False Objections to Cryonics
As pointed out at Depressed Metabolism a number of objections to cryonics presently doing the rounds are in fact objections to things that have little to do with cryonics: "Bryan Caplan has posted a number of blog entries that perfectly illustrate what happens when cryonics is not presented as a form of experimental long term critical care medicine but linked to other ideas such as transhumanism, mind uploading, and immortalism. One post is titled 'What's Really Wrong With Cryonics' but a close reading of the post and subsequent exchanges between Caplan and cryonics advocate Robin Hanson leave little doubt that this exchange is really about the technical feasibility of mind uploading and the nature of identity. These topics are of great philosophical and practical interest to some but have little relevance to the technical feasibility of cryonics. When a person goes in for surgery it is not common to engage medical personnel in abstract arguments about the nature of identity prior to induction of anesthesia. Similarly, when hypothermia is used to allow complete circulatory arrest in complex surgical brain procedures it is not common to object that this procedure puts the soul at risk. Even people who do not subscribe to the empiricist premise that underpins modern medicine have come to accept the procedures that are associated with it. Cryonics, as conceived and practiced by organizations like Alcor, is just an extension of the idea that metabolism can be reduced or stopped without inevitable irreversible death."
Link: http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2009/12/03/cryonics-as-something-else/