X-Message-Number: 346
From att!compuserve.com!73647.1215 Mon May 27 19:09:36 EDT 1991
Date: 27 May 91 18:38:59 EDT
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
To: <>
Subject: some comments
Message-Id: <"910527223858 73647.1215 EHA42-1"@CompuServe.COM>

Hi everyone!
I know it's been some time since I last got online (to this forum, at
least). My net node is still as ridiculous as before. But I had a few
comments to make that I thought I'd share.

1. "DEATH IS NECESSARY TO EVOLUTION"
Many of us will have heard this claim or variations of it. While I also
have an answer to it, I think one class of answers simply fails. The
class I refer to begins by: "and we'll have so much control over nature
and ourselves that we will escape evolution entirely ..." --- or again,
variations of this idea. Brian Wowk came out with the last version.

The reason it fails is that evolution is a consequence of nonequilibrium
thermodynamics rather than "life". No matter how and of what we choose
to build ourselves, we remain subject to physical law and its results.

However there's a flaw in the reasoning of the title which may interest
many on this forum. The issue is: JUST WHAT is it that does the evolving?
That is, what are the UNITS that are selected for/against? Biologists
haven't ignored this question and for a fascinating discussion of the
issue I'd recommend LW Buss "The Evolution of Individuality".

So here is what I think will happen. Presently we individual human beings
are the units of selection (uncomfortable!). No law says that we must
remain so; and in fact, if we make a practice of modifying ourselves and
our genes (or any other practice involving transmission) then we will 
cease to be units of selection. Sure, we can still look like people. But
something fundamental would have changed: our genes themselves, so long
as they form compatible families, would have become these units. (I also
can't fail the notice the idea of "memes", which Keith has so vigorously
promoted. So long as those memes must exist in some kind of material
receptacle (us?) which does NOT start self-modifying its specifications,
that receptacle will remain as a unit of selection.

2. "SO BACKWARD THAT WE MAY AS WELL THROW IT AWAY AND BUILD ANOTHER"
My comments here relate to my previous comment. They also bring in other
matters, too. If we are revived at time T, when many people may have
changed themselves greatly, I think it helps to remember that these 
people were once very much like us. We don't have to SUDDENLY turn into
one of their kind. Part of revival, (perhaps especially for someone who
has waited a long time for revival) would consist of our going through
(perhaps with a guide) the same sequence of changes which people had
gone through in the t hundred years since our suspension. Or, as some
biologists said in the past: "Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny".

3. "WHEN NANOTECHNOLOGY COMES..."
This comment is a tangent more or less unrelated to the others. It
has consistently disturbed me that many cryonicists, particularly those
using the above phrase or its variations, speak about cryonics in very
much the way 19th century born-again Christians might speak about the
Millenium. I've heard a lot about nanotechnology, but just what is this
Nanotechnology which is supposed to be coming? (The Christians, of course,
had a different word for it. But that's OK. Just change the words and 
what do you have?).

Would Eric Klien or some other exponent of this world view (theology?)
explain in simple terms just what this Nanotechnology is? And please
note the capital letter: as I said, I already know a lot about the 
uncapitalized form.

For instance, I had a very strange experience not long ago. Someone who
(I think) is a Believer claimed that when Nanotechnology came, the
tiny critters could be used to cure cancer. When I pointed out that 
almost the same thing, and to the same effect, was happening now by experi-
mental treatments in which lymphocytes were modified and cultured up in 
large number to attack a patient's cancer, he seemed not to notice,
shrugging it off with the statement that Nanotechnology will do much more.

				Best and Long life
					Thomas

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=346