If you could go into hibernation and wake up in the future, would you?
Premise: Pretend that human hibernation/cryostasis is a real technology that's both mature and affordable. You can choose to go into hibernation and wake up at some point in the future to resume your life. It's a safe and reliable process.
You choose when to enter hibernation (could be now, could be 50 years from now or more), and you set your exit either for a certain date or on some condition(s) that you dictate in advance.
You can expect that you'll be taken care of during that time and your rules for being awakened will be followed.
What I'm interested in hearing about:
- Would you choose to do it? Why or why not?
If you would decide to do it, some follow-ups:
- How would you decide when to enter hibernation? Would you base it on your age? On specific events in the world?
- How would you decide when to exit? Would you base it on time, or on certain conditions? Why?
- What preparations would you take? How would you help your family and friends understand this decision?
- What would you hope to see or experience once you awaken?
- How would you plan on adapting to a world that might be completely different from ours on many different fronts (e.g. technology, language, culture, identity, etc.)?
Even though the situation is hypothetical, I want you to base your answers on your actual experiences and life. So, the question is about whether you, as you are living right now, would choose hibernation (either now or in the future).
This is a profoundly difficult question.
My instinct is no, since I think trying to minimize regret is a pretty good heuristic for decisions, and I think with my current mindset, I could regret going into hibernation and missing something. I do not think I would regret never hibernating.
The hard part is the possibility of hibernating until life extension technology is available. I think it’s highly likely humans eventually achieve indefinite lifespans unless we somehow cause ourselves to go extinct.
I would have to spend a long time thinking about this, but if I were to do it, it would be within the next year. I’m still relatively young and my brain is still somewhat malleable. I can probably adjust to a totally different culture right now, but this would be less true as I age.
I would also definitely ask to be woken up at regular intervals. Just in case I want to change my mind based on changes in the world.
My gut still says I wouldn’t do it. I don’t have a rational reason, and it’s not a fear response. I just don’t think I would.
In isolation, yes. I'd also jump through the portal into the magical world or jump on the TARDIS.
But, in the realities of my life? No. I'm a caretaker and aunt. I don't have the money or investments to financially support myself in a future where I don't have modern technology or job skills.
20 years ago, I'd have said yes without blinking.
Agreed. Before I had a family, I longed for the kind of escape this would offer. I still do, but now I have them to care for and I wouldn't want to abandon them.
The real answer is that I wouldn't because I have a kid.
The fun answer (if I was not a parent) is that yes I would, but I would go very far in the future. I don't expect humankind to rebound from the current slump in at least 100 years. I would like to skip to a time when we're completely adapted to global warming. I think 400 years from now would be a safe bet to see lots of cool shit and (hopefully) enjoy the benefits of a compassionate, progressive society. Anything beyond that would risk waking up to what might be, to me, a transhumanist nightmare. A humanity so unlike ours that I would feel completely alienated and insane.
I don't expect any financial or legal provision to work in my favor, but I would probably put my limited money in a variety of modest investments in the hopes that at least one of them would amount to something valuable in 400 years.
Things that I cannot comprehend. Cybernetics, AI. Bodies and identities of all kinds. New ways to be human. Space travel, bases on several planets. No capitalism, but no communism either. Something else I couldn't anticipate.
I expect to find the material conditions to have a comfortable life. I do not expect to ever adapt. I would be an outsider for the rest of my life. An outsider that is permanently amazed by everything around him. Imagine being surrounded by magic.
That is the premise of Robert Heinlein's The Door Into Summer, and the character in the book considers all of the things you are asking about.
Thanks for the recommendation! That sounds great and I’ve added it to my (ever growing) reading list.
Quite coincidentally, this question was actually inspired by the events of another sci-fi book that I’m currently reading. I’ll put the name of it in a details block, because I think it could be argued that knowing about it going in counts as a mild spoiler:
Book
The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
One of my favorite books! Certainly my favorite of the trilogy.
I also don't think things would be comprehensible and may be horrifying or disappointing.
Probably the most likely thing is that it will be a dystopia like Logan's Run or Brave New World. Or even worse, like The Road Warrior.
