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Date: Mon, 17 May 93 11:09:07 -0700
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Subject: CRYONICS Newsletter
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THE TRANS TIMES
Life Extension through Cryonic Suspension
Volume 2 Number 2 April 1993
Identity Preservation
by Art Quaife, Ph.D.
The debate concerning the relative merits of whole-body
preservation versus neuropreservation has been going on for
twenty years. In more recent years, there has been much
discussion of the possibility of uploading individual
consciousness into a computer. I have read many of these debates,
and find that most of the philosophical discussion goes right
over my head. I believe that neuropreservation is a mistake, and
that uploading is extremely implausible, for very simple-minded
reasons.
Neuropreservation
As cryonicists, we seek to extend our selves, our consciousness,
our identity, far in to the future. Does anyone really believe
that all of the determinants of their identity reside above their
neck? I don't. I don't know how to measure this, but my intuition
says that 85-90% of identity is determined above the neck, with
the balance below the neck. In particular, the nervous system
does NOT end at the neck!
My brain has a fine relationship with the organs below my neck.
They have been communicating with each other and living happily
together for all of my life. If it is ever possible to attach a
revived head to a cloned body, that head (brain) is going to be
in for quite a shock, because the new torso is not going to have
the learning in it that the original had. Whether the
consciousness that emerges from the old brain adapting to the new
body is close enough to the original consciousness to count as
"identity preservation", I do not know. I do know that I wouldn't
bet my life on it. When we understand so little about
consciousness and its relation to the physical functioning of the
brain and body, it is prudent to save as much of the individual
as possible. We lose a significant amount of information about an
individual in discarding that person's torso.
Sometimes when I read about the miracles of repair that
nanotechnology will bring about, I stop to reflect that today, we
can't even cure the common cold. Billions of dollars have been
poured into cancer research over the past few decades, with
relatively small progress. As cryonicists we are forced to hope
that esoteric repair capabilities will become available in the
future, for otherwise all is lost for the patients of today. But
why push this hope any farther than necessary? Whole-body
patients are an odds-on bet to come out of suspension long before
neuro patients.
All of the proposals for rebuilding the suspended individual into
someone much better than the original raise the same question:
does the individual's consciousness survive this rebuilding?
Until the answers are in, don't bet your self on it.
Whatever the nature of personal identity, it does seem to be
wrapped up in physical continuity of the individual's body.
There are many thought experiments that can be posed, of the form
"suppose we tease a person's brain apart into many parts, replace
some of these parts with new parts, and put it back together.
Does the person's identity survive?" My answer is that I do not
know, but please try these experiments many times on many other
people before you try them on me!
Mobility
One advantage of neuropreservation is that the patients are more
readily transportable than whole-body patients. Some
neuopreservation advocates claim that Dora Kent is still in
suspension today *only* because she was a neuro patient, and
could readily be moved out of the coroner's harmful way. I
disagree. As I heard the story, the coroner's office only got
involved in that case because they were notified that Alcor
(another cryonics organization) was attempting to dispose of a
headless corpse. Without that torso to excite their interest, the
nasty confrontation probably never would have occurred.
Duplicates
Some cryonicists suggest that we could have lots of versions of
ourselves around, and that this is great, because they will
provide *backup* against the disaster that we might be wiped out,
much as computer backup tapes protect against loss of files. But
suppose that a matter duplicator (or a cloner) is able to make an
extremely similar copy of me. Of course it would not be
*identical* to me, because at the very least I am *here* and it
is *there*. I cannot imagine any amount of argument that would
convince me that I could now allow myself to be exterminated,
content in the belief that "I" will live on in that copy.
Thus the belief that a copy could have the "same" consciousness
that I have seems to be based upon a confused belief that it is
possible to make an "identical copy" of an individual. It is
not; there is no such thing as an "identical copy". The only
object that is identical to X is X itself. Other objects may be
*similar* to X in various ways -- have the same color, shape,
mass -- but they are not identical to X. Any other object Y
differs from X at least in having a different spatial location.
