X-Message-Number: 7376
From: 
Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 11:42:20 -0500
Subject: For Anatole Dolinoff

Anatole Dolinoff, despite his long and distinguished career in promoting and
defending cryonics,  has recently (Dec. 28) and at other times said
essentially that he has no good ammunition against critics who cite the
damage done by freezing and the lack of success so far in reviving large
organs of frozen mammals.

He has also repeatedly said that "Nobody knows if the chances [of successful
revival of people frozen by current methods] are equal to zero."

Looking first at this last statement, in my opinion it is not correct. We
must carefully distinguish between the "possible" and the "probable." 

One could correctly say that we do not know whether revival is possible, in
the sense that the laws of nature permit it. We CANNOT say that the
probability (or chance) of success is zero, because probability relates to
the state of knowledge of the observer. The "probability" of an event is zero
ONLY if we KNOW FOR SURE that it cannot happen. (I leave aside certain
refinements of measure theory.) Since we DO NOT know for sure that revival
must fail, its probability is not zero. (In fact, I have published reasons to
believe it is closer to unity--certainty--than to zero.)

And this brings us back to Anatole's pessimism about offering persuasive
arguments to skeptics (not all of whom, we emphatically note, are unfriendly
toward our goals). In my opinion, he makes the mistake of letting them set
the agenda. They simply say, in effect: "This project is extremely difficult,
and we don't see how it could be done. Therefore anyone who involves himself
in it must be crazy."

The correct answer, of course (or one of them), is the one we have always
given, with varying degrees of skill--certainly the difficulty is extreme,
but the potentialities of future technology are also extreme. We can use the
broad-gauge, common-sense view of past achievements, and past croppers of the
pessimists; or we can use more specific, detailed arguments such as Ralph
Merkle has done so well.

It doesn't pay to be diffident in public discussions, to be seen as lacking
confidence. We do NOT  of course want to say, or seem to say, anything
scientifically incorrect or anything in any way misleading. But we DO need to
make our points with cheerful confidence, not conceding anything to a
skeptic's alleged credentials. When we're right, we're right, no matter how
many Professors say we are wrong. The "uncertain trumpet" will just not rally
the troops.

It also helps a great deal if we can point to research progress and catch the
skeptics in factual errors, as we have often done.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society


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