X-Message-Number: 31250
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 11:19:41 -0500
From: "Charles Platt" <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #31244 - #31247
References: <>

>    #31246: The lame Alienation Objection to cryonics. [Mark Plus]

As an immigrant myself, who started over in a completely new place at
the age of 25, I used to share Mark's dismissal of the challenge posed
by alienation. But then I thought more about the issue of cellular
repair. If you conclude (as I do) that AIs with greater-than-human
intelligence will be needed for this task, you must also conclude, I
think, that the future will be qualitatively different from our
present to such an extreme, alienation does become a more significant
problem.

If you do not believe that greater-than-human intelligence will be
needed for the task, then you have to explain why we do not already
have automated repair capability on the macro scale, after many
decades in which it could have been developed. If I can ever hand over
a crashed car, for instance, to some repair robots and receive it back
from them in new condition a few days later, I may be a little more
receptive to the idea of similar devices tackling the infinitely more
difficult task of repairing a human brain.

Of course if we can achieve zero-damage preservation of cryonics
patients, this argument disappears. But I don't expect that within my
natural lifetime.

Charles Platt

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