Cryonics. Fiction and reality

Cryonics.Fiction and reality

 Francisco Cesar Pinheiro Rodrigues

Translator: Marianna Fernandes Perna 

As an author, I feel injusticed. Which probably doesn’t cause any estrangement or surprise for well-informed people. I imagine that no writer – either good or bad – considers himself entirely fulfilled. If he considers himself “the best”, he’s absolutely mistaken, for perfection is unattainable and incongruous with any kind of art. He certainly falls for some subtle nonsense  - even if he’s a Nobel, mixing winning money by writing books with being an actual great writer. These do exist – in a small account – and I, granted with a minimum sense of reality, do not include my own self in this selected list. If I did so, for some reason, I would not tell anybody because immodesty is offensive and along it, the just mentioned dumbness would be showing their claws. 

As for the authors – men and women – that have gone rich writing books of mediocre quality – fully consciously – there’s no reason for criticizing. Quite the contrary. They are quite clever. They’re winners. They knew exactly what they wanted – to win a lot of money – and they did what was necessary to obtain this goal. They’re pragmatic men and women, good managers of themselves, stunts of psychologists and marketers with a large sense of what pleases and what doesn’t, not only the reading public, but also the editors – these attributed mediators between the talent and the public.  

Without an editor there’s  no deal. Printing, advertising and distributing books is an esoteric science, expensive and risky. Someone has once said that the writer and the editor must do as a chicken: it’s not enough to simply lay the egg, one must cluck it. But it’s only for the hen that this has no costs. Editors need an elevated flair, better than airport drug detectors dogs - a flair rather mercantile than literary – to avoid that their printed products don’t end up stranding and provoking monumental gastritis. Basically, editors are booksellers and not officials at the Ministry of Culture, in charge of increasing the country’s education. Only on exceptional cases do they release respectable – yet financially stinky - literary pieces. On top of it all, the Estate isn’t rich enough to assure editors that all their stranded books will be reimbursed by the national treasure. There are many other priorities for the day rather than raising the spirits of writers that see their work being rejected. 

In 2005 I published, on my own account, a novel – “Cryonics” (Editions “Inteligentes”), about cryonics applied to human beings. We all know how serious the Cryonics chapter is to the book of Science, dedicated to study the effects of extremely low temperatures on living and non-living beings. The iceness interests the researches of speed of electricity in various materials, as well as the spatial research, the research on ovule and spermatozoon banks and many others. 

As for human beings, Cryonics ended up interesting the more “visionary” minds which found promising to inaugurate a separate branch of Cryonics to study specifically the freezing of human beings. Such “visionaries” – maybe it would be wiser to say “enthusiasts”  - imagined that if a man, not too old, had an incurable disease and an imminent death, there would not be anything wrong on freezing his body right after his natural death, as if he was a spermatozoon or an ovule - instead of letting it be buried or cremated. Kept on a close to zero degree – in which the agitated atoms become almost entirely static- there would be no decomposition, right? 

“But the individual would already be dead! How to resuscitate a frozen dead body? Being dead, his soul is no longer present! Where would we gain it back to reintroduce it on the deceased?” the spiritualists, wrathful, would say. 

Based on this hope, not morally reprehensible, the “utopic enthusiasts” began to imagine all the possible techniques to freeze a person right after dying, avoiding the addlement, especially of the neurons. They imagined – using only their logic, misleading several times, because inobservant of factual details – that if a living being remains frosted in a way that its cells do not rot, paralyzed by the coldness, then it is possible that some decades later, when science and technique are both very advanced, this living being can be defrosted and manipulated for regaining life. The damage caused by a prolonged sleep would be fixed by the future science. Something somewhat similar to watching a movie on DVD, pushing “pause” and then coming back to continue watching the same movie. If nothing has rotted when extremely frozen, why would it be impossible to “resuscitate” it a few decades later? Everything will depend on the future techniques, which will be way more advanced than the current ones. 

