s locking down the iron supply has the effect of withholding it from macrophages – white blood cells that fight infection. These then become more effective against a microbe such as the (presumed) bubonic plague bacillus, Yersinia pestis, which in turn is adept at stealing iron when available and thereby furthering its own cause. Another ailment, Type 1 or juvenile diabetes (not a consequence of hemochromatosis), may have protected against a severe, sudden ice age that occurred about 13,000 years ago. Why? Because, in effect, the elevated blood sugar levels were at least marginally effective as a cryoprotectant! The discussion of this issue turns briefly to cryonics, with emphasis on how difficult it is to cryoprotect tissues and how much damage is caused by current cryonics procedures; some consideration of developments such as vitrification that minimizes this damage would have provided a fairer treatment. Another disorder, sickle cell anemia, in a milder, genetically recessive form protects today against malaria. The list goes on.

Another interesting area covered in the book is epigenetics. The genome, it turns out, is not all that counts in specifying how the organism develops from a fertilized egg cell or zygote. Two mice with essentially the same genome will have a very different appearance, one being fat and yellow-furred, the other lean and brown. The difference is not in the genes but the epigenes, which are molecular groups that attach to the genome and affect whether a given gene will be “expressed” or active in the developing organism. Epigenes in this case are acquired during fetal development, by feeding certain nutritional supplements to the mothers. (Human versions of the same sort of supplements, including vitamin B₁₂, folic acid, betaine, and choline, are given to expectant mothers today.) Epigenes in certain circumstances lead to behavioral changes. If, for example, the (human) mother eats a lot of junk food, high in calories but low in nutrients, the baby could acquire an epigenetically-induced disposition to overeat, its system having been put on notice that “food is scarce.” In fact it was not the food but the nutrients in it that were scarce. But the overeating could lead to obesity, and offspring with the same disposition. In this way, then, epigenes provide a way for acquired characteristics to be inherited, a limited vindication of Charles Darwin’s oft-maligned precursor J. B. Lamarck.

One other important feature of human life is what we call aging, a process that eventually kills us if something else doesn’t do it first. Theories of why we age are varied but one property of aging tissues stands out: the shortening of telomeres. Telomeres are caps on the ends of chromosomes in the cell nuclei that provide necessary protection so the main part of the chromosome stays intact as the cell divides. Each time a cell divides the telomeres (usually) get shorter. When the telomeres are too short the protection of chromosomes is compromised; one consequence is that the cells lose their ability to divide so that dying cells are not replaced. When tumor cells reach this “Hayflick Limit” (named after biologist Leonard Hayflick who discovered this effect in the 1960s) the tumor stops growing and after a time dies. The shortening of telomeres, then, is a built-in defense against cancer, but it has the downside that eventually, healthy dividing cells reach the Hayflick limit (after fifty or sixty divisions) so the tissue cannot replenish itself and the organism dies. In the rare genetic disorder known as Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome or HGPS the rate of aging is greatly accelerated so that victims normally die in their teens or earlier and suffer complications such as hair loss, wrinkles, arthritis, and hardening of the arteries while still children. HGPS is usually caused by a single, spontaneous mutation. If such a great acceleration in aging is possible in so simple a manner, the author speculates, then maybe aging itself has been “programmed” by natural selection, a form of “biological planned obsolescence” to help gene survival, albeit at the expense of individuals. Finding and understanding such a “program” could put us on a faster track to treating and curing aging, though it remains to be seen whether nature has really arranged things this way (opinions vary).

In all the book explores many fascinating findings and lines of research, suggesting our biology is complicated indeed but that answers to basic questions are gradually being found. On the other hand, I would have preferred more focus on matters of greatest interest, mainly, how we can overcome all sorts of things that make us sick, not excepting aging itself. As one case in point, though much was said about HGPS and how it is a rapid form of aging that we’d certainly like to treat, it was not mentioned that HGPS sufferers have shortened telomeres [1], at least roughly approximating the condition of elderly, normal humans. I got the feeling that there was more interest in relating a series of interesting anecdotes than in addressing how to better the human condition in fundamental ways (among them curing aging and radically extending the human lifespan), even though some of the research clearly has that potential.

Notes

[1] See, for example, Michelle L. Decker et al., “Telomere length in Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome,” Mechanisms of Ageing and Development 130(6), 377-83 (Jun. 2009).

