X-Message-Number: 13349 Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 21:16:43 -0500 From: Paul Wakfer <> Subject: Re: CryoNet #13342 Biased viewpoints and guru supporting References: <> > Message #13342 > From: "George Smith" <> > References: <> > Subject: A few clarifications and observations respectully submitted > Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2000 11:37:28 -0800 > > Clarifications and observations interspersed below: > > In Message #13336 Paul Wakfer wrote on the subject:Re: CryoNet #13305 sound > bites > > > > > > Message #13305 > > > From: > > > Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 21:18:02 EST > > > Subject: sound bites > > > > > > [snip] > > > > Robert Ettinger pushed the following "viewpoint as 'the' key to > > life". > > > > > we can say some relevant things with > > > considerable confidence: > > > ----- > > > If you don't try, you are less likely to succeed. > > > > This is a mere tautology > > Yet the tautology does describe a relevant truth we can state with > "considerable confidence". So does "If you try, then you are more likely to succeed", or "If you do not succeed, then you may not have tried". So what? > > > For the optimists to be right, only one approach need work. For the > > > pessimists to be right, every approach must fail. > > > > For cryonics to succeed, every individual part of a series of highly > complex processes must work > > correctly. For cryonics to fail, only one part of one of those highly > complex processes needs to > > fail. > > This is conjecture stated as fact. It is actually only a personal opinion. No. As stated, and lacking other conditions, it *is* a fact. > For example, there seem to be non-linear patterns with redundancies which > work despite failures. A launched missile is over 99% of the time off > target but is corrects its trajectory as it goes. The "mid-course" corrections were already included as part of the "series of highly complex processes". > The human body is constantly "failing" as cells die. Yet we generally > continue breathing for quite a few years - another example of non-linear > patterns with redundancies as cells continue to reproduce and replace the > failures in the highly complex process we call the human body. They are only "local" failures. The operation of the human body is a "series of highly complex processes" which have been organized and developed by evolution over billions of years. Those processes are only acutely successful at fixing local failures. In time they fail to prevent the chronic, global decline and disintegration of the system. The goal of life-extension sciences is to modify the body's homeostatic processes, either internally, externally, or through migration to new hardware, in order to prevent the chronic, global failure of the hardware which is the mind's container, processor, and interface to external reality. The goal of cryonics is to capture the state of the mind with as high fidelity as possible and to store it until recovery, and life-extension sciences have the ability to restore it to full function in hardware capable of chronic homeostasis. > > > In the sweep of history, the can-do surprises have overwhelmed the > can't-do > > > surprises. > > > > Nonsense! This totally ignores the myriad of inventions, processes, > businesses, discoveries, > > etc. which are never amount to anything and are, thus, never heard of and > certainly not recorded > > by history. In science for example, negative results are seldom published. > > > > The fact that these unknowns never amounted to anything is why they are > overwhelmed by those that have. Again you have missed the point. The number of unknown failures is vastly more than the number of failures which were noted as "surprises". It is only the *noted* failures which were overwhelmed by the successes. This is merely a result of the "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!" principle being intentionally applied to highly important goals. It says nothing about lessor, or largely unpublicized goals which might have lead to highly important ones if they had succeeded, but about which we know little or nothing simply because the whole idea was a non-starter for one reason or another. It is possible that reversible suspended animation by means of vitrification may become such a lost failure. For example, there are multiple ways to achieve space travel which have never been tried. It is entirely possible that if we had taken the path to try one such many decades ago, we might now be much further into space than we are. Similarly, if evolution had taken certain different pathways millions of years ago, there might now be a race of near-immortal, sentient creatures populating this planet. > > Paul Wakfer > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > It is all too easy to proclaim our opinions as facts. With a biased viewpoint, it is all too easy to think that real facts are merely opinions and can somehow be invalidated by the force of one's mindset. > It is even easier to miss what someone says when it clashes with our present > beliefs. It is still easier again to support someone's utterings because of their "guru" status within a cult. > If you catch me doing either one in the future, please correct me as well. This message is notice that you have been "caught" and corrected. > George Smith > www.cryonics.org -- Paul -- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=13349