This expectance for a human being that is aware of his closeness to the grave, or to the cremation, has a considerable secondary psychological effect: it is much more comforting to know that you’re going to lose consciousness in a surgery table and maybe – at least, maybe – wake up in a more scientifically developed future, than to know with absolute certainty that you’re going to die no matter what, and be buried or burned in a crematory, until there isn’t much of you left that can’t fit into a small casket “If the cryonics don’t work, well, nevermind. I’ll be dead already and won’t even know about it. It is like falling asleep for a risky operation.” Something much more flavorful than the certainty of the upcoming death, with its frightening “nothing”, or Hell. In fact, it’s a similar circumstance to the bets of lottery. “Probably I won’t win anything this week, but I can win next week. And my investment on the freezing technique will not be too grand. The only harm, in case cryonics don’t work, will be of my inheritors with the cost of the whole procedure. If it works, then the disadvantage will be greater – but not to me! - because the heirs will have to give me back part of my fortune which was distributed to them!”

Let us see now the technical side of this idea and then the discouraging conclusion to which I was led. 

There is no doubt, as I’ve said, that the extreme low temperature of cryonics – negative 196º Celsius – avoids the decomposition of the tissue in, let’s say, 99%. However, this iceness does not only produce positive consequences. There is a negative side to it: with the freezing, the water inside the cells of our body turns into ice crystals and swell; and, since they’re crystals, they are provided with edges and these end up piercing the cellular membrane and the precious liquid inside the cells without which is impossible the “new life” pours from the cells. Once the defrosting takes place, there would be billions of cells completely unusable. This is the major technical obstacle to the efficacy of cryonics. 

A new hope was born some years ago, though: arctic frogs congeal during winter, remaining dead, apparently. However, with the coming of Spring, they “wake up”, ready to continue their “complex” biological cycle: eat and copulate – because these ugly cretinous can’t think of anything else. To embrace such task of resuscitating, the organism of a frog from the Arctic - the Rana pipiens (“leopard-frog”) - produces a type of sugar that stops the water from the cells from turning into ice and with that the swell which provokes the cellular injury does not occur. Therefore, the cells remain frosted, glazed, but without the flare. And without it, all the cells will conserve the indispensable water inside them. 

This is what the cryonics adepts wanted to hear. The other obstacles would be manageable, as for example, the exaggerated legal prohibitions, which require that the patient is “totally” dead in order to begin the preparative for the freezing, with the replacement of all the blood for glycerol. This legal requirement means keeping a technical team in prompt, and this waiting can last for days. At the very moment that the heart stops beatings, a marathon against time starts because every second is precious. If the brain is deprived of oxygen for more than a few minutes – the exact number is a subject of discussion – the neuron starts to fester, which would preclude the cryonics to take place. And that is because who wishes to be frosted to wake up in a few decades also wishes to be as lucid as he was before passing away. 

With the excellent news that a few frosted frogs can return to life, it would be enough for the cryonics fans to strive to synthesize a substance that once introduced into the patient right after his death would prevent the water inside the cells to turn into ice. Without ice, I must say again, no dilatation and no rupture of cells. 

At this point of the enunciation, I must admit that my biggest hope, when studying the subject and writing the romance, was not so much in propitiating a person with incurable cancer, for example, a few more years of life after his “resuscitation”. That would  be too much work and money to have just a few years of life again. My “secret ambition”, “unconfessable” – not exactly aimed at my ownself – was the perspective of a much wider and omnibus thing, a nearly physical eternity. How is that? I will explain. 

If the patient, after decades of “cryo-preservation” was to wake up clearheaded and happened to be an exceptional scientist – an Einstein, or equivalent – with a huge luggage of knowledge and original thinking, it would be useful to humanity that he lived – lucid, lucid! – two hundred, three hundred or more years, with iterant additions of new neurons – truly drawers that store up information – which would add new knowledge to the already existing ones. 

