X-Message-Number: 13957 From: "john grigg" <> Subject: the Drexlerian nanotech/cryonics link in the mind of some... Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 01:04:01 PDT Hello everyone, I am reposting this from the Extropian list. Hal Finney brings up some interesting things about the link between Drexlerian nanotech and cryonics in the eyes of at least some people. I thought this belonged here to be discussed. sincerely, John Grigg Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 14:34:36 -0700 From: Add to Address Book Add To Spam Block List Subject: Re: Nature defines transhumanist To: Reply To: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Grigg quotes Nature, as forwarded by Robin: >"There is no such thing as bad publicity, it is sometimes said. But >ever since Eric Drexler brought the term 'nanotechnology' into vogue in >his 1986 book Engines of Creation, some researchers have felt that the >field has been burdened by unwanted baggage. Drexler envisioned an era >in which factory production lines were replaced by self-replicating, >nanoscale 'assemblers' and warned that such entities could supplant >humans to become the dominant 'life' forms on our planet. These ideas >were quickly seized on by transhumanists - people who imagine what the >world will look like after technology has rendered us extinct. I suppose that if they had said "posthumanists" it wouldn't have been too bad a definition. >So let me get this right, the author was saying transhumanists are >a bunch of science groupies?? Is Drexler our Elvis or Paul McCartney? >Did the article point out that Drexler himself "encouraged" these people >by forming _The Foresight Institute_? No, the article didn't say anything more about Drexler. In fact my perception is that the whole field is doing its best to pretend that he doesn't exist. I predict that the Foresight conference will soon no longer be the premier nanotech conference. The real academics will want to disassociate themself from the nanofanatics and set up a more respectable venue. (Maybe this has happened already; I don't follow the research.) I can't help thinking that a core problem is cryonics. Cryonicists have been hoping that nanotech will give them respectability for 15 years now. In fact, the opposite seems to have happened. Cryonics is so disreputable for most people, so firmly entrenched in the nonsense/fraud category, that the least association with the practice is enough to discredit any activity. Drexler wrote about repairing the damage from cryonic suspension in Engines, and thereby permanently branded his form of nanotech as nonsense, for many observers. If Drexlerian nanotech comes about, in the full flower of its predicted power, then there is a decent chance that cryonic suspension will work. And that means that everyone who has allowed a loved one to die has, in effect, murdered that person. This would be an intolerable moral burden for most people, making it hard for them to think clearly about where this technology may lead. >I'm glad to see the author admits nanotech is taking off now. I still >remember the infamous _Scientific American_ article that slammed nanotech >believers as a "cargo cult." The Science article really didn't change this view. They seemed to be drawing a distinction between the blue-sky dreams of Drexler and the practical, concrete research going on today in labs studying buckytubes and crystals (much of which is not really that closely related to nanotech as we know it). The article even had something negative to say about Bill Joy's critique, because it envisioned dangers from Drexlerian nanotech. This is far beyond the limited perceptual horizon of the article's author. Hal -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=13957