I state my conviction that Musk will achieve the
aforementioned statement if he applies a thousandth of his wealth and a
fraction of his determination, already proven in the manufacture and sales of
the electric car (TESLA); in reusable space rockets (Space X); in the
colonization of Mars and everything else Musk is involved in, as on his
biography, written by Ashlee Vance, demonstrates: — “ Elon Musk: How the
billionaire CEO of Space X and Tesla is shaping our …”. Please read, in the
present text, my justification for this prediction.
To praise a
billionaire is always suspect. I am not exempt from this suspicion, because I
have a personal interest in Cryonics. For those unfamiliar, Cryogenics is the
branch of science that studies the effect of intense cold on matter, either
live or dead. Cryonics is specific. It means the use of Cryogenics on human
beings suffering from an incurable disease - or very attached to life – and would
like to freeze indefinitely until the medicine of the future can find a cure their
disease, or increase their longevity and mental capacity. This is because it is
impossible to predict the advancements in the fields of science and technology
in forthcoming years. Even more impossible is to imagine what the Earth will be
like two hundred years from now, a tic in the history of humanity. Stem cells
will certainly rebuild important organs, refraining from transplants and its
inherent rejection issues.
I wrote a novel, “ Cryonics ” in 2005, without
advertising and distribution of the printed book — I was in a hurry, kind of
old — emphasizing that
humanity would take a huge leap into the future if it could achieve the
technical feat of freezing a person, practically “ killing her”, to “wake her
up” years later. ki
When I was writing that book, I thought only of
people with incurable diseases who after being thawed would be cured by the
medicine of the future. Freezing is easy. Unfreezing — alive and well — is the
problem. Cancer was my main concern. I have not thought about the colonization
of Mars because back in 2005 this hypothesis seemed unthinkable. Only
marginally did I consider the use of freezing for very remote space travel.
Few, I imagine approved of the “dismal” main theme
of my novel, invoking religious reasons: — “It's ridiculous! So the soul is
also frozen and then returns to the body!? How to freeze something
immaterial?!” — or worried about overpopulation. There was, as there still is,
a kind of taboo in the mere hypothesis, apparently impossible and grotesque. In
addition, there was the fact that until now it had not been possible to thaw
alive, a human being — or any dead mammal—after days, let alone after months or
years. I recently read news that some frogs and insects in arctic regions come
back to life in spring. Check it out, because there is a lot of difference
between a man and an insect.
The idea of Cryogenics applied to humans — still
dormant, discouraged, but not completely forgotten, because some great
scientist , or “visionary” entrepreneur, with imagination, stubbornness,
courage — and enough money — has not yet emerged capable of unfreezing, alive,
a human being.
I have never accepted the doctor's passivity when
he realizes that the patient's heart has stopped beating. It is true that some
years ago, there has been a modest micro “resuscitator” similar to an iron —,
which, at times, manages by means of a violent shock, to bring back to life a
person who has just died. There was — pardon the black humor — a temporary
“death” of seconds. But if the defibrillator had not been there, his death
would have been final.
Reading, in e-book, the aforementioned biography of
Elon Musk, I was excited about the possibility of Rusk getting involved in
Cryonics because extraplanetary travel, even limited to the solar system —
Mars, Venus, Moon and, who knows, other celestial bodies — , depend on the
normal lifespan of astronauts, human beings, of limited physical and
psychological resistance for long confinements. “Sleeping” frozen, they would
be able to mentally endure a waiting span of months and perhaps years in long
space travels, driven by solar or atomic energy.
One will object that Elon Musk has so far only been
interested in other subjects: physics, mechanics, robotics, the internet, cars,
rockets, finance ( PayPal ), astronomy, administrative innovations and business
challenges, there is no reason to expect him to get involved in a subject so
different, biological, “medical”, as is the case with Cryonics .