In the case that X is a conscious entity, that difference from Y
is all-important to X.
Uploading
The Turing test is an excellent test for determining whether
intelligent machines exist. I have little doubt that some
machines will pass the Turing test within a century. (They
*already* do, if we restrict the interrogation to *very* limited
domains of knowledge. The relatively simple artificial
intelligence program Eliza has fooled many people into believing
they were communicating with a psychologist.) But *intelligence*
is not at all the same thing as *consciousness*. Intelligence is
readily observable; it is behavior we can readily test for.
Indeed we already do measure it with the Stanford-Binet test, a
test we could equally well give to a machine. Consciousness is
something much more mysterious, and apparently of another realm
from the physical world, but nonetheless of primary importance to
us. It is not at all clear how we could even go about testing
whether a machine is conscious.
I have heard uploaders argue that consciousness is like a
computer program, and that the same program can run on different
hardware. Thus, they argue, my consciousness might run on my
brain, or equally well on a Cray computer of the future.
Now if you combine a computer program to invert a matrix with
various programs to diagnose disease, write a sonnet, play the
piano, and a few thousand other such abilities, all running under
a smooth enough control program, you will have a machine that
exhibits intelligent behavior. But surely few people believe that
a Fortran program is *conscious* while inverting a matrix. It is
also questionable whether any more intelligent program would be
conscious.
Even if machines can be conscious, that does not imply that they
can take on *your* consciousness. For if it is extremely
implausible or even self-contradictory that another person
("meat-machine") could also have your identity, then it is doubly
implausible that a silicon machine could have your identity.
Uploading is only a hope for the future, not an option for today.
But neuropreservation *is* an option for today, and many are
taking it, mistakenly in my view. We all have to make our best
choice, pay our money and take our chances. But the stakes are
high: if one bets wrong, the result can be fatal.
For perspective, let me state that my suspension arrangements
instruct TRANS TIME to freeze *any* of my biological remains that
are found. It is most unlikely that my identity will ever be
recon-structed from a recovered fingernail, but then I have
nothing to lose. Neuropreservation is vastly superior to
fingernail preservation. But whole body is better yet, when the
goal is *identity* preservation.
Editor's Note: Now that the definitive words on neuropreservation
and uploading have been written, surely we will all move on to
other questions.
Do the Markets Forecast the Future?
by Peter H. Christiansen
Last Spring, when the deterioration of the California economy
began to accelerate, I realized I might be retiring from public
employment even sooner than planned and I began studying for the
NASD Series 7 (stockbroker) examination. Somehow I managed to
pass the exam in February and I am now moonlighting as a
stockbroker evenings and weekends (my first transaction -- BioTime
-- a buy!) And in my free time I am enrolled in the American
College two year Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC/CLU)
credential program.
While being a stockbroker is a new experience, my interest in
finance and the markets is not. My grandfather, who spoke little
English and so tended to sum things up in very few words, once
told me that "the stock market is a place where you can get rich
by betting on progress." And indeed there is much truth in that
statement. That is why we use the markets to help measure and
forecast economic activity and why we can also use the markets to
help us measure and predict progress, i.e., scientific,
technological and social change.
For example, although the American public is not yet aware of it,
investors are starting to notice that a revolution is taking
place in the way in which Americans resolve their disputes. More
and more businesses and individuals are opting to resolve their
disputes by mediation or arbitration that enables them to choose
their own judges, get a speedy decision, and keep legal bills to
a minimum. The Wall Street Journal reported March 22, 1993 that
in 1992 more than 60,000 civil cases that would have gone to
court went instead to the non-profit American Arbitration
Association for mediation or arbitration, (arbitration is
binding, mediation is not).
Another 40,000 cases, however, were submitted to private "for
profit" companies that provide mediation and arbitration on a
"fee for service" basis. According to the Journal, the appeal of
the new private mediation firms is that they "customize mediation
or arbitration to fit the needs of the disputing parties.
