Cryopreservation gets labeled as strange, unnatural, even hubristic. But examine the alternatives we've normalized and cryopreservation starts looking remarkably sensible by comparison. Every culture practices some form of post-death body handling, and none of them are particularly logical when examined objectively. We've just accepted them through familiarity.
The normalized options
Burial places bodies in expensive boxes, lowers them into ground, and allows decomposition to proceed. We dedicate massive land areas to storing decaying remains. We spend billions on caskets designed to delay inevitable decay. We maintain these decay sites in perpetuity, visiting periodically to contemplate the deterioration happening below.
Viewed objectively, this is deeply strange. We're storing biological waste in premium containers in valuable urban land. The body provides no benefit to anyone. It simply occupies space while breaking down. Yet we treat this as dignified, traditional, and appropriate.
Cremation burns bodies at high temperature, reducing them to ash and bone fragments. We then store these remains in urns, scatter them in meaningful locations, or keep them on shelves. We've taken a person and converted them to chemical byproducts through controlled combustion.
This seems more efficient than burial but equally strange when examined neutrally. We're incinerating what remains of human consciousness, celebrating the process as respectful, then treating the ashes as somehow still connected to the person who existed.
Green burial skips the casket and allows direct decomposition, feeding nutrients back to soil. This has ecological logic but remains fundamentally about accepting total destruction of the person. We're optimizing the process of converting human remains into fertilizer.
The cryopreservation comparison
Against this backdrop, cryopreservation seems remarkably straightforward. Cool the body to prevent decay. Store it in stable conditions. Wait for better technology. The underlying logic is transparent: preserve information until restoration becomes possible.
Compare the resource efficiency. Burial dedicates valuable land in perpetuity for decaying remains. Cryopreservation uses relatively compact storage in facilities that could be located anywhere. Burial maintains vast infrastructure for visiting grave sites. Cryopreservation requires only secure storage facilities.
Compare the reversibility. All conventional options cause irreversible destruction. Bodies decay, burn, or decompose intentionally. Information degrades permanently. Cryopreservation alone preserves the possibility of reversal. It's the only option that doesn't commit to total destruction.
Compare the honesty. Conventional options perform elaborate rituals around permanent ending while pretending the person persists somehow through remains or memory. Cryopreservation honestly confronts the situation: the person is gone but information persists, and that information might become restorable with future technology.
The "weirdness" of cryopreservation comes primarily from unfamiliarity, not from any inherent strangeness relative to alternatives. We've culturally normalized elaborate practices around managing decay while treating preservation as bizarre. But removing cultural conditioning, the preservation approach seems more logical than destruction approaches.
The technology objection
Critics often say cryopreservation seems weird because it relies on speculative future technology. But this objection reveals bias rather than logic. Every post-death practice relies on some form of speculation or wishful thinking.
Religious burial often assumes future resurrection or spiritual continuation. The body gets preserved or positioned to accommodate beliefs about afterlife, judgment, or rebirth. These beliefs are far more speculative than technological progress, yet we treat them as normal.
Even secular burial and cremation involve implicit speculation. We spend resources on remains management as if it matters somehow, as if the physical remnants connect meaningfully to the person who existed. We visit graves and talk to the dead. We scatter ashes in meaningful locations as if the deceased experiences this somehow.
Cryopreservation speculates about technological rather than metaphysical futures. Given historical precedent of technological advancement versus absence of evidence for metaphysical claims, technological speculation seems more grounded. Yet we've normalized metaphysical speculation while treating technological speculation as weird.
The naturalness argument
"It's unnatural" appears frequently in cryopreservation criticism. But humans abandoned nature comprehensively. We live in climate-controlled structures, eat industrially produced food, communicate through electronic devices, travel in motorized vehicles, and treat disease with pharmaceutical interventions.
Death represents the last frontier where "natural is better" still holds cultural weight. We've rejected natural selection, natural lifespan, natural healing, and natural everything else. But somehow natural death remains sacred. This inconsistency reveals cultural attachment rather than coherent philosophy.
Moreover, conventional death management isn't remotely natural. Burial in sealed caskets prevents natural decomposition. Cremation uses industrial technology. Embalming pumps bodies full of preservative chemicals. We've industrialized death thoroughly while claiming naturalness.
Cryopreservation simply extends existing patterns of technological intervention. If using antibiotics against bacterial infection is acceptable, if surgery to repair damage is acceptable, if any medical intervention to extend life is acceptable, then preservation after cardiac arrest follows the same logic. The bright line at cardiac arrest is arbitrary from naturalistic perspective.
