X-Message-Number: 8034
Date:  Wed, 09 Apr 97 21:58:15 
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #8017 - #8024

The thrust of Olaf Henny's argument (#8018) seems
to be that (1) artificially constructed, digital devices are more
sophisticated in their data processing than a natural system such
as the ant, (2) yet they do not have consciousness whereas the
ant does (at a limited level), therefore (3) digital data processing will
never add up to consciousness, "no matter how sophisticated and
complex" it may be. To me this overlooks some possibilities. 

(1) An ant is fairly complex, and it's not clear just how this complexity 
should be evaluated for comparison with a digital device
of our own making. (2) An ant's features, along with those of other 
living things, were crafted by natural selection over a very long 
time, and characteristics such as consiousness are there 
because they are useful in species survival. (3) Our artificial 
devices were made by us over a much shorter time, and we didn't
use the same criteria as nature, e.g. we haven't particularly selected
for devices with a "mind of their own" or something like consciousness,
and especially, the sophisticated response to danger that is seen 
even in insects. 

So to my mind, there is still plenty of room for consciousness to 
develop or be developed in our digital devices--and I would still 
attribute a dim consciousness to some of what we have already 
developed.

Ben Best (#8019) wrote,

>    The most urgent problem is to survive the next 1,000 years. The
> greatest step in this direction will be the elimination of aging and
> the creation of true suspended animation. The achievement of these
> goals are of passionately critical importance. A focus of "Immortality",
> by contrast, represents air-headed distraction from practical issues
> -- as if living 200 years is as much a fantasy as living "forever".
> 
>    It is also of no small practical importance that the people who could
> do the most to destroy the chance of scientific life-extension & suspended
> animation -- ie, religionists -- are VASTLY more infuriated about claims
> that science can achieve immortality than that science can extend life.
> We should stick to the medical model and leave the concern with religion
> & death to the airheads (and avoid waving red flags in front of bulls).
> 

Not everybody should try to do the same thing. Cryonics is not
cosmology. Cosmology and related pursuits 
are really the proper vehicles to approach the question of 
immortality, as opposed to the first step--extending life beyond the
biological limits--which is the focus of cryonics. While we greatly need
people who are working on the technical end of cryonics, I don't think
we would say that there should be no cosmologists or others, exploring
whether true immortality is scientifically possible. Cryonics 
organizations can focus on what they should--cryonics--and leave the 
cosmological questions to those (some of them cryonicists too, like 
myself) with special interest in this area.

The issue Ben raises about"bulls" is possibly a serious one, but 
not confronting these reactionaries could be serious too.
The persistence of supernatural beliefs, and institutions based 
around them, has increasing potential for harm as we come closer to
gaining full control over our biology, harm in the sense of retarding
our progress and suppressing critical research. If we try too much to
soft-pedal our intentions (to try to become more than human and free
of aging and diseases) or our approach (science, not belief in "higher
powers") I can see it backfiring and losing us support and 
converts that we need, as well as prolonging the domination of our 
opponents through the lack of opposition. I don't think cryonics
organizations should be at the forefront in confronting the reactionary
religionists either, but someone should, and not just the 
"expendable" noncryonicist. 

I liked Steve Bridge's posting (#8023)--certainly we
need to show more evidence that cryonics will work--and I'm also
glad that Jan Coetzee made it through his surgery.

Mike Perry

http://www.alcor.org

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