By Steve Bridge

We can be pleased that cryonics has entered the consciousness of writers these days enough so that it shows up frequently as a plot point in an increasing number of novels.  Here I will discuss two books in some detail and one very briefly.

Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold, Baen Books, 2010

Lois McMaster Bujold is one of the most popular current authors of science fiction and fantasy, with five Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards among her many honors.  Her most popular series is the Vorkosigan Saga, thirteen books dealing with the adventures of Miles Vorkosigan and his family of the planet Barrayar.  Miles was born with major birth defects because of a poison attack on his parents, when his mother was pregnant with him.  All survived, but Miles is stunted physically with brittle bones, making the military career expected by his family tradition seemingly impossible.  Miles compensates with high intelligence and a hyperactive personality and eventually becomes a brilliant military commander of a mercenary force.  After a number of adventures, he is forced to retire and becomes an Imperial Auditor – a trouble-shooter and investigator for his cousin, the Emperor of Barrayar.

I first met Lois McMaster Bujold around 1987, right after her first three books were published.  She had come to Indianapolis to read at our local science fiction club.  Many of us became big fans of her work, and over the years, through meetings at science fiction conventions, we became friendly acquaintances.  Sometime around 1990 I gave her Alcor literature and discussed cryonics with her.  In 1994 this paid off when cryonics was included in her impressive Hugo Award-winning novel, Mirror Dance (Baen Books).  In that book, cryopreservation is a military rescue technique for severely injured combat personnel.  Miles Vorkosigan is such a dynamic character that he takes over every scene he appears in, and Bujold needed a way to get Miles out of the way so she could concentrate on his very different clone brother, Mark.   While trying to rescue Mark and other troops, Miles gets hit in the chest with a projectile and gets quickly placed into cryopreservation (and revived by the end of the novel).  This event turned out to have major benefits in the growth of Miles in later books in the series, making him more thoughtful and more risk adverse – to a level only 5 times greater than most people.  As time goes by, Miles frequently refers to the changes in his life resulting from having survived his own death.

Cryonics has been bouncing around in Bujold’s subconscious for a lot of years since then.   Now it bursts out again in Cryoburn (Baen Books, 2010), a remarkably thoughtful novel about a planet whose entire economy and government is built around cryonics, much like the way Ancient Egypt was focused on mummification.   I say “remarkably thoughtful” not because it is unusual for Bujold (it is not), but because there have never been more than a handful of cryonics-oriented novels that contain any original ideas or deep levels of thought.

Miles has been sent to a cryonics conference on the planet of Kibou-daini, along with his Armsman (security guard/assistant) Roic, and a cryonics revival expert, Raven Durona.  One of the major cryonics companies on Kibou-daini is preparing to start a cryonics business on one of the planets that Barrayar rules, and Emperor Gregor thinks that some deeper conspiracy is taking place.  And of course, since novels require a plot, it is.  Miles gets kidnapped, escapes, and gets lost in the Cryocombs – vast underground storage buildings for cryopreserved patients.  He is rescued by a 12 year old boy, Jin, who takes him to his hideout in an abandoned building – or formerly abandoned.  It is now the home of a truly underground (i.e., secret) cryonics facility, handling the preservations of those unlucky enough not to afford cryonics in this society.  Jin’s father died in an accident without benefit of cryopreservation, and his mother was a political activist with evidence of the deeper conspiracy, kidnapped and forced into the freezing units by the conspirators.  Complications follow.

I’m not going to spend more time on the plot and characters, partly because I don’t want to spoil the story for you, but mostly because that’s not why you are reading Cryonics magazine.  You want to know how Bujold integrates cryonics into her story and if you will enjoy reading the book or will be tempted to throw it against the wall.

First, don’t throw the book; you might break the CD-ROM that comes with it.  In a stroke of marketing creativity (or perhaps “seizure” of creativity – we’ll see what the results are), Baen Books has included with the 1^st printing a free CD-ROM that contains the complete text of Cryoburn – as well as the complete text of 12 other Bujold novels set in this universe, plus several short stories, interviews, speeches, critical discussions, and The Vorkosigan Companion, a fine non-fiction book by others about Bujold’s writing.  The only Miles-oriented novel not included is Memory, chronologically the 9^th book in the series, accidentally left out through a production error.  The text on the CD is included in several different formats and can be downloaded (but not shared or sold) to various e-readers or to your computer.  The visual quality is excellent.  If you like reading books in e-format, this could be the most cost-effective purchase you ever make.

