Can freezing temperatures really grant immortality?
Emerging from an icy tomb, like Marvel’s Captain America… bewildered by a world that’s strange and new… it’s a fascinating thought experiment, but could it ever happen? The idea of putting a person on ice—literally—and waking them up decades or even centuries later in a society they barely recognize. Science fiction has been playing with this concept for decades, from the practical space travel of Avatar to the fish out of water setting of Futurama… even the unearthly antagonist of The Thing was awoken from a deep-frozen slumber. But beyond the realm of fiction, there’s a very real industry devoted to cryonics, promising that if you can freeze a body properly, you might just be able to bring it back to life one day. The key question: does this actually work, or is it a very expensive way to make human-shaped ice cubes?
A Concept Frozen in Fantasy
The idea that one could cheat death by freezing the body isn’t new. Science fiction has long played with the concept of suspended animation. In Alien: Romulus, the crew travels risks everything to acquire a means of escaping through deep space in cryosleep… the only way to sustain their years-long interstellar journey without food reserves.
Perhaps the most famous urban legend connected to cryonics is the persistent rumor that Walt Disney arranged to have himself frozen after death in hopes of revival. While entirely untrue, the story has fueled public fascination with cryonics, reinforcing the idea that people with enough wealth might actually attempt such a sci-fi escape from mortality. Whether in pop culture or conspiracy theories, cryonics has always carried a mixture of awe and skepticism—a symbol of both technological optimism and the desperation to avoid death.
The modern idea of cryonics originated in the mid-20th century with scientists who theorized that death, at least in its early stages, might not be as irreversible as once believed. Robert Ettinger, often called the father of cryonics, popularized the concept with his 1962 book The Prospect of Immortality, in which he argued that if medical science continued advancing, those frozen today could one day be revived when the technology to cure their ailments emerged. Ettinger’s premise was simple: if you can freeze a person without damaging their biological structures, they could theoretically be thawed and repaired in the future.
Biologists had already observed that certain organisms, like tardigrades and some frogs, could survive extreme freezing and reanimation. These observations inspired researchers to ask whether similar methods could be applied to human beings. But while nature offers a few intriguing hints, the jump from freezing a frog to freezing a fully grown human without cellular destruction is no small leap. Early pioneers in the field were optimistic, but even today, the scientific roadblocks remain daunting.
Profiting on Grief & Fear
Despite these scientific challenges, cryonics moved quickly from theory to practice. The first known attempt to cryopreserve a human occurred in 1967, when Dr. James Bedford was frozen shortly after death. His body remains in storage today, often cited as proof that long-term cryogenic storage is possible. Following this, several companies emerged offering cryopreservation services, promising customers that, for a fee, they could be frozen upon legal death and potentially revived in the distant future.
Two of the most well-known organizations in this space are the Alcor Life Extension Foundation and the Cryonics Institute. These companies store bodies—or, in many cases, just heads—in liquid nitrogen at extremely low temperatures. The cost of preservation varies, with full-body preservation running well over $200,000 and head-only procedures costing significantly less. The latter option is based on the belief that future advancements in technology might allow a brain to be revived and placed into a new body, whether biological or artificial. A sort of body horror ship of Theseus.
The business of cryonics has had its fair share of controversies, from legal battles over the rights of preserved individuals to nightmare stories about poorly maintained facilities. There have also been ethical debates over whether families should be allowed to freeze loved ones who may not have explicitly consented. Given the enormous financial and logistical costs, cryonics has remained a niche industry, appealing primarily to the ultra-wealthy and the deeply optimistic.
The Current State of Cryogenic Technology
For all the marketing and promises, the central problem remains: there is no reliable method for reversing cryogenic preservation in humans. The primary issue is that freezing causes ice crystals to form in cells, which damages and destroys delicate biological structures. Current cryonics organizations attempt to mitigate this by using a process called vitrification, which replaces the blood with cryoprotectant chemicals to prevent ice formation. While this reduces damage, it does not eliminate it entirely.
No human—or even large mammal—has ever been successfully frozen and revived. Scientists have managed to vitrify and rewarm small biological samples, including embryos and some organs, but full-body preservation and revival remain out of reach. Some researchers working in the field of organ transplantation hope that advancements in cryopreservation could one day allow for long-term organ storage, which might indirectly push the technology forward. But even if an organ can be successfully preserved, the complexity of an entire human body is an exponentially greater challenge.
There’s also the issue of brain function. Even if a frozen body could one day be thawed, there is no guarantee that the mind—memories, personality, consciousness—would remain intact. Cryonics supporters often argue that future technology, possibly including advanced AI or nanotechnology, might be able to repair any damage. But at present, this is pure speculation.
Are There Any Viable Alternatives to Cryonics?
For those hoping to cheat death, cryonics is not the only theoretical option. Advancements in mind-uploading, artificial intelligence, and regenerative medicine offer alternative, if equally dubious, pathways toward life extension. Some researchers believe that it might one day be possible to map the human brain in such detail that a digital copy of a person’s consciousness could be created, effectively allowing for a form of immortality. Others are exploring ways to slow or even reverse the aging process through genetic and pharmaceutical interventions.
Another approach, still in its infancy, is biostasis, which focuses on inducing a hibernation-like state in living beings. Unlike cryonics, which occurs after legal death, biostasis would aim to suspend biological function temporarily, with the goal of resuscitation without significant damage. This technique, if perfected, could have medical applications such as stabilizing trauma patients or enabling long-term space travel.
For now, though, these ideas remain as speculative as cryonics itself. The search for a reliable way to halt aging or extend life indefinitely continues, but there is no consensus on which—if any—of these approaches will eventually succeed.
Don’t Hope for Eternity
So, is cryonics a real path to the future or just a high-tech fantasy? At present, there is no scientific basis to believe that freezing a human body will allow for successful revival. The biological damage caused by freezing, the lack of proven rewarming techniques, and the unknowns surrounding brain preservation all present insurmountable hurdles with today’s technology. While some researchers hold out hope that future advancements might solve these problems, there is no guarantee that such a breakthrough will ever come.
What cryonics ultimately reveals is something deeply human—the desire to outrun death, to hold onto the possibility of another life beyond this one. The industry thrives not on proven science but on the hope that tomorrow’s technology will rescue those frozen today. Whether that hope is well-placed or misplaced remains an open question, but for now, the dream of waking up in the future remains just that—a dream.