X-Message-Number: 26022 Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 10:17:41 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: comments on Walpurg & Flavonoid msgs Comments on several messages on Cryonet: While I am happy that the Skeptic Society has decided to discuss consciousness, the choice of experts listed looks a bit odd. Some of them might well have worthwhile things to say about consciousness, while others look to me that they're far out in left field. It's those scientists who are directly studying consciousness who will probably have the most significant things to say. Neuroscience contains lots of subfields, many of them more solvable than the problem of consciousness. Allman and Koch look to me like the only ones who will really have something to say. As for Crick, I really must point out that he was far from the first person to raise the problem of consciousness and how it came from the biochemical workings of our brains. About future medical expenses: While I'm sorry that Basie has had so much trouble, cryonic suspension has a major feature that makes it differ from present medicine. There is no special reason why you must be revived as soon as the technolgy for your revival has been devised. If that technology is too expensive, there's no reason to revive you immediately. You could wait for 1000 years until that technology becomes so cheap and simply applied that a child could revive you correctly and well. And about development of cryonics: Clearly present methods of drug and treatment development simply don't apply to cryonics. They don't even apply to research aimed at increasing our lifespan, where the problem is even worse. (In order for a lifespan-increasing treatment to be officially accepted for use in human beings, it must first increase the lifespan of human beings... which means that we'll either have to wait a long long time, or adopt it because of indirect evidence and then see if it works after we start using it). Some of the same problem occurs with cryonics when it's used to deal with medical problems for which we presently have no cure.... one of the main uses of cryonics. However if we can suspend and revive a large mammal (say a large dog) then at least we'll have strong evidence that suspension itself will work, even if its medical usefulness remains unproven. Doing the same with apes would virtually prove it would work with us. Since even that need not be done for cryonics to ultimately work (why have we joined cryonics societies if not because we thought that its damage could someday be repaired, along with everything else). Suspending someone right now remains the right thing to do even if it violates current requirements in medical research. It's those requirements which have become faulty, not cryonics or research into cryonics. Best wishes and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26022