X-Message-Number: 26840 Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 08:35:57 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: anonymous & pseudonymous Cryonet msgs For Stodolsky and his opposition too: Particularly in science, my personal experience suggests that opposition exists to some kinds of anonymity. You do well to actually raise the problem, however. At least in the case of postings on Cryonet, it's not obvious what anyone gains if someone makes a posting with a pseudonym. Whether or not anonymity should be allowed needs to be thought out much more carefully, and certainly depends on the circumstances of a message or an act. In science again, there are a few journals in which the articles do get refereed, but the referees also submit their valuation of the article for publication with it. (I would presume that if no referee saw any value at all in an article, neither their opinions nor the article would be printed --- though the reasons why they saw no value become very important. In the days of Ptolemaic astronomy, Copernicus might well have totally failed to publish his ideas, and Galileo would suffer the same fate). It might be best to hope for a society in which major journals did restrict what they published, but there were also plenty of other journals willing to print virtually anything, anonymous, pseudonymed, or not. Usually someone with ideas which basically conflict with those currently believed would at least have a voice; and if his/her arguments turned out strong enough, that voice would seep out and eventually show up in the major strongly refereed journals. Even in neuroscience (which I read a lot of for PERIASTRON and the importance of memory and conscious- ness to cryonics) the notion that adult brains grow new neurons began with a few papers in the early 60's, denigrated by almost everyone. It's now (2005) widely accepted. And incidentally, this problem shows one way simple immortality may change us a lot: people can often die before their ideas get accepted, or get tired and old and stop advocating them. A society of immortal people might at least come to recognize the person who first saw something important, even if it takes them 100 years to do so. As for Cryonet, I personally would say that it should continue to accept anonymous or pseudonymous submissions, so long as their authors don't offend too many readers. Even offending some readers should be OK; not everyone knows how to express themselves gently. Best wishes and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26840