It turns out that Musk, fortunately — for all of us
— likes to try the very thing that has not been tried yet. He was born that
way, as his biographer shows. If he fails, once, twice, or more, in some
experiments his obstinacy increases even further. His first Falcon rockets
failed. Instead of giving up, as would be deemed “normal”, he redoubled his
efforts. Suffice to mention here — proving the success of his persistence —
that his Big Falcon Rocket is 68.3 meters high and weighs hundreds of tons,
according to the book. How can one manage to build a maneuverable rocket with
such weight? Airplanes have wings, which support themselves in the air. Rockets
do not have wings, they only rely on their own explosions. And how to design
them to land in the right place? After the space flight, the rocket returns to
Earth and lands vertically on a floating platform; at sea, or on the original
launch pad. In the final part of the book, already mentioned, there is a photo
of one of its rockets that show the technological gigantism of this “Hawk” that
weighs “almost 500 tons”, in the author's words.
Who supervises, personally and in detail, a work of
this magnitude? Musk himself. This fellow is, of course, a “visionary”, and mankind advances faster because of visionaries
who, when also courageous, accept tremendous personal risks with trial, error
and success. Being “visionary” just imagining or writing books is easy. It is
very different to actually create artifacts, companies and systems that can
take the visionary to prison, death, bankruptcy or misery. If it were not for
Johannes Gutenberg, who designed and built the first printing press to
incorporate movable type and mechanized inking — considered the most important
invention of the second millennium — books would still be hand-made, one by
one. Civilization owes him a lot.
If Elon Musk manages to unfreeze someone, to its
previous form, he will also enter the history of human progress. There is
nothing more innovative, “revolutionary” than that. It will affect,
unintentionally, even religions since the “resurrected” will be able to tell
what he “saw” the other side. A much more remarkable feat than making
super-powerful and controllable rockets in their flight and landing. Rockets
existed before him, but much inferior. Robert Goddard, American who died in
1945, was the father of rockets. And let's not forget Werner von Braun a
German, whose unique talent was used by Nazis and Americans. They were mere
flying bombs.
In addition to the aforementioned accomplishments,
Musk is the founder and CEO of Neuralink, which studies the human brain.
Ultimately, it is the brain the main problem in Cryonics. An unfrozen brain, or
inadequately thawed, becomes useless in a few minutes, hence the option of some
eccentrics to just freeze their own head because it is cheaper. Nothing for
Musk is uninteresting if it has any practical use, now or in the future. When a
difficulty arises, he becomes obsessed, brooding over the problem until he
finds a solution.
Precocious geniuses but the one that impressed me
the most was that of Elon Musk, because his curiosity is boundless and requires
knowledge of subjects that didn't even exist decades ago, available to previous
geniuses. His biography is similar to that of Thomas Edison, a autodidact
genius who did not just invent the electric light bulb. He registered more than
a thousand patents and had as his motto not to give up. This is also the
philosophy of Musk, who never gave up despite almost going bankrupt several
times.
If the reader feels I am exaggerating, please read
his biography, mentioned in the beginning of this article. His biographer has
spent a couple of years researching Musk's life and he does not seem to be a billionaire's kiss-ass and not always in agreement with his subject's
line of thinking. The book, for the average reader — who knows little about
engines — could be less detailed about mechanical and financial problems, but
it may be of interest to mechanical engineers and young entrepreneurs of
startups, electric vehicles and rockets. And when I say rockets, I remember
that they carry spy, communication and weather satellites.
Of course, as of this date — July 2022 — the
possibility of the total extinction of the human species is very remote. Even
in the event of a dreadful nuclear conflict, perhaps triggered by an accidentally fired missile —
the “immediate strike” — involving the US, Russia, Ukraine, the European Union,
China, and the remaining countries, it is clear that the human species will not
disappear instantly. It will only go back to an almost savage condition, perhaps
gradually disappearing from a widespread radiation.