But maybe it's relatively nice, but everyone is just a brain in a vat and just living in a virtual world/Matrix thing. This may be enjoyable but would seem pointless to most people from our time. Or maybe the only people are robots or artificial life in some other way, like the beings at the end of AI.
I don't expect either a super sci-fi dystopian or a utopian scenario to occur. Some things may still be surprisingly similar. Others, surprisingly different. 400 years don't seem like enough for a full blown Matrix scenario but you never know. If that is the case, I will just join them in the digital. Preferably a copy would be made of me, rather than a transfer of consciousness. Nevertheless, that would be a sad outcome -- for my fleshy version at least.
I hope there's an option to keep my body alive in a favorable condition. Just put me somewhere nice with access to all the books, movies, TV shows, etc. Perhaps I could talk via computer to a bunch of digital folks who find me amusing. I would be fine, provided that the rulers take pity on me. I understand that may not be the case, but that is the risk of time exploration.
The bleakest alternative, I believe, would be for the digitized humanity to simply ignore me, or to lack the instruments to even notice my presence. I would roam the Earth among ruins and archaeological artifacts, of which I was one. Ray Bradbury could write a story like that. Perhaps he did.
If I hibernated that long and then awoke to find everything was beautiful and amazing, then later discovered that no, actually my body’s still in a box somewhere but so is everybody else’s because the world is cooked and the Matrix was the only option we had left… not sure how I’d react. On the one hand, uh, thanks for not forgetting comatose old me when everybody who wasn’t hibernating was jacking in. But on the other, yeesh.
I probably wouldn’t waste any time before looking for buffer overflows and jailbreaks.
My thought about the kid/family objection is that the hibernation would be made a lot more bearable if you did it together. It would be like a family emigrating to another country; the culture shock and language barrier would be difficult, but the kids would be quicker to adjust and could help their parents acclimate over time. And it would be nice to have “your people” at home where you feel like less of an outsider.
That is true. Perhaps a partner might feel compelled to go with me through their own volition. But I wouldn't wanna impose that on my toddler.
Even if I didn't have family, the answer would still be no. These are my people. I feel a responsibility to make this world a better place, even in whatever small way. Skipping ahead to something better would be abrogating that responsibility.
My first answer is no, for the same reason that most would say no: I have people I care about who need me.
But if that was less true, my answer would be hell yes. With a caveat though, I'm not sure I'd trust the cryocenter not to go bankrupt or have some other sort of failure before it was time to wake me up. That's what has happened to all of them so far. I'd rather leave earth at relativistic speeds and return in the future. As a bonus I'd get to visit space and experience zero gravity.
The thing I'd be most excited about is getting to see how humanity progresses. I have a lot of ideas about how we can adapt to modern existence in such a way that we can arrive at sucking less and taking better care of ourselves and our environment. Some of those things will involve changing the way we define ourselves and our relationship to life and each other. We've already started on a lot of it so I'm cautiously optimistic we can get there, but it's going to take a lot longer than I'll live.
So the opportunity to see the post-adolescent human race would be my biggest motivation. Non zero chance I'd come back to a ruined planet of course.
My only preparation would be some low risk long term investments spread across different markets just in case money is still a thing when I get back.
Give me a month to settle my things here, and I'd rest in cryo sleep for 10.000 years. (But I would like to have an optional suicide pill in case the future fundamentally sucks.)
I have a few chronic illnesses that could make my life pretty rough in the next decades, and I'm not a big fan of our current timeline anyway, so the option to skip all this and visit the future of mankind that hopefully has figured it all out would be awesome. In 10k years climate change is hopefully not a problem anymore, and in general it would be just a total sci-fi trip. How could I not do this?
My personal situation would also allow my departure, and I could definitely explain this wish to the few people close to me. This would be the greatest opportunity, the greatest adventure ever - my people would support me in this.
That's perfectly understandable and more akin to 200 years ago "I'm moving overseas to seek medical treatment and may never see you again". I hope that by mature and affordable technology it means we've thought through folks waking up to a dystopia or being impoverished, so in that experiment maybe one could add a conditional to wake you up once they've found a cure? Maybe includes an option to sleep through the next regime safely until it's a better one.