Where would we obtain these new neurons? Through embryonic stem cells, capable of transforming into any kind of cell - including the neural ones. Even the most brilliant and clever heads grow old and weak. “Mean and stingy” Nature has this limitation. It insists that no one may go beyond 130 years. If this happens to take place, we will be seeing a living mummy, blind, mute, deaf and bewildered. 

Indeed, even the best brains do grow old, unfortunately. However, with periodical additions of new neurons – even with the occasional necessity of surgical interventions on the skull – with such neurons “eager to work”, the human mind would take a tremendous shift ahead. Back to the great physician, an Einstein three times more capacitated in terms of neuron quantity certainly would have a lot to teach us.

At this point of my meditation, I received a bucket of cold water directly at my speculative enthusiasm. I remembered that – as most people know – no cell is immortal. Neuron is a cell. And what’s more: new neurons, obtained through embryonic stem cells, would be “baby cells”, totally ignorant. They would need to learn to speak, to read, to go to elementary school, to secondary, undergraduation and post-graduation before being able to help and add something new to the old scientist. Old neurons, although wise, would be growing weak and dying at the same time that the “dumb kids” would be sprouting in his brain, erst privileged. This recurrent “barbarian invasion” - as has said a certain philosopher, when referring to every new generation - would keep taking place at the cerebral cortex. 

Since I ignore any possibility of making the neurons immortals, sadly, I don’t see now, in cryonics, a major use to it than for the patient to continue the life that he had before being frost, living, after “waking up” again, the years that he would have normally lived if he hadn’t been grasped by the mortal malady. That would probably be a few years more, given the means of future medicine. Nothing more. Only a slight “stretch” after a long “respite”; and not centuries of accrual. 

I insist: even if a person can indeed “resuscitate”, without damage – which is already a tremendous technical feat – “the risen” would still grow old every day. If he would recurrently receive the implant of embryonic stem cells capable of transforming into neurons, these would be, as I’ve said, “empty boxes” that would require a fill starting from zero. As the years would go by, the grand scientist would not be himself anymore, because his old and wise neurons would be dead. Einstein would no longer know that he was born in Ulm and that he is German, unless some taught him that. Gloomy, isn’t it? 

If there is a God that deliberately created such a special creature, “at His image” – the beast man – it appears that it was not in His intentions to put in the Earth a greedy, proud and not reliable being, that one day would try to live forever and maybe swipe His power. Not relying entirely on his special creature, He implanted in its brain neurons of limited duration and stamped these invisible words: “Perishable article. Expiration date: 120 years. Advisable  to consume well before the expiration time.” 

This is, for now, the discouraging future of cryonics. But my novel is good, or at least illustrative. It’s a pity that it hasn’t been propagated. To hell with modesty. 

(16-9-2012)

 

The era of mediocrity. Part III. Modern Art

Finishing my previous article, n. II, of the series “The era of mediocrity”, I classified Pablo Picasso as more a sophisticated psychologist and expert in marketing than artist. I never considered him a great painter because – in my sinful ignorance – I consider it the indispensable qualification of any painter to be able to paint very well. I repeat: very well. A very uncommon talent, and perhaps unreachable with dedication only. Such as  “musical hearing”, a natural gift. It is really not easy to reproduce with accuracy a face, a horse in motion, the human body in less conventional positions, the movement of ocean waves, a waterfall, etc.

Of all items of generic “era of mediocrity” – chronologically short or enduring – the one that demanded the greatest effort from me to read and pin down was the question of what is art: How to analyse the reaction of the public in front of a painting or sculpture, the unexplainable outburst of feelings of beauty or the vast nomenclature that appeared after Classicism? Anyone who wants to understand the meaning of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, Futurism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Concreteness, Abstraction, Primitivism, "Pop Art", "Minimal Art", etc., will face enormous difficulties to establish frontiers between various 'schools'. Additionally, to further complicate a slippery topic, one will have to take into account the “post” this and that, because the artistic species are always restless. 

