X-Message-Number: 9507
From: Ettinger <>
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 12:24:51 EDT
Subject: Pietrzak 3

PIETRZAK 3

One more effort to elucidate a few points--first some tiresome minor ones,
essentially language quibbles, then the major one.

John said the Michelson-Morley experiment was an example of a failed goal of
science (to prove the existence of the ether). I said the goal of any
scientific experiment is information, and no scientific experiment can fail
except by not producing useful information. M-M did not fail. I also said I
should have referred to goals of technology, not science.

Now John (Cryonet #9501-9502) says M-M did so fail, by providing results that
were relevant but displeasing to the experimenters. And he adds: "Closer to
home: would you say that an attempt to cryonically suspend and restore a human
being which failed would be a success, scientifically?" 

Yes, as a "scientific experiment" it would be a success if it produced useful
information. As a technological effort it would be a failure, at least on a
temporary basis. Never forget that our patients can wait a long time--and no
effort will be made to revive anyone until there is good reason to believe
either that (a) it will succeed, or (b) if it does not succeed, the patient
will be unharmed and still unconscious and can wait longer.

I said that, in the modern era, to the best of my knowledge, not a single goal
of [technology] had been proven impossible (and of course many goals thought
by most to be impossible have in fact been reached, and indeed many goals not
even envisioned in earlier years have been reached).

John tried to show the converse of this--that many claims of achievement of
wonders have proven false (e.g. Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth) and that
many engineering attempts have failed, such as ornithopters. 

As to the former and similar claims, it is irrelevant and misleading--the
literal Fountain of Youth was never in any proper sense a goal of technology,
only a legend.

As to the latter, two fundamental points:

(a) No ornithopters have yet succeeded, but we know to a near certainty that
they can succeed--at the very least if we restrict ourselves to bird-sized or
pterosaur-sized mechanisms. To imagine that bird-sized mechanisms with
flapping wings can fly only if they use bird-type anatomy and physiology would
be absurd. Remember that, even in the face of temporary failure, it is very
hard to point to a technically serious goal which has been proven forever
impossible or even improbable.

(b) "Goal of technology" should be construed in terms of the overall aim, not
in terms of a specific type of implementation. In the last century, heavier-
than-air flight was thought impossible or forever impractical--any kind,
ornithopters or planes with airscrews or anything else. That belief was wrong.
Airscrews did finally work, and also jets and rockets, which had scarcely even
been considered. 

Yet again, the bottom line: In principle, everything is possible that does not
violate known physical law (as well as many things that do violate those laws
as presently understood; this is the Feinberg Principle). In practice, the
record overwhelmingly documents the fact that goals of technology have either
been met; or that the purpose of the effort has been met by other means; or
that the effort continues. Cases of complete and final failure are very rare,
if they exist at all.

I had intended to point-by-point some of John's other statements, especially
with regard to sample size etc., but I think we have reached the point of
rapidly diminishing returns, and I do have other obligations. Those in doubt
are referred to our web site, subsite "Cryonics: The Probability of Rescue."
Form your own opinion.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http:www.cryonics.org  

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