X-Message-Number: 9114 Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 01:25:46 -0800 From: Paul Wakfer <> Subject: Omnibus Reply References: <> In Croymsg 9085, Berrie Staring wrote: >Paul: I think it's the other way around: There is a beautiful future >coming, let's grab it, and if you "might miss it" we have a tool called >suspend animation, that give's you the opportunity (not the certainty) >that we will revive you in this future.................. Berrie, you don't have to convince *me* that "there is a beautiful future coming", but to gain more certainty of success, you *do* have to convince *many* others. *This* is what has proven to be so difficult. Don't forget that we are barely out of a period several decades long, when most people thought that nuclear holocaust was very likely to end civilization or worse, all life on earth. We are constantly bombarded by doomsdayers of one ilk or another: global warming, destruction of the ozone, energy scarcity, water scarcity, over population, depleted soil, highly communicable deadly viruses, cometary collisions, etc, etc. Hell, even the enormous number of science fiction fans don't believe or expect that anything of the sort they read about is ever actually going to happen. For 99% of them sci-fi is pure escapism as shown by how poor cryonics recruiting is among them. I have no argument that selling a "beautiful future" is something that we should continue to do in order to continue to attract the small numbers of people for whom that works. We should also try to sell the "beautiful future" by trying to explain its possibilities, demystify them, and make them less scary for people, as you say. You can also attempt to guide things a bit as the Foresight Institute thinks that they can do for nanotechnology. However, I haven't much optimism for this approach. I would prefer to put my efforts into a small but, I believe, achievable step in that direction. My alternative and more direct solution to the problem of the credibility of our particular product, is to take the most credible but essential part of what we need and sell that for the least radical of its applications. I believe that this means that our best efforts should now be placed behind promotion of perfected suspended animation for the purpose of allowing people to live their full natural lifespan. I do not believe that reaching a "beautiful future" is what most people are after now or ever will be. In fact, I believe what you stated for cloning, is true for most technological marvels on the horizon. Most people are *afraid* of that beautiful future and would much rather have things stay as they are (or even better, as they were they were under age 30). No. What they want is to simply remain alive and in good health so that they can continue to enjoy socializing with their friends and relatives, and to interface with a world that they are used to. In Cryomsg 9068, John Pietrzak wrote: >The question is, however, are those being helped by cryopreservation >today actually being helped? Without a bit more knowledge of what >damage it causes, and how important that damage is, we can't answer >that question. It may be the case that some information is being >permanently destroyed; if true, no future science can remedy that. And again in Cryomsg 9090: >The problem is, suspended animation doesn't work right now, >and I can't even tell whether the entry into cryonic suspension is good >enough yet. I need answers, and I'm just not getting them. I want to strongly support these statements. Several people wrote that John was "detracting" from cryonics and implied that he was saying that it was questionable whether one should get cryopreserved if one was dying *today*. However, I am certain that is *not* what he was saying at all (we have been having private email discussions). A couple of days ago, I had what I thought was a profound insight, but one which it seems everyone missed. What I stated was that the question of whether to get suspended or not is not a probabilistic decision at all, but simply a purely logical one. IT IS THE ONLY CURRENT METHOD WHICH WILL PREVENT THE DEVIATION FROM HOMEOSTASIS OF YOUR BODY'S VITAL PARAMETERS FROM EXCEEDING CERTAIN VALUES. For all the damage that current suspension methods do, cryonic suspension is the only method which allows *stabilization* to be attained before total disintegration occurs. I believe that given the availability of sufficient funds, the decision to get suspended today is *independent* of the question which John asked: "are those being helped by cryopreservation today actually being helped?" There is no question that we should get suspended if we are near death and we should continue to urge anyone and everyone else to do likewise. However, the decision that one *would* get cryopreserved if one were dying today is quite separate from not being satisfied with the current state of the art. With that I will not be satisfied until I find out whether there is proven potential value to be attained by getting cryopreserved. That is why I want to see the achievement of verifiably reversible brain cryopreservation and why I believe that every cryonicist should also want to contribute as much as they possibly can to that goal. I also wish to repost the following exchange (with my additions in []), which I believe is right on target: Thomas wrote: >> One other issue, very important. You ask how long "it will take". One >> major feature of cryopreservation is that it can literally continue >> for centuries. And John replied: Yes! This is both good and bad. It means that the cryoee can afford to wait until a solution comes around. It also means that the cryoer can afford to wait until it appears affordable to craft a solution to the original problem. Given this mindset, efforts in cryonics over the last thirty years have focussed on the logical task of making it possible to get people into suspension [and keeping them their]. Well, I don't like it. We aren't all that far away from a successful complete suspended animation technique, if recent results can be believed. Regardless of immediate needs (bloodthirsty as this sounds), at some point somebody has to get moving and get the research done. In CryoMsg 9094, Bob Ettinger wrote: >the question of >"faith" in science or in the future. We do not have "faith" nor unreasonable >expectations--we have hope, and we have a reasonable degree of confidence, >based on experience. That "experience" of course is not with the precise event >in question, but with reasonably similar ones. *That is what probability is >all about.