X-Message-Number: 2739
Date: 10 May 94 01:58:35 EDT
From: Paul Wakfer <>
Subject: CRYONICS Nanotechnology & Cryonics

To: Cryonet

    Like Mike Darwin and Thomas Donaldson, I, too, am in no way the
"straw man" that Ben Best set up and knocked over in CRYOMSG #2720. 
No one, to the best of my knowledge, is "demonizing" nanotechnology. 
Certainly, *I* have never demonized anything or anybody in my entire
life.  Such behavior is simply impossible for my mind to perpetrate. 
Ben Best has once again taken a casual, open, and earnest discussion,
heard only what he wanted to hear, and reported only the most extreme
distorted view of what he thought was meant by the speaker.

Here, briefly stated, is my position on nanotechnology as it relates
to cryonics.
(Note: Throughout this piece I will use the term "cryopreservation"
instead of "suspension".  I sincerely believe that in order to better
communicate with the rest of science and medicine, we would all be
wise to adopt that term and abandon our use of "suspension".)

1.  For those nascent cryonicists who were having trouble imagining
any extrapolation of current technologies which would result in the
possibility of repair for the freezing damage which we knew was
occurring during current methods of cryopreservation, Drexler's book
and the ensuing nanotechnological cell repair scenarios, made such
future capabilities at least conceivable.  This allowed many people to
believe in the cryonic idea, and to actually sign up for
cryopreservation.  Of course, as Thomas Donaldson has correctly
pointed out, this idea was no big deal to the biologically
knowledgeable.

2.  For myself and many others, such direct nanotechnological ideas
were not necessary.  I was an immortalist long before nanotechnology
and long before I became a cryonicist.  As a physicist myself, I have
always believed that anything not expressly inconsistent with the laws
of nature will be possible to achieve in time.  Unless someone clearly
shows that memory, personality, thought patterns, reasoning abilities,
in short, "the mind", are *not* being preserved by cryopreservation as
it is currently practiced, then I am electing to be cryopreserved
under any circumstance in which I cannot be resuscitated, because it
offers some hope for my precious mind to continue to exist, and to
return to full functioning status at some future time.  The
alternatives, burial and cremation, offer no hope.  For myself, I have
no concern about the length of time for which my mind is turned off,
but only that it *is turned on again* with the full ability to
continue from the state it was in when it was turned off.

3.  Nevertheless, it is still possible that today's cryonics won't
work and hasn't worked for all those patients currently in LN2!  If we
are not preserving the mind, by current cryopreservation methods (or
did not by past methods), then no amount of nanotechnological, or any
other, repair ability, no matter how far in the future, will suffice
to bring back the mind of someone cryopreserved today.  And
furthermore, I don't understand how anyone has rationally become
convinced that we yet know enough about the relationship of mind to
brain to be sure that we are preserving sufficient information, by
current cryopreservation methods, to revive a patient's mind.  For
that matter,  even if we did fully understand the relationship between
mind and brain, we haven't yet even done the research to determine
exactly what damage we are doing when we cryopreserve a human being. 
For the sake of the currently frozen patients, I very much hope we
have preserved sufficient information to restore their minds.  If I
had no such hope, I wouldn't be signed up for cryonics, and I wouldn't
be spending all of my time and much of my meager assets on cryonics. 
I am doing this because *I am concerned that if I am cryopreserved by
even the best of current methods, my mind may not be preserved*.  If I
could be sure that restoration is possible with current methods, I
certainly would not investing all this money and effort, only in order
to be restored in 50 years instead of 200!

4.  Given this fundamental gap in our knowledge of whether cryonics
works, there are two logical ways to proceed.  The first, and most
obvious, is to show that current cryopreservation methods *are*
preserving the mind.  The major problem for this approach is that we
*do not know* how the mind relates to the physiological and
biochemical brain.  A reasonable portion of science is currently
working on this problem and cryonicists do not have the resources to
add significantly to the solution of this problem.  The second method
of proceeding is to enhance current cryopreservation in directions
which will better preserve those physiological and biochemical aspects
of the brain which we believe may be the most important ones based on
current understanding of the relationship of brain to mind.  This
second method of proceeding makes even more sense since we *do know*
that we *are* damaging aspects of the brain which could well have
effects on the recoverability of the mind.  In addition, we do know
that *doing less damage is an achievable goal in reasonable time by
current cryobiological research*.  With all the damage that is being
done, I believe that it would be a *highly unlikely* result, after
full understanding of the relationship of mind and brain is achieved,
to discover that the complete functional mind, of even the currently
best cryopreserved patient, is fully recoverable.  Therefore, if we
continue to do almost nothing to make current cryopreservation less
damaging until the relationship between mind and brain is understood,
we will not only then most certainly need to enhance our preservation
methods for future patients, but we will be guilty of having damaged
previously cryopreserved patients unnecessarily because we could have
done better by only modest research expenditures.  Furthermore, since
that poor cryonics patient who is cryopreserved under the current
brain damaging technology which is later shown to be highly mind
damaging also, could be YOU, I feel that if you *really care* to have
your mind continue into the future, you are being less than rational
not to pump a significance part of your assets and earnings toward
funding the research needed to produce less damaging
cryopreservations.  In my opinion, anyone who does less is not sincere
in their personal commitment to the cryonics idea.

