Should Society Try to Defeat Death?
What is it to call death a problem? I watch the world around me aging with quiet urgency. Friends fade in and out of memory like lights on a stormy shoreline. I am not afraid of endings in the abstract. It’s…
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Andrea Cole
Andrea Cole writes in a warm, practical voice about public questions, personal arrangements, ethics, and the hope for more time.
Does Death Give Life Meaning?
I wake to the old question again, the one that sits at the edge of every thought about aging. If life has a limit, does that limit sharpen its meaning or dull it? I look out the window and see the trees along…
Is Choosing Cryonics Selfish?
I am thinking about time the way you think about a jar of honey. It sits on the counter, clear and simple, and you wonder how long it lasts, when to use it, if you should seal the lid and save some for later.…
Is Cryonics Compatible With Religious Belief?
Today I keep returning to one question. If a person believes death is not the end, what does it mean to try to pause death longer? Cryonics sits right in the middle of that question for me. It feels strange. It…
The Race Between Rejuvenation and Cryopreservation
The clocks sit on my kitchen wall, tick tock steady, like two eyes watching the same room from different angles. One clock counts the minutes of today, the hours of a life lived with legs that still carry me to…
Can Aging Research Make Cryonics Obsolete?
Then I read another headline about aging. Then I hear another promise word. Cure. End. Breakthrough. It is hard not to want to believe every strong claim. I am old enough to know better than to treat wishful…
Is Cryonics a Backup Plan—or the Main Life-Extension Plan?
I sit with the morning light in my kitchen, the kind that makes the edges of the world seem a little softer. It shifts across the wooden table, touches the mug, and I realize how often I start the day with a…
Why Do Humans Want to Live Forever?
I am sitting with a cup of tea and a quiet afternoon light. The soft clock in the hall keeps time the way a patient friend does—steady, unhurried. I am sixty one, and the question presses in on me the way a…
Could a Human From Today Adapt to an AI-Dominated Civilization?
I wake to the hum of a city that looks the same and sounds different. The morning light filters through tall windows, but the air has a calm, almost clinical cadence I didn’t expect. I’m sixty one years old…
Who Would Help a Revived Person Start a New Life?
I have been thinking about the day after waking up, if such a day ever comes. Not the spark of the moment when the machine hums and time seems to fold in on itself, but the long stretch after. The ordinary work…
Culture Shock After Cryonics Revival
The night I woke, the clock said it was quiet in the room but loud in my head. It wasn’t the hiss of machines or the glow of a monitor that startled me most. It was a rush of ordinary sounds, each one louder…
What Would Waking Up 200 Years in the Future Feel Like?
My name is Andrea Cole. I am sixty one, living near the edge of the Pacific Northwest where rain lingers in the streets and the trees hold their breath a little longer than before. The idea of waking up two…
The Cryonics Readiness Checklist: What to Review Every Year
I woke this morning to the sound of rain tapping the roof, the kind that makes the kitchen feel tired and honest at the same time. The Pacific Northwest has a way of asking you to slow down, to look at what…
Who Should Know About Your Cryonics Plans?
I am not sure how to hold this thought steady. I keep coming back to one question: who should know about my cryonics plans, besides me? The idea sits near the edge of a map I barely trust, a place where…
What Documents Are Needed for Cryonics Arrangements?
I keep circling one question: when the world feels calm, do I really know what I have to write down, what I have to sign, and who has to be able to act if I cannot? It is not a dramatic thought. It is just a…
How Do You Sign Up for Cryonics?
I keep coming back to one quiet question. If cryonics is a chance, even a small one, what would it take to make that chance real on paper?
Is Cryonics Freezing, Vitrification, or Something Else?
I keep circling one question. When people say “cryonics,” what do they really mean? In ordinary talk it sounds like freezing. A body put on ice. A long sleep. The word is simple, and the picture in the mind is…
What Happens to a Body During Cryopreservation?
I keep circling back to a simple question. Not whether cryonics works. Not whether it will work. Just this: what actually happens to a body along the way?
Cryonics vs Cryogenics: Why the Difference Matters
I keep seeing the same small mix up, and it carries more weight than it should. People say cryogenics when they mean cryonics. Or the other way around. It sounds harmless, like mixing up two brands at the…
What Is Cryonics? A Plain-English Guide to Human Cryopreservation
Not the body in the usual sense. Not a warm, breathing life. Those are already gone when cryonics begins. The person has been declared legally dead. The heart has stopped. The law says the life is over.