X-Message-Number: 2744
Subject: CRYONICS: Disagreements, Misunderstandings, etc.
From:  (Ben Best)
Date: 	Thu, 12 May 1994 01:17:00 -0400


         DISAGREEMENTS, MISUNDERSTANDINGS AND BAD FEELINGS

    After having completed an exchange with Mike Darwin over my
Nanotechnology CRYOMSG, I was upset to see Paul Wakfer's angry reply.
It can be extremely frustrating to be misunderstood, especially when
one has made particular attempts to be clear. Paul and I are now
evidently both feeling this way. I find this particularly upsetting
because I think of Paul as a personal friend. Moreover, he is a person
of exceptional idealism, commitment and ability. I don't think people
in the cryonics community have a very good appreciation of the positive
contributions this man has made -- and will make.

    In the communication of any message, misunderstanding can result
from one or two causes: garbling by the sender or garbling by the
receiver. When confronted with evidence of a garbled message, many
senders reflexly blame the receiver. In my opinion, it is a cardinal
principle of human relationships to take responsibility for correcting
the miscommunication. Moreover, it is of greater value to concentrate
on correcting the miscommunication, rather than to concentrate on who
is to blame for the miscommunication. The latter is not likely to result
improved communication -- and is very likely to lead to bad feelings.

    I believe the actual disagreements I have with Paul are relatively
minor compared with the amount of misunderstanding and bad feelings that
have been stirred-up. Re-examining what I said, I will try to guess
where the problems arise.

    Paul said that I set up a "straw man" and knocked it over. That may
be true, but I did not mean to imply that the "straw man" was to be
identified with Paul Wakfer or anyone else -- quite the contrary. My
point was that no practicing cryonicist can consistently take the
extreme anti-repair viewpoint. And, moreover, that the issues are not
altered one iota by substituting an alternate repair technology for
nanotechnology. Faith in "Biotechnology" could as easily lead to lack
of interest in improved preservation techniques as faith in
"Nanotechnology". To practice cryonics today, it is necessary to believe
that SOME repair technology is possible -- and this NECESSARILY entails
the danger of such smug faith in that repair capability that little
concern is given to improved preservation.

   Paul acknowledges the value of the idea of cell repair technologies
for "those nascent cryonicists who were having trouble imagining any
extrapolation of current technologies which could result in the
possibility of repair for the freezing damage which we knew were
occurring during current methods of cryopreservation". But this "trouble
imagining" not only affects "nascent cryonicists", it affects at least
95% of the scientific establishment who dismiss cryonics as being
pseudo-science. These people cannot get it through their thick heads
that ANY repair is possible.

    When I expressed the opinion that the anti-nanotechnology arguments
of cryonicists "are more the product of psychological reaction than of a
balanced view of reality", this is what I was referring-to. I believe
that a balanced view of reality acknowledges that the major obstacle
preventing established scientists from giving any credibility to the
cryonics idea is their refusal to consider repair scenarios. What I
meant by "psychological reaction" is the attitude of professional
cryonicists, whose main attention is focused on influencing other
cryonicists -- rather than on influencing noncryonicists. Suggesting
that current cryonics methods might not be preserving the biological
basis of consciousness might be a way of convincing cryonicists to
support research, but it will only convince noncryonicists that cryonics
is bunk.

    I am very disturbed that Paul took my remark to be "the ultimate
insult". I did mean to express the opinion that Paul is mistaken about
something. If I think he is mistaken about one point, that does not mean
he is not correct about a lot of other things -- including things about
which I have recognized my own mistakes. I too have worked long and hard
to "ferret out and erradicate all bias and unanalyzed values", but I
still have biases and unanalyzed values. The goldfish swimming in a bowl
of blue water thinks that the world is blue. We cannot escape our skin
without losing our life.

                   -- Ben Best (ben.best%)

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2744