X-Message-Number: 2723
Date: 04 May 94 20:55:10 EDT
From: Mike Darwin <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS  quantum mechanics

If Ms. Johnson is referring to a "soul" in the nonmaterial, "spiritual"
sense as the essence of a person then I think most cryonicists "reject"
that notion for the same reason reason they reject the notion of invisible
pink elephants being responsible for all the damage done during the recent
Northridge earthquake or cosmic telluric influences being the root cause
of all cancers mediated through the work of evil, invisible, gremlims. 
What I am  trying to say is that such explanations are unsupported by
evidence and are not necessary to explain the phenomena at hand (nor are
they the simplest explanation).

I can and have cooled dogs to a degree or two above freezing and washed
all their blood out for HOURS (6 hours in fact) and had then come back
none the worse for wear neurologically.  I have puppies from two of my
5-hour survivors in the vivarium right now.  Human embryos can be frozen
and go on to develop into people.  Catholics and many  fundamentalists
believe that human embryos HAVE souls.  So, the point here is: if there
is a nonmaterial soul and it survives freezing then big deal?  If you
can't detect this nonmaterial entity and nothing you "do" has any impact
on it then of what importance is it (until you REALLY die, of course but
that is a matter for RELIGION which is NOT science and is NOT cryonics). 
(Although I readily admit that the practice of cryonics can and with some
frequency has degenerated into operations indistinguishable from same.)

The burden of proof about nonmaterial components to human identity is on
YOU, not us.  Biology and physics as we currently understand them seem to
explain life quite well without recourse to Plato's shadows.

Now, as to something I glossed over in my previous posting about identity
(Bob Ettinger picked it up): and that is that the ideas and feelings we
have about identity may be WRONG!  You and I may not exist in any kind of
static, identifiable thing such as Heather or Mike.  When you look
closely, identity as we commonly conceive of it may be all smoke and
mirrors.  I was once a good little Polish Catholic boy who did know what
a cuss word was and didn't believe such a thing was possible when I was
told about sex.  While I will mercifully (depending I suppose upon your
point of view) spare you the details, I can tell you that there is damn
little congruence between little Mike Federowicz then and the, how say we
discreetly put it, rather more cosmopolitan Mike Darwin who exists now. 
We don't look the same (not at all, in fact even pictures of me as
teenager are unrecognized by others as being of me as an adult).  We
don't hold the same beliefs and we certainly don't share the same
memories.  Much of what little Mike F. was has been lost, memories have
faded away and beliefs and values which were critical to him and to his
sense of self are GONE, replaced in many cases by new ones which would
have horrified Mike F. (and *certainly* horrified Mike F's parents). 
Even most of the individual atoms are gone.

And if I get to live for thousands of years and continue to grow and
evolve I feel it not at all unlikely that the current Mike Darwin will be 
to that continuer what a blastocyst is to Mike Darwin today.

All of this would make it very convenient to pin identity on continuity
since Mike F turned into Mike D  incrementally and "continually."  But
there are problems with this too, not the least of which is "what
constitutes a break in continuity?"  Loss of consciousness?  Loss of
metabolism?  Disassembly and reassembly with new atoms?  Loss of some
memories?  Loss of all memories?  These are deep questions and, once you
give up the idea of a static, unchanging eternal soul or essence which is
you, you may have to give up the very assumptions which "you" use to
define who "you" *are*.  Thomas is quite right when he said Lewis Carrol
was a very deep man.  I think he was one of the savvier human beings to
have walked the face of the earth.  

As to the Copenhagen interpretation.  WHAT is it?  Best I can tell its a
bunch of people saying "Well Johnny its that way because that's just the
way it is."  And when Johnny asks "WHY is that the way it is"  the
response is "*Because Daddy said it is*."  Very unsatisfying.   Then
there are problems like Bell's paradox and the fact that the daily world
is actually a pretty ordered place.  The Copenhagen interpretation is, in
my opinion, one possible explanation, but it is far from proved and there
are other interpetations such as the Many Worlds Theory which seem to
adresss the evidence more elegantly.  The long and the short of it is "I
don't know?"  I await more evidence.

And incidentally, there are plenty of cryonicists who DO accept the
Copenhagen interpretation or did last time I talked to them.  I believe
Art Quaife is one and I believe he is a quite capable and elegant defender
of it.

As to Plato:  a tender subject.  While this will seem intemperate of me, I
must say I think the man was a fool.  Further, I must say I think he was
a destructive fool in that his ideas were, with notable exceptions,
absolutely poisonous in their application.  I can't for the life of me
understand why he is still taught and revered (except as a BAD example of
critical and philosophical thinking).  But then, for 20 years I couldn't
understand why otherwise thoughtful intelligent men who occupied
universities taught that Leninism and Marxism were good (and were almost
to a man and woman mostly Marxists themselves) when a half-blind
semi-moron  could step off a plane anywhere they were practiced and SEE
otherwise.  Not to mention notice the barbed wire fences and people with
guns trying to keep the happy workers INSIDE the workers' paradise -- and
this you could get from any newspaper or TV.  Did these people live in a
cave?  The answer was yes, and it was dug in part by Plato.

It is a strange, strange world.

Mike Darwin

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