X-Message-Number: 21248 Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2003 07:15:32 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #21235 - #21247 Well, I seem to have a number of opponents this evening. I will do the best I can in answering each one. For Dave Pizer: Dave, in your original message, which you should be able to consult, you used a different definition of "same". In arguing with me you bring in another factor: that duplicates are not duplicates unless the existence of one somehow depends on the existence of the other. That's fine, but if we're going to argue anything we need to get our assumptions nailed down. I don't claim here that I am perfect in doing so and you are not, just that here you seem to have changed your definition. For James Swayze: I discussed several issues. First, by "evolution" I meant the same as "natural selection". Don't forget that our ancestors, even back when they were half ape and half human being, also had to carefully consider what they would do. That is one way natural selection works on human beings, and will continue to work. Make a sufficiently wrong modification of yourself and you will find yourself selected against. Second, the problem with saying that we now have (the Shuttle, or a 757) and therefore respirocytes cannot be excluded comes not merely because we now have these technical devices. It ignores all the other proposals for devices to do similar things which failed when they were first implemented and required lots of changes and testing to get them to work. If, today, you want to design an airplane and have the expertise to do so, you'll very likely be able to design an airplane that will work on the first try --- though I understand that one major reason for that consists of our present ability to do a LOT of prior testing on computers before the airplane ever flies. But respirocytes and all those other nanodevices people talk about so freely have never been built in any form at all, nor have they even been tested as complete devices on a large enough computer. It's virtually inevitable that their designs are going to have to change, perhaps even radically. As for the USE of respirocytes, I heard you when you said it was Merkle's idea originally. One more rung downward for Merkle. I was taking you as believing what he said uncritically, which may have been unfair (for which I apologize). Do I think your ideas for the use of respirocytes provide a present use? They look to me as if they would run into the same problem Merkle ran into. Imagine ourselves in a future time with not just respirocytes as one of the advances, but all kinds of other advances too. Like means to put out fires very rapidly in buildings if they start. Or, for that matter, physiological adaptations of people much like those of whales, so that a person need not breathe constantly (I note that we rarely face such circumstances and natural selection may have simply found that it's too much machinery for too rare an occasion --- which isn't the same as the present, when we live in buildings which might burn down). If you are going to work out the advantages of respirocytes, it's almost meaningless (did I say ABSURD in my last message?) to imagine a situation in which the only advance is that of respirocytes. You have to compare them to a situation in which many other advances have also occurred. Respirocytes, for instance, may provide a fine solution for asthmatics, but do you seriously believe that people will still get asthma in a world where they can actually make respirocytes (of ANY kind, with ANY kind of design)? That is what I meant when I said that science fiction stories with space-warping starships and laser rayguns small enough to fit in our hands, but a medicine incapable of dealing with cancer, would be ABSURD. Or stories with starships but people who could only fight with spears and axes: ABSURD. Best wishes and long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21248