X-Message-Number: 11481
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 00:50:25 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Evolution, information conservation, carbon chains

Thomas Donaldson, #11469, writes,
>
>1. To Mike Perry: It is FALSE that evolution works for the good of the
>species. Evolution almost always (except in special situations which do
>not apply to human beings) works for the good of INDIVIDUALS. The >reason
>we have death is that we now live in a society in which our technology
>(and general behavior --- we don't have feuds with others, we go to the
>courts) has gotten us to a point at which there was no PREVIOUS
>evolutionary pressure for people to live any longer, because most people
>will have died by that time. Only a short time ago 50 was thought to be
>old. 
>
Evolution's work is unfinished, you seem to be saying, and in due course it
would make us immortal. (Not in time for you and me, however.) But up to now
evolution has thrown individuals in competition with one another, in many
situations, and, in effect, used death as a pruning mechanism for
selectively rejecting those that were less fit as replicators. (With the
issue complicated further by the fact that sometimes being a better
replicator meant being shorter-lived too.)  In all this, the genetic
heritage of an individual is fixed at birth. Evolution offers (so far!) no
mechanism to change that. You are stuck with the fitness level you have
(though humans are able to make voluntary and planned choices about
reproduction, unlike other creatures who pretty much do as preprogrammed).
Then, assuming you are normal and accept this reproductive orientation in
the first place (unlike many of us immortalists, though not all) you
compete, in effect seeing how far you get before you are sacrificed. So a
case can be made that evolution "uses the death of individuals to further
the good of the species," if you understand the somewhat metaphorical manner
of putting it. The fixity of one's genetic heritage provides an argument
that evolution doesn't benefit the individual. In another sense, though, we
could say that evolution does benefit the individual, being responsible for
one's very existence and whatever inherited features one values. 

I think probably evolution--a kind of evolution--will stay with us in our
postmortal future. But (by definition) it won't be like the present variety,
with the limited lifespan and the downsides that go with it.

Regarding the question of information loss, I agree with Bob Ettinger
(#11473) that our theories are imperfect and incomplete, but still am very
doubtful about tracking down the fugitive photons. Tachyons, faster than
light particles that might turn the trick, haven't been detected yet. On the
other hand, for photon entanglement to be of any help seems to require a
highly coordinated series of actions between widely separated
individuals--we clearly aren't coordinating any efforts with distant
extraterrestrials.  But there is much that we (myself especially) don't
know. In the late 1800s some thought that physics was mostly a "dead"
science. The 20th century pretty spectacularly disproved this. What the 21st
and succeeding centuries may reveal I have little idea but want to find out,
one more reason for being a cryonicist.

Bob also notes that cryonics patients probably will benefit from the
redundancy of information that should survive in their brain tissue, despite
any deterioration or disruption prior to freezing. And I think this is a
good point in favor of cryonics and the prospect of being able to reanimate
someone, eventually, from frozen remains. It doesn't, however, offer much
for someone whose brain has perished without any visible traces--hence the
other approaches that some of us have conjectured.

To Olaf Henny (#11474), regarding propylene glycol (C3H8O2), I'm not a
chemist, but I'm sure the 3 carbons chain together and form a "backbone"
around which the other atoms (hydrogen, oxygen) are distributed, as in many
other organic compounds. In fact, from the description in Charles Platt's
article it appears that the structural formula for this molecule must be the
following, or nearly so,


                          OH     OH       H
                           |           |           |
              H ----- C------C------C-----H
                           |           |           |
                          H         H         H


My apologies if this doesn't come out readable on your screen. (And somebody
correct this if it isn't exactly right. There are some structural formulas
of this sort in an article by Ben Best in the current issue of *Canadian
Cryonics News* but I don't have access to that as I am writing this.)
Assuming it is readable, you see clearly how there is a chain of carbons
with other stuff distributed around it, and not, for example, a chain of
hydrogens, even though there are more hydrogens.

Mike Perry

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