X-Message-Number: 27418
From: 
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2005 01:44:47 EST
Subject: A series of book reviews

A series of book reviews
By Steve Bridge
December 7, 2005

Sometimes it happens that we pick up books in a fortunate order, and this 
happened to me recently.  Or perhaps it was just my prepared mind that made me 
find a fortunate order in these books.  In any case, the way they fit together 
was fascinating to me, and I think most CryoNet readers will find at least one 
of these books to be essential reading.

I started this sequence with the non-fiction bestseller, *Blink* by Malcolm 
Gladwell (Little, Brown, 2004). Gladwell is the author of the equally 

fascinating *The Tipping Point*, which I had recommended to many people several 
years 

ago.  *The Tipping Point* was a study of why some ideas become popular and some
don't and had many insights useful to cryonicists trying to figure out how to 
move cryonics beyond the fringes.

*Blink* is a study of what we often call "intuition," that mysterious certain 
and sudden knowledge we sometimes have that a person is very bad or that a 
situation is dangerous or that a certain decision is the right one.  And this 
"knowledge" seems to bypass the usual logic circuits of the brain, instead 

happening within the "blink" of an eye.  Gladwell shows many examples both of 
when 
this intuition is right and when it is wrong -- and shows the differences in 
the process.  One of the most fascinating insights for me is how people use 
this knowledge under pressure.  Apparently there is evidence that when people 

under stress allow their heart rate to increase to between 115 and 145 beats per
minute, stress *improves* performance.  The outside world appears to slow down 
and seconds can feel like minutes, with plenty of time to make the right 

decision.  However, if the person becomes too aroused and the heart rates climb

much above 145, then the cognitive functions of the brain begin to close off and
the midbrain takes over, leading to the person becoming both more aggressive 
and less coordinated.  To people who have had EMT training or have been 
involved in stressful cryopreservations, this makes perfect sense.  

While there are several fascinating anecdotes and insights in the book, one 
other will have to suffice for now.  A study of doctors and patients has 

discovered the fascinating fact that there is absolutely no relationship between
the 
number of mistakes a physician makes and the number of times he is sued for 

malpractice.  The only confirmed relationship with malpractice lawsuits is with
the manner in which physicians *talk* with their patients.  If patients feel 
they can trust and communicate with their doctor, they are less likely to sue 
him even if he messes up; while a physician who treats his patients poorly and 
doesn't listen to them is much more likely to be sued, even if it was someone 
else's mistake.  This is probably true for nearly every profession and is 
certainly relevant to cryonics -- treat your customers well so they trust you.

The one thing missing from the book was an explanation of what brain 

circuitry could possibly be used for this super-quick intuition that seems to 
bypass 
the normal pathways.  Gladwell had apparently not read another book published 
several years earlier which offered an explanation -- *Phantoms in the Brain* 
by V.S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee (Wm. Morrow, 1998).  Which just 

happened to be the next book I picked up off a table at the library.  
Ramachandran 
is an M.D. neuroscientist much in the vein of Oliver Sacks.  He is a man who 
looks at unusual brain phenomenon and instead of just saying, "How curious," 
instead asks questions like "What does this pathology tell us about the normal 
working of the brain?" and "what does this tell us about being human?"

The title of the book refers to Ramachandran's fascination with the topic of 
"phantom limbs" -- the sensation in amputees that the missing limb is still 

there and in pain or perhaps paralyzed.  He provides an original explanation of
the phenomenon and discusses treatments he has attempted.  This is fascinating 
in itself, but what really caught me was his discussion of two kinds of 
visual pathway in the brain.  "Messages from the eyeballs go through the optic 

nerve  and immediately bifurcate along two pathways -- one phylogenetically old

and a second, newer pathway that is most highly developed in primates, including
humans.  The "new" pathway goes through the visual cortex, and the "old" 

pathway travels to the brain stem before moving on to higher cortical areas in 
the 
parietal lobes."  The old system appears to control many reflexes, such as 
the one that makes you duck when something is thrown at you, before you can 
intellectually decide if it is a piece of paper or a knife.  It fits almost 
exactly the phenomena described by Gladwell.

