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Frozen to Life: A Personal Mortality Experiment
How far would you go to avoid death?
Frozen to Life is the true account of the author’s extraordinary answer to this question: If he cannot escape the constraints of a 'natural' lifespan, he will, upon his death, have his severed head preserved in a vat of liquid nitrogen in the Arizona desert.
This book illuminates the astonishing science behind his decision, and the transformative power of the patternist thinking that carried him to it. From the initial confusion and isolation of his upbringing on the Scottish islands of Benbecula and Skye comes a curious inkling that collides with dominant religious dogmas and alters relationships: What am I? What is a 'self'? Must selves die?
Neuroscience - including the latest theories about the way mind emerges from the architecture of the brain - interweaves with philosophy, Buddhism, and personal testimony to create a fascinating and emotionally-charged insight into the psyche of a 'cryonaut' in waiting.
Written with empathy, searing insight, and dark humour Frozen to Life is both cutting edge and bleeding heart: a postmodern experiment in falling in love with life while preparing for death, in ways we can change ourselves radically without losing our treasured humanity, and in coming to understand that neither life nor death is what we think it is.
Frozen to Life is the true account of the author’s extraordinary answer to this question: If he cannot escape the constraints of a 'natural' lifespan, he will, upon his death, have his severed head preserved in a vat of liquid nitrogen in the Arizona desert.
This book illuminates the astonishing science behind his decision, and the transformative power of the patternist thinking that carried him to it. From the initial confusion and isolation of his upbringing on the Scottish islands of Benbecula and Skye comes a curious inkling that collides with dominant religious dogmas and alters relationships: What am I? What is a 'self'? Must selves die?
Neuroscience - including the latest theories about the way mind emerges from the architecture of the brain - interweaves with philosophy, Buddhism, and personal testimony to create a fascinating and emotionally-charged insight into the psyche of a 'cryonaut' in waiting.
Written with empathy, searing insight, and dark humour Frozen to Life is both cutting edge and bleeding heart: a postmodern experiment in falling in love with life while preparing for death, in ways we can change ourselves radically without losing our treasured humanity, and in coming to understand that neither life nor death is what we think it is.
"I don’t think I’ve read a better or more poetic exploration of what it means to be. Or indeed not to be, or only potentially to be."
–STEVE GRAND, roboticist and creator of the Creatures artificial life simulation
400 pages, Paperback
First published August 31, 2015
4 people are currently reading
763 people want to read
About the author
D.J. MacLennan
4 books39 followersDiving deep — with love and awe (and, sometimes, ire) — into the unquenchable ocean of abstraction and interconnection is my work and my abiding passion.
If you have read my writing, you’ll have a feel for the sort of subjects that hold a fascination for me: empathy, personal identity, life and death, neuroscience, neurophilosophy, technology, artificial intelligence, the singularity, transhumanism, transformation, and transcendence.
If you have read my writing, you’ll have a feel for the sort of subjects that hold a fascination for me: empathy, personal identity, life and death, neuroscience, neurophilosophy, technology, artificial intelligence, the singularity, transhumanism, transformation, and transcendence.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 30, 2018
I like eclectic topics like this and had this on my to-read list for years. It was never available at my library so it just floundered on my to-read shelf until by chance, I found it available on Kindle for free. I was so excited to start reading about the author's decision to be one of about 350 people to freeze their body after death in hopes of being revived at some point in the future. I was hoping to learn more about the science of it all (and a bit about the thought process in making such a decision), but I was about 20% of the way in when enough was enough and I had to bail.
I'm still not clear of what I read. It jumped around from a biography, to signing up for the process, to the philosophy of what life, the soul, and religion are. I never really understood what was happening. The philosophy was deep, the biography was confusing with what may or may not have been real names, and the science absent (at least as far as I got).
Whenever I don't finish a book, I feel like an insurance company investigating the percentage of fault between the two parties of an auto accident. I accept some of the blame. People who know me personally, and follow me here on Goodreads, know when it comes to my reading I'm black and white. I want everything spelled out clearly--heck, I even have a shelf called "field-of-dreams" for fiction books where like the ending of a movie with that title, I'm left wondering what happened?
In the end, this book lacked clarity of flow for me. I accept my part of the fault because it is just who I am, but now more than ever my interest is piqued to learn more about the science of cryogenics, but you'll never catch me dead in one of those tubes.
I'm still not clear of what I read. It jumped around from a biography, to signing up for the process, to the philosophy of what life, the soul, and religion are. I never really understood what was happening. The philosophy was deep, the biography was confusing with what may or may not have been real names, and the science absent (at least as far as I got).
Whenever I don't finish a book, I feel like an insurance company investigating the percentage of fault between the two parties of an auto accident. I accept some of the blame. People who know me personally, and follow me here on Goodreads, know when it comes to my reading I'm black and white. I want everything spelled out clearly--heck, I even have a shelf called "field-of-dreams" for fiction books where like the ending of a movie with that title, I'm left wondering what happened?