* Ah, but that simply changes the question to whether the events of which we *do* have experience are in fact "reasonably similar". I would maintain that *nothing* anyone has any experience with is "reasonably similar" to deciding whether mental attributes (of which neuroscience does not fully understand the mechanism) are *preserved* by current suspension methods --- let alone whether they can be restored. And that is why I maintain probability calculations are meaningless for this purpose. >For just one example of how "expertise" can be WORSE than useless, remember >that Vannevar Bush--not an old fuddy-duddy but a brilliant and productive >scientist--said that there would be "..no intercontinental missiles in the >foreseeable future." However, I would think that there have also been as many times when people stated unequivocally that something *would* happen by such and such a time and it did *not* come to pass. Many *optimistic* predictions also completely fail. >George Gallup once did a study showing that, in longer range >predictions, laymen did BETTER than the "experts" in their own fields. The >reason, obviously, is that the experts only saw the trees, and the laymen saw >the forest. I would be interesting to analyze the particular predictions. My bet is that laymen were better simply because they were more *pessimistic* than most of the "experts" in their own fields. >Third, especially in reference to memory, the events recorded in the patient's >brain are related to (although of course also different from) events >accessible through written records, photos, videos, audios, and the memories >of living people. Thus it is relatively easy to envisage ultimate repair or >restoration of memories even when some of those in the brain have been damaged >or lost. Sorry, Bob but I just don't buy this at all as something which would prevent the "death" of the original person's mind. Photos, writings, etc. are nice to have to help one *recall* in more detail past events. But if the memories of those events are simply gone and not just deeply buried, it would like one of us trying to learn the events of someone else's childhood and convince ourselves that we really went through it. No thank you. Such a person would not be *my* continuer. *I* would be dead. > We have it right, and the detractors and pessimists have it wrong. In the end, > it is as simple as that. And your life is at stake. Bob, I believe that you are confusing the issues here. I am *not* trying to dissuade anyone from getting suspended (and I don't think that John Pietrzak was either). I am not a detractor of the act getting suspended. However, I am pessimistic about the results of getting suspended with current techniques and I am certainly a detractor of the *people* in the cryonics movement for not putting more effort and money into making those techniques better and even good enough for even the most pessimistic to see that there is a real chance because in the best cases it has been shown to work. Of course, MY LIFE IS AT STAKE, *that* is why I so desperately want to be *sure* that it has a chance of being saved! In CryoMsg 9013, Thomas Donaldson wrote: > To Paul Wakfer: > > Your problems with cryonics, especially given the growing interest among > neuroscientists in such problems as that of consciousness, really have no > solution at all. Sure, you can suspend someone, and then bring them back. > They may or may not remember anything from before their suspension, but > how do you tell whether or not they are "the same" person? What OBJECTIVE > criteria do you have that show you will have revived? I think that you are misreading me here. I have no problems of the sort that you are alluding to. The criteria would be entirely similar to those currently used for someone who undergoes a major operation (which as you know sometimes cause partial memory loss and often causes mental deficits of one degree or another). To bring it closer to home, I am happy to agree that *you* are the same "person" (in identity) that you were before you had your brain tumor and radiation treatments. If after restoration from suspension someone does not remember anything of the past, then as much as death has any meaning and is something that one should rationally wish, a priori, not to happen, the person that went into suspension has died. The only way to answer the question definitively would be to be able to transport that persons past self to have a look the person that was restored from suspension. The past self is the only one who could definitively test if the restored person were his continuer or not. > as objective criteria, I have decided that survival of most of my memories > together with either the recreation or the survival of my other brain centers, > back to what they were, would constitute my revival (and note these are all > factors which can be, even at present only theoretically, objectively tested). > > So just how do you, Paul, plan to decide that you will be revived? Just as you have stated above. > I very much like the idea of research aimed at finding a way to preserve > and bring back brains, and even the later research to do the same with a > whole person. This is not because I expect to march into a hospital and into > suspended animation, but because it will remove what is now a SUPPOSITION of > what will be possible. I am in total agreement with this view. > But I think that its > quite wrong to base acceptance of cryonics on the issue of whether or not > suspended animation is possible NOW, or even perfect brain preservation is > possible NOW. I am not doing that and I don't think that anyone else in this discussion is either. What I am doing is to *not accept* the lack of determination of the cryonics movement to enhance, and perfect if possible, our methods. However, I do know that most people in the world *do* base acceptance of cryonics on just that point. It is for them, and what they can do to help my life get saved, every bit as much as for me directly, that I want to see suspended animation perfected. > When I need it or you need it, we won't be in a position > to lay down conditions. Whatever can be done then, we'll want it to be done. > And to think about the problem otherwise is simply to decide to die. No question about this being correct. But it is quite separate from what I am demanding. -- Paul -- Voice/Fax: 909-481-9620 Page: 800-805-2870 The Prometheus Project -- http://prometheus.morelife.org Perfected Suspended Animation for Patient Stabilization until Cures for Their Terminal Diseases are Available Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=9114