That would be nice! A 'cryo-sleep wake-up'-package with alarm options for medical breakthroughs, excellent psychotherapeutical treatments and of course the 'peaceful post-scarcity utopia'-timer. 🙂
Snooze on this oligarch thx
That's a great comparison!
10,000 years is just such a phenomenally long time relative to human timescales. I doubt you’d emerge from such a sleep and find anything remotely recognizable. It would be an alien world. It would be so culturally and linguistically different, communication with you would be like a person today trying to converse with a Neanderthal. Not to mention how unprepared your immune system would be for whatever’s in the air and water then.
It would be cool if some historical or archaeological group was there to care for you and keep you comfortable but I’m just not sure that our minds and bodies are malleable enough to truly adapt to such a profound change.
I rather think that in 10,000 years humanity’s likely to be dispersed among the stars. (Assuming, of course, that we survive that long.) By that point all the really interesting things will be happening on other worlds, and Earth will be something of a bywater, used-up relic of our past.
I agree, but that's also what would be so fascinating about it.
(A bit cynically) I have not much hope for humanity in the next 200 years. But in 10.000 years anything is possible, and I choose to imagine a more empathetic bunch of humans who have a deep understanding of our world. I'd be a happy Neanderthal among them, and of course they'd help me adapt to 12025. 🙂
I wouldn't do it. If I hibernate for any non trivial amount of time all my skills would become irrelevant and I'd be unemployable. It would be like a cave man thawing today.
Go in for long enough and you may emerge into a post-scarcity world.
Or a barren wasteland devoid of human life
Either way, you won't need money.
Maybe not entirely...
If I didn’t have dogs, then yes, I’d go into hibernation, probably for at least 100 years. I don’t have a lot of responsibilities or connections outside of my dogs, so I don’t think I’d need to do a whole lot of explaining. Mostly just want to see what the future would hold.
Bring your dogs into hibernation.
No. I don't want to abandon my family, friends, partner or the life I currently have to get a glimpse into the future.
But also, if /r/collapse is to be believed, we're in for a fucking bleak future.
Reddit's doomerism is simultaneously irrational and rational.
It’s funny, if you had asked me 30 years ago what I thought the distant future would be like, my answer could have fallen anywhere on the spectrum between “good” and “AWESOME.”
Now it’s pretty much a binary, either “horribly, oppressively bleak” or “cool but really fucking weird.” Could go either way. Basically a coin toss.
Everybody already covered my thoughts I think, especially with regards to family, responsibilities, money, political climate etc.
An example I thought about is the story of an ancient man named Simeon who worked on translations for the Septuagint to be included in the library of Alexandria (~250BC). God promised him that we could see the fulfillment of the Davidic Messiah prophecy, and when he finally received baby Jesus into his arms, he was 360 years old, and said, awesome, Lord, now I can depart in peace because Ive seen the salvation You prepared.
I think I would only maybe want to sleep through for a similar (more trivial) wish: maybe a day or two before I am so old I'm gonna die anyway, go into freeze, and wake me up to tell me the environment has been saved, species are un-extincted, people get along now, and maybe read me the update of how my kid did in their old age, catch up on what I'd missed after I "died". And then preferably I'd go in peace. But no after thinking about it like that no, no, no I should let things take their natural flow and get ready for what's next.
Does anyone (reading this comment) know where the Orthodox tradition that Simeon was 360 years old came from? Seems strange to me that he would get a whole backstory if the story is false, and it seems strange that the Bible wouldn't mention that part if it's true.
(lay person perspective) There's a ton of "backstory" that isn't part of the 66 books Bible, including that Peter asked fo be crucified upsidedown, why that one guy asked about the woman with 7 husbands, why we think St Paul was probably short fat and balding, what happened to the Churches mentioned in the Bible after the age of the first Apostles, etc
The Orthodox consider them to be "family stories". The Bible itself says, "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. (John 21:15)" -- the text was never meant to be exhaustive even if it is complete, and the Church is a living organisms with on-going stories and family business to this day.
