X-Message-Number: 2727
Subject: CRYONICS: Nanotechnology misunderstandings
From:  (Ben Best)
Date: 	Sun, 8 May 1994 01:36:00 -0400


     Mike Darwin's somewhat nasty reply to my nanotechnology posting and
an irate phone call from Paul Wakfer have caused me to re-read my
posting -- and have given me insight into the misunderstandings my
choice of words led-to.

     I was very scrupulous about my representation of the ideas of Paul
Wakfer. I represented these ideas in the second paragraph of my posting
-- and before doing so I read Paul the paragraph and requested that he
suggest other wording if I had misrepresented him. A few words were
added and deleted.

     If Mike Darwin thinks I have distorted his ideas, part of the
reason for this is that I was not writing a posting about "Mike Darwin's
ideas". When I said that Paul Wakfer's argument was "reminiscent of
things I have heard from Thomas Donaldson and Mike Darwin" I did not
mean that it is EXACTLY the same. Concerning Thomas, I was reminded
of his arguments that "Nanotechnology" (capital "N") is a God
substitute. Concerning Mike, I was reminded of his parody about Ralph
Merkle, 19th century scientists and "Our Friends of the Future". I
admit that I could have been clearer about this.

    It is not even true that I was replying to Paul Wakfer's exact
ideas. I sometimes approach ideas the way a physicist approaches matter.
I will stretch things, look at them under a microscope, break them into
tiny particles, bombard them with other particles at high velocity, and
subject them to extremes of temperature, acceleration and pressure. I
can learn a lot about ideas by doing this. My attempt to show the
consequences of the extreme positions of nanotechnology was an exercise
in logic, not a claim that any particular person holds these positions.
I acknowledge that I was not as clear about this as I could have been,
and I apologize for misunderstandings that may have resulted.

   To represent people's opinions, I could pick a scale from 0 to 10
based on their view of the probable success of repair technology.
Cryobiologist Pierre Boutron has told me that he thinks the chances of
repair are about "one-in-a-thousand", so he would be at position 0.01
on my scale. My guess is that Ralph Merkle would be close to position 9
and that Mike Darwin would be somewhere between 1 and 3. Of course,
Ralph Merkle speaks for Ralph Merkle and "Mike Darwin speaks for Mike
Darwin". And, of course, "5" is not necessarily the "correct" answer,
as an anti-extremist might assume -- nature doesn't work that way.

   One purpose of my analysis was to show that some of the arguments
people closer to the "0" side of the scale are directing against people
closer to the "10" side of the scale (1) do not represent a clear
enough acknowledgement of the difference between their opponent's
position and the "10" position and (2) do not represent a clear enough
acknowledgement of the difference between their own position and the
"0" position. Ralph Merkle and Keith Henson may be avid nanotechnology
advocates, but Ralph has devoted considerable attention to the
importance of preserving synapses and Keith has done a great deal of
practical work to improve the quality of cryonic suspension technology.

    Also, Paul Wakfer specifically said that he thinks it is possible
that the idea of nanotechnology (he made no attempt to distinguish the
large "N" from the small "n") may have done more harm than good to
cryonics. He stresses the fact that this is only a HYPOTHESIS he is
putting forward. But I think that even the suggestion of this is
outrageous. I acknowledge the danger of quasi-religious smugness about
"Nanotechnology", but I still think that the credibility and positive
publicity it has given to cryonics is unquestionable. I realize that
Paul Segall and Paul Wakfer both see better cryonic repair prospects for
biotechnology than for nanotechnology, but (as I tried to show), this
distinction does not remove the danger of smugness about the
capabilities of (biotech) repair technology.

    I hope this clears up any misunderstandings that my previous posting
about nanotechnology may have caused.

                   -- Ben Best (ben.best%)

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2727