Ramachandran ends his book with the clearest discussion of the problem of 
"qualia" that I have seen.  Qualia have been discussed heavily by Bob Ettinger 
and Mike Perry, among others, here on CryoNet; but I think I understand the 
discussion better now.  For new CryoNet readers, the riddle of qualia might be 
summarized as one of the most basic in philosophy and neuroscience -- how do a 

few billion cells with flowing ions and electrical currents create a subjective
world, a sense of a self which is separate and different from the rest of the 
world?

Then surprisingly the next book I picked up dealt with that issue -- a 

science fiction book by award-winning writer Robert J. Sawyer, *Mindscan* (Tor,

2005).  The subject is dear to the hearts of many CryoNet writers -- a technique
has been invented to do a scan of a person's mind and to upload a nearly 
immortal copy of that mind into an android body with no need to eat, drink, or 
breathe and which is close to indestructible.  Since the technique is 

non-destructive, the original "meat" model still remains, so the legal and 
social mores of 
the time have forced the company which invented this technique to only use it 
on terminally-ill patients who have opted to undergo the treatment -- and who 
can pay for it.  Having two individuals, one biological and one "artificial," 
each claiming to be the same person, would be way past inconvenient.  So the 

terminal patients are moved to the moon after the new version is created, there
to live out their last few days in comparative comfort.

Jake Sullivan has a terminal condition, although he is only forty-four.  He 
chooses to undergo the scan without really thinking things through.  Prior to 

the scan, he thinks of himself only as the android continuation, when of course
he is *both*.  The rest of the book follows, alternately, both continuations 
of Jake, both of whom are not quite prepared for the results.  Jake the 

android discovers that his old girlfriend is totally freaked out by his 
non-human 
body, while biological Jake discovers he is wildly jealous at the thought that 
this other guy pretending to be him would be making time with his girlfriend.  
Jake's mother is also reluctant to accept the change and wants to write 

android Jake out of her will.  And then biological Jake discovers that his 
condition 
has just been made *curable* and that he doesn't have to die.  So who is the 
real Jake?  Can the android Jake have a subjective life, a "qualia," when his 
brain is not quite "human?"  Sawyer's conclusion is not at all what I would 

have predicted and not how I would have written the ending.  But that's a *good*
thing, because it made me think about the ideas more carefully.  We have 
could have pretty strong arguments about the ending here, I am sure.  

At this point, I moved way back into the past for a retelling of the ancient 
story of Beowulf, a mythic tale of Britain.  Beowulf is a great hero called 

upon to defeat a family of supernatural creatures.  Myth is important to us all.
  It forms the stories we tell about ourselves and our culture, about the 

images that define who we are, and more importantly, who we want to be seen as.
A culture's mythic stories of gods, heroes, and wars, clever tricksters, wise 
thinkers, beautiful mothers, and pure redeemers tell us much about the 

particulars of that people, just as those stories cemented facets of that 
culture in 
place for its adults and the children.   

Our own "modern" culture has not put aside mythology, although we fool 

ourselves into calling it fiction or media reporting or stories about work or 
home.  
Although some of the particulars change over the millennia, our stories of 

pride and humility, greed and charity, heroism and cowardice, passion, lust, and
revenge would be as recognizable to the Ancient Greeks as their stories are 
to us today.  

And never think that mythology has no place in modern cryonics.  The history 
of cryonics has its own tales of heroic rescues, spectacular failures, heroes 
and villains, pride and passion, wise men, salesmen, and fools.  I have heard 
tales that make Bob Nelson or Bob Ettinger or Mike Darwin or Curtis Henderson 
or Carlos Mondragon (and many others, including myself) as the hero or the 
villain of the same story, depending on who was telling it.  We have built our 

own subculture here on CryoNet, in Michigan, California, Arizona, and New York.
As a group we define ourselves as a heroic culture, doing battle with death 
itself.