The economy of Kibou-daini is almost completely built around cryonics.  Those with the financial means plan their savings around cryopreservation instead of retirement funds; and those who cannot afford it envy the ones who can.  Cryonics is close to being a mature technology by this time.  The preservations can be done in a reliable manner by trained people and a good cryo-treatment can be reversed when the cause of death can be corrected.  But since there would be no story without conflict, there are some imperfections — reasonable ones, I think.  In Bujold’s universe, aging reversal has not been developed as successfully as has been cryopreservation reversal and treatment of disease and basic injury.  Suspension revivals are usually done on fairly young people.  I might think that real life will turn out the opposite, that aging reversal will come before reliable cryonics revivals; but we don’t have either one today and the point is arguable.  Besides, it is Bujold’s book.

The real problems are not technical, however.  Bujold has wisely noticed that even if cryopreservation and other future medical technologies become commonplace, the world will still be run by fallible and corruptible human beings.  The futurist writer and cryonicist FM-2030 used to say that human nature would change with increasing health, prosperity, and education, and that maybe by the year 2030 (hence, his chosen name) there would be a new enlightenment for all – no racism, no poverty, no war.  I never agreed with him, to his disappointment.  Bujold also assumes human nature will not change that radically.

Human beings have evolved to be competitive and hierarchical.  No matter how much wealth is available, many people will still want more than the other guy.  If you survive into a distant future, there will still be someone who will try to take advantage of you; someone who will be happy to see you fail; someone who will profit from your success; someone else who will profit from your failure.

The interesting political twist that Bujold adds is that, since the cryopreserved individuals are not fully “dead,” they still have voting rights (in the company and in the government), vested in their heirs until the patient is revived.  But, since everyone needs money for their own suspension, people often assign (for a fee) their voting rights as a proxy to a cryonics corporation (the “cryocorps” – pun fully intended by Bujold).  After millions of people have been preserved, the cryocorps have enough votes in their pockets to elect the government and set economic policy that favors them.  Of course, those votes depend on the owners of the votes remaining at very low temperatures, so the cryocorps aren’t in an overwhelming hurry to solve the aging problem and bring everyone back to full participation.

There are several more layers to this scheme, and I’m sure that the clever among you could think of plenty more.  It’s an intriguing set-up.

I do appreciate cleverness in a good writer, and Bujold has that quality in depth.  I admire her dialogue, characters, and plot twists.  I think she may be the best writer of believable characters in the field of science fiction, maybe the best ever.  The character growth of Miles through this series of books is remarkable.  Even her minor characters feel real enough for us to imagine that they have a life and a story beyond the bounds of the book at hand.  And she gets the little details right, not just the technical details, which she handles much better than Star Trek techno babble, but the human bits.

For example, the different cryocorps try to appeal mostly to the young professionals, but each trying for different market segments – hi-rollers, romantics, history lovers.  They are like Las Vegas casinos.  There is a nice bit about trying to figure how to enhance the immune system of someone who needs to be revived in a hasty, extra-legal manner.  When she has characters argue about the morality of life extension and cryonics, the arguments of both sides sound sincere and honest, like the real arguments we have had dozens of times.

While all of this is done in a fair manner, her interviews for this book suggest that Bujold herself is not a cryonicist.  I am pleased that she has taken pains in these interviews to state that she believes cryonicists are sincere and thoughtful, with a lot of smart, technical people involved.  She thinks cryonics might work — but she is not sure if she is in favor of it.  There is a quote from the book, “Such as a whole society of people who become so wrapped up in avoiding death, they forgot to be alive?”

It’s a fair question.  We don’t know what changes that truly successful suspended animation would produce in human society or how financially successful cryonics companies would behave.  (Sorry, but what to do with too much success is a problem we would love to have but can barely imagine here in the backward year of 2011.)  But then we really don’t know much about the mindset and changes in human interaction that were caused by the fixation on mummification that developed in Ancient Egypt, either.

