X-Message-Number: 3989
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #3982 - #3987
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 13:16:10 -0800 (PST)



Hi again!

1. To Ralph Merkle: as I have pointed out several times, and you as a competent
   mathematician/computer scientist should understand at once (even if our 
   audience does not!) you have NOT proven that cracking will always be 
   repairable, or even repairable in most cases. You have waved a possible 
   proof around in front of your audience, but no one who understands would 
   call it a proof. Not only that, but alluding to freeze-fracturing (the 
   microscopic technique) has little bearing on the effect of cryonic
   suspension, which is not done at all the same way.

   But thank you for clarifying your attitude about current cryonics research
   into improving our methods.

2. A lot of the questions Mr. Horley asks HAVE been asked, not necessarily by
   cryonicists (who have suffered from the lack of money to do the needed 
   experiments for a long time). In fact, I don't know of one which hasn't been
   asked. I don't know of any good single source on this question, however. If
   your nearest university library takes CRYOBIOLOGY (not all of them do!) you
   might just start browsing in it.

   I'll also say that there's a good review of cryobiology and brains in the 
   Alcor publication CRYONICS:REACHING FOR TOMORROW. It also, of course, argues
   that Alcor is the cryonics society to join, but at the time that review was
   written very little work BY CRYONICISTS on brain and nerve tissue freezing
   had happened.

3. To Mr. Clark: yes, it looks to me like what I said WAS a key point. To 
   start with, please give a careful definition of what you mean by "symbol".
   And on the way, how does it happen that (since we are animals) we think 
   in symbols while other animals do not? And if there was some kind of 
   transition, when did it take place?

   Finally, although this is a matter I rank as subsidiary, the reason why 
   I do not accept an "explanation" on the line of "it's just that we can do 
   better than evolution, folks!" is that it really doesn't explain anything.
   Besides, which, even an elementary scrutiny suggests that "better" is an
   awfully vague word for ANY kind of explanation. Just how do we decide X is
   better than Y? And if we are to attribute a use of this relation to nature
   in general (which I do not --- and anyone who really thinks about evolution
   should not either) then just how does nature decide that X is better than Y?

   I would say that without a real explanation for any of the "devices" we see
   in nature, we haven't even understood our own devices. But perhaps I'm
   extreme there.

   In any case, please define "symbol".

			Long long life to all,

				Thomas
 



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