Re: the tradition from the OCA site on St Simeon
For much of human history, we didn't regard things as only as facts if they were written down from multiple non biaed sources, and everything else made up or biased so as not to be believed. We have for far longer been a oral traditional species: sometimes what's important to remember is the lesson or our attitude towards the family. It's only been extremely recently that we would require complete records to believe anything. Imagine your family published a booklet on your great grandfather's adventures for his 80th birthday party. Outside of the book of course there's a whole bunch of extra stories: are they not true because they weren't part of the small book? And if some of the stories didn't exactly happen like that when a time traveler observed him with a camcorder, does the story itself maybe have some meaningful engagement with your family values, passed down all this time, that illustrate his overall character and instructive towards your family origins and values?
The thing about biblical characters in the first century is that most everyone has backstories precisely because they were real living people: folks were as curious as we are today and want to know, and then what happened to this man or that woman? And then? And then?
Example: The Lady at the well has a name, St Photini. So does Points Pilate's wife Claudia Procula who had a dream , or the 70 unnamed apostles in Luke 10
As for "how" they're passed down via the Apostolic Succession, the synaxarion is sort of like a super huge stack of "we celebrate this event or commemorate this person on this day" thingy that the priests keep, and there's always a number of events/people for the entire calendar year.
That's a lot of great context for much of the NT, but I think it's glossing over the fact that only the Orthodox Church has a tradition that this dude was 360 years old, which seems like something the author would have found to be worth mentioning.
That's a good point, and yeah this is one of those "citation needed" hagiography category of details. Of which there are very very very many
Hibernation is a major plot device in Orson Scott card 's The Worthing Saga.
Premise: dystopian interstellar human empire whose rulers "sleep"away the years between planning and fruition of plans involving relativistic space travel timelines. Colony ships are sent with the colonists"asleep" and awakened when they reach their destination.
Hibernation is also used as a tool for rewarding citizens. Sleep periods are allocated based on wealth and social standing (eg; a mid rank civil servant gets six months of sleep for every three years awake, while the empress gets five year's sleep for each week awake).
The most powerful people sleep as much as possible to implement multi generational plans, appearing immortal for all intents to the proles living and dying regular lifetimes.
Why is sleep a reward? Just the ability to scheme and plan? Does it feel good?
I probably wouldnt.
Think about some 16th century guy who learned a bunch of useful skills about basket weaving and candle making and stuff, and then suddenly gets transported to today. Hed have to find a way to integrate into society and survive despite having no idea how anything works and having all his skills and knowledge be completely irrelevant.
Thatd be me in any time other than right now.
In terms of technical skills you might be out of luck, but depending on how many others did the same thing (and how widespread the knowledge of the hibernation is) you could possibly turn being a living relic into a celebrity career. I imagine historians would love to be able to interview a primary source about details of your original time period; even if there's an incredible deluge of information recorded now asking someone directly for context around all that data would help.
Those 16th century skills could maybe turn into a boutique shop in the current day with the original techniques being a selling point compared to modern manufacturing, though sometimes they wouldn't be able to directly transfer for good reason (e.g. no more lead in everyday items because it's a health hazard).
That dude would make an absolute killing selling authentic 16th century handmade goods.
Ok thats a good point, I probably would be able to survive ok if I went to the future. But I wouldnt really want to live the rest of my life as a gimmick.
I think right now at this point in history I have the capacity to make a meaningful contribution to the world, and in the distant future Id just feel like a relic.
Just stay in there till we evolve a post scarcity Star Trek society where no one has to work and you can just chill in the holodeck whenever you want.
Absolutely not. For one, I have a lot of people I care about in the current day and age. Friends, family, and acquaintances who will all be dead in 60 years or so.
Secondly, I have no idea what the future will be like. History isn't a linear progression towards better. It's just as likely that in 200 years life will be worse for everyone as it is that life will be better. Technology will likely advance, but there also may be a point where we're just at the hard limit of physics and intelligence, and we can't invent more significantly new stuff that improves people's lives.
There's also a chance that social upheaval and catastrophe plunges us into a dark age where significant technological knowledge is lost.
Third, I'm perfectly adapted for our time. I know how to use a smartphone, drive a car, Google things. I don't know how to farm, or sew, and obviously I don't know how to use any technology or systems that haven't been invented yet.
I think given all three of those, it's far more likely that my life would be way worse if I were dumped in the future than it is now, so I'll have to pass.