I have told many stories of my own experiences with suspensions, cryonics 

battles, and exciting nights in the lab.  I like to think that I am the one with
the best point of view on these events; but to some large extent, of course, 
this is my own personal mythology, subconsciously told to fix my place in the 
world, to fix my relationships with others, and to tell myself that doing this 
job of cryonics has mythic importance.  You all do the same, and to pretend 
you don't is to deny yourself a major understanding of your own human nature. 

Finally, I ended this progression of books with the best book about the human 
future that I have read in several years.  Washington Post reporter Joel 

Garreau has written the challenging *Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of
Enhancing our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What it Means to be Human* (Doubleday, 
2005).    Garreau takes on nothing less than "The Singularity" -- that 

predicted moment when the rate and volume of change in society and in the 
increase in 
knowledge has taken such a steep curve that our everyday world stops making 
sense.  In this scenario, we cannot predict what is on the other side; linear 

extrapolation makes no sense at all.  Garreau examines this potential phenomenon
primarily through the ideas of three men deeply concerned with the future, 

and he conducted long interviews with each.  Most of you at least know these men
by their reputations and accomplishments; some of you know them personally: 
Ray Kurzweil, Bill Joy, and Jaron Lanier.  Other well-known futurist thinkers 
are here, too, like Eric Drexler, Vernor Vinge, Gregory Stock, Marvin Minsky, 
Hans Moravec, Francis Fukuyama, Bill McKibben, Nick Bostrom, and others; but 
Kurzweil, Joy, and Lanier provide the framework.

Garreau first shocks his readers with how close DARPA (Defense Advanced 
Research Projects Agency) is to providing the government with a "metabolically 
dominant soldier" who can go for a week without sleep and still make good 

decisions, on a small amount of food and oxygen, with brain interfaces with all 
of his 
guides and weapons.  Then he suggests that similar advances might soon 

thereafter be available to all of us and our children.  Would those children 
still 
be "human beings?"  What would the future be like for those who advanced and 
those who could not or chose not to?  Garreau then describes three versions of 
the future.

He begins with Ray Kurzweil, inventor or major improver of flatbed scanning, 
practical character recognition software, and the first text-to-speech 

synthesizer, among other developments.  Garreau labels Kurzweil's vision of the

future as the "Heaven" scenario, somewhat unfairly, he admits.  In this 
scenario, 
the prediction is that advancing technology will inevitably create "almost 
unimaginably good things, including the conquering of disease and poverty, but 

also an increase in beauty, wisdom, love, truth, and peace."  In this scenario,
humans are "more or less spectators" while technology seems to be in control.

Garreau gets his second set of predictions from Bill Joy.  Joy was one of the 
original architects of the Internet and was later the chief scientist at Sun 
Microsystems.  He might be called the "father of computer networks."  But his 
pessimism over the future of technology in the past several years led Garreau 
to label Joy's unjoyful view of the future as the "Hell" scenario.   Joy's 
view (very over-simplified by me) is that technology will inevitably lead evil 
people on purpose and careless people by accident to create biological and 

technological horrors which will essentially destroy human culture and possibly 
the 
human race.

Garreau's third set of predictions -- his "Prevail" scenario -- is taken from 
the writings and interviews with Jaron Lanier, the inventor of Virtual 

Reality.   Lanier's views are that humans always figure out to "muddle through" 
in 

unpredictable ways, with a remarkable resistance to obliteration.  Human beings
will still shape the impact of technology on human nature and society in 

unpredictable ways.  The success of this scenario and of the human race as a 
whole 
will not depend on increasing the number of links between computer 
processors, but on increasing the number of links between human beings.

I have never read anything by Lanier that I know of, but I found the 

interviews with him inspiring and hopeful.  He is optimistic but his emphasis on
the 
human element of our future culture makes him more realistic (in my opinion) 
than any of the other thinkers profiled in this book.

For those of you who have never read much about "transhumanism" or given much 
thought to future scenarios, the range of possibilities for either great 

success or complete doom may shock you.  Even for the rest of you who have read

and thought a lot about the future of yourselves and of humans in general, there
is great benefit in the way Garreau lays out the arguments and forces you to 
think just what "being human" means now and in the future.

Now, go read a book.
Steve Bridge


 Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"

[ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=27418