However, there is a common trait of all these movements: the more modern the work, the less the “effort” for the artist. In other words: the more modern the painting, the higher the degree of (effortless) abstraction, subjectivism, appreciation of quantity over quality, and the need of marketing. If by mere joke, or to prove an artist’s prestige, one person who never painted anything before could get a canvas and quickly paint some lines and request Picasso to sign the work. This painting, in less than a minute, would value millions of dollars, and prove that it is not the painting that matters, but the “brand”. The most “knowledgeable” of famous painters, perceiving the above painting, after confirming Picasso’s signature, would perhaps say that the painting once again proved the versatility of Picasso’s talent.  

Vincent Van Gogh sold only one painting while alive. The few people that bought his paintings, for a cheap price soon after his death, had the greatest financial interest in proclaiming the geniality of the artist. There is no doubt that Van Gogh was an extraordinary human figure, but it is bewildering that his work only became so valuable after his death. A proof that “financial psychology”, if we want to name it, has an enormous impact in the value of artwork. One can ask how the genius of the Dutch artists, while still alive, could be so well-hidden from all the experts at the time, that it was necessary for the work to change hands to become valuable? The art traders, who know the art of trade, have better “art eyes” than the art scholars?  

                        I would feel more comfortable if I knew that the geniality of Van Gogh was discovered while he was still alive. He was a man of suffering, tragedy, who only inspires sympathy. One detail: he could paint. His good character, sensibility and personality deserve the highest respect, but his example is a proof that money contaminated and dominated the world of art. Paintings and sculptures became much more a financial subject – similar to the actions of corporations – than a subject of art in the real sense. The explanation of why I have included art in my series of articles about mediocrity is because money made the arts mediocre. 

Leonardo Da Vinci took five years to paint the “Mona Lisa”. He would paint some few hours a day, and many days devoted to perfection of details. In any way, a considerable time to paint one work. By contrast, Picasso said, as quoted online, “Give me a museum and I'll fill it”. As a museum is often very big, only a very fast and tremendously “abstract” painter would fill it alone. With some twenty or thirty paintings a day, he would be able to achieve that in a few months. This proves that what mattered to him was pure quantity, and a declaration by the artist that there was, in those few strokes, some  deeply emotional “meaning”. So deep that only he could feel it. Believe it if you can.  

One modern art observer, Tom Stoppard, said that the only criteria to distinguish a painting from a modern sculpture were the following: if the work is hanging on the wall it is a painting, if you can walk around it, it is one sculpture.  

Richard Schmid, probably knowledgeable on the topic — as he figures in art webpages — said “I honestly believe that art students from the next century will laugh at the movement of abstract art. They will be amazed about such a step back in the world of art”. 

Al Capp, another commentator, with a stronger style, would say “The abstract art is the product of the ones without talent, sold by the ones without principles for those immensely stupid”. 

Another commentator of modern art went as far as saying that “Trying to understand modern art is like trying to follow the plot in a bowl of alphabet soup”.  

And, finally, what says the prince of painters, Leonardo da Vinci? He said “Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there isn’t art”. Elitism? No, simply respect to the “other side” of art, its receiver: who sees it or hears it. The spontaneous reaction of the public cannot be denied. 

In other words: without the “hand” of the real artist, the subjectivism of the painter is not enough, even if he truly feels the emotion — the great excuse for the modern painter, who relies only on what he feels, not what the public perceives. 

As a rough comparison, a poet who stutters terribly can not complain about not having won a contest of poetry declamation, even if he is the most intelligent, inspired and motivated, which could even make his stuttering worse. He may well use his inspiration, which could be immense, to write verses. He is not less of a poet for his speaking problem. He will be a great poet, not a great speaker. I make this comparison, perhaps ruthless, to demonstrate that what matters more in the artwork is the impact that it creates in those who see it and listen to it. In a classic piano concerto, a technical and emotionless pianist might sweep away the audience and may be considered a greater pianist than the one that's terribly emotional, sweating and moaning, who plays it all wrong and almost beating the piano. 

