X-Message-Number: 8787
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 1997 10:33:21 -0800
From: Peter Merel <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #8780 - #8784

Charles Platt writes,

>I don't know whether the skeptics would react in the manner that Steve 
>describes if we were able to demolish their skepticism. But there is only 
>one way to find out; and that is by making the procedure more plausible. 
>The only way I can see of doing that is by demonstrating reversible 
>cryopreservation.

It seems to me that there is a way to test this, though not quite the
way we'd prefer. I'm thinking in the context of social psychology 
experiments, something like Stanley Milgram's work. This would require
a small parcel of funds and/or some interested researchers, and it would
go something like this:

College students, as part of their psych course, are required to do a certain
number of hours as a social psych experimental subject. We tell these students
that we're conducting a test of their ability to extract numerical data from
a verbal presentation. We take two groups of such students and spend an hour
presenting them with the present facts about cryonics. The control group are 
told nothing more than the truth, presented as palatably as possible. The
second are told just the same thing, but with a lie embedded in it, that the
prometheus project began fifteen years ago and we can *already* revive 
cryonics patients. A "revived patient" could even be trotted out to explain 
how it felt - "yes, I really didn't think it would work, but here I am. No, I
don't remember anything of the last week before I was frozen. I just kind of
lost two years. My family, though, are so overjoyed to have me back. They
thought I was dead, you see. Lose my soul? If I did, I don't feel any 
different - I still love my children, my wife [... blah blah blah]"

Then the students complete a test on the various numbers described, that
test designed to also test their belief in the presented material and their
level of interest in signing up for cryonics themselves. That's it - the
controls are excused, the test subjects are told gently about the factual
error, and the results are collated according to ages, religions, the
style of the presentation and so on.

This strikes me as a not impossibly expensive way to gauge the issue, and maybe
even one that a social psychologist or two would find an interesting direction
for some research.

Peter Merel.

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