X-Message-Number: 30303
From: Mark Plus <>
Subject: Implicit meanings
Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 06:52:55 -0800

In Cryonet #30299, Charles Platt writes,


>Nanotech is no less feasible today than 20 years ago. The "rush" (some would 
say, "crawl") toward vitrification is just a matter of commonsense and ethics.


That doesn't mean nanotech has gotten any MORE feasible. Charles's statement 
reminds me of the pain reliever commercials which put in the disclaimer, "No 
pain reliever has been proven more effective than Product X," which logically 
allows that Product X, like similar products, may not work at all.


>No one knows how difficult it will be to repair ice damage, or how many extra 
years in a Dewar this will entail, waiting for the techniques to be developed. 
No one knows if significant expense will be involved. Therefore, it would be 
foolish to bet your life on these possibilities.


Out of context, this sounds like something a cryonics skeptic like Michael 
Shermer would write. 


The pamphlet for Suspended Animation's conference last year, which I imagine 
Charles helped to write, describes its purpose as follows:

http://www.suspendedinc.com/conference/SA_conference.pdf


>We will provide information about the most ambitious research plan in the 
history of cryobiology, describing stage one of an unprecedented effort to 
achieve reversible whole-body vitrification *without the need for cell repair 
via nanotechnology*. [Emphasis added.]


To me this sounds a lot like, "Jeez, we've probably backed the wrong horse in 
the futurist technology race. We've got to improve cryonic suspensions up front,
and fast!, because this nanotech stuff may never work."


Considering all the other no-show technological marvels forecasted for the 21st 
Century, I don't have a problem admitting the possiblity that Drexlerian 
nanotechnology looks like another paleo-futurist mirage.


Brain vitrification, by contrast, at least has the merit of current laboratory 
demonstrations. It has a better chance today of finding a home in empirical, 
scientific medicine than speculations about cell repair machines which nobody 
has built.


"Around 2010 the world will be at a new orbit in history. . .  Life expectancy 
will be indefinite. Disease and disability will nonexist. Death wll be rare and 
accidental -- but not permanent. We will continuously jettison our obsolescence 
and grow younger." F.M. Esfandiary, "Up-Wing Priorities" (1981).

Mark Plus
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