X-Message-Number: 11736 From: Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 14:18:09 EDT Subject: Kibitzers, Leitl, Crevier A few days back I expressed a bit of irritation at those who demand much and contribute little. Let me round that out somewhat: Kibitzers and back seat drivers have their uses. They are sometimes right. We should listen patiently to all suggestions, even non-constructive criticisms. At the same time, ideas and idea-people are a dime a dozen, while toilers in the vineyard are scarce. There is a vast gap between just making a suggestion, on the one hand, and on the other evaluating it competently and then implementing it effectively. There are always costs and tradeoffs. Nothing at all can be accomplished, except at the cost of neglecting something else. Even considering whether to consider something requires time and effort. Setting of priorities and allocation of resources are the essence of management. And finally, if they are not workaholic freaks, the managers must at some point reserve something for other aspects of their lives. If you think you have a good idea, fine. But it would be a lot finer if, before speaking up, you figure out how you can contribute effort or money to development of the idea. At the least, do some of the scut work yourself; gather and organize a goodly amount of background information. If the idea involves creation of a new job or a new routine task, try to figure out how you can do that job on a volunteer basis. If necessary, educate yourself further to qualify yourself for the work. It might even be enjoyable--and it might conceivably save your life, or someone else's. -------- In response to David Pascal's comments on the promise of nanotechnology for repair of frozen patients, Eugene Leitl writes: >Ralph Merkle and Eric Drexler are very bright men with many talents, >however, I don't happen to think that their background in cryobiology and >molecular neuroscience is very extensive. Either on the basis of historical analogy or on the basis of detailed analysis, a very good case can be made that--for example--Merkle's background in nanotech theory and in cryptography are much more relevant than the background of any biologist. On the one hand, we have countless examples of experts who were wrong about near-term developments in their own fields--explosive experts who said a nuclear bomb couldn't work, engineers who said an airplane couldn't fly, surgeons who said anaesthesia could never work, ad nauseam. On the other hand, both cryptography and nano-engineering are intimately tied to the prospect of retrieving information and making repairs in any biological system--and it matters very little whether "biology" is prefixed by "cryo" or "neuro" or anything else. Our web site has reams of detail on these questions, for those who want to go beyond generalities. ---------- Daniel Crevier wrote: >We need to make a distinction here between awareness and consciousness: >A dog is aware of its environment, but it cannot say "I think therefore >I am". Consciousness is awareness of self. Philosophers are not the only >ones to make this distinction. So do legislators, which is why dogs do >not have the same civic rights as we do. We have a disagreement on definition. I have a remarkable memory, as a very young child, of trying to come to grips with the first person singular pronoun, the concept of "I" instead of "Bobby." Yet, before I became accustomed to using the pronoun, surely I was nevertheless conscious in some reasonable meaning of the word. I use "conscious" and "aware" as synonyms, and the criterion is not the content or subject matter or any kind of intellectual contemplation, but just whether any subjective condition exists, whether there are qualia or feelings. I can't compel anyone to adopt my usage, but I think it is the most reasonable and useful, because it captures the distinction between a person and an automaton. Robert Ettinger Cryonics Institute Immortalist Society http://www.cryonics.org Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=11736