And as a writer, Bujold (and her hero Miles) cannot be totally against the idea of cryonics, because it saved the life of her hero, gave her more books, and allowed her to think about the meaning of a second chance at life.  (Bujold has also spoken about feeling “reborn” many years ago after a divorce, following a difficult marriage, so there may be some additional symbolism going on here.)

Since I have read all of Bujold’s books, some of them several times, I may not be able to predict how much readers would enjoy Cryoburn if it is their first exposure to Miles Vorkosigan.  Bujold is actually quite adept at creating self-supporting books in her series, although it is inevitable that many hints from earlier adventures slide into the story.  And character development is so essential to Bujold’s writing that enjoyment of the series (and admiration for the author) is likely to build higher if started at the beginning, or at least if you read Mirror Dance, her earlier cryonics-related novel in the series.

From my viewpoint, this is one fine novel.  It is not as powerful as the two or three best in the series, perhaps, but like both Miles and Bujold, it is a more mature, thoughtful work.  I was pleased to read it and even more pleased to re-read it.  Like the work of all great authors, Bujold’s novels get better in re-reading.  I would be interested to hear from any of you who try this as your first Vorkosigan book.

**********

Frozen in Time.  By Ali Sparkes (Egmont, 2010 in USA; Oxford University Press, 2009 in UK)

Cryonics sometimes shows up in children’s science fiction, too, and this is a mostly pleasing example, if you can overlook the unfortunately simplistic portrayal of the technology involved.  This is an example of a common usage of cryonics – a technology for sending characters from the past to the future (often our “present”) so they can be amazed at how much has changed – and so the reader can have the ironic appreciation of how different the world is today from some distant past time.

In 2010, British siblings Ben and Rachel discover a strange vault underground in their back yard.  Inside the vault are two children and a dog in suspended animation.  A couple of button pushes and the subjects are revived, thinking they have been asleep for a day or two – in 1956.  It seems that their father was a government scientist secretly working on suspended animation in his spare time and had already put the children in suspension a few times for short periods, just to make sure it worked.  (We’re going to ignore the ethics here, dubious even for 1956.)  It also turns out that Freddy and Polly, the revived children, are the great aunt and uncle of Ben and Rachel.  And finally, it seems that British and Russian government agents are still trying to find out what happened to their children and their father.

Freddy and Polly are “typical” 1956 British children – which in this case means that Freddie is a condescending sexist pig – although very polite, and Polly is in training to be a British combination of June Cleaver and Betty Crocker – although very brave.  Humorous misunderstandings ensue, the government agents close in with the standard chase scenes, and nick-of-time rescuers save the day.

Frozen in Time isn’t great, but as fiction it is competent.  The benefits for cryonicists are that cryonics is talked about as a valuable life-saving technology, and children could get the idea that people really can adjust to the sudden change of being shifted to the future.

**********

Thaw by Rick Jasper.   (Darby Creek, 2010).

And now for “the Ugly.”

Thaw is part of a recent series of High-Interest, Low-Reading-Level short novels, apparently trying to reach reluctant teenage readers with easy horror stories about vampires, aliens, and frozen-revived zombie killers.  Really.  A cult leader and his followers were frozen as punishment but the son of the cult leader has revived them so they can continue their destiny to rule the world.  Or something like that.  The plot, characters, and writing are all dreadful.  Buy this only if you are the ultimate complete collector of cryonics marginalia; but don’t read it.  My IQ dropped 10 points for a week after reading it.

By Mike Perry

Review of  Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized by James Ladyman and Don Ross, with David Spurrett and John Collier (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)

As immortalists we hope to be in the world for a good long while, thus we are interested in the nature of reality. Reality determines, among other things, what our prospects are for our own longterm survival. We wish to know under what conditions the original self can be said to survive. For example, does the self survive if the original body perishes but an exact, functioning copy is made, or if something is created that functions very similarly but is physically different, such as a mind upload? Cryonicists will also wonder if there is any problem if extensive repairs to their physical remains are necessary, so long as something closely resembling their original self is reconstructed and brought to healthy consciousness. The volume here reviewed, though not directly concerned with cryonics or immortalism, offers the position that it’s the pattern that counts rather than the material substrate, and in fact, strictly speaking, material objects don’t exist. If this is accepted, the metaphysical outlook improves for survival through such means as mind uploading or imperfect cryonics.

