**Is it correct that a non-dualist or atheist, *qua* non-dualist, should not reject cryonics on philosophical grounds, since cryonics coheres with non-dualism? Instead, if they reject cryonics, it should be for pragmatic reasons, not because "cryonics is philosophically flawed"?**
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### My response:
**Yes, your reasoning is sound.**
If one is a monist or physicalist about the mind:
- Consciousness, identity, and personhood supervene on the physical brain (its structure and function).
- So, in principle, indefinitely preserving the brain’s structure amounts to preserving the person.
- Therefore, from a *philosophical standpoint*, cryonics is not nonsense or fundamentally misguided *conceptually*. It fits neatly with non-dualist metaphysics.
The *only* legitimate grounds for skepticism from a non-dualist perspective are:
- **Technical feasibility**: Whether future technology can reliably repair, revive, and restore brain function and memory from preserved tissue.
- **Practical concerns**: expense, current scientific state, potential harms, ethical considerations.
- **Epistemic uncertainty about identity persistence**: While physical continuity or high-fidelity preservation should preserve identity, there remain non-trivial debates about what constitutes "personal identity," especially across gaps of clinical death and cryopreservation.
But rejecting cryonics because it "makes no philosophical sense" would more coherently align with dualist or some form of substance or property dualism that posits mental phenomena not reducible to brain states.
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### Why do so many non-dualists reject cryonics?
- Cultural stigma or simply lack of information.
- The idea sounds fringe, speculative, or science fictiony.
- Emotional factors: existential fear, discomfort with own death.
- Distrust of long-term promises from private companies.
- The probabilistic nature of success: significant uncertainty if revival will ever be possible.
- **They might confuse "philosophical soundness" with "practical promise."**
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### Additional nuance: Even among non-dualists, there can be interesting philosophy-of-mind debates:
- Some non-dualists could argue about the *continuity* of identity—if you’re technically reanimated or "restored" from a perfectly preserved copy, is *that* really you, or more like a clone?
- There are interpretations of physicalism where identity depends on continuity of experience or psychological connectedness, not just physical structure as snapshots.
- But even these debates admit that preserving the brain’s structure isn’t *philosophically unsound* per se.
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### In summary:
- Cartesian dualism *explains* why cryonics can be philosophically rejected (mind ≠ brain, mind immaterial), which is a genuine *philosophical* objection.
- Non-dualist materialism offers a *philosophical endorsement* or at least neutrality toward cryonics.
- Hence, atheists or physicalists who reject cryonics usually do so on *practical, technological, or psychological grounds*, not because it is contradictory or nonsensical metaphysically.
- So yes, **a non-dualist, strictly speaking, cannot reasonably reject cryonics on *philosophical* grounds, only on pragmatic or empirical grounds.**
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The opposite of **Cartesian dualism** is typically considered to be **physicalism** (also known as **materialism**).
**Cartesian dualism**, originating from René Descartes, is the view that reality consists of two fundamentally different kinds of substances: the mind (a non-physical, immaterial substance) and the body (a physical, material substance). According to this view, mental phenomena are distinct from physical phenomena. [Rick says- this coheres with the classical universe vs. the quantum realm]
In contrast, **physicalism/materialism** holds that everything that exists is physical in nature. Mental states, consciousness, and mind are ultimately explainable in terms of physical processes, such as brain activity. There is no separate, non-physical substance; mind and matter are not distinct kinds of substance. [Rick says, this is inconsistent with cryonicists rejection of quantum physics realm, an impossible position].
So, while Cartesian dualism posits a strict division between mind and body, physicalism rejects this division and asserts that only the physical is real.
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