Would definitely not jump into any holes that I don't know I can come back from. I'm already at an age where new music often feels foreign and unapproachable to me. Skipping a bunch of years of cultural development would leave me completely lost. I would love to experience what it would be like for an 19th century composer to hear modern music, but that experience be novel and probably leave me feeling extremely isolated.
In a PURELY hypothetical sense, my ideal would be, put me to sleep a few days before I die for as long as you can so I can get a decent idea of how the universe will end.
My fundamental curiosity in life is cosmology, partly for its potential to solve death. Once we know how the whole shebang is going out, we'll have a better idea whether the long sleep is really it or not.
A bit off topic: Can anyone recommend a good fiction book on this topic? I’ve read the Bobiverse series and quite like those, so something in that ballpark. Any hidden gems?
To answer the question: Well, if my life changed for the worse, I would consider it. And I think I’ll go the Futurama route and set the timer for year 3000. It’s a nice round number, and I would love to get so far ahead in time that it would barely be recognizable- like the first time I played Mass Effect (hopefully).
@lou recommended The Door Into Summer by Robert Heinlein here and @AnxiousCucumber recommended The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card here.
What prompted me to ask the question was a different book series that I’m currently reading, but I’m going to put it in a spoiler fold because it’s probably better to not know about it going in:
Spoiler
Remembrance of Earth’s Past series by Liu Cixin
Also, I’ll second the call for recommendations. If anyone has any other titles that fit this, I’d love to know too!
One of the side characters within Peter F Hamilton’s Pandora’s Star and the following series is someone who has few connections and an addiction to this kind of stasis to leap forward through time. Awake for a few years at a time, and then asleep for a number of decades, the technology was developed early enough that the first person to set foot on Mars after a months-long conventional flight in the 2030s is also part of the first faster-than-light space voyage 300+ years later (and also turns up in a later series set more than a thousand years into the future again, because reusing characters across time is good fun)
Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom has this concept as a side-plot in a story about consciousness-transfer and cloning.
I would not, not just because of my wife and kids, but also I don't think it would be a safe thing to do. Let's say I was single and I took this deep hibernation option and wake up say 200 years in the future. When I wake up, what could I expect to be there? Perhaps some advanced utopian society, perhaps a ruined remains of what was once a prosperous world, or maybe just more of the same just with two centuries of changes in everything.
The one thing I am certain about is that it would be alien to me and I'd be in a situation of relying on generosity of others to even survive. I'd be lucky if they'd understand the words I speak and give me food to eat. Assuming people still work (really hoping for that utopia), what marketable skills would I have other than side-show novelty?
Sorry to be a bummer on this fun idea, but I see it being a terrible idea to go forward in time unless there was some magical "undo" option. Now going back in time, I think I'd possibly be more interested just because I'd know what to expect for the most part and could mentally prepare myself.
I think the only way I would answer yes to this question is if at some point in my life I were diagnosed with a terminal illness, or somehow otherwise knew for a fact that I only had a few days left to live. I'd tie up all my loose ends and say my goodbyes to all of my living relatives and friends (making sure my wife understands that she should treat this no different than if I had died and fully move on with her life) and then hop into the hibernation pod. I'd tell them to wake me up whenever a) they can cure me to an extent that I'd have reasonable expectations for a decent quality of life for at least another decade or two, b) the hibernation company is about to fold and shut down all the pods anyways, or c) some unavoidable disaster is going to destroy all the pods (meteor going to wipe out all life on the planet, Sun about to go supernova, stuff like that). I figure if I'm dead anyway I might as well take a shot at even a brief glimpse as far into the future as I can before I go.
Otherwise I'll skip it for many of the same reasons mentioned by everyone else in this thread (kids, family, yadda yadda).
Interesting answer, might I ask why?
I was thinking about this question today or yesterday.
The provision that I can do it whenever I want makes it an easier and less intense question than if it’s now or never. I could wait until I’m old and then sleep until rejuvenation biotechnology can make me young again.
Today, I would only do if it I could take my cat with me. I’m still not sure if I would even if I could take my cat.
I think the future will be much better and I want to experience it. The escapist part of me wants to leave the present behind.
But it’s sad for me to think about giving up on life in the present.