5.  Unless one has grounds for being *certain* that current
cryopresevation technology, even at its worst, is preserving the mind
(and if someone out there *is sure*, I'd love to have them spell out
the grounds for their certainty), then sitting and complacently
waiting for, or even working to advance, nanotechnology in order to
get ready for the future repair of damaged brains does *nothing* to
ensure one's future existance.  While such an approach may leave one
freer to enjoy present life, from a cryonics standpoint, it does
nothing to *ensure* the revival of the cryopreserved.  Nanotechnology
can, at best, only *hasten* such revival if that revival is possible.

6.  The above logic seems to be totally ignored by many in the
cryonics movement today.  Unfortunately, this is true not only for
many who were persuaded by nanotechnology ideas to elect
cryopreservation, but also for many who had already become cryonicists
before explicitly stated nanotechnological ideas appeared on the scene
or later joined without the aid of nanotech ideas.  It was for this
reason that I expressed to Ben Best the possibility that if an
evaluation of the negatives and positives of the nanotechnology meme
were possible, it might even turn out that the overall effect on the
progress of cyronics (ie. on the possibility or someone frozen today,
being restored to life in the future with a fully function, continuer
mind) is negative.  I don't say that I believe this to be true.  I am
saying that I believe that the negative effects of Nanotechnology (a
la Thomas Donaldson) are so strong that they might swamp the obvious
and clear positive effects.  Indeed, I say this in spite of the fact
that I fully accept all these well known positive aspects of
nanotechnology for cryonics.

To end, let me comment on the first two paragraphs of Ben's CRYOMSG
#2720, as I attempted to do when he showed them to me, but the nuances
of my desired changes escaped him and I gave up the attempt.  In fact,
my last words to him were, with a smile, "well you're sure going to
put me on the cryonet hot-seat".

>   Paul Wakfer (founding Director of the current incarnation of
>CryoSpan) was in Toronto, Canada this week, and I found myself
>arguing with him over the value of nanotechnology.

We were *discusing*, not arguing.  It seems to turn out that every
conversation that I have with Ben appears as an argument to onlookers
because Ben tends to attack, and not fully listen to, almost
everything I say which is the least controversial.  If Ben thinks that
I was aruguing with him, then all I can say is he better watch out
when I am arguing :).
In addition, we were discusing not the value of nanotechnology in
general, but only its value in relationship to the success of
cryonics.

>   Paul expressed the view that the concept of nanotechnology does
>damage to the cryonics movement. He went so far as to say that the
>nanotech idea may even have done more harm than good.

I said that Nanotechnology has some negative effects for cryonics. 
And because of Nanotechnology, if an evaluation of the negative and
positive effects of the nanotech idea for the success of cryonics were
possible such an evaluation might show overall harm.

> When I raised
>the issue of the importance of repair capabilities, he countered that
>biotechnology may well do the job.  And he went so far as to say that
>what is valuable about nanotechnology will come about inevitably from
>scientists other than K. Eric Drexler and Ralph Merkle.

All I meant is that I believe that scientific progress in biology is
growing so quickly that it will swamp, and certainly be unguided by,
anything that Drexler, Merkle and the Forsight Institute may do. 
Furthermore, I believe that it is most likely that things will turn
out completely different than they are predicting.  The norm for
scientific revolutions is that where they go and how they turn out is
unpredictable on a time-scale which is related to the rate of growth
of the underlying knowledge base.  My guess is that this is about 20
years for current biotechnological science.

>   In my opinion, these arguments are more the product of
>psychological reaction than of a balanced view of reality.

I think that after reading this line, an irate phone call was totally
in order.  I have worked all my life to take a balanced, consistent
view of all aspects of reality, trying extremely hard to ferret out
and eradicate all bias and unanalysed values, and I pride myself that
I have succeeded in making myself a consistent whole.  To me this
sentence was the ultimate insult.  It struck at the very essense of my
being.

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