Danger of sudden death could occur if Earth is
struck by a huge meteor, or asteroid, if not destroyed before it reaches our
planet. Or in case of malfunction of the sun itself. With no time to prepare an
escape of a few hundred humans to Mars, the human species could in fact
disappear. This is a cause of concern to the controversial inventor, summarized
here. However, if he gathers and heads some twenty or thirty brilliant minds on
the planet – physicists, chemists, doctors of various specialties – with
exclusive dedication, I am sure they will be able, without much delay, to
freeze and thaw, in the right way, any human being. Surely this feat will be
less complicated and expensive than colonizing Mars. It will also be necessary,
of course, to change the legislation in the definition of “death” and the
freedom of the person to decide what to do with his own body and life.
To reiterate, Elon Musk is a gifted visionary, with
a peculiar tendency to accomplish what to everyone seems impossible, or too far
away. Reading his biography I was reminded of Thomas A. Edison, who attended
public school for only three months, but being very naughty, was frowned upon
by the teacher. He preferred to drop out and was educated by his mother. He
became famous for having invented the electric light bulb and, according to him
to have carried out 1,200 experiments to discover a filament, a conductor of electricity,
which would not burn easily with a resistance to the passage of electricity,
emitting light. He registered 1,033 patents. As a boy, he kept inventing
incessantly.
The same phenomenon of precocity occurred with Elon
Rusk , who, seeing something “stuck”, malfunctioning, immediately began to
imagine a solution to give it speed and functionality. Knowing that the
gasoline-powered car is polluting, he decided to manufacture the electric car
intending over time to democratize its use. For this one, it needed special
batteries and distribution across the country. He invented and continued to
improve them. One invention led to another and as he mastered physics and the
internet, finance and sales techniques, he managed to create Tesla, the largest
electric car manufacturer in the world.
I will not proceed with its accomplishments. Read
his biography and if you are still interested in freezing people, read my
novel, in e-book: “ Cryonics ”, subtitled “the first Brazilian novel about
human freezing”. It is available on Amazon.com
Please do not mix Cryonics with any religion,
thinking that this technique — if successful — will defy “divine designs”. On
the contrary. I imagine that God wants human beings to live happy and healthy
lives, not to die “before time”. That is why there are the Holy Houses of
Mercy. Believers, seriously ill, or injured, or their families, pray — with the
support of priests — even asking for miracles. Is penicillin a bad thing, an invention
of the devil? If the Pope were sick, on the verge of death, would it be an
offense against God to pray for his healing? If that were the case, all
Medicine would be cursed, for pretending to “compete” with the power of God.
There is no reason to reject Cryonics , if it gets
too far advanced, allowing eccentric millionaires — with successive freezing
and using stem cells — to live 120, 150, or more years, forming a dictatorial
“elite” dominating enraged masses with so much inequality. Even if the medicine
of the future manages to manipulate stem cells creating new neurons, youthful
skin, and other restorations, it is presumable that future scientists and
governments will have enough sense not to use Cryonics as a Frankenstein
factory. It will just be a new therapy, not the pursuit of physical
immortality—a bad idea for an already overcrowded planet.
Today, it is not just cancer that frightens
humanity. The increase in longevity is no longer so rewarding. Alzheimer's
disease sours the joy of living long. What is the point of reaching 90 or 100
years if the person is half-blind, deaf, amnesiac, unable to handle a cell
phone or recognize family members?
A few special innovative talents could add two or
three decades of lucidity. They would hasten the advance of civilization. Men
like Einstein, Edison, and several others scientists would deserve this
privilege, not for the enjoyment of idleness, but for the sake of productivity
and the good of humanity.
Trees that bear beautiful fruit for a longer period
deserve better care from the farmer. I do not know what is Elon Musk’s though
on this.
Attention: I
wrote this article in Portuguese and then tried to translate it with the help
of Google Translate, because my knowledge of English is limited. The translation
was instantaneous and practically perfect, like "guessing" what's in
my head. I don't know how a "machine" can translate so quickly and
intelligently. I only changed the version in those details where my style was
really a bit confusing. Congratulations, therefore, to Google.
To contact the author please use the following
e-mail,
oripec@terra.com.br
Francisco Cesar Pinheiro Rodrigues
retired judge
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