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As answered here and here, halachic death is defined as an irreversible heart [and/or respiration, and/or brain] cessation.

If so, would cryogenically freezing someone while they're still alive1 be permissible, since even though that involves heart etc. stoppage, it is intended to be reversible?

If mere intent is not enough, suppose reviving from freezing actually becomes possible in the future, with some chance X of success. Would that make freezing while alive permissible? Would it depend on how large X is?

1 Freezing someone while they're still alive may be needed when there's a degenerative disease, or some other situation that would make freezing after death too late to have any chance of reviving.

user9806
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    If your question is based on the theoretical that science may one day 'cure' death and therefore this act of murder is not actually murder, let's take a look at our religious truth regarding the revival of the dead. Since we believe a given person will be brought back to life, may we now murder him? – user6591 Jul 26 '21 at 21:40
  • https://www.thejc.com/judaism/features/does-the-torah-allow-you-to-be-cryogenically-frozen-after-death-1.428966 – Gershon Gold Jul 26 '21 at 22:43
  • @user6591 The second part of my question is actually about the case where technology has advanced enough to freeze and then revive. (Note that I didn't say anything about what happens after the revival, or whether science can 'cure death'). – user9806 Jul 27 '21 at 00:01
  • @GershonGold That article talks about freezing after death. This question is about freezing before death. – user9806 Jul 27 '21 at 00:01
  • Similarly what about shooting someone in the head to collect an internal dna sample which future generations may see as the best kind? – Double AA Jul 27 '21 at 00:19
  • I don't understand the confusion. In the Talmud, death is defined as the lack of breath. A frozen person does not breathe. What's the question? If you ask, whether future rabbis might revise the Talmudic decision and allow freezing to death - who knows... – Al Berko Jul 27 '21 at 16:42
  • @DoubleAA Suppose science demonstrates that they can freeze and unfreeze someone successfully 20% of the time. [This has already been done for a tardigrade that was frozen for 30 years, btw. Long way from a human, but proof of concept nonetheless]. Now, how is that different from doing surgery on someone where heart/breathing stoppage is required, and the surgery has a 20% chance of success? – user9806 Jul 27 '21 at 17:13
  • @user further suppose science demonstrates that they can shoot someone in the head and regrow them successfully 20% of the time... – Double AA Jul 27 '21 at 17:14
  • @DoubleAA You haven't addressed how this is different from doing surgeries with that success rate. To make it even more comparable, suppose freezing is required in order to transport the patient to a specialist who will perform a life-saving surgery. Can we take a 20% chance then? – user9806 Jul 27 '21 at 17:20
  • The difference is one is science and one is science fiction – Double AA Jul 27 '21 at 17:23
  • @DoubleAA In my question I said "suppose reviving from freezing actually becomes possible in the future, with some chance X of success". And that part of the question was asking what the halacha would be at that time. It's a hypothetical, but it's not science fiction either - I wasn't asking about time travel or the like. And given that a primitive organism has already been unfrozen successfully, it's quite plausible this becomes possible for humans in the not so distant future. – user9806 Jul 27 '21 at 17:43
  • I also said suppose science demonstrates that they can shoot someone in the head and regrow them successfully 20% of the time. That's asking about that fictional time. – Double AA Jul 27 '21 at 17:47
  • @DoubleAA That's just sensationalizing the question by using an absurd (or at best, extreme) example. But yes, if indeed the only way to heal someone was to shoot and then regrow them, the same query may legitimately be posed. Also, let's not pretend halachic investigations were/are never made about hypotheticals (especially ones with a reasonable chance of materializing). – user9806 Jul 27 '21 at 22:16
  • I fail to see how the current question is any less absurd – Double AA Jul 27 '21 at 22:21
  • I fail to see how it's different from e.g. the question about halachos of cloning, and yet that was discussed in detail https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/cloning-people-and-jewish-law – user9806 Jul 27 '21 at 22:47
  • Cloning is a conceptual novelty. Freeze-murder vs brain-bullet-murder have no conceptual uniqueness or distinction. – Double AA Jul 27 '21 at 23:00
  • I’m not sure how you define ‘conceptual novelty’, so seems we’ve reached an impasse. I wonder though, if tomorrow they’d announce a successful human unfreezing, whether you’d still be calling cryogenics ‘freeze-murder’. – user9806 Jul 28 '21 at 03:02
  • I wonder too if tomorrow they announced a successful regrowth from head splatter that you'd still be calling head shooting absurd. – Double AA Jul 28 '21 at 12:58
  • I don't think this question is relevant. While the topic is interesting, cryogenic freezing is not currently reversible, and we have no reason to believe that it ever will be. Mammals of our size cannot withstand the freezing/dethawing process. Given that, it's no different than any other process that results in death (e.g. murder). And if freezing and dethawing were to be possible, and were necessary to save one's life, than it would be no different than other surgery. – Rafael Aug 02 '21 at 21:37
  • @Rafael "And if freezing and dethawing were to be possible, and were necessary to save one's life, than it would be no different than other surgery." Would it really be no different? With surgery, preparation for it immediately followed by the surgery itself can be seen as one continuous process. But what if the time delay between freezing and thawing was, say, a couple of centuries? And during all those years, the frozen person would have no heartbeat/brain activity? – user9806 Aug 05 '21 at 01:05

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