Mediators can engage in shuttle diplomacy or express their
opinion on the value of a lease. Lawyers can be banned from the
conference room and . . . the pretrial fact-finding stage known
as discovery, which can last years, can be streamlined to the
simple exchange of a few documents." The nonprofit Center for
Public Resources has tracked, since 1990, 406 companies that have
saved more than $150 million in legal fees and expert-witness
costs by using litigation alternatives.
The Journal quotes Howard V. Golub, general counsel for Pacific
Gas and Electric Co., who says "I think that we're witnessing the
emergence of a [free] market in dispute resolution which is
challenging the traditional state-owned monopoly in dispute
resolution . . . the courts."
The most successful of these private mediation companies is JAMS
(Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services) based in Orange,
California which uses more than 200 former judges as mediators.
JAMS received a $15 million infusion of venture capital in 1990
from E. M. Warburg, Pincus and Co. and plans to go public later
next year. Endispute, which was founded by a Washington D.C.
lawyer and a law professor at Boston University last year, raised
$3 million in venture capital from Massey Burch Investment Group
and Point Venture Partners and used part of the money to open an
office in San Francisco. Judicate Inc., which was founded in
1983, went public in 1985 and currently trades over the counter
at between $1 and $2 a share. Seattle based U.S. Arbitration and
Mediation Inc. has 45 offices nationwide.
The growth of rational alternatives for resolution of disputes is
just another indication that human beings are continuing to move
from brawn to brains. This is probably why the U.S. Congress has
officially declared the 1990s as "The Decade of the Brain."
No, this doesn't mean the federal government is taking a position
in the Neuro v. Whole Body controversy. Probably somebody told
the members of congress that there are over 1,000 disorders of
the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), that 20% of
the U.S. population is afflicted by at least one of them, and
that one-third of the U.S. health care bill goes to the treatment
of diseases and disorders of the brain and spinal cord.
Lissa Morgenthaler, writing in the February 8, 1993 Barron's,
discusses the scientific and financial prospects of the
Neuroscience companies that are working to develop "brain drugs"
that would not only reduce human suffering but could also cut
health care costs dramatically. Ms. Morgenthaler states that a
cure for Alzheimer's would save the U.S. around $90 billion
annually.
"Indeed, you could spend $20 a day on a drug or drugs to keep
Alzheimer's victims functioning and still save $80 a day . . . .
And ultimately it won't just be Alzheimer's victims taking a
miracle drug, it'll be all of us. Scientific evidence suggests
that slowing the process that leads to dementia will be a lot
easier than reviving dead neurons. Thus, as the potential for
lifespans of 120 years becomes more real [emphasis added], people
will start taking drugs to slow senile dementias, just as they
now take aspirin to fend off heart attacks -- and they'll start
when they're babies."
These are some of the companies Ms. Morgenthaler mentions that
are currently doing work in the neurosciences, and some of the
research they are doing:
Alkermes -- ferrying drugs across the blood/brain barrier;
Athena Neurosciences -- Alzheimer's;
Cambridge Neurosciences -- epilepsy, depression, schizophrenia;
Cephalon -- Alzheimer's;
CoCensys -- epilepsy, anxiety, sleep disorders;
Cortex Pharmaceuticals -- Alzheimer's, cognitive enhancers;
CytoTherapeutics -- semi-permeable implants for Parkinson's;
Genetic Therapy -- viruses to cure brain tumors;
Neurogen -- drugs for anxiety.
Additionally Apollo Genetics, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is
developing drugs to combat age-associated brain dysfunction.
Upcoming Meeting
TRANS TIME holds bimonthly business meetings at which visitors
are welcome. The next meeting is scheduled for Sunday, June 27,
1:00 p.m. at:
The Home of Judy and Paul Segall
1003 Middlefield Road
Berkeley, CA 94708
(510) 644-3153
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