In the end, this book lacked clarity of flow for me. I accept my part of the fault because it is just who I am, but now more than ever my interest is piqued to learn more about the science of cryogenics, but you'll never catch me dead in one of those tubes.
August 28, 2015
‘This book escaped from my chest like a small alien and started to eat me.’
What a great opening. It certainly sets the tone of this book, which is at times quite obsessive. Yet the book is far more uplifting and optimistic than I had anticipated for a book supposedly about death. Fundamentally it’s a book about living, not about dying. It’s a statement of why we should choose life (even if cryonics offers only a slim hope of it), not death, as if we ever needed such a reminder.
I was given a free copy of this book in return for an honest review. I hadn’t previously read DJ’s blog or any of his other writing, so didn’t know what to expect. I very quickly settled into the author’s narrative style and personal story, as well as the science behind cryonic preservation. He’s a great writer.
A short preface inadvertently reveals the author’s status as a nerd, by mentioning his use of a Linux laptop to write the book, and also sheds light on his struggle to find a coherent voice for writing the book, and his quest to find scientific evidence to back up his claims. I think he definitely succeeded in finding a compelling voice, and as for the scientific evidence, I find myself more inclined to accept his propositions now than before.
This is not a cold, logical book. Partly autobiographical, deeply introspective, it is a vibrant and personal account of why DJ wants to live on after death, not just how he means to accomplish it. His description of the experience of swimming in cold sea water for instance, evokes a tangible and visceral sense of what it feels like to be alive.
The discussion is practical and scientific, drawing on current theories of the self, based on the latest neurological research. It is deeply philosophical too, trying to define consciousness and identity. It is rooted in a can-do approach, with plenty of poetical thoughts scattered amongst the science, but little time for romantic pseudo-science or new-age thinking – nor for religious views of death, the soul, and the possibility of an afterlife. As DJ writes, ‘If you have religious or supernatural beliefs then I think it would be fair to say that your voyage of self-discovery has not yet begun.’
I enjoyed the self-conscious and self-analytical quality of the book. I also much enjoyed the anecdotes, stories and parables, as well as the thought experiments that are inserted throughout. Interspersed between auto-biographical details are discussions of time, religious attitudes towards death and the afterlife, burial customs, theories of the mind and the self, life-extension medicine, and neuroscience. The author reflects a great deal on the nature of the self, rejecting quasi-religious notions of a soul, and explaining instead how modern thinkers see the self arising as an emergent property of the operation of the brain. I particularly liked his metaphor of consciousness being like the story in a book – a narrative built from words, but transcending the mere words and letters from which it is formed.
I started out reading this book an interested skeptic, and am not wholly convinced that cryonic freezing offers a real hope of living on. Even DJ admits that it’s a last resort if all other hope has failed. There is a clue in the discussion of life-extension medicine that makes me question his motives. DJ notes that he would rather take a dietary supplement than do regular exercise, and I can’t help wondering if the cryonic freeze is just another example of an easy option.
Yet, as DJ points out, even a slim chance of survival, or at least persistence, is better than the assured destruction of the self that results from cremation or burial. Cryonic preservation is the best that present-day science can offer. The author makes his case well.
The book acknowledges the influence of great thinkers such as Daniel Dennett, Douglas Hofstadter and Aubrey de Grey, as well as others I was not familiar with, such as Derek Parfit, Steve Grand and Eric Harth. There are also plenty of sci-fi references, which I was easily able to pick up on, but for non-readers of the genre may prove irritating. The book is perhaps not the most accessible to the general reader. The author does at times assume familiarity with some ideas that are by no means mainstream. For example, not everyone will know what is meant by a ‘substrate’, in relation to a discussion of the mind.
There is plenty in this book, not for everyone, but for people deeply interested in what it means to be human, and with a strong interest in science and technology. For such people, DJ’s voice should take its place on your bookshelf next to other contemporary writers on neuroscience, philosophy of the mind, and life-extension medicine.
What a great opening. It certainly sets the tone of this book, which is at times quite obsessive. Yet the book is far more uplifting and optimistic than I had anticipated for a book supposedly about death. Fundamentally it’s a book about living, not about dying. It’s a statement of why we should choose life (even if cryonics offers only a slim hope of it), not death, as if we ever needed such a reminder.
I was given a free copy of this book in return for an honest review. I hadn’t previously read DJ’s blog or any of his other writing, so didn’t know what to expect. I very quickly settled into the author’s narrative style and personal story, as well as the science behind cryonic preservation. He’s a great writer.
A short preface inadvertently reveals the author’s status as a nerd, by mentioning his use of a Linux laptop to write the book, and also sheds light on his struggle to find a coherent voice for writing the book, and his quest to find scientific evidence to back up his claims. I think he definitely succeeded in finding a compelling voice, and as for the scientific evidence, I find myself more inclined to accept his propositions now than before.
This is not a cold, logical book. Partly autobiographical, deeply introspective, it is a vibrant and personal account of why DJ wants to live on after death, not just how he means to accomplish it. His description of the experience of swimming in cold sea water for instance, evokes a tangible and visceral sense of what it feels like to be alive.