If what matters is the emotion of the artist – and not the product of his hands – lets imagine that science had invented a machine capable of capturing the degree of emotion and inspiration when a musical piece is performed. A new type of machine with attested efficacy, similar to lying detectors nowadays. The difference is that the latter detects the presence of a lie, and the former would prove the sensitivity of the artist. Lets explore this possibility.  

Announced, not modestly, is the arrival of a new musical genius in the country, a foreign pianist — so brilliant that few listeners would have the capacity to understand the profoundness of his art. His representative would declare that the inspiration of the artist could not be artificial, because in his arm, there would be that machine which proves the maximum degree of feeling a person can endure. In the advertisement that would precede his inaugural concert, there was a warning that people without an exceptional degree of sensibility and musical knowledge should not even buy the tickets because they probably would not be able to “capture” the profoundness of an art hidden under such simple appearance. The secret of that great artist would be in exerting an aesthetic and philosophical wealth that no Brazilians would have noticed before in Brazilian folk music. The refusal of the artist’s representative to sell tickets to everyone would even increase the demand for tickets.

On the expected day, with the Municipal Theatre packed, attached to the artist’s arm in a video recorded ceremony, the “detector of honest emotionality”. After impressive silence the artist starts playing, with one finger only: “Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way. Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh. Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way.
Oh, what fun it is to ride
in a one horse open sleigh…”. 

The audience, shocked, holding their laughter but afraid to be taken as ignorant, remains with serious faces and observes the enormous screen, connecting the “detector of honest emotionality”, hoping for a bad “emotional result” that would allow the hoot awaiting in the throat. The machine, however, confirmed the highest artistic emotion that a human being could feel. The extraordinary inspiration of the artist would be proven. With that, the public would only disclaim their own opinions: — “I am really tremendously ignorant!” and if the artist would suffer a stroke and would fall dead soon after finishing his concert, there would be a long theoretical discussion about the genius of the pianist and the reasons that made him chose such melody and not another one. — “What is the meaning of the bells and the horse in the song?” and so on. 

Exaggeration, surely, in such an example, but in substance it is what happens with the excuse that the artist has to express only what he feels to externalise his art.  

In painting, everything was fine until Classicism, when a technical innovation outside the artistic world changed the peaceful atmosphere that valued the art to paint the things as they would be presented to the eyes of people: photography. With a simple “click” it was possible “to copy” anything, with the precision of lines and balance of proportions that not even Leonardo Da Vinci would reach. The spread and improvement of photography was the salvation of various artists who, notwithstanding its potential sensitivity, had no natural ability — nor the patience — to reproduce on a canvas what met the eyes. 

The path was then open — and paved —, for people that admired the arts, who would emotionally identify themselves with art and would like to be part in this mysterious world, full of seductions. Including females. The women of that time – the late 19^th and early 20^th century – would feel a special attraction towards the “artists”, impetuous and barely constrained by conventions. Nowadays, probably, they prefer the “artists of finance” and from mass sports, a lot more profitable, I mean, attractive for them. The painters were, by then, almost always men. 

The world of art — when sincere and authentic — has a really interesting face. Its intuitions are often accurate. The canny politician from Bahia, the late Antônio Carlos Magalhães, used to say that it is insanity for a politician to attack the artistic class. One should never do that. Freud confessed that he rarely reached any discovery before a poet. The true art has this advantage: it reaches, “not intentionally”, but by intuition, areas not yet reached by science. It flies, while the scientist walks. 

