X-Message-Number: 31558
References: <>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:18:30 -0700 (PDT)
From: 2Arcturus <>
Subject: cryonics as science

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"Doing science" or "being scientific" doesn't require one to know what one's 
results will be, but saying something IS science, requires that one knows it. 
Science comes from a Latin word meaning simply "knowledge" and it has come to 
characterize the empirically verified body of knowledge we have.


The scientific *method* employs hypotheses to arrive at knowledge, but a 
hypothesis is not a scientific fact. In fact, the scientific method depends on 
distinguishing hypotheses from empirically verified theory.


Let's say -- 'There might be alien life on Europa' -- there is a hypothesis, and
a falsifiable one. But it is not a scientific fact. The life forms on Europa, 
if there are any, are not yet part of scientific knowledge. As a hypothesis, it 
is tractable, since Europa can be explored and investigated empirically (though 
at great cost & difficulty). But one could also hypothesize there is NO life on 
Europa. Neither hypothesis would be part of scientific knowledge. Many 
researchers chasing a hypothesis might be doing so because to them it seems 
'probable', but without any relevant evidence, how does one calculate the 
probability?


When scientists are asked about cryonics, they are bound to make certain 
observations. One, is that no one who is cryopreserved can be resuscitated *now*
-- but that "now" is not an arbitrary limitation. It is required by science 
progressing through empirical experiment. If it has not been determined now, in 
a sense, then it is not *known* for sure. So even though resuscitation might be 
possible someday, a scientist has to clarify it is not known now how to do it. 
There is also no reason to be certain that it *will* be known how to do it 
someday, as if one could surely predict it based on other known phenomena today.
So the future possibility of resuscitation from cryonics is also unknown - it 
is not a scientific fact. (Unless one could make a very strong quantifiable case
for predictable progress in science of a particular kind, something like Ray 
Kurzweil attempted to do in The Singularity is Near. I am not sure he was 
successful, though.)


But resuscitation from cryopreservation, of course, is just the tip of the 
iceberg of what would be necessary to be able to do to make cryonics worthwhile.
There are also the pesky problems of rejuvenation and repair/cure/treatment of 
all possible illnesses and conditions. So cryonics depends not just on one 
unknown, but an entire stack of unknowns piled on top of each other. Each one 
amplifies the critical doubt science requires us to have. (There remains even 
the doubt that cryopreservation is preserving what would be necessary to 
resuscitate a person mentally intact even *in theory*, though this doubt isn't 
quite as huge as the other doubts).


Then there is the experimental/investigational intractability of cryonics. 
21CM's approach to testing reversal of vitrification of major organs and complex
animals is probably the right direction, but it is so far at very preliminary 
stages and has not come anywhere close attempting to reverse cryopreservation of
humans, which, as I said before, is just one hurdle of many required for 
cryonics to be thoroughly vindicated.


So I would argue that, though reversible cryopreservation might someday become 
science, it is (present tense) not now science. Believing in any future 
achievement of science (or any future condition of the world) is not in itself 
scientific. It is not necessarily anti-scientific, though. One could argue it is
at least a hypothesis falsifiable by waiting long enough (but how long is long 
enough?), but again, that would still make it epistemologically unknown, from a 
scientific perspective.


So I would say belief that cryopreservation will be reversible in the future 
(along with all the rejuvenation and disease-reversing) is a belief in what the 
future of science and medicine/technology will be; it is confidence in a kind of
progress and belief in a certain sort of future (for science and the world) 
that is not itself strictly scientific, or even a hypothesis except by 
stretching that word beyond its usual scientific applications. It makes a lot of
assumptions, any one of which could someday be proven to be mistaken. And if 
one can't quantify the probability based on empirically known things, then it is
more akin to a 'hunch', of the sort that is very useful in science in creating 
testable theories and hypotheses. But what one believes as a hunch is not what 
one knows as a fact.


I just think we need to be very careful in the epistemological status of 
cryonics, esp when it comes to the boundaries of science and medicine. There is 
a reason why doctors and scientists dismiss cryonics (even if they consider it a
remote, tantalizing possibility), because of the very clear grounding they have
in their practice and the nature of what they would consider usable knowledge. 
(There are additional obstacles between cryonics and medicine, but I won't go 
into it here.)



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