X-Message-Number: 12796 From: "George Smith" <> References: <> Subject: Re: Optimism and Realism Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 18:51:52 -0800 In Message #12790 from: , Chris made a number of good points, and I wanted to comment on some of them: > Subject: Optimism and Realism > > I would suggest that a more cautious approach when reading reports like these. > Molecular computers may well happen and it may be quite soon but it is not worth > basing your actions on what is still subject to practical demonstration. > Yes. At this stage it should only cause one to remember that recovery from cryonics suspension is almost certainly going to be possible as nanotech looks to now be inevitable. > When I was searching the web for more information on the subject, I came across > a web page which was quite interesting. A company called Calmec with Mark Reed > as one of their technical advisors. Mark Reed was one of those quoted about the > great success of the molecular switch. > > http://www.calmec.com/ > > I suggest that anyone curious about this technology read their on-line (not yet > completed) prospectus for potential investors. I read it very carefully and to > be honest I would never consider such an investment even if I wanted something > extremely high risk. If I am not prepared to ever consider such an investment, I > ask myself just how much confidence have I got in those developing the > technology and in the technologies likelihood of appearing in the market place. > > Now if George Smith wants to invest in such a venture I won't waste time > advising him against it. I would not advise anyone to place all their investment eggs in one basket. Sooner or later some companies will go like gangbusters in nanotech but which ones remains the investor's unaswered question. > I would however suggest that the rest of you > concentrate your time and energies on the problems in getting good quality > suspensions. One disagreement here. It is a fact that at least some of the active posters and an unknown number of lurking readers here are NOT signed up for ANY cryonics protocal. For THEM they first need to DO IT. I would like to remind everyone that while we may believe that a "straight freeze" (no cryoprotectants) is inferior to "good quality suspensions", we will only know the truth once people are being revived in the future. It may well be the case that the future "retrieval" technology will actually obviate the need for what most everyone today would agree to be a "good quality" suspension. The key may be to get suspended anyway you can - period. If we believe otherwise and don't qualify that as only a belief when we post here, we are delivering the message that it is pointless to sign up for cryonics now because the quality of suspension is not yet good enough. We don't know that. It may be just fine exactly as it is. > Cryonet seems to > be dominated by discussions on AI, stockmarkets, > robots, nanotechnlogy and other such. I am not suggesting that these are not at > least partially valid subjects but they should be in the minority and we should > be thinking about and discussing protocols, cryoprotectives, methods of ensuring > best case scenarios for suspensions, extending our lives etc, much more. I agree. > I am not an expert in these fields but I am keen to try learn more. A lot of > people post really interesting stuff about what research is going on in Cryonics > and others post about things they have researched and found out themselves (from > the web etc). Doug Skrecky's fly reports are always interesting! I don't see > people replying to these reports and even when they do, it doesn't generate the > intensity that a simple comment about feelings does. I applaud Doug's efforts. I will be curious to hear what he and other experts have to say on the Italian mice longevity breakthrough: http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmphs0a.htm > Before we try to promote nanotechnology, lets try get cryonics preservation > going first. From a technical standpoint, freezing a brain with little or no ice > crystal and membrane damage should be orders of magnitude easier than trying to > get nanotechnology working in a similar time frame. Once we perfect cryonics, > then we can move on to more ambitious plans such a nanotech. I have a few problems with the above. First this falls into the same problem I was mentioning above. Cryonics preservation is "going" already. This implies it isn't "real" yet. It is very real. There are many people suspended in liquid nitrogen already. It is not difficult for others to set this up for themselves as well. Second, how can we know we have "perfected" cryonics before we are reviving people? It is highly probable that nanotech will be required to do this and this then justifies that interest, IMHO. But further, it may prove to be the case that the ice crystal problem may prove to be unimportant later. Again, we don't know. We can't know... yet. Improving what we do, this is great. Yet even determining what "improvement" really is is not always going to be possible on this side of resuscitation. If we find a cryoprotectant which prevents all ice crystalization and it turns out later to cause more problems for resuscitation than it solves, we may see earlier cryonauts restored before those with the "new and improved" approach. Caution is useful here. > I personally am > 1000 fold more optimistic about cryonics being perfected within my lifetime that > I am about nanotech. Lets use Occams razor and focus on the real problems of the > moment. > > > Chris And isn't the most direct path (per Occam's razor) to first come from the perspective that cryonics is available right now and may very well work as it is right now? (This is the specific perspective I have been calling "optimism"). Why? Because it can encourage others to choose to arrange for their suspension. It can save lives now. AFTER this, we can continue to plow ahead with watching and discussing the explosions in research development which seem quite clearly to be leading to exactly what we need to solve the big problems of resuscitation, as well as efforts to improve current approaches, or achieving reversible suspended animation, etc. Otherwise, we are assuming that we already know what will be possible in the future and fail to encourage others to take the only current lifeboat which is currently in existence: cryonics. We can discourage people from choosing cryonics. We can lose lives. Ladies and gentlemen, we are not communicating in an idealistic vacuum here. Those who wish to be strictly conservative (what I consider to be "pessimistic") are not merely expressing their opinions when they treat current cryonics procedure as being unworkable. They are directly influencing those others who have not secured cryonic suspension for themselves and those they care for. As we remain a forum for public expression, I will continue to point this out (time permitting) when I see "pessimism" expressed as fact. Pessimism AND optimism are BOTH only beliefs. However, pessimism can be deadly. Optimism can save lives. Lives do hang in the balance here. George Smith www.cryonics.org Life is good. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12796