Do material objects exist? How do we find out? Though science is certainly crucial in telling us about the world we inhabit, a vital role is also reserved for philosophy, which addresses such issues as what scientific principles and methods should merit our trust and what values and goals should be served by our developing, science-based technology. Metaphysics in particular, concerned with “what actually exists” and among other things, with unifying science, would seem to have a vital role to play. As the volume here reviewed points out, however, metaphysics now is rather moribund and seems in danger of dying, mainly because it has not kept pace with modern science.

The authors propose, quite reasonably, “that the only kind of metaphysics that can contribute to objective knowledge is one based specifically on contemporary science as it really is, and not on philosophers’ a priori intuitions, common sense, or simplifications of science.” To carry out the development of such a metaphysics is a tall order. Contemporary science presents a very strange, hard-to-fathom view of reality, through quantum mechanics accompanied by general relativity. In addition, science is a moving target, which raises the prospect that one’s best efforts will sooner or later be obsoleted even as previous scientific theories are found to be, strictly speaking, invalid and not descriptions of reality as it really is.

The authors accept this challenge and construct a metaphysics which takes account of modern science both in its depth, as seen in physics, and also its diversity, seen in such fields as biology and economics. The book will be a difficult read if you, like me, are not someone who is well-versed in the works of contemporary philosophers who have themselves grappled at length with the main issues of this book. In fact a great deal of text is taken up throughout with referencing these other thinkers and their often conflicting opinions. This was sometimes hard to follow but many interesting ideas still were reasonably intelligible. (I had the feeling that a more popular-style book that used more illustrations from everyday life with more accessible treatment of the strange anomalies of physics would be in order.)

Two principles inform the authors’ work throughout as ground rules for their project. The principle of naturalistic closure (PNC) requires, roughly, that a new metaphysical claim must be grounded in fundamental physics and must in addition lead to a first-time or improved scientific explanation for one or more phenomena, a betterment that would not occur in absence of the claim. The primacy of physics constraint (PPC), on the other hand, requires that sciences other than physics must conform in their principles to physics, while physics is not similarly required to respect the principles of these other sciences.

Both principles thus are based around physics yet the authors do not take the view that other sciences are necessarily reducible to physics, only that they must never conflict with physics. Physics in turn presents a bizarre world view, in comparison to familiar notions from the past. Most notably, the existence of individual things is called in question by such observable phenomena as particle entanglement. If two photons far apart can have their properties instantly affected by each other, do they possess individual natures? Do they really exist as “things” at all? Entanglement can and does occur between other particles including atoms, and extends to larger material objects. Do these things really exist? While it may be possible to uphold the existence of particles and material objects more generally as things or “particulars” in traditional fashion, the authors submit that this approach now seems highly artificial and problematic at a serious philosophical level. What they propose instead is “relations all the way down”—there are relations between what appear to be objects or things (subatomic particles for instance) but these “objects” are virtual only and resolve into further relations, whose “objects” or relata in turn resolve into further relations, ad infinitum. As the title proclaims, every thing must go.

If this is taken seriously, material objects are nonexistent, and all that actually does exist is “structure”—relations between virtual objects, or in other jargon, “real patterns.” The authors propose the term Ontic Structural Realism (OSR) for their system of real patterning as it applies to fundamental science (physics), while the application to special sciences they label Rainforest Realism (RR). Putting the two together yields their comprehensive system known as Information Theoretic Structural Realism (ITSR). The real-patterns approach in particular is shown to avoid one basic pitfall, that of being dependent on specific details of particular scientific theories. Patterns can persist and retain validity if new discoveries replace one fundamental theory with another one, within limits. The authors are cautious enough to allow that their proposed system will not necessarily be found valid in the end, but might need replacement. Meanwhile its robustness in the face of possible changes in scientific theories is a plus.

The idea of patterns or information as the substrate of reality will fit well with the hopes of those immortalists who believe in substrate-independent minds and are hopeful of one day uploading their essence—captured in information—into a computational device. (A great way, perhaps, to free oneself of the ills of a bodily existence, including the aging process.) Cryonicists should similarly not worry about anything beyond information loss in assessing their chances of resuscitation. Inasmuch as the metaphysical basis of this thinking is grounded in modern physics, we must at least take the patternist view seriously, and it can serve as the basis of cautious optimism about our future prospects for transcending our present limitations.