X-Message-Number: 7261
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #7252 - #7254
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 23:55:01 -0800 (PST)

Hi again!

More on honesty and its difficulties:

Well, I do have great respect for Bob Ettinger, and he should know that. And
I do not claim here to have a solution to the problems I bring up. However,
if we are going to think about such things as honesty without bias or
prejudice: it seems to me that Bob's discussion suffers from a bit of 
circularity. Not completely, but a bit. How is it that we are to be proven
wrong? Sure, someone may admit that he is wrong, but that should come as
a result of some event or series of events which show him to be wrong, and
that issue dumps us into the problem of just how that might happen.

Kuhn's book THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS raises issues here which
are very appropriate. Say I believe in phlogiston. My belief isn't just a
simple thing such as a belief that my banker does not lie, cheat or steal.
The theory of phlogiston itself affects the way I judge chemical experiments
and decide what to look for in them and what to ignore. It is part of how
I interpret every event I experience. Am I then being dishonest if I fail
to see something which someone who believes in combustion sees very clearly?
And if I am to change my mind, just at what point do I do so?

Kuhn writes of scientific REVOLUTIONS, which he says very clearly are NOT
the same as the ordinary practise of science. For the ordinary practise of
science, simple honesty may very well be a good enough test. There is usually
no real doubt about how an experiment is to be interpreted. Yet that also
cannot be the whole of science and its practise. That is my problem.

As for values, they have a funny character. Sure, sociobiology tells us that
our drives have a biological origin, with lots of overlay because we are
intelligent. Yet many people would say that just because we want something,
or even want it AND have lots of scientific justification for wanting it,
that does not imply that we "should" have it. Sure, we can criticise 
someone's values because they are vague or inconsistent, but what grounds
can we use to criticise a fully consistent, explicit system? When Bob
completes his work, I'm sure it will be both fully consistent and explicit;
but that then raises a simple issue: is there, then, only one possible
such system? How do we choose between two such systems, other than by
using our own values (which might belong to a 3rd, or might be one or the
other)? It is certainly not enough to equate the values nature has given
us with those we should have.

To Dr Visser:

Perhaps I did not catch Bill Seidel's comments. I find your own message
hard to understand. I will say, as someone who is NOT privy to your own
work but who would very much like to be, I eagerly await its publication,
wherever it might be published. AT the same time, as someone who has read
a lot about cryobiology, and followed it for the last 20 years, I know that
disappointing things can happen. I sincerely hope that does not happen with
your own work, but then you yourself must know that the universe is cruel
and delights in fooling us... and sometimes in making us look foolish, too.

When your work is published, I would like offprints of the paper, at least,
and you can contact me at my email address () for where
to send it.

			Long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson


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