X-Message-Number: 28512
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 12:35:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: faith and cryonics

Brian Wowk's message suggests that we have a choice between
two perceptions of cryonics: As a form of faith, or as an
evidence-based area of science.

I think it is not so simple. We can satify both needs
simultaneously, and this is not a bad thing.

In primitive cultures, medicine was inextricably mixed with
faith. The healer was a shaman whose rituals were seen to be
at least as important as any herbal remedies he might use.

Today's medical profession is ostensibly free from such
nonsense, yet of course it isn't. Patients still speak of
having "faith in my doctor," and the medical profession
doesn't really try very hard to get rid of its special aura.

We expect a certain "look and feel" in a good medical
facility, just as we expect a high-end lawyer's office to
look a certain way. None of this has anything to do with
evidence-based science yet people find it emotionally
important. Right or wrong, there is a component of faith in
most people's attitude toward modern medicine, especially
where it depends on principles that they cannot understand
(nuclear magnetic resonance, for instance).

Likewise in the case of, say, molecular nanotech, we can
argue the case for it upward from first principles, as Ralph
Merkle has done, or we can simply say "Future science should
be able to fix just about anything," and leave it at
that. More commonly we meet people in whom both of these
outlooks coexist in varying proportions.

I see nothing wrong with learning from religions or any other
irrational source, if it helps to make cryonics look more
appealing--so long as the procedures are still
evidence-based, of course.

Currently in Florida we are installing lighting in a rescue
vehicle. I chose banks of white LEDs, partly because they are
extremely efficient, especially when wired in a series-
parallel configuration from a 12-volt DC source. Also however
their purplish "spectral glow," coupled with white textured
panelling and brushed aluminum strips, looks really cool. I
don't think this is a bad thing, even though it has very
little to do with the processes we apply.

I also believe that ritual and totems have a place in
cryonics. Indeed, I would argue that Alcor's stainless steel
emergency bracelets function primarily as a totem. I know
someone who was tempted to join Alcor just to get a bracelet,
and would have done so if the cost was lower. The fact that a
bracelet is much more than a bracelet was confirmed to me
when I saw the very emotional reaction in someone whose
friend cut off his bracelet in a moment of anger.

So long as we are fallible human beings, we will have
emotional needs, and services that satisfy those needs will
be more successful than those which don't. Cryonics might do
better if we paid a bit more attention to this. I have always
felt, for instance, that there should be some kind of ritual
statement when a patient is first immersed in liquid
nitrogen.

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=28512