With the advent of photography, there were the ones who were only “clever”, looking for an easy and quick way to success and fame, and its by-product: money. An artistic “democracy”, allowing every dare-devil without enough talent to paint, “to show off”, call attention. Besides, the more shocking the work, disharmonious to the real appearance of objects, the greater the “scandal” and capacity to grab attention, with commercial input. For the more sceptical observers, who would say that there was only audacity in there, and not art, two replies would emerge: 1) who wants the exact reproduction of a landscape or object shall take a picture; 2) in art, what matter is the artist’s feeling, not the material product of that feeling. 

Pablo Picasso was the one to advance most openly the argument that what matters in painting and sculpture is the artist's emotion, not what we know as “mere reality” For him, the painter can even paint with his eyes closed, as long as he is “inspired”. The public should not be concerned with appearance. They need to “feel the same way the artist felt”. And he would say with great conviction — extraordinary psychologist that he was — that some millionaire had begun to buy his paintings, hence causing enormous value of any work signed by Picasso. He would go as far as saying that he was not sufficiently rich to have a “Picasso” in his own house.  

Lets have a look at some quotations by him obtained online:

“I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them”.

“Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he                       feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen".

 “The people who make art their business are mostly imposters”.

“The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?”

“To draw you must close your eyes and sing”. 

“Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter?”

Considering all this, what explains the endurance of modern art, its great economic value, even when it is shocking and conflicts with the visible reality?" 

To me, the explanation is at the artist’s personality. In its audacity, its strength, “charisma”, “strong personality”, as found in Picasso, the great psychologist. Or in integrity and compassion, as in the cases of Vincent Van Gogh and his friend Paul Gauguin. It is impossible to read the biography of those two without being move by such sensitive souls. Did they know how to draw? They knew enough, without pressing themselves too hard about copying real objects. 

The character of an artist “contaminates” his work, both positively or negatively. It strongly impacts the acceptance by the public. Even the political orientation matters. Picasso himself benefited from that. In general, he was likeable. Had generous ideas and was outspoken in his opinions, as one can see in the quotations above. If he had been right-winged, or fascist, he would have never been considered a famous artist. “Guernica” pushed him. The same happens in other arts: the personality of the artist “contaminates” his work, up or down. 

Abstraction is the most fertile ground for philosophy. I think that, for at least a long time, the human being will still demand a degree of virtue, difficulty and work in every art. In sport competitions, in the circus, in cinema, writing short stories, novels and poetics, it is expected that the artist expresses himself with ability surpassing the average. It is not acceptable that the artist only “feels” beautiful in his own mysterious “box”, writing only non-sense, or texts incomprehensible even to the author himself. Hence the deeply-rooted general prejudice against modern art that does not even please the eye and, intellectually, may mean anything: — “It is too easy. Even I can do that...” 

Now, a short note about music. Of all types of art, I think it is the one that is the least susceptible to deception. The musical mediocrity cannot stay afloat for too long, because it can be evaluated within minutes. It sinks, because there is no financial advantage to keep it up if it does not please anyone. You only need one minute of listening to a new song, to know if it is worth it or not. The abundance of compositions and the size of the public are such that it is not worth spending time with the marketing of music that no one wants to listen to or purchase. However, with modern art, there is a restricted market of rich buyers, turning paintings into a reserve of value, in case the name of the painter is well known. The painting is material, touchable, concrete, it is there, as if it was a debt claim. As for music that no one wants to listen to, it is mere noise, it does not capture anyone's interest, it is impossible to transform it into a gem. 

Only regarding jazz I have some doubts. The majority of the people do not like it, because it does not have an identifiable melody. In my view (perhaps I’m ignorant on that), jazz should be used only as a technique of composition. The musicians could be improvising endlessly but when, by chance, the wandering performers "would come across" a new melody, they should develop it, composing a “normal” song. What makes me reluctant to be negative about jazz is to know that the writer José Verissimo - which I consider very intelligent - enjoys this music style. If he is a fan of this style, maybe it must have some beauty that eludes us. 

In the next article, we will talk about literature, and in the following about politics, especially international politics, whose mediocrity towers over any other kind of mediocrity.

(2-4-2012)