The discussion is practical and scientific, drawing on current theories of the self, based on the latest neurological research. It is deeply philosophical too, trying to define consciousness and identity. It is rooted in a can-do approach, with plenty of poetical thoughts scattered amongst the science, but little time for romantic pseudo-science or new-age thinking – nor for religious views of death, the soul, and the possibility of an afterlife. As DJ writes, ‘If you have religious or supernatural beliefs then I think it would be fair to say that your voyage of self-discovery has not yet begun.’
I enjoyed the self-conscious and self-analytical quality of the book. I also much enjoyed the anecdotes, stories and parables, as well as the thought experiments that are inserted throughout. Interspersed between auto-biographical details are discussions of time, religious attitudes towards death and the afterlife, burial customs, theories of the mind and the self, life-extension medicine, and neuroscience. The author reflects a great deal on the nature of the self, rejecting quasi-religious notions of a soul, and explaining instead how modern thinkers see the self arising as an emergent property of the operation of the brain. I particularly liked his metaphor of consciousness being like the story in a book – a narrative built from words, but transcending the mere words and letters from which it is formed.
I started out reading this book an interested skeptic, and am not wholly convinced that cryonic freezing offers a real hope of living on. Even DJ admits that it’s a last resort if all other hope has failed. There is a clue in the discussion of life-extension medicine that makes me question his motives. DJ notes that he would rather take a dietary supplement than do regular exercise, and I can’t help wondering if the cryonic freeze is just another example of an easy option.
Yet, as DJ points out, even a slim chance of survival, or at least persistence, is better than the assured destruction of the self that results from cremation or burial. Cryonic preservation is the best that present-day science can offer. The author makes his case well.
The book acknowledges the influence of great thinkers such as Daniel Dennett, Douglas Hofstadter and Aubrey de Grey, as well as others I was not familiar with, such as Derek Parfit, Steve Grand and Eric Harth. There are also plenty of sci-fi references, which I was easily able to pick up on, but for non-readers of the genre may prove irritating. The book is perhaps not the most accessible to the general reader. The author does at times assume familiarity with some ideas that are by no means mainstream. For example, not everyone will know what is meant by a ‘substrate’, in relation to a discussion of the mind.
There is plenty in this book, not for everyone, but for people deeply interested in what it means to be human, and with a strong interest in science and technology. For such people, DJ’s voice should take its place on your bookshelf next to other contemporary writers on neuroscience, philosophy of the mind, and life-extension medicine.
November 29, 2022
This book is written by an atheist. Everything he argues is based on this position. do not read it if this will offend or upset you. He denies the existence of the soul. ge refutes the concept of self. He argues the logic of cryonic freezing.
His writing is elegant and clear. He explores his choice with forensic self-examination. One of his family told him he thinks too much. His analysis is certainly an uncomfortable read. I nearly gave up after a few pages but then he started talking about himself and I couldn’t stop reading.
There is an irony here, it is his distinct identity, which he believes to be impermanent, that hooked me. I cannot fault much of his logic. He parades a depth of research across a range of fields that challenges, stimulates and refuses to look away from impending death.
I do not choose to live in the world he describes. I do not dismiss the people, thought processes, and beliefs that he dismisses so confidently. Nor do I view my death as a matter for me to deal with. Let others do it. I am an historian. The author sees so much evil in the past and present it is unsurprising he longs to prolong his future. It sill upset him that I describe his conviction that humankind will refine itself towards greater intelligence snd perfection as his version of ‘faith’. That is, nevertheless, my conclusion.
His writing is elegant and clear. He explores his choice with forensic self-examination. One of his family told him he thinks too much. His analysis is certainly an uncomfortable read. I nearly gave up after a few pages but then he started talking about himself and I couldn’t stop reading.
There is an irony here, it is his distinct identity, which he believes to be impermanent, that hooked me. I cannot fault much of his logic. He parades a depth of research across a range of fields that challenges, stimulates and refuses to look away from impending death.
I do not choose to live in the world he describes. I do not dismiss the people, thought processes, and beliefs that he dismisses so confidently. Nor do I view my death as a matter for me to deal with. Let others do it. I am an historian. The author sees so much evil in the past and present it is unsurprising he longs to prolong his future. It sill upset him that I describe his conviction that humankind will refine itself towards greater intelligence snd perfection as his version of ‘faith’. That is, nevertheless, my conclusion.
September 23, 2016
Wow! This book was amazing! While I think it will be extremely controversial due to the philosophical aspects within it, and I don't completely agree with every position the author takes in his outlook, his arguments are very strong. What ever side of the coin you are on in a decision such as this, Mr. MacLennan really has some brilliant and thought provoking information that will make you rethink your entire reasoning in certain areas of your life. The scientific outlook on the processes are amazing to read, and were by far my favorite information throughout, though his philosophy was interesting as well. I wish the best to this man, and hope his aspirations are quite successful in the future! Well done!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews