An Open Letter to Neil deGrasse Tyson
Neil deGrasse Tyson, one of the most trusted scientists in America, has made dismissive comments about cryonics. This is not like claiming the Earth is flat. It is closer to attacking vaccines or cancer treatment: real people may be persuaded not to try to save their own lives, or their children's lives, because a scientist they trust called it a scam.
Cryonics so rarely makes it onto anyone's radar that most people only encounter it when they are already dying, when they may no longer have the money or the time to plan. I once watched a dying woman start a fundraiser for her cryopreservation. She raised about $1,000 of the roughly $30,000 she needed, and was almost certainly cremated. Yet if you take out life insurance in your twenties, thirties, or forties, the cost is genuinely modest, especially through the Cryonics Institute.
So I wrote Neil deGrasse Tyson a letter through his website, asking him to read my book. I do not expect to hear back. But I would rather try than stay silent. Here is what I sent him.
If you are ever looking for a book to read, please consider the one I have written on cryonics.
While it may seem like a niche topic, or even a scam as you seem to have thought in your previous comments, ultimately everyone is faced with only two options: die, or roll the dice on cryonics. If you are wrong about cryonics, you do not end up more dead than if you had chosen burial or cremation. But for about $30,000, at the Cryonics Institute, you can possibly live another complete life after the end of this one.
I think science simply knows far too little about the nature of consciousness to say that it will be impossible to extract from a well-preserved brain at any point in the future. And that is what your money pays for. Scammers are not leaving town with it; most of it is invested, and the interest is used to pay for your care and liquid nitrogen until you can be brought back. You have accomplished so much in your life. Why would you want to die, if you could be brought back in a new, healthy body? You can even set up a trust as a way to leave money for yourself in the future: half a million in the S&P, a couple of Bitcoin, sixteen ounces of gold, and you will have a nice nest egg waiting for you. And of course you can have your loved ones sign up for cryonics too, which to me is half the reason I want to do it.
The other half is that I do not want to end up reincarnated as a dairy cow. The universe could be filled with life, but if the history of Earth is any indication, it could also just be fish and snakes and lizards. Imagine living through thousands of lifetimes as either predator or prey, just to be human again, and never even knowing it, because most creatures cannot hold those kinds of thoughts. You would feel hunger, cold, fear, and pain for thousands of years, instead of waking up in a future hospital surrounded by nurses, loved ones, and great-great-great-grandchildren.
I am proud of my book, but I cannot find people to read it. Thirty thousand dollars for cryonics might sound like a lot, but with life insurance many people can be preserved for less than the cost of a streaming subscription each month. What people need is for those with authority to take the idea seriously. It is not even a matter of saying it will be possible, only that right now no one can say it is impossible. No one is freezing the living. But if there is a non-zero chance that a cryopreserved person can someday be brought back, why would anyone with the means simply throw their body into a hole in the ground?
I know you are busy, but please just read the first seven chapters of my book, where I make my case for cryonics, and see if you are not convinced. If you would prefer a PDF, send me an email and I will send you a free copy.